The night was black as ink, the moon hidden and the stars sparse.
Thirty li north of Wangshui City lay a dark valley named Demon Wolf Valley. Steep black cliffs rose on either side, and sinister winds gusted through it, carrying faint, low beast roars from underground. A thin black mist shrouded the entire valley-the mountain-protecting formation laid down by generations of Ten Thousand Monsters Sect cultivators, the Ten Thousand Monsters Soul Devourer Formation. Said to have originated from Spirit Beast Mountain, it could devour an intruder's spiritual power and was viciously insidious.
This was the headquarters of the Ten Thousand Monsters Sect.
The Ten Thousand Monsters Sect owed its standing as one of the Wangshui Kingdom's three great demonic sects to this protective formation and its deep reserves of strength. Besides Zhao Qian, the Golden Core steward stationed at its Wangshui City outpost, and the headquarters' First Elder Tu Baisui and Second Elder Xue Mang, the sect also had a Grand Elder who had spent many years in seclusion-Yin Wuji, an old monster at the early Nascent Soul stage.
Yin Wuji was the true pillar anchoring the Ten Thousand Monsters Sect. Two hundred years ago, his early Nascent Soul cultivation had cowed all around him, and he had single-handedly established the sect's position in the Wangshui Kingdom. Afterward, he had entrusted sect affairs to the younger generation and spent years in seclusion, attempting to break through to the middle Nascent Soul stage. Most disciples knew only his name and had never seen him. Even Tu Baisui had not laid eyes on this Grand Elder in nearly a hundred years. But everyone knew that as long as Yin Wuji remained, the Ten Thousand Monsters Sect would never fall.
Yet now, Chen Ming stood at the entrance to this infamous Demon