The Demon Race's six True Lords had long been prepared.
Zhu Wu struck first. He brought out an ancient-looking bronze lamp. As he formed hand seals and cast his art, the wick transformed into nine streams of azure light that burrowed underground. Each stream precisely found an ancient palace. Like living things, the azure lights pried at the palaces' foundations and swiftly cleared away the restrictions buried within.
The Ox Demon, Niu Pan, produced a pair of bronze rings. When the rings struck each other, they gave off a muffled boom. The sound waves penetrated the earth and awakened stone ox statues deep within certain palaces. Red light lit up in the statues' eyes as they marched heavily toward the Array Eyes, smashing the array discs embedded in the ground with their horns.
The Tiger Demon, Wang Xian, pulled a tiger-patterned bronze mirror from his robes. The light cast from its surface formed clear projections across the ground, revealing the paths of every hidden array pattern. He pressed down with an illusory tiger claw, and streams of golden light flew from the mirror, precisely severing every connection between the array patterns like sharp blades.
The Snake Demon, Bai Xin, was the strangest of all. He directly transformed into his true form, a hundred-zhang giant snake covered in white scales, and slipped into a crack in the earth. Its body wound through the palace corridors, its scales scraping against the walls with piercing screeches. Wherever it passed, spirituality was directly bound, followed by the failure of the palace arrays.
The Monkey Demon, Hou Ji, flickered and instantly split into dozens of clones, half real and half illusory. Each clone possessed an independent ability to perform Space Jump. They appeared and vanished, flashing between the ancient palaces. Whenever they encountered a restriction