The beetles exploded not far from Huo Hai. It was not because he had been careless, but because only this could keep the Azure Sky Palace people from lowering their guard. Otherwise, everyone would have known he was about to make his move.
Who knew whether those people had some means of surviving? At the very least, it was not impossible for those two Ninth Heaven experts. As the Azure Sky Palace's strongest experts, although their cultivation had reached its limit and they could not withstand such an attack themselves, they were far from simple. No one knew what methods they might be carrying.
Perhaps they even possessed items capable of blocking such a terrifying explosion. Thus, in order to scheme against those two, Huo Hai had placed two of the Explosive Beetles beside them beforehand. Only an instantaneous explosion could eliminate them.
As for everyone else, the stronger they were, the closer they stood to Huo Hai's location. Therefore, these people were annihilated by the explosion at the very first moment. The others lacked both cultivation and reserves, so none of them could resist.
Huo Hai was also extremely close to the explosion. At the first instant, most of its power crashed into the defensive barriers around him. These barriers had been meant to protect the Azure Sky Palace's treasures from damage, and they resisted any attack with all their strength. Thus, Huo Hai merely shrank backward, and those barriers blocked the first and strongest wave of attacks.
Unfortunately, after blocking the attack, the barriers were instantly torn apart. In the attacks that followed, all the treasures were swept up. Anything insufficiently sturdy was utterly destroyed, and in the end, probably not much would remain.
This was a terrifying storm whose overall destructive power had reached the attack strength