Everything was just as Xuan Ji said. The place they’d emerged was indeed quite close to the River Styx. However, the closer they got to the river, the denser the smell of blood in the air.
The cultivators in the cities near the River Styx were all deeply unsettled. Countless immortal kings, practically unparalleled experts in the Lower Lands, were terrified. When they took to the skies to investigate the battle at the river, they were so scared, their legs trembled uncontrollably.
In the Lower Lands, immortal kings were lofty and grand experts, but the auras of those fighting by the river…
Were at least a hundred times, a thousand times, ten thousand times stronger…
To be that strong, you had to break past the immortal king level and become a supreme or higher. Furthermore, the battle was by the River Styx, and based on their auras, the invaders were clearly yao.
When the spectating immortal kings considered the tense, ambiguous relationship between the Upper Three Realms, they immediately understood what was happening.
The great war had already arrived.
Furthermore, the grand battle between two realms was right here, in the Lower Lands of the God Realm. The River Styx was their final line of defense, and if the yao broke through it, it would mean the end of the Lower Lands.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
An ear-splitting sound filled the skies above the cities nearest to the river. In the blink of an eye, countless auras surged in the cities’ airspace.
The cultivators couldn’t help but look up. The instant they did, they saw countless human silhouettes blotting out the sun. They looked into the distance, but there was no end in sight.
However, based on their auras, these new arrivals….
“They’re gods!” No one knew who was the first to yell, but when the other cultivators heard this news, their eyes lit up. This news was like a light in the darkness, hope just as they were on the brink of despair.
“Gods! Experts of the Divine Mountains have come to save us!” The cultivators of the Lower Lands waved their arms and shouted in excitement.
Meanwhile, overhead, Ye Zichen had just slipped his phone back into his pocket. “The Hermit Emperor says he just sent three hundred thousand physicians over.”
“That many?” Pu Jingwan couldn’t help but arch her brows. When the Hermit Emperor said aid to the nine-tailed foxes, he hadn’t sent nearly as many.
“That’s not so many.” Suddenly, the Great Sage’s nostrils flared. “The smell of blood in the air is even stronger than after the incident with the Bai Family.”
Yao had better senses of smell than humans to begin with. Ordinary people could only smell the blood in the air, but they couldn’t necessarily tell if it was different or stronger than in Spirit City.
But now, the Great Sage was telling them that the stench of blood was even more intense here.
Everyone gasped. Now that they had something to compare it to, they had a newfound understanding of the situation at the River Styx.
A million people, if not more, had died in the battle against the Bai Family, resulting in literal rivers of blood.
The smell had been so strong that a single whiff was enough to make someone vomit. There had been so much blood, even the skies were stained red.
But now the Great Sage was saying the smell of blood near the River Styx was even more intense than that. Remember, they hadn’t even reached the River Styx yet; they were still just flying over a nearby city.
Yet the Great Sage had said that even so.
It was hard to imagine just how brutal the situation at the river actually was.
“The Hermit Emperor sent three hundred thousand physicians to the River Styx? It seems he knows that’s the true main battlefield, too,” muttered Xuan JI.
All the rulers, from Ye Zichen’s friends to the Outsiders and the Divine Generals of the Profound Pavilion, nodded their agreement.
Only Ye Zichen’s expression was grave. Su Yiyun had sent a sudden plea for help, then gone completely silent. That, combined with the intense stench of blood, made him frown deeply. He showed no signs of relaxing as time passed.
He was worried about the situation at the River Styx, but he was even more worried about Su Yiyun.
Back in the Lower Realms, Su Yiyun had willingly gone undercover amongst the demons, and in the face of the seemingly unbeatable Black Dragon, he’d even gone so far as to sacrifice himself to place double eighth-level formations.
Fortunately, after arriving in the God Realm, Emperor Hades had retrieved his soul from the River of Time. Otherwise, the two of them would never have reunited.
He was afraid that, in this battle, Su Yiyun would leave him again. If that happened, he didn’t know how he’d face Su Yan.
“Ye-zi.” Yang Jian and the others noticed his expression, then shot him a deep look, followed by a sigh.
“Hey, that should be the River Styx up ahead!” said the Great Sage out of the blue, his Fiery Eyes of Truth fully activated. “Huh, I didn’t realize they had a spiritual formations expert!”
When Yang Jian heard that, he opened the third eye on his forehead. “They really do…”
“A spiritual formation master….” Ye Zichen’s heart clenched. Su Yiyun was a formation master; he was keenly aware of that. The denizens of the River Styx were, almost without exception, vicious aquatic beasts. Few were sentient, and even if they were, they couldn’t possibly research spiritual formation diagrams.
If a spiritual formation had appeared in the river denizens’ ranks, it could only be Su Yiyun’s handiwork.
That meant, if nothing else, that he was still alive.
“What formation is it?” asked Xuan Ji.
“Let me take a look!” The Great Sage placed his hand over his eyes and took a closer look.
Yang Jian, meanwhile, started describing it. “It looks like there’s two big ones. One contains snakes… no, dragons? The other is nine bowing dragons….”
Ye Zichen quivered. Even if he died, he would never forget those two formations. Gnashing his teeth, he shot forth like an unsheathed sword.
At the same time, Xuan Ji’s eyes widened in obvious shock. “Double eighth-level formations!”
Meanwhile, the yao commander who’d attacked Su Yiyun lay sprawled on the ground, his blood turning the dirt red.
The other commanders were enveloped in dense mists. They looked up at the Soul-Locking Formation overhead. It felt like a vast, inescapable mountain were looming over them.
Retreat!
They retreated with all their might.
The Eighth-Level Soul-Locking Formation was already complete. It would drain the souls of everyone in range. Even though they were commanders, in the face of death, they put their own lives first.
“Are you afraid?” Even though both arms lay on the ground, detached from his body, Su Yiyun smirked. His cultivation wasn’t particularly high. Despite Emperor Hades’ best efforts, the various medicines he’d taken had only raised Su Yiyun to the peak of the diviner level.
However, his attainments in spiritual formations were enough to make even these rulers shake in their boots.
Laughing, he stood at the center of the Soul-Locking Formation and gazed at the tide of feeling yao. “You only just learned what it means to be afraid? Don’t you think you’re a little too late?”
What really made the yao despair was, at that moment, the already vast Soul-Locking Formation suddenly expanded. They already had no escape route to speak of.
“Die!”
It was better to go all out than sit around and wait to die.
A few yao commanders threw all caution to the wind and charged at Su Yiyun. The vicious beast commanders stepped forward to stop them…
However, it was then that a streak of black hurtled by. It was at least a hundred times faster than them. It was so fast, no one could tell when it had appeared or what specifically it had done.
It wasn’t until the yao split in half at the waist and a veritable geyser of blood splattered in all directions, covering the black streak, that the crowd realized what it was. The “black streak” was actually a person, who was now covered in the yao commanders’ blood….
He wore long black robes, and his expression was cold. His sword buzzed in his hands, its blade emblazoned with the characters “Xuan-yuan.”
