Chapter 841: Deadlock
Somewhere on the mainland of the Dadangar Subcontinent.
Hour of Shadow Dragon. (10:00 PM – 11:00 PM)
The forest stood beneath the midnight sky like a sleeping beast.
Tall trees stretched endlessly in every direction, their twisted branches woven together like dark claws against the heavens. Above them, a full moon hung high in the sky, pale and cold, casting silver light over the endless sea of leaves.
Thousands of stars glittered around it, scattered like broken pieces of crystal across the darkness. Normally, the forest would have been calm at this hour.
Tonight was different.
The chilly night wind swept violently through the trees, carrying with it a thick metallic smell.
It was the smell of blood.
Too much of it.
The quiet sounds of insects and distant nocturnal beasts had long disappeared. Even the creatures of the forest had fled far away from the chaos unfolding deep within the woods. Low-level demon beasts hid in their dwellings without making a sound.
Because war had arrived.
Boom.
A violent explosion tore through the silence.
The ground trembled as waves of spirit essence burst outward, uprooting nearby bushes and splitting tree trunks in half.
Then came the screams.
Dozens of figures moved rapidly beneath the moonlight, jumping between shattered rocks, broken tree branches, and blood-soaked earth.
Two groups of Spirit cultivators were locked in a brutal battle.
One side wore long black robes.
Every single one of them had their faces hidden behind dark masks, making it impossible to identify who they were.
There were nearly three hundred of them.
Among them, more than thirty had already reached the Foundation Establishment Realm. Their spirit fluctuations were heavy and violent, far surpassing the others around them.
The remaining fighters were late-stage Spirit Gathering cultivators.
Despite being weaker individually, they moved with terrifying discipline, coordinating their attacks with unnatural precision. It was clear that these were not mere cannon fodder. They were making use of battle formations, showcasing the strength that came from their well-coordinated unity.
Facing them was another force of similar size.
The disciples of the Purple River Sect.
Their robes, once bright violet and silver, were now stained dark with blood. They had roughly the same number of fighters. It seemed that the enemy had made use of mirrored deployment to maximize the battle efficiency on their side.
The Purple River Sect members also had over thirty Foundation Establishment experts leading their forces.
Yet despite having similar numbers, they were losing.
And badly at that.
It seemed that the enemy had taken everything into account before making their move.
The difference between the two sides had become obvious almost immediately.
Clang.
A sharp metallic collision rang across the battlefield.
A Purple River Sect disciple swung a glowing spirit sword toward a masked attacker.
Before the blade could connect, the masked cultivator activated a strange black talisman.
The paper burned instantly.
A wave of dark smoke exploded outward.
The Purple River disciple suddenly screamed. His body froze mid-attack. The spirit sword slipped from his hands.
Then something horrifying happened.
The dark smoke started eating his flesh alive.
His skin began sinking inward. His muscles twisted unnaturally. His entire chest collapsed as if invisible jaws were chewing through his body.
Crunch.
Within seconds...
Half of his upper body had vanished.
His corpse dropped lifelessly onto the blood-soaked ground.
A nearby Purple River disciple stared in horror.
"Wh... what... kind of technique is that?!"
He never got his answer.
Whoosh.
A spear coated in crimson light pierced through his throat from behind.
Blood sprayed into the cold night air.
Elsewhere—
A group of seven Purple River disciples stood shoulder to shoulder while forming a defensive formation.
Their leader shouted loudly.
"Hold the line!"
Spirit essence gathered around them.
A glowing purple barrier formed instantly.
But then—
Three masked cultivators stepped forward.
Each one raised strange bronze tubes covered in carved symbols.
Click.
Click.
Click.
The tubes activated.
Bang.
Bang.
Bang.
Three bright streaks of compressed spirit energy shot forward like arrows.
The purple barrier shattered instantly.
The seven disciples behind it had no time to react.
Their bodies exploded.
Flesh scattered across nearby trees.
Pieces of bone landed in wet piles on the grass.
One severed arm flew several meters before crashing against a broken rock.
The battlefield had already turned into a slaughterhouse.
Bodies covered the forest floor.
Some corpses remained intact.
Others had been ripped apart so badly that they were barely recognizable as human.
The smell of blood had become overwhelming.
Yet the battle only grew fiercer.
Far above the battlefield—
Two Foundation Establishment elders from the Purple River Sect fought desperately against five masked experts surrounding them.
One elder, an old man with white hair, roared in fury.
"You cowards! Show your faces if you dare!"
His long saber glowed bright blue as he unleashed a massive crescent-shaped attack.
The spirit slash cut through the air violently.
Two masked cultivators were split in half instantly.
Their bodies fell from the sky.
But before the old man could breathe, one masked expert suddenly appeared behind him.
A strange forbidden spell had already formed in his palm.
A black symbol shaped like an open mouth.
