The Inner Demon began its fierce attack on Alex's psyche by trying to rile him up using words that could make Alex feel like there was some truth to them.
There wasn't much the Inner Demon could use to attack Alex, he had taken care of most things already on his own. The only thing remaining was Pearl, and the Inner Demon hammered away at that part of his mind.
It constantly told him just how much of a mistake it was to send Pearl to the ritual room when he knew he was going to die.
However, Alex found it easy to not listen to the Inner Demon this time around. Why would he? He had Immortals and Divinities telling him that it would be fine, and he trusted Pearl more than anyone else to succeed through it all.
The blood that was in him now was given to his mother by someone that the gods were afraid of. It would be a miracle for Pearl to fail at this point.
The only other target for the Inner Demon was that Alex was most likely going to die given the prophecies he had heard. However, if that was bound to happen, there was no way Alex could change any of that. If he could, he would, so there wasn't much to think on that side either.
The Inner Demon tried to tell Alex that he wasn't the one that the truth of this world was waiting for, but then again, why would Alex care about that? If he was, he would be happy to learn something, if he wasn't, he would happy to not bear the burden. Either way, he would be happy with the outcome.
The Inner Demon vanished not long after in what was the easiest battle Alex had ever fought with it. He himself was surprised that he had completed the hurdle so easily.
The feeling of power filled his body as he finally landed with both feet on the Saint Core realm. However, that was not the end at all.
In fact, it was only the beginning.
Now that there was no more Inner Demon to worry about, Alex went all out with his cultivation, even eating cultivation pills to aid him throughout the time when he was closed inside the room.
Time passed slowly and fast for Alex, making him completely oblivious as to just how long had passed outside or inside. All he knew was to replace the blood in the cauldron every few days and continue.
His cultivation base slowly improved with his blood aura taking the lead thanks to the gap in his cultivation when he was breaking through. It was stronger than the cultivation by a decent gap and continued to stay ahead, even though the cultivation base followed behind.
After what felt like a very long time, Alex changed the blood inside the cauldron for the final time.
The last stretch of the journey should have been easy for him, or so he had thought. However, when the blood poured into the cauldron, every single cell in his body told him to run away.
This was not the blood of something ordinary at all. All of the 8 immortal's blood had been the last to pour and it was all inside the cauldron right now. And the aura it produced terrified Alex. He wasn't even sure if he could tame the aura at all, let alone absorb it.
However, now that he was here, he wasn't going to stop at all.
Even if his body was going to break apart from trying to absorb it, he was going to do it all.
* * * * *
Liz and Hao Ya were busy with their work, trying to fix the formation.
"Alright, another talisman," Hao Ya asked and placed it into the massive formation. Once the talisman was placed there, she asked the beast that was controlling the formation to activate it.
The formation activated for a split second to send away the talisman that was on top of it. Once the talisman was gone, they waited for a minute or two to see what happened.
After seeing no response from the formation at that time, Hao Ya was sure she had failed once again.
As soon as the failure was apparent, Liz put up a bubble of sped-up time around the formation and them.
"Let me try a little to the right this time around," she said and went on to work on the formation's setting to change the teleportation location slightly away from where it was just now.
She needed to do it enough time until the talisman teleported around where her master was. So, after spending nearly an hour changing the distance and direction a bit more, she tried again.
Liz put down the time bubble, and another talisman was sent away once again with no response from the other side.
"A little further this time around," Hao Ya told herself and tried again.
Liz did her best to form a bubble around them whenever they weren't using the formation. That way, they could move in sped-up time so that there was virtually no time wasted in between each use of the formation.
Liz's bubble had been a massive support to the group. Time moved so quickly inside of it that to the people outside it looked like they were nothing but a blur.
She was single-handedly speeding up time in a large area by the amount that would require multiple saint spirit veins working with multiple time-speeding formations to do at the same time.
Everyone involved there was more than surprised by just how amazing she was at slowing down time. Even Hao Ya felt envious of Liz's body constitution and how useful it was.
"Aren't you tired?" Hao Ya asked.
"Me?" Liz looked at her. "A little, but I can keep going for another day straight. It's already been so many days that I've grown used to the being fatigued by now."
"Alright then," Hao Ya said and worked on the formation again.
They kept at it for almost a day before they decided to take a break.
"It doesn't look like it's reached again," Hao Ya said. "Let's go take a break. You need to cultivate overnight to be at your best tomorrow."
Liz nodded. "I'll do as you sa—"
Everyone quickly turned around as the formation behind them activated on its own for a second. They quickly turned around to find the formation empty, except for a single talisman at the center.
Hao Ya stuck where she was while Liz was the one that moved on ahead and grabbed the talisman. She read through it with a surprised face.
Hao Ya finally reacted and asked, "What does it say? Quickly!" she urged Liz to answer, who complied easily.
"It's just a single sentence," Liz said. "It says 'Good job, Hao Ya'."
Hao Ya's face broke into a smile when she heard that. "We did it!" she shouted.
Liz couldn't believe it. "Really?" she asked.
"Master got our talisman and sent back a message. We really did it," Hao Ya said. "Finally, we are ready to send everyone back home."
"Then…"
Hao Ya nodded. "It's time to spread the word," she said. "It's time to call all the players here so they can be sent home."
