At those words, Grandma Blood River's lips curved into a grim arc. Her smile was like a dead branch split by frost in the depths of winter, carrying a chilling cold that set hearts trembling.
"Foolish people always have to pay the price."
Her voice was quiet, yet it seemed to drift up from the depths of the netherworld. Every word carried a strange rhythm, like a curse—and like a sentence being pronounced.
The moment her words fell, the void suddenly thundered, as though an invisible giant hand had torn open the heavens.
A river of blood appeared out of thin air, surging forth from nothingness. Its surface stretched endlessly wide, with no shore in sight. The waters roiled and churned, every wave splashing with an eerie crimson glow.
The blood river surged like a tidal torrent, as if it had crossed the river of ancient and modern ages, flowing all the way from the distant primordial era to the present, bearing the mysteries and immense power accumulated through endless years.
Amid the churning waters, countless broken skeletons could vaguely be seen rising and sinking. Some were as vast as mountains, while others gave off a faint golden radiance. They were unmistakably the remains of peerless experts who had once dominated their domains.
Grandma Blood River wore a red dress devoid of needless ornamentation, yet against the backdrop of the blood river, it appeared especially bewitching.
Her pale skin, once lifeless as dead ash, now seemed tinged with a sickly shade of blood beneath the crimson light.
In her aged face, her clouded eyes gleamed with a nearly crazed light, as though she were admiring her proudest masterpiece.
Before anyone could react, a tall and imposing figure suddenly shot out from the heaving blood river.
The river exploded, bloodlight soaring