The gale howled through the valley, while demonic smoke billowed, blotting out the sky and sun.
The instant Xiao Dongsheng hurled out the Demon-Evasion Smoke Pellet, the entire gorge was swallowed by sinister miasma. Sight was cut off, vital currents thrown into chaos, and souls disturbed.
He knew full well that the situation had completely collapsed. The Devouring Secret Art had been broken, his soul severely injured, and his Dao heart cracked; he had long since lost the strength to keep fighting. The Mahayana Evil Cult Protector beside him was even worse off—his breastbone had exploded, his evil essence dispersed, his meridians severed. More than seventy percent of his cultivation, which had nearly reached the Mid Inner Vajra Realm, had been destroyed, leaving him with only a crippled body barely clinging to life.
The two of them no longer had even the slightest chance of victory.
Escape was their only path to survival.
"Retreat!"
Xiao Dongsheng shouted in a low voice. Ignoring the Protector's injuries, he swept his black-and-white devouring gang qi around him, forcibly wrapping up the other's ruined body. They turned into two frantic afterimages and shot toward the valley exit.
His heart was cold and vicious. So long as he escaped today, the cult that had taken the Blackwater Lotus Seed could rise again. As for him, if he lurked in the shadows and devoured stronger origins in the future, he would surely be able to surpass Cheng Heng and crush Qingchuan's entire righteous path beneath his feet.
Only endless resentment and regret remained in the heavily wounded cult Protector's eyes.
He had roamed the southern region for decades, wielding the power of life and death over a cult branch. Never had he imagined that an ambush certain to succeed would become a dead end in a