It was not dark clouds blotting out the sun, nor a sudden thickening of wind and snow.
It was more as though a boundless black curtain had fallen from beyond the Nine Heavens, silently covering the entire Snow Valley of Faneng Temple.
The radiance of treasures and spiritual light that had soared into the sky dimmed.
Everyone's heart sank at once.
Qing Chen's spiritual perception throbbed wildly.
This was no ordinary warning of approaching danger, but a chill almost instinctive in nature, rooted in the very level of his existence.
Above his head, the Northwestern Circuit-Surveying Seal abruptly blazed with azure light and spun rapidly. Streams of Immortal Dynasty Fortune descended, forcibly steadying the Northwestern Mountains and Rivers Phantom behind him.
At the same time, his blood path and magnetic origin rule rules pseudo-domains spread outward layer by layer. Gray-white ripples of primordial magnetism interwove with dark red blood light, attempting to probe the depths of the darkness and uncover the newcomer's origins.
Yet the moment the pseudo-domain touched the outer edge of the darkness, it seemed to collide with a gaping maw.
Crunch.
A gnawing sound came from the void, making the scalps and divine souls of every Nascent Soul Cultivator present prickle.
For they saw with perfect clarity that a corner of the gray-white magnetic ripples at the edge of Qing Chen's pseudo-domain had actually been bitten clean off by something invisible.
As though it had never existed.
Then came a second bite.
A third.
Deep within that darkness, the phantom of a strange beast with an indescribably uncanny aura finally began to emerge.
It was a taotie.
It had no complete body, only a savage, enormous head suspended at the far end of the sky.
Its two horns curved like ancient mountain ranges, and devouring runes covered