[An inky vortex appeared above the blue-robed youth's head!]
[The desiccated corpse emerged like a ghost, half its body protruding from the black vortex.]
[Lord Purple Mountain's expression tightened. Lightning gathered in his palm again and shot forth as a piercing arrow!]
[Danling immediately formed a hand seal and summoned a vermilion Eerie Gate, sealing off the space.]
[Beneath the Ascension Platform, everyone watched Zhou Jing hang by a thread, their expressions varied—]
[Xu Wuji and Tian Jingxu looked conflicted. The only person of their generation qualified to step onto the platform was about to die here.]
[Lu Beiyou's and the Jade Terrace Fairy's slender fingers trembled, neither able to hide her worry.]
[But Gu Yu of the Dao Dominion Sect and Cao An of the Purple Sun Academy could no longer suppress the delighted curves of their lips.]
[Even the Western Sea Dragon King, whose might rivaled a Supreme Grandmaster's, had failed to escape this fate.]
[Why should Zhou Jing be any exception?]
[Worry showed plainly on Ant True Person's aged face. Whatever else had happened, he and Zhou Jing had shared the bond of that "send-off" at Mount Fangcun.]
[Though he deeply hated the Imperial Homeland, he felt the youth before him did not deserve such an end.]
[With Zhou Jing's talent, he might one day have become a Supreme Grandmaster himself.]
[For him to die so young—the heavens truly envied the gifted!]
[Treasure-Filled True Person and Lady Qingshan looked further ahead—if everyone on the Ascension Platform died after the Heavenly Emperor, how would this end?]
[Their lives and deaths seemed long since to have slipped from their own hands.]
[The black vortex kept spreading, growing ever larger.]
[Feng Qingyun of the Taihua Sect sighed softly. Zhou Jing... was going to die here after all.]
[The Heavenly One's