The Apocalypse's shields shut down after passing through the air currents over the final mountain range.
Zhou Xuan stood at the bow, frozen stiff.
The Spirit Sword Pavilion, where he had spent several years—the old stomping ground where he had made his fortune scavenging junk—now looked as though someone had taken a hammer to every inch of it.
The Mountain Protection Array was still running, but its barrier of Sword Qi was riddled with holes. It hardly qualified as a "defense"; at best, it was a rotten fence.
A fissure at least several dozen zhang wide split the Main Peak straight down the middle.
Something dark red surged out of the crack, as though some living creature beneath it were desperately burrowing upward.
Two of the subsidiary peaks had already collapsed.
Only half of Medicine Peak remained. The tower of the Scripture Repository Pavilion leaned at the edge of a cliff, every spiritual light at its tip extinguished.
Zhou Xuan activated all of the Apocalypse's scanning arrays, and data streamed through his mind.
Fewer than thirty percent of the sect's Cultivators remained alive.
The concentration of spiritual energy had fallen to fifteen percent of its normal level.
The energy fluctuations beneath the Main Peak...
Zhou Xuan's brow twitched.
The point of light on the Formation Disk that represented the Great Demon's seal was flashing wildly, faster and faster. Every flash came with a low-frequency tremor that penetrated the cabin walls.
"How long have these people held out?"
No one answered him.
Second Brother had stayed in Jade Dragon City. Zhou Xuan was alone aboard.
Zhou Xuan did not linger high in the sky. The Apocalypse descended rapidly, diving toward the Main Peak's Square.
When he reached an altitude of a thousand zhang, he heard fighting.
Not the sound of Cultivators