The Judgment Hall Master departed with his orders, the killing intent surging around him tightly entwined with shadow divine power so dense it seemed impossible to dissipate, forming gusts of black astral wind visible to the naked eye. Wherever he walked, the surrounding air instantly froze beneath his chilling aura, and even space developed fine cracks. Every cultivator passing through the church trembled with fear, their hair standing on end. They bowed their heads and pressed themselves against either side of the corridor to make way. Not one dared look directly at this power behind the Shadow Church, whose fury had reached its limit, lest his anger engulf them and instantly scatter their souls.
In a mere instant, the Judgment Hall Master arrived outside the Pope's secret chamber, within an isolated Secret Realm buried ten thousand feet underground.
The church had long since prepared this God Descent Altar in secret. The floor and all four walls were inscribed with obscure Shadow Runes left over from ancient times. Their twisted, hideous patterns exuded an age-old bloodiness and pressure. This was the ultimate reserve the Shadow Church had passed down for ten thousand years, its forbidden last resort. In ordinary times, no matter how great the upheaval the church faced, it would never activate it lightly. Only when the church faced annihilation, or needed to kill an unparalleled enemy capable of overturning the continent's balance and threatening its foundations, would it employ such a heaven-defying forbidden art.
The entire altar had been cast from the resentment and blood essence of hundreds of millions of living beings. As the divine patterns on the ground flowed, the piercing wails of countless dead souls could faintly be heard. Nine pitch-black divine pillars towered straight up at its center, spanning heaven and earth. Desiccated, blackened ancient