Clang—!
Clang—!
Deep, ancient peals of a bronze bell rippled from the highest point of the City Lord's Manor. Like muffled thunder, they instantly tore apart Formless City's long-standing deathly silence.
Immediately afterward, squads of messengers from the City Lord's Manor, clad in dark-silver heavy armor and riding magnificent Cloud-Treading Beasts, swept through Formless City's streets and alleys like a gale.
Holding aloft the city lord's decree, stamped with a purple-gold seal, they proclaimed to everyone in the city the earth-shaking news that could overturn the entire fragment realm's balance of power.
"By order of City Lord Xuanmingzi: three days from now, I shall attempt to attain the Purple Abode Dao at Soul-Severing Ridge, seventy li outside the city!"
"Effective immediately, Formless City enters the highest state of military readiness! All cultivators outside the city must return within twenty-four hours! Activate the City-Defense Grand Formation at full power! Anyone who defies this order or exploits the chaos to cause trouble shall be killed without mercy!"
This sudden decree was like a meteor crashing into an already restless lake, instantly raising a thousand towering waves.
After a brief deathly silence, all of Formless City erupted into uncontrollable panic and chaos.
To the cultivators and mortals surviving in this forsaken land, the words "Purple Abode Divine Ability Tribulation" meant no stairway to immortality on the path of cultivation. They meant what the ancient records described in unmistakable detail—a world-ending calamity!
"He's gone mad! Has the old city lord gone mad?! Breaking through to Purple Abode will bring the entire abyssal demon tide pouring out of its nest! He's dragging the whole city into the grave with him!"
"Run! Get out of the city! Staying here means waiting to die!"
The city's Cultivator Market instantly plunged into utter chaos, with countless low-level rogue