Wenhuo Great World.
Thick black smoke had replaced the blue skies and white clouds of old. Ash formed after burning drifted down from the heavens, sticking to sweat-soaked bodies. The air was stifling and oppressive, leaving no room to breathe...
At the abandoned fortress of the Heavenly Army, spell-light and the cold gleam of Sword Qi flashed.
Black masses of low-level Demonic Beasts surged toward the fortress like a tide, fearless of death and endless in number.
Huang Yu and the other Wenhuo Great World cultivators were exhausted beyond measure. Old wounds had yet to heal when fresh ones were added. Demonic Qi blanketed the sky, while the battered fortress, patched and mended time and again, was like a small wooden boat in a storm, liable to capsize at any moment. Demonic Beasts filled the sky and covered the ground.
There were simply too many. Even the strong would be worn to death.
The howls and roars of the Demonic Beasts blended into one, so numerous that they sounded like thunder, shaking the sand and stones on the ground. The Demonic Sound invaded their ears and muddled their minds. Cultivators with weaker wills could not endure it pouring into their ears, hallucinations taking hold as despair spread through the fortress...
The city walls had been built by the Heavenly Army in those days and were exceptionally sturdy, but years of neglect had left the formations incomplete.
Several breaches were particularly perilous. One cultivator after another was dragged down by Demonic Beasts. After a single scream, all signs of life vanished, their blood drunk, their flesh devoured, leaving not even bones behind.
The little island amid the storm stubbornly held its ground as arrows flashing with cold light shot forth one after another.
High atop the fortress.
Huang Yu and several