The hundred-and-eighty-thousand-strong Righteous Path Allied Army swept over mountains and rivers like a celestial river bursting its banks, bearing down irresistibly upon the Ghost Spirit Sect Headquarters Altar—the Nether Abyss.
As the army advanced deeper into demonic territory, the surroundings grew increasingly sinister and uncanny. Gray-black clouds of miasma shrouded the sky year-round, scarcely admitting sunlight; even midday looked like dusk. The earth was an ominous dark red, its vegetation withered and dying. Only poisonous flowers and grasses giving off a strange, sickly-sweet scent grew unchecked.
A faint stench of decay and sulfur hung in the air. Spiritual energy had also grown thin and impure, mingled with wisps of unsettling yin fiend energy.
Most mortal towns and villages along the way lay abandoned. Bleached bones occasionally showed among their ruined walls, clear evidence that the demonic sects had ravaged them long ago. At the few demonic outposts and resource sites they encountered, the defenders caught sight of the righteous army blotting out the land, its killing intent piercing the heavens, and could not muster even the slightest will to resist. Some fled at the first warning; others activated their arrays and hid like turtles in their shells. Yet under the thunderous strikes of the alliance vanguard, the Heaven Division, they usually crumbled in short order. Earth Division cultivators following behind occupied them and converted them into temporary forward bases.
The alliance army advanced like a blade splitting bamboo, its spearhead aimed straight at the final natural barrier outside the Nether Abyss-the great Myriad Ghosts Wailing canyon. Sheer cliffs rose thousands of feet on either side, and savage, chilling winds howled through it year-round. Their shrill cries sounded like ten thousand ghosts weeping together, disturbing the mind and eroding spiritual power. At the canyon's far end stood the entrance to the