Deep within the Hongmeng Ruins lay a scorched wasteland known as the "Crimson Sun Graveyard."
There was no sky here, only a sea of magma burned crimson and hanging upside down from the vault overhead. At the very center of the graveyard, nine enormous black suns radiating pitch-black, deathly flames slowly revolved along the paths of an ancient, vicious formation, creating an absolutely sealed "Nine-Sun Heaven-Burning Prison."
At the center of those nine black suns, Chu Yueyao had assumed her true form as a seven-colored Divine Phoenix, her wings and talons firmly bound by nine thick black fire chains. Her cultivation at the early Creation Realm, once her greatest pride, could not even bring out one or two tenths of its power beneath this bizarre formation's suppression.
"Give up struggling, little girl of the Divine Phoenix Lineage."
Outside the formation stood an old man, shriveled to skin and bones, leaning on a staff wreathed in black fire as he greedily stared at Chu Yueyao. He was the final Ancient Ancestor of the Golden Crow Clan, said to have long since perished in meditation yet strangely revived at this moment—Burning-Heaven Ancient Ancestor!
"You Golden Crow Clan... hadn't you already broken free of the Silent Abyss Blood Pact? Why are you still helping a tyrant commit evil?" Chu Yueyao gritted her teeth, blood seeping from the corner of her mouth as she glared furiously at Burning-Heaven Ancient Ancestor.
"Blood Pact? Hahaha!" Burning-Heaven Ancient Ancestor let out a cackling laugh that leaked through his teeth. "This old man isn't one of those fools controlled by the Blood Pact! I voluntarily pledged myself to the Return-to-Silence Heavenly Emperor! So long as I offer your pure Ancestral Phoenix true spirit to the Heavenly Emperor as a sacrifice, he will grant this old man eternal life—and