Chapter 478: Upheaval in the Second World

The Qilin Bell soared skyward, only to slam into an unseen barrier.

An invisible, shapeless barrier abruptly revealed itself as intricate demonic patterns spread across the greenish-black sky.

The sky above the Demon Abyss Continent had been capped.

Li Jie suddenly realized why the sky was so unnaturally dark.

An unimaginably massive barrier shrouded the entire Demon Abyss Continent, preventing anyone from leaving.

Li Jie was horrified.

𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

Who? Who is capable of sealing off an entire continent like this? Even True Gods don't necessarily possess such an ability!

He tried ascending from different regions using the Qiling Bell, but every attempt ended with him crashing into the barrier.

Pausing, he focused his gaze into the distance.

In the direction of the Black Valley Sect, powerful cultivators had also recognized the abnormal situation and were fiercely striking at the impenetrable barrier.

There were even several Immortal Realm cultivators among them!

However, not even Immortal Realm cultivators with sacred artifacts could break through the strange barrier. None could escape the confines of the Demon Abyss Continent.

A cold chill ran through Li Jie.

Who is behind this? What kind of being could render even Immortal Realm cultivators helpless?

No one could answer him. He was nowhere closer to learning what had happened.

An overwhelming sense of isolation consumed him.

He peered down at the human cities affiliated with the Demon Sect and Black Valley Sect.

Misery and death filled the air.

There were no such things as saints in this world. No one could truly say their heart was free of selfishness or impurities.

All intelligent beings with flesh and blood could harbor some level of malice or wicked thoughts. Unfortunately, it seemed the anomaly on the Demon Abyss Continent amplified these negative traits to an extreme.

Sect rivalries, family feuds, and long-buried grudges were all dredged up and reignited.

The amplified negative emotions unleashed devastating destructive forces, spreading to every corner of the continent.

Slaughter and death only magnified hatred.

The resentment, despair, violence, and rage of the dying coalesced into a sinister energy, invisible to ordinary perception.

This sinister energy sank into the Demon Abyss Continent and merged with the barrier shrouding the continent.

After meticulous examination, Li Jie came to a terrifying realization.

This barrier is an extension of the Demon Abyss Continent itself and is strangely intertwined with the land.

Evidently, a force had been secretly at work for years in preparation for this moment. The barrier sealing the Demon Abyss Continent was the culmination of a carefully orchestrated plan for nefarious purposes.

***

Outside of the Demon Abyss Continent, True God Li Wang of the Nine Tribes Sect sat atop a divine artifact shaped like a phoenix, expression was grave as he stared downward.

Whoosh!

The divine radiance in his eyes, normally capable of piercing through any barrier, could not penetrate the sealed Demon Abyss Continent.

The greenish-black barrier only revealed clusters of demonic patterns with thin crystalline veins connecting them.

"Li Wang, the barrier has merged seamlessly with the Demon Abyss Continent," said Dong Shangqing, the True God of the Ancient Law Sect. "The crystalline veins on the barrier likely correspond to the spirit and mineral veins in the land."

Dong Shangqing stood beside Li Wang, balanced atop a compass-like artifact.

Talismans inscribed with mystical patterns flew from his long billowing sleeves like a river of stars before being cast toward the barrier shrouding the Demon Abyss Continent.

The talismans, imbued with a will of their own, started navigating the intricate demonic array within the barrier, searching for a way to unravel its secrets.

"I'm afraid I cannot do this alone," Dong Shangqing said gravely. "Summon Liu Fu and that member of the Li Family immediately. If the three of us work together, perhaps we could break this Heaven-Encompassing Demonic Array in a shorter time."

Impatience flickered in Li Wang's eyes.

Seeing this, Dong Shangqing hastily cautioned, "Li Wang, under no circumstances are you to force your way through this Heaven-Encompassing Demonic Array! Using brute force will only bring catastrophic consequences!"

"What consequences?" Li Wang asked coldly.

"The Demon Abyss Continent will break apart with the Heaven-Encompassing Demonic Array. All the human cities, the Demon Sect, and the Black Valley Sect on it will collapse.

"The human population on the Demon Abyss Continent will likely suffer catastrophic losses, with less than one in ten surviving.

"Is that the outcome you desire? A fractured continent with ninety percent of the humans on it wiped out.

"Li Wang, if you proceed with this, you will go down in human history as the eternal sinner of our race!" Dong Shangqing warned harshly.

Li Wang, the nominal leader of the True Gods, fell silent for a long while

"I'll summon them," he eventually said. "I hope the three of you can work together to dismantle this Heaven-Encompassing Demonic Array as quickly as possible.

"Something terrible is happening on the continent below, and I need to find out what it is!"

***

Also in the Second World, on the Heaven Awakening Continent, dense spiritual qi poured into the nine-story Sword Pavilion, which resembled a sword pointing toward the ground.

