More than a thousand hidden altars across the continent continued operating in silence.
Dark, ancient patterns lay buried beneath mountains and rivers.
They also lay beneath the deep sea and desolate valleys, like dense black poisonous roots embedded deep in the earth's veins. The naked eye could not see the origin draining away, nor could anyone hear the energy being extracted, yet the entire Douluo Continent grew weaker with every passing moment.
A gentle breeze swept through the streets and alleys of the towns, while ordinary life remained peaceful. Common people rose at sunrise and rested at sunset, unaware that the land beneath their feet was slowly withering away.
They understood even less that they still lived inside a sacrificial prison left behind by the gods.
Only those supreme experts who had personally experienced the apocalypse and seen through the deception felt a deeper chill in their hearts with each day they walked the world.
Spirit City, an abandoned ancient altar in the outskirts.
Bibi Dong's fingertips brushed across the cold stone patterns as Netherworld Divine Power slowly seeped into the altar. The obscure, ancient runes grew faintly hot, and a thread of frigid aura from Chaos beyond the heavens invaded her body through her meridians.
In an instant, she abruptly withdrew her hand, frost gathering between her brows.
That chill was not the violent destruction of the Dark Envoys, but a gentle, concealed, lingering form of consumption. Like invisible parasites, it silently fed upon the essence of the plane. Even after the gods had perished for countless ages, it had never changed its plundering nature.
"The altar operates on its own. No one controls it, and it will never stop."
Bibi Dong murmured softly, her violet eyes fixed on the distant horizon. "From the very beginning, the gods never