Chapter 354 - 345: Were You Calling Me? Or Were You All Calling Me?

Chapter 354: Chapter 345: Were You Calling Me? Or Were You All Calling Me?

The sudden disturbance interrupted the sacrificial rite.

Clad in a Dragon Robe, Wuhuan Che stood blankly at the head of the altar.

At only eight years old, it was a remarkable feat for him to have memorized the long, convoluted prayer to the heavens and to have remained standing for so long. The current emergency was clearly beyond his abilities. His small figure looked completely at a loss on the vast altar.

The relics of the former dynasty, however, reacted quickly, taking control of the situation with practiced ease.

"Quick, send someone to see what’s happened!"

"Protect Prince Che!"

The crowd sprang into motion, and soon, a report came back: the rebels of the Banner-cutting Alliance were wreaking havoc in the city and had destroyed the cores of multiple Arrays...

"It’s those damn pests again!"

One of the relics couldn’t help but curse through gritted teeth, "Our methods have been far too lenient! To dare disrupt the Grand Sacrifice... if this ruins our great plan of restoration, dicing them into a thousand pieces wouldn’t be enough to sate our hatred!"

"Have the Martial Tributors from every family come at once! Hunt down and kill the Banner-cutting Alliance rebels throughout the city!"

Just as they were speaking, someone’s face suddenly paled. As if just realizing something, he cried out, "The Array cores were destroyed... then the Earth Palace...?!"

In an instant, the faces of many people present changed as one.

A fresh barrage of frantic commands followed.

Amidst the chaos of the Grand Sacrifice, Helu stood in the center of the crowd. He was dressed in a black Prince’s Robe embroidered with dragons, and he leisurely inspected his fingernails, as if everything happening had nothing to do with him.

But from an angle no one could see, the corners of his mouth were slowly curling into a smirk.

...

「Earth Altar.」

The thick stench of blood permeated the tournament grounds.

The wind had stopped at some point, causing the great banner emblazoned with the character for "Spirit" to hang limp. Beneath it, Mu Feng, Ning Yuan, and the others stood before the spectator stands, their faces grim. All traces of their earlier, easygoing demeanor had vanished.

On the tournament stage—from its edges, up the steps, and across its entire surface—lay bleeding, convulsing figures.

In the very center of the stage, a figure nearly three meters tall and shrouded in thick black smoke stood silently.

Its specific features were impossible to make out; one could only vaguely discern a powerful, exaggeratedly muscular silhouette that seemed almost inhuman, and a pair of eyes that glowed like scarlet gems.

"As expected. A pile of trash is still just trash."

The fully unfurled Heart Scene Map depicted a scene like a bloody slaughterhouse.

It now enveloped the entire tournament stage, overlapping seamlessly with the carnage on the platform and making it nearly impossible to distinguish illusion from reality.

The brawny man, wreathed in thick black smoke, stood in the center of this slaughterhouse. He looked at Hong Huan, whose neck was caught in his grasp, and said softly with a cruel smile:

"Even with ten of you coming at me at once... you’re still pathetically weak."

Hong Huan dangled in the air, held aloft by the braided brute’s single hand, his neck in the man’s grip.

Even in his second Spirit Awakening state, he looked as frail as a child before the brute.

Blood was seeping from his ears, mouth, and nose; he no longer had the strength to even struggle.

This was an absolute rout.

The power gap between the two sides was too great. Even with every single one of the Spirit Banner’s noteworthy Martial Tributors attacking at once, they were no match for the brute, who was at the Heart Intent Realm and had undergone three demonic infusions.

"And where is your Young Master Ling?"

The brute held Hong Huan with nonchalant ease, as if he were merely a blood-soaked burlap sack.

He looked up toward the Spirit Banner and sneered, "How could he possibly miss such an interesting scene?"

He took a vicious step forward, his foot landing on a figure below and completely crushing the person’s chest cavity!

BOOM!

Amidst the sickening sound of cracking bones and rupturing organs, the brute’s murderous aura flared like a beacon, unleashing a gale that bore down on the Spirit Banner!

"Aren’t you going to call for him?! Tell him to get the hell out here!

Haha..."

The terrifying pressure of his aura caused everyone on the Spirit Banner’s side to turn deathly pale. Some were so frightened they stumbled backward.

The courage of the entire group was crushed by the aura of this one man; not a single person dared to utter a sound.

