"It's not that we're unwilling. It's just that if the formation opens even a small gap, the Lone Ant Demon inside will escape. I'm afraid not one person here will leave this place alive."
Lu Xiaotian frowned as he listened. For a moment, he couldn't tell whether the other party was telling the truth. The aura was indeed overwhelmingly powerful, but whether things were as this creature claimed remained to be seen. The formation had already been driven to its limits; at the Ksitigarbha Twelve-Winged Scorpion Demon's level of cultivation, it probably couldn't hold out much longer.
Even if that powerful being really was a savage fiend, it was still a native enemy of the Sea Soul Hall. It shouldn't attack him. Although the other party had made considerable progress in tempering its body with laws, it was still nowhere near the terrifying level of the figure who might have been the Ten Thousand Poisons True Lord. Escaping should not be too difficult, even if he couldn't win. In that short time, Lu Xiaotian weighed the matter several times over.
Rumble! The formation before him, where wind and fire alternated, shuddered violently. Lu Xiaotian seized the moment and struck several palms toward the place from which the Ksitigarbha Twelve-Winged Scorpion Demon's aura had emerged. The already-shuddering barrier of wind and fire surged even more violently.
"Haha! At last, someone halfway decent has arrived." An aged laugh rang out, followed by several more crashing blows from within the formation. Amid deafening explosions, a huge breach opened in the thin barrier of wind and fire. From inside thrust a massive hand, covered in dense hair unlike any ordinary beast's—though claw was a more fitting word. The enormous claw reached out and tore the breach wider.
*Oh no. The area I attacked just