Nan Shuishui's expression changed.
She recognized that barrier of light.
It was not the Heavenly Dragon Sect's formation.
The Earth Dragon Sect and the Heavenly Dragon Sect had confronted each other for years and knew each other's capabilities inside out.
The Heavenly Dragon Sect's members had the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Martial Soul. Their Soul Power was blue-violet, domineering and outwardly aggressive; it would never produce such a sinister, blood-colored barrier.
"This isn't the Heavenly Dragon Sect's doing."
She spoke softly, an irrepressible tension in her voice.
The Ice Empress stepped forward and reached toward the blood-colored barrier.
When her fingertips were still three inches away, a purple arc of electricity suddenly sprang from its surface, striking straight at them.
The Ice Empress did not even furrow her brow. Emerald light flashed at her fingertips, and the arc was forcibly frozen solid by Ultimate Ice before shattering into powder that sifted down.
"An Evil Soul Master's handiwork."
The Ice Empress withdrew her hand, the nonchalance gone from her tone.
"Whoever set up this formation has considerable cultivation. At least level ninety-two."
"And this formation uses living people's Soul Power as fuel."
Nan Shuishui's pupils abruptly contracted.
Living people's Soul Power as fuel-then the people inside that formation...
Zhang Lan had already raised the Star of Eden.
A speck of ghostly blue light shone at the staff's tip, and a gravitational dome took shape before him.
He did not use his full strength. He merely aimed the staff's tip at the barrier and gave it a gentle push.
A hairline crack spread from the point where the staff touched it, like the first fissure opening across a sheet of ice.
The cracks spread rapidly, covering the entire surface of the barrier in the blink of an eye.
The blood-colored light flickered violently several times, then gave a muffled crack.
The barrier collapsed from the top down. Dark red fragments fluttered to the ground, dissolving into foul-smelling black smoke upon contact.
The instant the barrier dispersed, a blood-reeking wind struck them in the face.
Among the Earth Dragon Sect disciples behind Nan Shuishui, some immediately doubled over and began dry-heaving.
The Heavenly Dragon Sect's grounds were no longer recognizable.
The main gate had collapsed, half-buried in scorched earth.
The entire surface of the training grounds had been torn up, with rubble and severed limbs mingled into a thick layer.
Those corpses could scarcely be recognized as what they had once been.
Every face was withered, flesh and skin clinging tightly to bone, as though something had sucked every drop of moisture and Soul Power from within their bodies.
Their eyes were still open, their dilated pupils almost filling their sockets, with the terror of their final moments lingering inside.
A sickly sweet, putrid odor permeated the air, mingled with the scent of ozone and scorched earth, so thick it would not disperse.
And at the very center of it all stood a man.
Black robes.
Those black robes covered him from head to foot, his hood pulled so low that his face was hidden.
But Zhang Lan could sense the Soul Power contained within that body, vast and gloomy, like a bottomless well with thunder rolling in its depths.
The black-robed man's right hand hung at his side, his fingers clamped around the back of a corpse's neck.
The corpse's head lolled to one side, its face ashen and its mouth stretched wide, as though he had shouted something before his death that he never managed to finish.
Looking at that corpse, Nan Shuishui let out an exceedingly faint, almost inaudible gasp.
It was Yu Tiankuang.
The Heavenly Dragon Sect's sect master, a Titled Douluo, and an inheritor of the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon.
Now he dangled from the black-robed man's hand like a chicken with its neck wrung, without a single intact patch anywhere on his body.
Something had pierced his chest. The edges of the wound were blackened and curled, and purple lightning still danced deep within it, refusing to go out.
On the surrounding ground, the embers of lightning still flickered, brightening and dimming like dying fireflies.
Those traces radiated outward from beneath the black-robed man's feet, the farthest reaching almost beyond the main gate.
The ferocity of this battle had been several times greater than any assault the Earth Dragon Sect had endured over the past few days.
The black-robed man slowly turned around.
Beneath the hood was the pale face of a middle-aged man.
His features were regular, even handsome, but there was no warmth of the living in those eyes.
His pupils were a murky dark purple, lightning flickering in their depths like two peeled amethysts.
Nan Shuishui stared at that face, her entire body seeming to freeze.
Her lips moved, but no sound emerged.
Rouge-colored Soul Power surged uncontrollably from her body, forming a phantom dragon beside her.
But the dragon's head hung low and its body curled inward in an instinctive defensive posture. Even its eyes dared not look straight ahead.
"Nan Shuishui."
The black-robed man spoke.
His voice was hoarse, with a texture like scraping metal, each word seeming to burst with tiny currents on the tip of his tongue.
"It's been a long time."
Nan Shuishui finally found her voice.
It was so quiet that only Zhang Lan, standing closest to her, could barely make it out.
"Nether Thunder Douluo... why are you here?"
The Holy Spirit Cult's third elder, Nether Thunder Douluo.
The Ice Empress's gaze swept twice between the corpse and the black-robed man, her emerald dress stirring without wind.
She tilted her head and glanced at the Snow Empress.
The Snow Empress's expression remained cold, but the fingers hanging at her side briefly curled inward.
The Heavenly Dragon Sect was gone.
But the man standing here was far more dangerous than the Heavenly Dragon Sect.
The Ice Empress moved.
Without any warning, her emerald figure shot out from Zhang Lan's side, as swift as a streak of light gliding over ice.
Her only target was Nether Thunder Douluo. As for the corpses strewn across the ground and the foul stench of blood, she did not spare them a second glance.
Nether Thunder Douluo's reaction was astonishingly fast as well.
Only when the force of the Ice Empress's palm reached three feet from his face did a purple lightning arc explode beneath his feet, its recoil sending him drifting backward.
At the same time, he flipped his left hand, and a palm-sized bronze mirror slid from his sleeve. Its surface was densely engraved with lightning patterns, while its face was a murky expanse of dark purple.
The Ice Empress's palm struck the bronze mirror.
Humm-
A mass of lightning erupted from the bronze mirror's surface, purple arcs crawling up the Ice Empress's palm with sharp crackles.
The current carried a cold, sinister corrosive force, burrowing into her meridians as though it were alive.
The Ice Empress frowned. Emerald light blazed in her palm, forcibly freezing the lightning against it. Then she clenched her fist, and the lightning shattered into powder.
But the bronze mirror merely dimmed for an instant before lighting up again. The Ice Empress's figure appeared on its face, dark purple light churning deep within.
"A Level 9 Soul Tool."
The Ice Empress recognized it.
That bronze mirror could amplify its user's lightning Soul Power by at least thirty percent, and its face could also reflect a portion of incoming attacks.
In that exchange, the bronze mirror had dissipated most of the force of her palm strike.
Nether Thunder Douluo retreated a hundred feet before finally regaining his footing.
The bronze mirror hovered beside him, its face directed at the Ice Empress. Purple lightning continuously poured from it, weaving an impenetrable electrical web around him.
He lowered his head to glance at Yu Tiankuang's corpse in his hand, then casually tossed it aside.
The withered corpse rolled onto the scorched earth, where a lingering lightning arc struck it and shattered it into several pieces.
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