My Profession Can Be Infinitely Upgraded - 267

When they gazed into the distance from Starfall Lake, the rift had been no more than a black line hanging in the sky, like an accidental blemish splashed onto an ink-wash landscape painting—thin as a strand of hair, seeming both present and absent.

But when they truly flew before it, that "strand of hair" revealed its savage true form—a colossal gash stretching for miles and over a hundred zhang wide, like an eternal scar torn across the heavens by some invisible giant hand.

The edges of the rift were not smooth, orderly cuts, but ceaselessly twisting and roiling gray-black mist, like flesh at the edge of a wound still convulsing and struggling.

Looking through the rift, they saw a moon radiating an eerie purple glow that occupied nearly half the sky. Its light was not cold, yet it carried an uncanny sensation, dyeing the entire world beyond the rift in a strange, sickly purple.

Beneath the Purple Moon, gray mist churned and writhed like a living thing. A ruined city flickered in and out of sight within the fog. Firelight had already painted half its walls dark red, while thick smoke billowed upward and tangled with the gray mist until no one could tell smoke from fog.

Such a hellish sight made the Cultivators who had first rushed to the rift instinctively halt their flight.

Faces that had moments ago been full of ambitions to build merit and establish greatness now uniformly showed traces of hesitation.

Yet that hesitation did not last long—after only a few breaths, clamor and agitation once more ignited within the crowd.

The situation now was nothing like before.

Jiang Xuan's confrontation with the Southeastern Province had ultimately been a battle of spell arts, not a war.

Although that contest involved enormous matters such as leadership