The five locked in combat stopped instantly, their faces draining of color. They instinctively retreated several steps, staring fixedly at the pitch-black opening.
Even the air seemed to freeze.
Ying Wenjie frowned and said gravely, "It's that big one underground... It's coming out!"
Chen Siyao and Qin Xiaoyu exchanged a glance and both quickened their attacks. They had to clear out the surrounding lesser demons before that thing emerged.
But before they could finish, a massive black shape shot skyward from the pit with a piercing shriek. The sound did not seem to come from a throat, but rather from the resonance of air being torn apart—sharp and drawn-out, making their eardrums ache.
The black shape landed on the red earth dozens of meters away, caving the ground into an enormous crater.
It was a gigantic demon, pitch-black from head to toe and fully four stories tall. Its limbs were thick, its forelimbs much longer than its hind legs, so that its front claws nearly touched the ground when it stood.
Each claw was a meter long, gleaming with an icy blue light beneath the moon, like five curved blades.
Most terrifying of all was its head. Three crimson eyes with vertical pupils sat on its smooth face, and a huge mouth split all the way from its cheeks to the back of its skull. Its fangs were packed tightly together, and dripping saliva corroded the ground, sending up black smoke.
The Overlord-class Soul-Devouring Abyss Demon had emerged!
Chen Siyao looked up, clenching her fists until her knuckles turned white. She wanted to charge, but her legs would not quite obey her. It was not fear, but instinct—the hierarchical suppression between predator and prey, etched into her genes and impossible to change.
Qin Xiaoyu stood beside her, the tip of