"Step four..."
Bai Ziyin's voice was as calm as water, yet it sounded like a death god's doomsday verdict, sending a chill down Ning Jiuying's neck.
His right foot slowly rose, about to descend.
The golden chains had already wound four times around Ning Jiuying, cutting his skin and tearing his flesh.
Crimson blood trickled along the chains, dripping onto the ground and staining a broad patch of rubble red.
Ning Jiuying's face was as pale as soap, the veins on his forehead bulging violently, his entire body squeezed out of shape by the chains.
He looked hideous and terrifying, as though he were about to be sliced apart by a thousand blades.
He could also clearly feel the golden chains sealing away his cultivation little by little.
Each additional chain dropped him by one realm.
He struggled with all his strength, driving the demonic energy within him to resist, but it was utterly futile, like an ant gnawing at an elephant-meaningless.
The golden chains seemed alive, contracting of their own accord, tightening and cutting ever deeper.
"Bai Ziyin, you goddamn..."
Ning Jiuying's words cut off at his lips, because Bai Ziyin's raised right foot had stopped in midair.
It was not that he did not want to bring it down, but that a terrifying, suffocating pressure was rolling in from the horizon.
Like an invisible mountain, its crushing weight pressed down on everyone present until they could barely breathe.
Even the three white-bearded old men locked in fierce combat stopped in unison, turning grave eyes toward the east.
A black figure stood with his hands behind his back, as unhurried as someone strolling through a courtyard, simply standing there in silence.
He wore black robes, his face shrouded in black mist that made his true features impossible to see.