Everything appeared before them suddenly, like an illusion.
Even Ling Xu, the widely traveled old head of Highest Clarity, was caught off guard by this strange spectacle. Had the gales fanned by the raptors overhead not set their robes snapping, and the heavy breaths of the beasts on the ground not filled the air, Xing Yan and the others might truly have believed everything before them was an illusion.
And the illusion was not yet over.
As the Highest Clarity party drew together and retreated warily, hundreds of towering spirits with animal heads and human bodies rushed out of the beast army standing like a forest opposite them. Tigers, leopards, bears, and their like raced about like a whirlwind, splitting branches and hauling timber. In the blink of an eye, they erected a sturdy wooden platform seventy or eighty feet high on the site of the freshly uprooted woods-the speed of their construction left everyone dumbstruck.
"How do these spirits have the leisure for such grand building works?"
With neither friendship nor enmity established, every movement of these beast spirits seemed peculiar. While Xing Yan and the others pondered this, a voice suddenly rang out behind them:
"I know!"
"They must have come to hear Big Brother preach again!"
The lovely voice was as clear as a lark's song. Without turning, they knew it belonged to the little girl sheltered behind them.
Qiong Rong's cry left the Highest Clarity elders bewildered, but something stirred abruptly in Xing Yan's and Lingyi's hearts. They hurriedly studied the opposite side. Xing Yan now seemed to have a hazy notion of what was happening.
While Xing Yan was looking, a voice like a mighty bell and thunder boomed from the opposing ranks:
"All divisions of the Mystic Spirit Cult respectfully invite Cult Leader Zhang