The hundred and eighty thousand troops of the Righteous Path Allied Army surged like a blood-red celestial river bursting its banks. Under Han Li's command, they smashed through the final defenses of Myriad Ghosts Wailing Canyon with thunderous force and reached the entrance to the Nether Abyss—the enormous Ghost Gate Pass between two black peaks that towered into the clouds like hideous ghost heads!
Fewer than a thousand Ghost Spirit Sect defenders remained atop the walls, every one wounded, their faces ashen. Gazing at the boundless tide of righteous troops below, their murderous intent piercing the heavens, they had long since lost the courage to resist. Yet in that moment of despair, an unnerving creak, like metal scraping against metal, suddenly rose from the depths of the thick ghostly mist that churned year-round behind Ghost Gate Pass, followed by the heavy echoes of dragging chains.
"Hehehe... You want to enter the Nether Abyss? Dream on! My Ghost Spirit Sect has endured for a thousand years. How could petty scoundrels like you tread here so easily? Even if I alone remain, I will stain this ghost gate with your blood!"
An aged, sinister laugh rang out from the ghostly mist, carrying the resolve to perish together, jade and common stone alike. Then a hunched, emaciated old man slowly emerged, nine thick black chains wound around his body. His hair and beard were white, but his eyes burned with eerie green ghostfire that seemed to come from the depths of the Nine Nether!
The Ghost Spirit Sect's Grand Elder-Ancestor Ghost Wither! His cultivation stood at the peak of the Nascent Soul late stage, a peerless fiend only half a step from touching the threshold of Deity Transformation! He had been secluded deep within the Nether Abyss, staking his life on a breakthrough