Night lay heavy, and Anping County's town had already sunk into peaceful slumber.
Yet in the dark depths hundreds of zhang beneath the surface, a staggering unseen struggle erupted with unprecedented ferocity!
To break through to Foundation Establishment Late Stage as quickly as possible, Sun Bu'er, the County Magistrate of Longwind County, had recklessly pushed the Meridian-Severing Grand Array to its limit.
Meanwhile, in Anping County, the Locust Elder, empowered by Chu Bai's gift of purple-gold essence blood, grew like a rampaging Elder Wood Demon. Countless python-thick roots spread into a vast filtering net that blotted out the heavens, anchoring firmly to the central junction connecting the two counties' earth veins.
Two unimaginably vast forces of heaven and earth used the old locust tree's roots as their battlefield, pulling and grinding against each other deep underground.
Rumble...
An extremely faint yet unceasing tremor suddenly passed through the ground of Anping County.
Without warning, water churned in the wells, and roof tiles rattled against one another.
Then the most terrifying side effect emerged.
The sinister black baleful qi buried deep beneath Anping County—the same qi Longwind County had once used to drive away the Gold-Devouring Rats—was disturbed by the immense reversal and churning of earth-vein spiritual energy. Like poisonous sap squeezed beneath a boulder, it was forcibly pressed to the surface through cracks in the crust, dried-up wells, and even the seams between the paving stones!
Hiss, hiss, hiss—
Within half an incense stick's time, the temperature plunged to freezing. On a midsummer night, visible white frost actually condensed in the air.
Old Wang, the night watchman, was walking through Willow Alley in the town's southern quarter with his lantern when he suddenly shuddered violently, feeling something icy brush the back of his neck.
He raised his lantern to illuminate the