"The Eight Immortals Sacrifice."

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"Lü Dongbin!"

The look on Shendu's face darkened. He honestly hadn't expected that in the future, the forces of righteousness would give birth to the Eight Immortals—beings meant to take down the eight Demon Sorcerer Lords—and that they would dare defy the flow of time itself to descend upon this era.

No wonder Li Yan was taken down so easily just now—it was because of Lü Dongbin.

"You wicked dragon," Lü Dongbin said, his voice full of judgment. "Your sins are immeasurable. In the years to come, countless innocent lives will be lost because of you."

"I've come across time today to see if I can make you pay—at least a little—for what's to come."

Li Yan—no, he was no longer Li Yan.

His consciousness was completely gone. In his place now stood one of the Eight Immortals: Lü Dongbin.

"What a joke," Shendu scoffed.

"The deaths of countless people—what's that got to do with me? I'm a Demon Lord! Ruling this world is my destiny! No one can challenge that!"

"Humans are weak, pitiful things. I'm just following the natural law of the strong devouring the weak. I could crush half of them with one hand. If they can't beat the demons, then they die. That's just nature."

"I, a proud Demon Lord, wouldn't stoop so low as to slaughter ants."

Shendu met Lü Dongbin's righteous fury with nothing but disdain. His eyes were cold, his voice sharp.

To him, there was no difference between humans and demons. Sure, he might've been human before he crossed over—but that was ancient history.

Whether demons butchered humans or not wasn't his concern.

And the same went for humans.

As long as neither humans nor demons threatened his rule over ancient Asia, Shendu didn't care what happened.

Even when Xue'er slaughtered so many demons, Shendu only gave a casual, "Let her do as she pleases."

In the end, it was all survival of the fittest.

Demons killing humans? Same deal. As long as it didn't shake his hold on power, he couldn't care less.

But the Eight Immortals—that was different.

They were the one force that could actually challenge the Demon Lords' dominance.

Now Lü Dongbin had broken through the time stream to come here. And he had the nerve to bring future knowledge and sit on a moral high horse, accusing Shendu of monstrous sins? Ridiculous.

"Wicked dragon," Lü Dongbin said firmly, "no matter what you say, the crimes of the Eight Demon Lords are undeniable. You've left mountains of innocent corpses behind."

"You can twist the truth however you like—but facts are facts."

As he finished speaking, fourteen figures descended from the sky, each taking their place beside either Shendu or Lü Dongbin.

"You've crossed through time to come here. Your real bodies in the future must be suffering a backlash from the time stream," said Zhou Lan, stepping forward slightly, tongue flicking, voice low but cautious.

"Even if you're holding weapons designed to counter us Demon Lords, in this era drenched in dark energy, you won't be able to defeat us!"

"She's right," chimed in Ximu, his eyes filled with cold killing intent. "You've gone against time itself. Reveal your true names!"

"Don't worry. In the future, I'll find the younger versions of all of you—and tear you to pieces."

But Lü Dongbin just replied calmly, "Our true selves have long retreated from the mortal world. We no longer meddle in worldly affairs. As for the time backlash—we've aligned ourselves with destiny. It won't touch us."

"That's right. We came back in time for one reason only."

"Our real bodies are suppressing the Demon Lords in the future. What you see here are only remnants—fragments of will that follow the mandate of heaven."

"To subdue you in the past is also part of fate. Any temporal backlash will only affect the demon bodies we've taken over."

"..."

One by one, the Eight Immortals spoke, completely unfazed by the cost of their journey through time.

"Calamity of the demon dragon!" Shendu roared.

His body erupted in blinding flames as he spun his dragon-scythe in one hand.

In an instant, the scythe burst into flames and transformed into a massive, sky-filling dragon. Its tail lashed out toward the Eight Immortals.

BOOM!

The Eight Immortals didn't move. They simply watched as the attack came toward them. Right before it hit, a radiant, unbreakable barrier appeared, stopping it cold.

"Damn those divine artifacts!" Shendu growled.

Clearly, that barrier was created by the Immortals' divine weapons acting on their own to protect them.

The other seven Demon Lords immediately unleashed their own overwhelming powers, launching a coordinated attack toward the Eight Immortals.

They expected to break through the artifact-made barrier.

But it held firm—completely unshaken.

Then suddenly, Shendu noticed something within the barrier—a strange, flowing energy.

"Is that… time energy?"

The other Demon Lords turned to look at him. Basha, her voice raspy, asked in a low voice, "What are you saying, my Lord? Are you saying they've tapped into the power of the Book of Time?!"

Before Shendu could answer, Ximu jumped in, "The Lord means—they're about to pay the price for going against time."

Shendu nodded. "Exactly. Right now, they can't make a move—time itself is restricting their actions."

"As for destiny—this era belongs to us. There's no room for anyone else!"

"But the barrier around them… it's infused with the power of time. We can't break it. And I have a weird feeling about it."

As he spoke, streaks of golden temporal light began to spiral in the sky, slowly wrapping around the Eight Immortals.

"What should we do now?" Xiaofeng asked.

"I don't know," Shendu replied, shaking his head.

"So we just stand here and watch them?" Zhong Su asked, his tone serious. He clearly still wanted to act.

"We can't do anything against this power of time," Zhou Lan said flatly, tongue flicking. "And they can't come out either."

"Then why don't we activate the Bagua Formation," Basha suggested in her gravelly voice. "Draw on the power of heaven and earth—and destroy them completely!"

The other Demon Lords nodded. It made sense.

But Shendu frowned and quickly said, "No. The cost of that formation is too high. We can't afford it right now. Not worth it just to kill them."

"But—"

Before Basha could finish arguing, the Eight Immortals all raised the divine artifacts in their palms and hurled them toward the sky.

In an instant, the divine weapons lit up with a blinding radiance, merging together into one massive book suspended in midair.

On the cover, a name was carved—The Book of Time.

As the artifact appeared, Lü Dongbin looked to the sky and shouted, "The time has come, my fellow Daoists!"

The other seven replied in unison, "Let's do it!"

In the next moment, their forms dissolved into glowing diagrams representing the eight trigrams: Kan, Gen, Xun, Zhen, Dui, Li, Kun, Qian—each one symbolizing a different force—and merged into the Book of Time.

Watching it all, Shendu narrowed his eyes in confusion. "What… is this?"

He didn't understand what the Eight Immortals were trying to do.

But he did recognize the trigrams they turned into—they matched the symbols tied to each of the Eight Demon Lords.

"That's… a black hole vortex!"

As Shendu stood there deep in thought, Zhou Lan's voice suddenly echoed across the sky.

"....."