The heavy rain over Bronze City still poured down. Lu Yuan hung in midair, and beneath his feet stretched an endless Sea of Blood.
Dark red waves of flesh writhed atop one another, their crests rolling and churning, carrying severed veins and tangled roots.
The rising waves of flesh surged, then crashed back down with a tremendous roar.
The stench of flesh and blood mixed with the rainwater, billowing upward without pause and making Lu Yuan frown.
Only a charred black spire of the Tower of Erudition remained, barely protruding from the Sea of Blood.
The flesh kept spreading upward. In at most a few minutes, the last patch of pure land in the inner city would cease to exist.
The Worms of Knowledge supporting Lu Yuan swam continuously around him. Colored specks of light flickered in and out, casting a strange expression across his face.
Lu Yuan narrowed his eyes and stared at the Golden Crown above him.
The seven Glazed Gems on the Crown of Ten Thousand Kings had dimmed a little further.
The crown's shadow fell over his head, hanging amid the rain and swaying faintly.
Lu Yuan made a rough calculation in his mind.
This crown had been stripped from the Crown of Ten Thousand Kings. Borrowed things had to be returned eventually.
Once it dispersed, Leike would fall back from the threshold of the Sixth Order. By then, nothing would be able to buy him any more time.
So he had to move faster.
Then there was his sanity, which was now steadily declining.
The voices of prayer by his ears were growing clearer. At first, they had merely been vague, muffled murmurs, but now they were gradually becoming distinct.
Those should have been believers praying to the Crown of Ten Thousand Kings, begging It