A little over ten minutes earlier, after the ancient castle of the Bethmos Family had been thoroughly bombarded and then brought crashing down by Heiserana's vast stockpile of weapons hoarded since World War II, most of the Shadow Demons stubbornly resisting inside the castle had been wiped out. It turned out that the Heiserana Family, which had kept an unusually low profile over the past century, actually concealed power that had already surpassed that of the Shadow Demon Family. The moment those lunatic Vampires revealed their fangs armed with high technology, the conservative half-demons were routed in an instant.
But the leader of the Shadow Demon Family had escaped.
When everyone reached the underground chamber of the castle, they found only the ruined altar and magic array, along with the key tablet reduced to fragments. Bethmos had found another Distortion Point beneath his own castle that connected to the ruins and escaped through it, even blowing up the way back afterward.
That still failed to stop Hao Ren and the others. The door-opening method recorded by the Data Terminal worked in the Shadow Demon Castle as well. Above the collapsed altar, they resummoned the portal leading to the ruins. Heiserana ordered her subordinates to wait outside the portal, then followed Hao Ren, Vivian, and the others once more into the alternate space that had nearly cost her life.
But after passing through the portal, what appeared before them was a desert.
Lily was crouching on a nearby dune, acting crazy, while Hao Ren stared in shock at the bizarre landscape stretching endlessly in every direction. Beneath the murky yellow sky was nothing but endless Yellow Sand. The undulating dunes spread from beneath their feet all the way to the horizon. Looking into the distance, he saw scattered withered plants and