The lava crust beneath Qian Fan's feet suddenly cracked like a spiderweb, and his dark-purple soul rings churned wildly with ghostly blue flames.
The magma beneath the Abyssal Death Warriors began to boil. Dark-red bubbles burst ceaselessly, splashing scalding lava onto their bodies, only for them to eerily absorb it and turn it into even more savage bone spurs.
Qian Fan's icy gaze pinned the writhing horde of Abyssal Death Warriors like a poisoned blade. His voice emerged wrapped in frost: "Mere ants, yet you dare run rampant!"
The air abruptly froze. The aura erupting around him whipped up a hurricane as though it had taken physical form, gathering dead leaves and loose stones into a vortex overhead.
The shattered remnants of the distant mountain range began to float. Those jagged rocks converged on Qian Fan as though controlled by an invisible hand.
Amid the dazzling light that exploded behind him, the Fallen Angel Martial Soul rose from the ground. Its pitch-black wings tore through the clouds, and the grinding of its joints made Long Aotian's and Su Tian's eardrums ache.
As the martial soul unfurled, the storm clouds overhead turned ink-black. Lightning raced wildly through them, striking down from time to time and blasting smoking craters into the ground.
When his level 80 soul power erupted in full, the ground within a hundred-meter radius collapsed with a thunderous crash, forming a vast circular trench. The flying rocks were ground to dust before they could fall.
Dark-purple energy fluid surged from the trench, corroding everything it touched into acrid white smoke. The ground continued to sink, forming an enormous funnel-shaped pit.
"This... is... Qian Fan's true strength?!" Su Tian's pupils contracted sharply, and his legs trembled almost beyond his control.
The Abyssal Death Warriors had already collapsed. The monsters in the front ranks dissolved directly into black mist beneath the pressure, while the stronger ones behind them strained with bulging veins. Their barely upright bodies shook violently as the energy fluid beneath their feet climbed their leg bones, giving off a teeth-grating hiss of corrosion.
The black soul power coiling around Qian Fan's fingertips writhed like a living thing. The instant the orb left his hand, it scorched a charred trail through space.
Piercing screams rang across the sky. Before the last few Abyssal Death Warriors were annihilated, their despairing eyes reflected that cold, indifferent figure.
As the energy orb devoured their bodies, they were first broken down into molecules, then reassembled into tiny black crystals that scattered down onto the ground.
"Let's go." Qian Fan's martial soul slowly dissipated, but the instant he turned, the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.
A pitch-black blur tore through the void, its level 99 pressure crashing down like a collapsing mountain.
The moment the blur appeared, the million-strong army became grains of sand crushed beneath an invisible giant hand. Countless soldiers dissolved into blood mist in the shock wave.
The massive stone pillars surrounding the battlefield collapsed with a crash, throwing dust across the sky. The air filled with the pungent stench of blood and the scorched smell of energy.
The Shadow Battle Axe hummed and trembled in Qian Fan's hand, its blade's runes glowing scarlet. Golden dragon patterns blazed across Long Aotian's dragonscale armor, while azure lightning spilled from Su Tian's longsword.
"What the hell is that?!" Long Aotian stared at Abyss Douluo, fear spreading through his entire body.
"I've heard the elders of our clan say that beings like guardians exist in the Eternal Secret Realm, specifically to stop participants from clearing it... judging by this person's attributes, he's most likely Abyss Douluo."
Qian Fan tightened his grip on the Shadow Battle Axe. "It's not that simple. This isn't an ordinary Titled Douluo."
Abyss Douluo grinned, revealing sinister fangs. With a sweep of both hands, he sent a vast tide of black abyssal energy surging toward the three of them. Wherever it passed, space twisted and warped with piercing shrieks.
Qian Fan shouted and swung the Shadow Battle Axe with all his might. An enormous black axe slash met the incoming energy, and the collision unleashed an earth-shaking explosion. The energy shock waves blasted craters into the surrounding ground.
Long Aotian transformed into a giant dragon, golden dragon patterns gleaming across his body. He spat a searing breath that intertwined with Su Tian's azure lightning and rushed toward Abyss Douluo.
Abyss Douluo remained unhurried. With a slight sway, his body became a black shadow, easily evading the attack. When he reappeared, he was already behind Qian Fan. He threw a punch, and Qian Fan felt an immense force slam into his back. He hurtled away like a cannonball and struck a distant mountain peak, which instantly collapsed.
Anxiety flashed in Long Aotian's and Su Tian's eyes. They were about to rush forward to help when Abyss Douluo suddenly stopped and said coldly, "Do you think you can get through here like this?"
"Today, this will be your burial ground!" Abyss Douluo's dark claws tore through space, making the air shriek in their wake and trailing streams of purple energy flame.
The dark claws raked across the ground, instantly carving a bottomless trench hundreds of meters long. Masses of thorn-covered black vines surged from it, sweeping wildly toward them.
Qian Fan's Fallen Angel Martial Soul spread its wings to meet the attack. The instant its wings collided with the dark claws, a fissure seemed to tear through heaven and earth, and thunder exploded ceaselessly within the warped space.
Chaos-like energy spilled from the fissure. Wherever it passed, space began to twist and warp, forming black vortices that swallowed light.
Long Aotian's golden dragon roared as it rammed toward Abyss Douluo's waist and abdomen. Su Tian's Thunderclap Sword Formation wove a web of lightning in the air, only for Abyss Douluo to shatter every attack with a casual sweep of his claws.
The shattered sword formation became countless tiny bolts of lightning that struck wildly across the battlefield, pockmarking the ground with craters.
"Paltry tricks!" Abyss Douluo grinned savagely as his ninth soul ring erupted with blinding blood-red light.
An enormous skeletal hand that blotted out the sky crashed down, compressing the air in its path into sharp, explosive cracks.
Dark-red runes covered the skeletal hand, each flickering with an eerie glow as though alive. Before it, the attacks of Qian Fan and his companions were like a child's fists.
The blood seeping from the corner of Qian Fan's mouth gathered into beads in the air. "Su Tian! Long Aotian! Fuse our three soul skills!"
The three men's soul power merged wildly. A golden dragon silhouette coiled around lightning and dark fire, tearing open a gap beneath the skeletal hand.
Scorching streams of energy gushed from the gap, igniting the surrounding air into a ring of burning flame.
Yet Abyss Douluo's second attack followed immediately. Qian Fan's back slammed into a cliff face, his armor shattering piece by piece. Long Aotian's dragon horn was severed, and spiderweb cracks spread across Su Tian's longsword.
The severed dragon horn became a streak of golden light that shot into the distance and blasted an enormous pit into the ground; the energy spilling from the cracks in Su Tian's longsword formed tiny arcs in the air, crackling and popping.
"Ants will always be ants!" Abyss Douluo's laughter shook the rolling clouds as his third attack crashed down with the power to destroy the world.
Wherever the attack passed, space began to shatter, forming fragments like shards of a mirror. Each reflected a distorted image of the battlefield.
Before his words had faded, the soul rings around all three men simultaneously expanded to three times their size. The light of their fusion skill pierced the clouds and collided with Abyss Douluo's attack.
Amid the earth-shaking roar, the entire mountain range trembled, and shattered rocks flew in every direction.
Before you continue