Zong Shen felt the sticky sensation beneath his feet gradually weakening.
The ground became firmer, and rough black stone slabs even began to appear.
The slabs were badly shattered, with dark purple viscous fluid seeping from the cracks and giving off an even stronger stench of decay than the outer areas.
The concentration of mental contamination in the air abruptly rose.
The ancient battle cries and screams mingling by his ears became clearer.
It was as though he had stepped into a ritual site spanning time itself.
A relatively open square appeared ahead.
It could be called a square because the ground here was comparatively level, and the bases of enormous collapsed stone pillars could faintly be seen around its edges.
But the scene within the square was exceedingly bizarre.
More than a dozen twisted dark purple flesh pillars stood there.
Their surfaces were covered in pores that continuously opened and closed, as well as networks of blood vessels. Dark yellow pus occasionally seeped from them.
At the top of each pillar grew a mass of purple-black radiance that constantly changed shape.
Fragments of scenes were continuously projected from within those halos.
Orc Warriors slaughtering one another, priests dancing amid flames, and enormous, indescribable shadows surging from cracks in the sky...
At the center of the pillars was a sunken circular area.
At the bottom lay a bottomless purple-black vortex.
Along the vortex's edges, viscous nightmare energy crawled upward and intertwined like living organisms, forming barriers resembling thorny brambles.
Directly above the vortex floated a dark red crystal roughly the size of a millstone.
It seemed to contain liquid darkness and fire within it. Purple-black arcs of electricity continuously leaped across its surface, accompanied by a deep, persistent hum.
Beyond that, powerful spatial fluctuations and suction radiated from both the