Another Hidden Hand?

The Starry Sky lay silent and soundless.

A colossal wound hung at the center of the blood-red Starry Sky, occupying the place where the ancestral land had once stood, like the scar left behind after some unknown behemoth had forcibly taken a bite from it.

A cold, deathly void instantly swallowed the viscous life and decaying vitality that had once filled this Star Domain.

The rich stench of blood and sweet rot that had once lingered beneath their noses at every moment also seemed to have been violently wiped away by an invisible giant hand, leaving behind only the heart-quailing, pure sense of nothingness within the vacuum of the universe.

Xue Huai stood frozen in place. The smug smile at the corner of his lips, born from the success of his scheme, now resembled a rapidly cooling, cracking mire of Filthy Blood.

His pupils abruptly shrank to pinpoints, reflecting the void before him... a silence so deathly that it tore courage and guts asunder.

His mood plunged from Above the Nine Heavens into the abyss in an instant!

What the hell had happened?!!!

Just a moment ago, he had still been laughing triumphantly over Lord Youming personally taking action, leaving Tai Shang with no escape from calamity...

Yet with only a turn, a glance back—

His home was gone!

"My Blood Rot Ancestral Land..."

The broken syllables squeezed painfully from Xue Huai's throat, trembling with utter disbelief.

His gaze frantically swept across the empty void before finally settling on the sole object within it—an Eighth-Order Astral Rift.

The rift stretched out to both sides, embedded in the dark deep space and spilling starlight, like... a mocking, smiling face!

The answer was coldly and cruelly flung into his face.

"FORMLESS SKY DEMON!!!"

His furious roar set off ripples upon ripples through