Before anyone could react, Si Chen had already vanished from where he stood.
There was no warning, no fluctuation.
Even Red Bean's and Feng Qing's divine sense caught only an afterimage.
Something flickered within the rotting eye sockets of that dark figure-that lone flesh-and-blood head that had just broken free of the seal, its sockets reduced to decaying skin and flesh.
Surprise.
With no time to think, it shrouded itself in thick black mist, instinctively trying to slip inside.
But it was utterly useless.
In that instant, a palm swept in from the side.
"BOOM!!"
No immortal essence, no laws, no fancy tricks-just a simple physical attack taken to the absolute extreme.
Like dust swept away by a hurricane, the black mist was stripped from his body, scattered, and vanished so swiftly it looked like purification.
The withered, rotting head, along with its still-incomplete body, flew sideways, tumbling and spinning through the void without the slightest power to resist.
The entire void fell utterly silent.
The soldiers of Floating Net Heaven had yet to recover from the shock of the Demon Realm army's arrival when they were plunged into another collective shock.
Only moments earlier, that thing's oppressive presence had left them struggling to breathe.
Although they did not understand why the Demon Realm army had appeared... Si Chen's declaration that it "must be slain" had made them realize these were friends, not foes.
Even as they rejoiced... they had instinctively assumed that, if not an evenly matched battle, this would at least be a savage, epic struggle that would claim countless lives.
Instead, at their very first encounter, that dark figure had been sent flying with a single slap.
"..."
The dark figure was still hurtling backward, but Si Chen vanished again.
The next instant, he appeared in the