Eternal Night Desert.
Darkness hung thick as solid matter, shrouding countless figures.
Suddenly, the rustling, the snarls, the roars... Every sound came to an abrupt stop.
For the briefest instant, the entire desert seemed to freeze into a painting.
All the Alien Fiends stopped their aimless howling and slaughtering one another. Then they began gathering in one direction.
Toward the depths of the desert.
Nine stone pillars stood silent. They towered above the land, soaring into the clouds, their tops reaching the firmament.
Each pillar was carved with intricate patterns.
Some depicted immortal palaces veiled in mist, radiating an ethereal aura; others showed the ancient, natural forms of yin and yang and heaven and earth, seeming to conceal the True Meaning of the Great Dao; still others depicted the Five Elements flowing and nourishing one another—wood, fire, earth, metal, and water, five distinct forces coiling around the pillars, sometimes surging, sometimes blazing, sometimes teeming with life, sometimes heavy, sometimes razor-sharp; flowers, birds, insects, and fish, along with the shadowy forms of countless beasts, appeared among the carvings; and all living things, myriad beings as tiny as ants...
Rumble...
The pillars rose through the darkness, towering into the clouds. Thunderbolts struck them without cease, each bolt imbued with terrifying Tribulation Power.
Tribulation Power surged down the pillars like a flood, battering the chains wrapped around them. The chains shuddered and tightened, clanging like thunder and iron.
The chains seemed illusory, their blue-violet sheen as if they had been forged from Tribulation Lightning.
They wrapped tightly around the pillars, plunging deep into the earth below.
Now, with each peal of Tribulation Lightning,
the dark, iron-poured ground between the nine pillars trembled again and again.
Each tremor brought forth golden and blood-red formation patterns, which forcibly suppressed it.
At the same time, the