It had been like this ever since Li Zhaotian announced his seclusion,

Half a month later, clouds imbued with the aura of a divine seat quietly formed above the Sword Pavilion.

Everyone understood what the arrival of this cloud meant.

Before entering seclusion, Li Zhaotian had downplayed it, claiming he was only pretending to attempt the breakthrough to the True God Realm. However, the cloud's appearance made it evident that he was actually serious.

He was formally striving for the rank of True God.

When news of the upheaval in the Demon Abyss Continent spread to the Sword Pavilion, Jiang Ran met with the elders on Sword Honing Peak to discuss the matter.

At that moment, the cloud representing the divine seat shattered!

Li Zhaotian's cloud failed to descend into the Sword Pavilion, instead dispersing into its surroundings.

"The Pavilion Master failed!"

"How's that possible? Our Pavilion Master is a peerless genius. How could he possibly fail?"

"Why did it have to happen now?"

"The Pavilion Master could not step into the True God Realm. What do we do now?"

The Sword Pavilion's elders and protectors found their tightly strung nerves on the verge of snapping in the face of the great responsibilities ahead.

Some disciples sat on the ground and wept, mourning his failure. They cursed the heavens for its unfairness and vowed never to forget this period of despair.

Even Immortal Realm elders such as Jiang Ran, Guang He, and Liu Junhong felt like their pillars of strength had crumbled beneath them.

They only understood what the audacious man meant to both the Sword Pavilion and them after he failed to ascend to the True God Realm.

Hu Yuanfei rushed out of the Heaven Departure Peak in a panic, gaping at where the clouds had once been. Dazed and heartbroken, she muttered, "Master... couldn't ascend to the True God Realm after all..."

Her mind collapsed.

That day, news spread across the Heaven Awakening Continent about Li Zhaotian's failure to ascend to the True God Realm. The endeavor had left him severely injured and his cultivation realm had regressed.

The following day, the Dragon Lair Sect on the Sacred Soul Continent publicly announced that it would no longer ally with the human race to fight the foreign races from the Fifth World.

There were also reports of an ominous barrier sealing the Demon Abyss Continent away. No one could enter or escape the continent, and nobody knew what was happening inside.

The news from these three continents was each more dire than the last.

A crushing blow had been dealt to the human race, and their already precarious situation seemed to be worsening by the minute.

***

In the Demon Abyss on the sealed Demon Abyss Continent, Pang Jian remained blissfully unaware of the chaos unfolding in the Second World.

He wielded Li Jie's crafted sword scabbard like a guiding tool and flew swiftly toward the massive purple demonic stone.

The corrupting influence of demonic energy no longer affected him after cultivating the Primeval Demon Fusion Art and forming a vast greenish-black demonic sea in his dantian.

On his way, his connection with the Abyssal Demon was abruptly severed.

He could no longer sense the Abyssal Demon and thus could not ascertain what was happening near the demonic stone.

Evidently, something had happened to the Abyssal Demon, or their connection would not have broken.

Pang Jian sped up.

Before long, he arrived safely before the massive purple demonic stone.

At first, relief flooded him, but then the strange scene before him soon overshadowed the feeling.

Xuan Ying of the Demon Scale Race, Wu Yuan of the Demon Sect, and Moon God Ying Yue's vessel sat at the foot of the towering purple demonic stone.

The Abyssal Demon Sword was embedded in the ground near the demonic stone.

Even at such close proximity, he could not sense the Abyssal Demon, and the sword felt strangely unfamiliar to him.

Frowning, he probed the situation carefully, only for his expression to change drastically.

Xuan Ying, Wu Yuan, the Moon God Ying Yue, and the Abyssal Demon were not emitting any soul fluctuations!

Pang Jian quickly used his divine sense to examine the trio and the Abyssal Demon Sword. To his horror, he discovered that none of them had any trace of a soul.

Their souls had completely vanished!

The question, of course, was where they could have gone.

Pang Jian's eyes instinctively fell upon the massive purple demonic stone, and a sense of foreboding filled him.

The demonic stone likely had the power to absorb souls.

Pang Jian was on high alert, fearful of ending up like the others.

He dared not even release his divine sense to probe the demonic stone as he did not know if doing so would trigger its sinister power.

Keeping a safe distance from the purple demonic stone, he relied solely on his eyes and intuition to observe.

He soon sensed an eerie energy flowing silently toward the massive demonic stone, from the sky and the depths of the ground.

This eerie energy was the dark thoughts and desires of living beings!

It embodied violence, bloodlust, hatred, despair, debauchery, corruption, and all manner of inhuman acts.

The demonic stone from the starry skies absorbed these malevolent thoughts and desires, seemingly to fuel the creation of something ominous.