On the other side, the various families of the Lower Five Banners were all smiling; everything was proceeding exactly as they had predicted.

Watching Mu Feng across the way, his face a mask of panic as he struggled to maintain his composure, the Blue Banner Lord of the Lower Five Banners smirked and slowly began to rise from his chair.

But just then, a tremor ran through the ground, accompanied by a huge, muffled boom.

Everyone froze, instinctively looking down.

THUD!

THUD!!

THUD!!!

The muffled thuds came one after another, as if someone were beating a drum underground, the sound growing closer and closer.

Each thud was accompanied by a tremor in the ground.

The shaking grew more and more violent, to the point that some people could barely keep their footing.

On the tournament stage, the braided brute, his arrogance at its zenith, gradually stopped laughing. He looked down at his feet, his brow slowly furrowing in confusion.

"Forget it. This is boring!"

The brute suddenly raised his arm and viciously threw the half-dead Hong Huan aside. "I thought this Young Master Profound Banner Ling, who’s been all the rage lately, was supposed to be a somebody," he said in an icy tone. "Turns out he’s just a coward hiding in his shell...

Heh."

The brute let out another cold laugh and turned to descend from the stage, ready to step over the corpses of the Nine Families’ Martial Tributors.

But he had only just taken his first step—

Suddenly!

KABOOM!!

An explosion of unprecedented scale erupted.

In an empty patch of ground more than ten meters from the stage, the earth exploded without warning!

Amidst a spray of shattered rock and dust, an incredibly terrifying Demon Fiend aura surged toward the sky!

A massive dark silhouette leaped out from the billowing dust. A demonic wind swept past, carrying a pungent, bloody stench ten, even a hundred, times stronger than that on the stage.

THUD!

The dark silhouette landed heavily upon the stage, right behind the brute as he was about to step off.

It was as if a massive, invisible weight had settled upon the chest of every person present, pressing down until they could hardly breathe.

This sudden, dramatic turn of events left everyone frozen in place.

CRASH!

With a crash, a teacup shattered on the ground over by the Lower Five Banners.

The Zhe Banner Lord, who had been perfectly composed and aloof from start to finish, paid no mind to the scalding tea that had spilled all over his hands and lapels. He stared, stunned, at the familiar demonic shadow that had suddenly erupted from underground and onto the stage.

He was so shocked he almost collapsed to his knees right there.

"Th... th-that... That’s my family’s Demon Lord!"

At that very moment, on the tournament stage.

The braided brute, standing nearly three meters tall in his thrice-infused state, was still completely enveloped by a dense shadow.

He heard the huffing and puffing of scorching hot breath right behind him and felt an aura so terrifying that every hair on his body stood on end. His face ashen and his body rigid, he turned around, inch by agonizing inch.

And then, he saw—

A massive Demon Horse, four meters tall at the shoulder, its body wreathed in a dense, bloody mist and rust-colored smoke.

Its eyes, like burning coals, stared him down. Its great maw, lined with sharp teeth, hung open, a constant stream of bloody saliva drooling from the corners...

The braided brute’s breath hitched. His Heart Scene shattered in an instant. The three types of Demon Flesh and Blood infused into his organs seemed to recoil in fear, and his body began to tremble instinctively.

The next moment, a figure slowly leaned forward from the terrifying Demon Horse’s back.

The man looked down at him and spoke softly, "Just now... were you calling for me?"

The moment the braided brute saw the face of the figure on horseback, his pupils constricted violently.

But before his expression could even register his shock, the Demon Horse, finally unable to restrain itself, lunged forward, opened its cavernous, bloody maw, and clamped down on his torso!

"AAAAAGH!"

CRUNCH, CRUNCH—

Amidst the man’s piercing screams, the Demon Horse began to chew and swallow his violently struggling body right then and there!

The rider seemed displeased by the Demon Horse’s brutal and bloody behavior. He frowned slightly, grabbed a handful of its mane, and forcefully yanked its head up.

Then, he raised his head and looked toward the Lower Five Banners.

His gaze swept over the faces of the five Banner Lords of the Lower Five Banners, one by one, before he spoke in a placid tone:

"Or was it you all who were calling for me?"

In that instant, a deathly silence fell over the entire grounds.

The five Banner Lords of the Lower Five Banners stared blankly at the imposing figure on horseback, seemingly having forgotten how to think.

...