Before the words had faded, the milky-white mist around them suddenly churned. A concealed spatial fluctuation seeped out from the interstitial void.
Lingbao Heavenly Venerable pressed a hand to his sword hilt, his gaze instantly sharpening.
"Something is coming."
Five-colored clouds drifted slowly. A pair of illusory, glasslike horns emerged from the mist first, followed by an exotic beast hundreds of yards long, which parted the clouds to reveal itself in full.
A translucent, glasslike membrane of light enveloped its body, and five-colored immortal radiance flowed around its horns.
Its eyes were two spinning vortices of space and time. A shimmering mirage pearl hung within its chest and abdomen, while its limbs were enormous claws of luminous mist that left no trace as they trod the void.
A Void Mirage Beast.
Looking down from above, it surveyed the uninvited visitors with its vortex-like eyes. Rather than attack immediately, it released a fluctuation of divine sense.
"Outsiders? Your power... is very strange."
Its voice rang out in the minds of the gods and demons, carrying undisguised scrutiny.
The mirage beast's body swelled slightly. Layers of illusory mountains and rivers rose and fell around it, while countless silhouettes of ascending immortals appeared in its surroundings. The scene was magnificent yet uncanny, as though an entire world were unfolding across its skin.
Battle Holy Emperor sneered and planted his iron rod heavily in the void.
"What sort of overgrown worm are you, putting on tricks before this emperor!"
He swung his rod. Its golden shadow tore through the sky with the savage power of Shattering the Vacuum, crashing down like a golden river of stars pouring backward.
The void shattered inch by inch. Wherever the rod passed, the myriad illusions were torn apart like thin paper, and the overlapping phantoms of mountains and