“Dong! Dong! Dong! Dong!”
The heavy, frantic tolling of the alarm bell rang out one after another, each strike hammering directly into the hearts of every Heavenly Evil Sect cultivator, bringing boundless panic.
Powerful beams of light laced with sinister aura shot skyward from the grandest, most ghastly bone palaces deep within the cliffs. The sect-protecting grand formation, built up over many years, instantly activated to its utmost limit!
“Hum!”
A thick, grey-black barrier, its surface writhing with countless distorted, screaming human faces, rose like an enormous upside-down bowl, completely sealing the entire Heavenly Evil Sect headquarters inside.
Resentful qi churned across the shield, evil power surged, emitting a nauseating stench and a soul-piercing chill. It clearly possessed extreme defensive and corrosive strength.
“Which fiend dares to be so ignorant of the heights of heaven and the depths of earth as to invade the sacred ground of my Heavenly Evil Sect!”
An aged, rasping voice, like bones grinding together and as sinister as an owl’s cry in the night, boomed in all directions, filled with fury and a trace of barely detectable alarm.
The source was above the main hall.
An old man wearing a dark purple robe embroidered with intricate skull patterns appeared out of thin air. He held a white bone staff forged from the complete spine of some unknown creature.
His face was gaunt, his eye sockets deeply sunken, skin stretched tight over bones; he looked exactly like a walking skeleton. Only the ghostly green flames flickering in his eyes revealed his powerful life essence.
This was none other than the Heavenly Evil Sect Master, a peak Third-Grade Heavenly Immortal powerhouse: Elder Evil Bone!
His appearance instantly injected a dose of reassurance into the panicking disciples.
Then came successive whooshing sounds. More than a dozen figures radiating formidable auras materialised behind Elder Evil Bone.
Men and women, varied in appearance: some were wrapped in chains, some carried drums made of human skin, some wielded soul-summoning banners.
Without exception, they were the sect’s elders and core experts. The weakest was First-Grade Heavenly Immortal; three had even reached Third-Grade, only one step below the sect master himself!
This force would command respect anywhere in the Nine Heavens and was the foundation of the Heavenly Evil Sect’s claim to be the foremost demonic sect.
Yet when every single one of them looked through the resentful soul barrier and truly saw what filled the sky, the slight confidence they had just regained vanished like smoke, replaced by irrepressible shock and disbelief!
Dragons!
Not one, not ten, but a dense, oppressive mass: hundreds of true dragons!
Their colossal bodies blotted out the sunlight, casting the entire Ten Thousand Bone Withered Cliff into an atmosphere of death.
Their draconic majesty, condensed into something almost solid and mingled with the towering killing intent from a recent bloodbath, formed a domain-like pressure!
Especially the dragons at the front!
The largest, a black coiling dragon whose scales glinted with cold metallic light and whose eyes glowed like twin blood moons, radiated an aura that made even Elder Evil Bone feel a twinge of dread!
The several ancient, multicoloured dragons beside it were equally terrifying and not to be underestimated!
But what truly made their courage crumble was the lone figure standing atop the head of that black coiling dragon!
A plain green robe, upright posture, cold and stern features, eyes calm as an eternal frozen lake yet deep enough to swallow all light.
He simply stood there quietly, as if he were the very soul and heart of the entire dragon army!
“Chen… Chen Ping! It’s Chen Ping!”
An elder who had once seen Chen Ping cried out in a trembling voice that bordered on sobbing, “How… how can he be here? Didn’t Lord Soul-Devourer say he was gravely wounded and on the brink of death? Does this… does this look like someone who’s suffered serious losses?!”
