The appearance of Li Qinwu and his two companions instantly sent the Cultists into a frenzy of excitement.
These corrupted humans gained power by hunting for blood.
At first, killing just about anyone had been enough to earn power from their master.
But as time passed, gaining power became increasingly difficult. They needed to kill valuable targets.
Yet the Fortress World was only so big. Killing ordinary people no longer brought them power, and most of the Tyranids were low-level creatures. High-level ones were hard to come by.
Corruption had eaten into these humans' minds, and their hunger for power had seeped into their very bones.
Later, someone had discovered that Foot-washing Acolytes of roughly equal strength could gather in groups of eight and fight to the death, leaving only one survivor.
The survivor could absorb the others' power and grow stronger.
Those who gained power could then join another eight people in a new round of slaughter to gain even more.
That was the purpose of the Duel Arena: Cultists unwilling to remain weak gathered to kill one another, breeding a stronger monster from the carnage.
What Li Qinwu did not know was that there were eight such Duel Arenas across the planet!
The eight Duel Arenas surrounded the Grand Fortress at its eight corners, enclosing it in the center and forming an enormous ritual array spanning hundreds of kilometers.
These eight ritual arrays would produce eight eighth-tier champions.
Those eight eighth-tier champions would form the Blood Daemon's flesh, bringing its true self fully into Realspace to destroy the Fortress World!
The entire ritual would claim eight to the ninth power in dead duelists-roughly 130 million people!
These 1.3 billion Cultists would use their deaths to bring the Blood Daemon into Realspace!
The other seven Duel Arenas were proceeding