"Rumble!"
The earth's trembling drew closer from afar, and dust kept falling from the broken bricks atop Zhongyang Pass's walls.
At the end of the horizon were tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of monsters. Like a black tsunami, they roared toward the pass.
On the walls, the defenders' breathing grew heavy, and the hands gripping their spirit artifacts began to tremble.
Most of them were merely low-level Golden Core cultivators, and quite a few were even in the Foundation Establishment Realm.
The mighty cultivators of the Spirit Transformation and Void Refinement stages had been reassigned to suppress the Calamity when it first erupted.
Now that more than half of Central Province had fallen, those high-level cultivators had either died in battle or become hopelessly entangled with endless monsters, unable to break away.
Zhongyang Pass, the final barrier before the Imperial Capital, had instead become a lone island.
All who remained were a handful of Nascent Soul Realm commanders struggling to hold on, along with these exhausted remnants of an army.
"Form the formation!"
The commander defending the pass let out a furious roar.
Above Zhongyang Pass, a defensive formation's curtain of light rose swiftly, and the Flight-Restricting Seal unfolded with it.
And those things finally reached the foot of the walls!
"Bang, bang, bang, bang!"
The black tide slammed viciously into Zhongyang Pass's formation, making the entire pass shudder without cease.
"Hold on! Feed every spirit stone into the formation eyes! Even if we die, we cannot retreat!" The old general waved his severed arm, his eyes nearly splitting with fury.
Yet the great formation's light flickered for less than half an incense stick's time.
"Crack..."
A crisp sound of shattering rang out on the left side of the wall, sounding at that moment like a summons to