Chapter 257: Trapped

DONNNNGGGGG…! DONNNNGGGGG…!

The bell rang three times.

For a fraction of a second, absolute silence fell over Mount Mysaria as thousands of disciples froze in their tracks on the training plazas, their faces turning deathly pale.

“The… the Bell of Calamity?” an inner disciple stammered, dropping his spirit sword onto the stone steps.

“It’s a Level-One Extinction Warning!” a core elder shouted from a high balcony, his voice amplified by qi to reach every corner of the peak.

“All disciples, core warriors, and hall masters! Form your combat units immediately! The Southern Hashian Mountains are under siege! Follow the Sect Leader into the fray! Protect our home!”

The panic lasted for only a heartbeat before it gave way to fierce, desperate resolve.

“To arms!”

“Protect the sect!”

From every temple-like stone building, every underground secluded chamber, and every mountain plaza, thousands of figures erupted into the sky.

Disciples clad in dark red robes drew their weapons, their combined martial auras igniting across Mount Mysaria like a mountain catching fire.

Core elders riding tamed spirit-beasts led massive formations of martial artists down the thousands of stone steps, streaming toward the foothills in an endless, surging river of red steel.

The battle for the Southern Hashian Mountains had truly begun.

Thirty Kilometers North of the Crimson Key Sect Border.

While the blood-soaked chaos unfolded around Mount Mysaria, a small, highly disciplined squad of five figures flew silently through the upper cloud layer, moving south at breakneck speed.

They were dressed in pristine, silver-and-gold plate armor that gleamed brightly under the sunlight.

Long, snow-white cloaks embroidered with the radiant sun-and-sky emblem of the Holy Church snapped in the wind behind them.

Each warrior carried a heavy, double-handed broadsword strapped to their back, their bodies radiating the calm, imposing pressure of high-tier Martial Generals.

They were Holy Paladins of the Church of the God of the Sky.

On the surface, their mission was routine and diplomatic.

Following the explicit orders dispatched by Cardinal Ryoger, this five-man vanguard unit had been sent ahead of the main Holy Fleet to enter the Southern Hashian Mountains.

Their official directive was to conduct a preliminary sweep, contact the regional sects, and verify if the Southern Hashian range was harboring the blasphemous followers of the God of Beast.

Four of the paladins flew in tight formation, their eyes scanning the terrain below with stern, righteous arrogance.

They truly believed they were the glorious tip of the spear, bringing divine light to a religiously chaotic lawless land.

However, the leader of the squad—a battle-hardened Paladin Captain named Gerald, whose face was scarred from decades of holy wars—flew slightly ahead of his men, his hands gripping his leather reins tightly.

Underneath his silver helmet, Gerald’s eyes were cold, hollow, and devoid of light.

Only he knew the true, horrifying reality of their mission.

There were no secret cultists to negotiate with.

There were no hidden sanctuaries to politely inspect.

Before departing the Northern camps, Gerald had been called into a private, ward-sealed tent where Cardinal Ryoger and the terrifying, single-eyed Angel Mauresis had looked into his soul.

They had bestowed upon him a divine, absolute decree—a secret mandate straight from the heavens.

‘When your boots touch the border soil of the South,’ the Cardinal’s multi-layered, hypnotic voice re-echoed inside Gerald’s mind,

‘you shall draw your blade. You shall execute your four brothers in their sleep or from behind. Then, you shall carve the sacred runes of the God of Beast into your own chest and thrust your blade through your own heart.’

Gerald felt no fear, no regret, and no hesitation.

His mind had been completely rewritten by fanatical devotion and high-tier divine indoctrination.

To die by his own hand, to murder his comrades-in-arms, to allow their mangled corpses to be paraded as victims of a southern heresy—it was all for the glorious, unyielding expansion of the Sky God’s dominion.

Their deaths would be the bloody spark.

The excuse the Holy Church needed to march three thousand paladins, ten Martial Lords, and an Angel across the southern border to cleanse the continent.

‘Just a few more kilometers…’ Gerald thought, his eyes tracking a jagged mountain ridge ahead that marked the official border line of the Southern Hashian range. ‘A few more minutes, my brothers… and we shall offer our blood to the Sky God…’

He cleared his throat, adjusting his flying vector. “Keep your sharp eyes open, men,” Gerald called out over the rushing wind, his voice smooth and betraying nothing. “The southern sects are treacherous. Stay in tight formation.”

“Understood, Captain!” one of the younger paladins replied, his voice filled with pride. “Let those southern neutrals see the glory of the Holy See!”

The four paladins chuckled, their martial qi flaring as they accelerated toward the border ridge.

Suddenly, Gerald’s skin pricked with a violent, freezing chill.

It was not wind.

It was an instinctual, primal terror that surged up from the deepest core of his martial soul, warning him of absolute, imminent death.

“Stop!” Gerald screamed, dropping his vector instantly and thrusting his hands forward to arrest his momentum.

The four paladins behind him gasped, skidding to a halt in mid-air, their white cloaks fluttering wildly around them.

“Captain? What is it—”

Before the paladin could finish his sentence, the sky in front of them violently buckled.

BZZZZZZZT!

Without the slightest warning, a massive, translucent, dome-shaped barrier materialized out of thin air.

It erupted from the earth below, shooting straight up into the high atmosphere and curving over their heads in a matter of milliseconds.

The barrier was not made of holy light, nor was it constructed from standard elemental pressure.

It was a suffocating, blood-crimson expanse formed from dense, swirling divine runes that hummed with a dark, ancient, and absolute authority.

The five paladins were completely enclosed within a hemispherical dome nearly three kilometers wide, totally severed from the outside world.

The bright sunlight vanished, replaced by an eerie, pulsing crimson twilight that cast long, distorted shadows across their silver armor.

The air inside the barrier instantly grew heavy—so heavy that the four younger paladins groaned, their flying stances faltering as they felt their martial qi stagnate within their meridians.

“A barrier?!” one paladin yelled, drawing his broadsword with a sharp clang. “An ambush?! Is it the southern sects?!”

Captain Gerald’s heart slammed against his ribs.

He looked down at his spatial compass, but the needle was spinning wildly, completely scrambled by the domain’s overwhelming interference.

Worse, the faint, soul-bound communication link he held with the main Holy Fleet in the North had been instantly severed.

They were completely trapped in an isolated pocket of space.

Gerald drew his heavy broadsword, his knuckles turning white as he stared at the glowing, crimson-runed wall blocking their path.

“Who goes there?!” Gerald shouted into the eerie crimson silence, his voice echoing off the curved walls of the dome.

“We are the Holy Vanguard of the Church of the God of the Sky! Identify yourselves, heretics!”

No voice answered him.

Instead, from the shadowy center of the blood-red dome, a low, rhythmic sound began to echo—the slow, deliberate sound of soft footsteps walking across mid-air, as if stepping upon invisible glass stairs.