After Luo Qing, Yuan Hao, and the others fought their way out, the number of human Nascent Soul Cultivators had nearly matched that of the ghost clan.
Relatively speaking, however, the humans' disadvantage among the lower-level cultivators remained glaring.
Just then, a gigantic blood-red war drum rose into the sky above Moonwatch City. The moment it appeared, an aura of desolation and boiling blood spread like quicksilver poured onto the ground, blanketing the battlefield for several thousand li around Moonwatch City.
The drum was more than thirty zhang across. An old man whose eyes had already gone blind stood beside it. Judging by his cultivation, he was yet another Nascent Soul Cultivator. Yet he was little more than a withered corpse, the life force in his body nearly extinguished—a man with one foot already through the gates of hell.
At a glance, he looked like a fallen leaf in the wind, liable to wither away at any moment. Close behind the blind old man came another fourteen or fifteen Nascent Soul Cultivators whose auras were almost exactly the same.
"Cangyang Blood Drum!"
The mighty figures of the ghost clan stared at the blood-red drum rising into the sky and cried out in alarm. In the ancient wilderness, a hundred races had stood in great number. The ancient cultivators had fought across the southern reaches of heaven and the northern lands of earth, carving out a realm for their descendants to multiply. Countless ancient cultivators had shed blood and laid down their lives.
The sound of war drums had shaken the black night and awakened the dawn. Those who marched into battle, draped in the setting sun, had cast their tall, unyielding shadows long along the road of conquest.
Cangyang had fallen across the road, blood had drenched the wilderness, and