"What a vile scheme the Zhao clan has devised!" Xiang Qingcheng ground her teeth in fury as she listened.
"The Zhao clan branch in the ancient tomb colluded with the Devil Race and brought calamity upon Red Abyss. They've long been a thorn in the side of the various immortal dynasties. It's no surprise they'd resort to a scheme like this." Lu Xiaotian didn't think much of it. For all these years, the Zhao clan branch had been mixed up with the Devil Race in the ancient tomb. This was merely a more ambitious move.
That explained everything. Before Dark Nightmare Ghost King and the others, the Zhou brothers, Zhou Shiqing and Zhou Shihu, as well as several other groups, had probably been lured here by Zhao Zhen using dragon essence as bait. They'd been made to fish dragon essence out of this black pool. Once they failed, the Zhao clan cultivators encircling them would join forces to kill them.
After killing Dark Nightmare, Blood Ape Ghost King, and Xun Hong, Zhao Zhen would soon repeat the same trick until every last one of them was dead. If he could use these people to retrieve the dragon essence, that would be an unexpected boon. If not, the human, ghost, demon, and devil races would have lost nearly all their true-intent-level experts, while even their clan-head-level experts would have suffered grievous casualties. Their top combat strength would be all but wiped out. Even if they were displeased with the Zhao clan's earlier collusion with the Devil Race, they would likely be powerless to do anything about it for a time.
And if the Zhao clan obtained enough dragon essence, they would become even more brazen.
"Retreat!" Though Zhao Zhen was the only one in sight, and no other Zhao clan members