The palm struck the old man’s back.
For half a second, nothing happened.
Then—
The old man screamed.
His body began collapsing inward.
His flesh disappeared piece by piece.
His organs vanished.
His bones cracked loudly.
It looked as though something invisible was eating him from the inside.
Within moments—
Only half of his lower body remained before it too vanished completely.
The second elder froze in terror.
"Elder Gen!!"
That single moment of distraction cost him dearly.
Three black chains suddenly wrapped around his arms and legs.
Before he could struggle—
A masked cultivator dropped from above carrying a massive axe.
Slash.
The elder’s body split vertically from shoulder to waist.
Blood rained onto the forest floor below.
Meanwhile—
The remaining Purple River Sect disciples had begun losing hope.
Their formation was breaking.
Their numbers were falling too quickly.
The masked attackers were stronger.
Their spirit artifacts were superior.
Their pills allowed them to recover during battle.
And worst of all, they possessed forbidden spirit techniques nobody recognized.
Techniques that devoured flesh.
Techniques that corrupted spirit essence.
Techniques that ignored ordinary defensive barriers entirely.
This was too bizarre.
Even most demonic cultivators from the Wild Devil Lands were not this sinister.
It was as if this enemy faction had been summoned out of thin air with no prior background or history.
Without a solid background, there was no way this faction could take on the bona fide sect members of the Purple River Sect, which was supposed to be one of the Big Five on the subcontinent.
And yet, reality proved otherwise.
A young female disciple stumbled backward while clutching a deep wound on her stomach.
Her face had turned pale.
She looked around desperately.
Everywhere she looked—
Death.
Her fellow disciples screamed as they were cut down.
A friend she had known for years lost both legs after stepping on some hidden spirit trap.
Another disciple had his chest torn open by a claw-shaped spell made entirely of black energy.
One corpse nearby had no face left.
Something had eaten it clean off.
The masked cultivators moved forward without hesitation.
Like hunters surrounding wounded prey.
One of them slowly raised a blood-covered blade.
The terrified female disciple stepped backward again.
Her hands trembled.
Her spirit essence was nearly exhausted.
The cold wind blew through the battlefield once more.
The thick and almost palpable stench of death had become unbearable for the members of the Purple River Sect who were beginning to lose their fighting spirit. Their visions were filled with the color red. It was as if the moonlit winds themselves had become bloody, drawing curtains of blood in the air.
Above the forest, the full moon remained silent.
Watching.
As if even heaven itself had chosen to ignore the massacre happening below.
***
Meanwhile...
High above the blood-soaked battlefield, far above the chaos where Foundation Establishment cultivators were fighting fiercely in the night sky, two figures hovered in complete stillness.
They stood hundreds of meters apart.
Yet for Spirit cultivators at their level, such a distance meant almost nothing.
To Core Formation Lords, crossing such a distance could be done in an instant. In their eyes, it was no different from standing directly in front of one another.
Below them, the forest had already turned into a place of death. Explosions echoed continuously. Spirit spells collided one after another.
The screams of dying cultivators mixed with the violent shaking of spirit essence waves spreading across the battlefield. Purple River Sect disciples continued falling one after another. The masked attackers kept advancing like a black tide swallowing everything in its path.
But neither of the two figures in the sky moved.
On the left side stood a tall figure wrapped entirely in dark robes. Just like the other attackers below, this person also wore a black mask that completely hid their face.
Their identity remained hidden.
However, unlike the others—
This person had made absolutely no effort to conceal their cultivation aura. Dense spirit pressure radiated around their body constantly. The fluctuations were extremely stable.
Heavy. Oppressive.
It was the unmistakable aura of a late-stage Core Formation Lord.
On the opposite side stood a middle-aged man wearing flowing purple robes decorated with silver patterns. His long hair fluttered wildly under the cold night wind.
His sharp eyes remained fixed on the masked Lord before him. There was anger inside those eyes. Suppressed hatred. And growing frustration.
He was Purple River Lord.
One of the strongest cultivators of the Dadangar Subcontinent and the sect master of the Purple River Sect.
At this moment, he could clearly see his sect disciples dying below. Every few seconds, another one fell. He wanted nothing more than to rush downward and rescue them.
Yet he could not move.
Because the masked Lord in front of him had locked onto him from the very beginning.
The moment he made a move—
The masked Lord would instantly act as well.
The masked Lord would instantly act as well.
This was a deadlock that the Purple River Lord couldn’t resolve with his own power.
Although he didn’t want to admit it, he realized that he truly needed a capable ally at this moment.
Only now did he understand the importance of forging alliances. He somewhat regretted not investing everything he had in cultivating this alliance with the Emerald Cove Guild.
At this point, he could only hope that the alliance would not remain limited to mere intelligence sharing and that the man who had infiltrated the royal faction through his own capabilities would show up tonight to aid him and break this deadlock.