The demonic vines were tougher than even Ye Liuyun’s physical body, impervious to attacks. Some of the tendrils coiled around soldiers, devouring them alive, while others lashed out like whips, smashing entire ranks into bloody mist before sweeping the remains into storage rings.

Under Ye Liuyun’s command, Qiang Hui also turned against the allied forces. The soldiers finally realized their commander had betrayed them—but against a fourth-level Dominator, resistance was futile. They could only be slaughtered.

The battlefield grew quieter, the war cries fading as the allied ranks thinned. Eventually, Ye Liuyun and his doppelganger withdrew, retreating into the doppelganger’s spatial realm to replenish their depleted energy. The battle had been exhilarating, fought with everything they had.

The rest was left to the demonic vines and the demonic army. Yu Xiaofeng’s forces had the remaining enemies completely surrounded, cutting off any chance of escape. With their morale shattered, the surviving soldiers began surrendering in droves.

Yu Xiaofeng showed mercy, accepting their surrender. His own troops had suffered heavy losses and needed reinforcements—slaughtering these prisoners would have been a waste. By his estimates, they captured around seventy to eighty thousand. The demonic army, likewise, took over a hundred thousand prisoners instead of exterminating them.

With these new captives, Ye Liuyun’s forces would soon swell back to nearly a million.

The allied coalition had sent five thousand martial cultivators and half a million soldiers—only to be utterly annihilated. Even their high commander, Qiang Hui, had been taken prisoner. Worse, Ye Liuyun had seized control of over a thousand martial cultivators, funneling them into Tian Dao’s elite vanguard.

When news reached the allied kingdoms, shockwaves rippled through their courts. Each kingdom had struggled to muster such forces individually—yet they had been wiped out in a single battle.

And Qiang Hui hadn’t returned.

He was second only to their supreme commander, Kuishan—a renowned strategist in his own right. Kuishan was stunned. Qiang Hui’s tactical prowess matched his own, yet he hadn’t even managed to send a single message back. That could only mean one thing: he had been instantly subdued or killed by someone far stronger.

*"The enemy has a powerhouse among them,"* Kuishan immediately reported to the alliance, demanding they dispatch their strongest warrior—a fifth-level Dominator from the Hongyu Dynasty.

But the Hongyu Dynasty refused.

Their military was weak, relying entirely on this ancestral elder to maintain their sovereignty. Without him, they would have fallen long ago. Unless their dynasty faced imminent destruction, they would never risk deploying him.

Some kingdoms, meanwhile, advocated for negotiation. If Ye Liuyun had no intention of wiping them all out, perhaps they could allow his forces to remain in the Bison Star System peacefully.

Ye Liuyun’s decisive strike had indeed achieved its intended effect, sowing discord within the alliance and fracturing the previously unified stance of its member dynasties. Now, even the fundamental question of whether to continue military mobilization had become a point of heated contention.

Ultimately, they resolved to dispatch a negotiation team to engage with Ye Liuyun first, hoping to explore potential resolutions before taking further action.

Meanwhile, Ye Liuyun had already advanced his forces, securing yet another planet. However, rather than pressing forward recklessly, he ordered his troops to consolidate their position, using the time to rest, train, and integrate new recruits.

The recent battle had bolstered their ranks with fresh soldiers, but without proper training, these inexperienced fighters could easily become liabilities on the battlefield. The elite Blade Corps, in particular, relied on seamless coordination—untrained soldiers would only hinder their effectiveness.

Seizing this lull in combat, Ye Liuyun intensified his own cultivation. As for Qiang Hui, he saw no need to deploy him for command duties—there were already capable officers managing the troops. Instead, he kept Qiang Hui close, honing his skills through sparring.

The Demon Vine, having stockpiled enough resources, devoured them all in one go before retreating into the spatial realm of Ye Liuyun’s avatar to slumber, preparing for its impending breakthrough.

With the demonic army now better supplied than ever, Ye Liuyun allocated a portion of their resources to train an additional fifty thousand demonic beastmen, providing them with ample materials to cultivate and strengthen themselves.

The beasts at his side also received generous shares of resources, settling into focused training sessions to prepare for the next battle. Aware of the formidable martial prowess of their adversaries here, they were invigorated by the challenge.

Ye Liuyun himself reaped the greatest harvest of resources. Each fallen warrior’s spatial ring contained over a dozen strands of origin energy, allowing him to reward the Purple Kylin Snake with a staggering fifteen hundred units.

Overjoyed, the Purple Kylin Snake offered him a discount, accepting only half the payment. Along with a stockpile of martial cultivators’ corpses as sustenance, it had more than enough to sustain itself for a long while. Having never lacked resources since joining Ye Liuyun, it promptly resumed cultivation, aiming to break through to the fourth level of the Dominator realm.

Meanwhile, Liang Xue and Xuan Yuanling gathered intelligence on establishing a merchant guild, even contacting an existing one to exchange surplus spoils of war for cultivation materials.

Just as the entire force was immersed in this period of recuperation and preparation, the alliance’s negotiation delegation arrived.

However, they caught no glimpse of Ye Liuyun’s elite fighters or the demonic army—only the vast encampment housing a million soldiers. Little useful intelligence could be gleaned from such a superficial observation.

Initially, the negotiators adopted a domineering tone. But Ye Liuyun deliberately ignored them, leaving them stranded for days—neither engaging with them nor permitting their departure. Eventually, their bravado crumbled, and they sat down to discuss terms in earnest.

This time, however, Ye Liuyun held the upper hand.

"We certainly have no intention of continuing the war. But let’s be clear—you were the ones who struck first, sending troops to attack us! You think you can start a fight and then just walk away whenever you please? Unless we receive proper compensation, we won’t back down!" Ye Liuyun’s voice was laced with menace.

"Unless, of course, you hand over one of your own dynasties to bear the cost—cede their territory to us. With resources and land secured, we’ll have no reason to attack anyone else. After all, our forces are limited, and we’d rather not waste them needlessly."

His intent was obvious: to sow discord within their alliance, forcing them to sacrifice a weaker dynasty as a scapegoat and fracture their unity.

The first round of negotiations ended there. It was only an initial probe, neither side willing to reveal too much, merely testing each other’s stance. But the fact that they had sent envoys at all suggested that some within their alliance were eager to end the conflict.

Once the allied delegation withdrew, Liang Xue and the others returned to brief Ye Liuyun on the resources and funds required to establish a merchant guild in the region. They had prepared a detailed list, down to exact quantities.

After reviewing it, Ye Liuyun frowned. The demands were excessive, and many of the resources were beyond their current means.

There was only one solution left: take what they needed by force. Without hesitation, Ye Liuyun dispatched his doppelgänger, along with Lei Ming, the Dragon Maiden, and the demonic forces, to seize the necessary supplies. Meanwhile, Xuanyuan Ling and the others began gathering intelligence on trade routes and supply chains, laying the groundwork for their own commercial network.