Fifth-Rank Demonic Beast

Zhang Tie felt his entire body tighten, as if countless fine, invisible spiderwebs had wrapped around him.

Looking down, he saw thousands of nearly transparent blood threads emerge across his skin, greedily drawing away his blood essence and vitality.

The sensation was both familiar and unfamiliar.

He had presided over sacrifices many times, turning others' lives into fuel for cultivation. Yet only when he became the sacrifice himself did he truly understand that feeling of being drained away.

Every strand of blood thread seemed alive, boring into his meridians with cold malice.

He could clearly feel his life force slipping away like fine sand through an hourglass, vanishing irreversibly.

His blood essence flowed backward through his meridians, while the Golden Core within his dantian trembled faintly, as if resisting this external plunder.

Just as Zhang Tie was about to act and break the formation, a strange aura put him on alert.

At the same time, the Gale Wyrm coiled above the Netherworld Soul-Returning Grass and the mysterious beast egg suddenly let out a low, agonized hiss.

Yet that hiss carried a measure of relief and expectation, nothing like the wail of a beast facing death.

The next instant, pure white flames burst from between its scales without warning, engulfing its entire body in the blink of an eye.

The flames were not scorching. Instead, they exuded bone-piercing cold, as though they had arisen from the depths of souls in the Nine Netherworlds.

Wherever the flames passed, the Gale Wyrm's massive body visibly withered and shrank. Its scales, harder than refined steel, peeled away one after another and turned to ash within the white fire.

Yet in the span of merely three breaths, this fourth-rank demonic beast that had once dominated the region was instantly devoured by the raging flames, reduced