Chapter 256: Resisting the Calamity

BOOM!

The floor of the grand sanctuary didn’t merely shake; it bucked like the spine of a dying leviathan.

Cracks webbed across the polished obsidian flooring, tearing through centuries-old defensive runes like paper.

Dust cascaded from the lofty rafters, obscuring the shattered tea cups and overturned ironwood chairs in a choking grey haze.

The Sect Leader of the Crimson Key Sect didn’t wait for the dust to clear.

His mind, refined through decades of life-and-death encounters, instantly bypassed shock and snapped into lethal clarity.

Without uttering a single word, he surged forward.

His dark crimson robes whipped behind him as he blurred into a streak of ruby light, blasting straight through the floor-to-ceiling arched window.

The heavy glass vanished into a rain of glittering shards.

“Sect Leader!” Elder Vane roared, his voice cracking with panic.

“Follow him! Move!” Elder Mani bellowed, his previous arguments forgotten in the face of immediate crisis.

The four grand elders—Vane, Kael, Garos, and Balthazar—unleashed their cultivation, their martial auras bursting forth in varied shades of scarlet and crimson as they leapt out of the shattered tower, soaring into the open sky directly behind their leader.

The moment they cleared the shadow of Mount Mysaria’s central spire, the sheer scale of the horror hit them like a physical blow.

“Merciful ancestors…” Elder Garos gasped, his face draining of all color.

The southern mountain range was bleeding.

From the deep, sunless ravines and forgotten subterranean abysses surrounding Mount Mysaria, an endless, writhing sea of nightmares had erupted onto the earth.

They were F-class Abominations—vicious, bio-corrupted horrors born from ancient, tainted ley lines.

Normally, these mindless beasts lingered deep within the uninhabited trench domains, fighting amongst themselves in mindless hunger.

Now, they marched as a unified, horrifying host.

Massive, six-limbed quadrupeds with armor plating made of calcified bone smashed through pine forests like battering rams.

Flying, bat-like monstrosities with multi-jointed wings and dripping, lamprey-like muzzles swarmed the skies in clouds so thick they blotted out the midday sun.

Serpent-like horrors with dozens of scythe-like legs burrowed through the hillside soil, causing entire stone ridges to collapse inward.

“Help! Someone save us!”

“Ahhhh! My leg! Get it off me—!”

Screams of pure, helpless agony echoed up from the foothills.

A thriving trading town situated at the base of Mount Mysaria was already undergoing a systematic massacre.

Wood-and-stone houses were flattened in seconds beneath the crushing weight of hundreds of trampling abominations.

Innocent civilians, local merchants, and low-tier independent cultivators were torn apart in mid-flight or dragged down into the writhing mass of snapping jaws and thrashing claws.

The sweet, metallic stench of fresh blood drifted upward, thick enough to taste.

“They aren’t feeding…” Elder Vane whispered in absolute horror, his eyes wide as he watched a pack of bone-plated monstrosities crush a group of fleeing merchants without even stopping to consume the flesh.

“They aren’t hunting! They’re marching! Something is driving them!”

“It doesn’t matter what is driving them!” the Sect Leader’s voice boomed out like a thunderclap, echoing across the sky. His silver hair floated wildly in the wind as a terrifying, cold fury erupted from his body.

“If this tide breaches the inner valleys, the Southern Hashian Mountains will cease to exist! Cull them!”

SCHWING!

From the Sect Leader’s spatial ring, a long, crimson longsword materialized.

The blade was forged from deep-sea blood steel, humming with an ancient, bloodthirsty resonance.

The Sect Leader drew back his arm, his knees bending slightly in mid-air as he channeled the vast, crushing ocean of his Martial Lord realm cultivation into the weapon.

The air around his sword turned incandescent, warping violently as pure crimson qi condensed along the edge until it resembled a miniature sun.

“Heaven-Cleaving Crimson Tide!”

The Sect Leader swung his sword downwards in a sweeping, two-handed arc.

WHOOSH—BOOM!

A crescent-shaped wave of pure, concentrated ruby sword-light—spanning easily over three hundred meters in length—slashed down from the sky.

It cut through the air with a deafening sonic boom, slicing through the cloud layer before detonating directly into the densest mass of the abomination horde at the town’s perimeter.

The ground split wide open.

A trench fifty feet deep and half a mile long was instantly carved into the earth.

Thousands of F-class abominations were incinerated where they stood; those caught on the periphery of the sword-wave were atomized into crimson mist by the sheer kinetic force, their calcified bones and black blood vanishing in a flash of heat.

It was an absolute demonstration of Martial Lord prowess—a single strike capable of erasing armies.

Yet, as the smoke cleared, the elders’ hearts sank.

The gap created by the devastating attack lasted for less than two seconds.

From behind the fallen line, thousands more abominations surged forward without a moment’s hesitation, stepping over the charred remains of their kin, their glowing crimson eyes fixed entirely on the mountain ahead.

“They have no fear!” Elder Kael roared, drawing a pair of massive, hook-shaped crimson blades.

“Die, you wretched filth!”

Kael dove straight into the sky-swarm of bat-like monstrosities.

His blades turned into a whirling typhoon of red steel, severing wings, decapitating grotesque heads, and raining black blood down upon the forest.

Beside him, Elder Vane, Elder Garos, and Elder Balthazar unleashed their respective peak Martial General techniques.

Vane summoned giant, ethereal crimson palms that slammed down from the clouds, crushing dozens of armored quadrupeds into pulp with every strike.

Garos unleashed a hail of blazing qi-spears, impaling burrowing serpents through their skulls, while Balthazar formed a swirling shield of sharp red wind-blades, carving through any creature that dared approach their flank.

The battle was frantic, intense, and suffocating.

Despite the grand elders and the Sect Leader slaughtering abominations by the thousands, the sheer, endless density of the horde began to press back against them.

For every hundred abominations the elders cut down, two hundred more sprang from the ravines.

The air grew heavy with the rancid heat of black monster blood and the ozone smell of overtaxed martial aura.

The flying abomination with razor-sharp mandibles managed to bypass Garos’s guard, grazing his shoulder and tearing through his elder robes, painting his arm red.

“They’re bypassing our flanks!” Balthazar yelled, wiping black blood from his forehead as he cut down three flying beasts.

“Sect Leader! We cannot hold a front this wide with just five people!”

The Sect Leader, his blade covered in black gore as he executed swift, lethal thrusts that detonated the heads of high-tier abomination champions, turned his gaze back toward Mount Mysaria.

“Ring the Bell of Calamity,” the Sect Leader commanded, his voice dark and unyielding.

“Deploy every soul.”

Elder Vane instantly reached into his robes, pulling out a golden, jade-inlaid talisman.

He bit his thumb, smearing his blood across its surface, and slammed his palm against it.

DONNNNGGGGG…!

Deep within the central plaza of Mount Mysaria, an ancient, colossal bronze bell hanging from a floating stone pavilion violently reverberated.

The sound was not loud—it was heavy. It was a deep, soul-shaking vibration that bypassed the ear and resonated directly within the chests of every inhabitant on the mountain.

Once for warning.

Twice for war.

Thrice for existential disaster.