76: Hell on Earth

Half an hour later.

Venerable Yun Miao's heart finally gradually calmed down. Recalling the scene just now, his face flushed, and he couldn't help but reveal a somewhat embarrassed smile.

"I've made a fool of myself before Fellow Daoist Taiyin."

He wished he could find a crack in the ground to crawl into.

After all, he was just a young man in his early thirties who had never experienced such a crisis before.

Yu Xuzi shook his head and said in a heavy voice, "Fellow Daoist Yun Miao is a person of true character; there's nothing to laugh at. I'm only wondering, what are your plans for the future?"

"Plans?"

Venerable Yun Miao looked up, his eyes filled with nothing but bewilderment.

Then, it turned into bitterness.

"The situation has deteriorated to this point. Billions of Mortals across the entire continent have been devoured, and the Cultivation World itself is in peril. What plans can there be? There is only holding our ground until the end."

"In that case, why doesn't Fellow Daoist Yun Miao make a deal with me?"

Yu Xuzi suddenly spoke up.

"A deal?"

Venerable Yun Miao looked at him in confusion.

"Yes."

Just as Yu Xuzi was about to continue, Venerable Yun Miao suddenly interrupted him, spreading his hands.

"I have yet to repay Fellow Daoist Taiyin for saving my life, so why talk about a deal?"

"Without you, we would have fallen long ago. If there is anything in this Yun Miao Sect that catches your eye, please just take it. Consider it as leaving a spark of hope for my Yun Miao Sect."

...Several hours later.

Yu Xuzi left the Yun Miao Sect, preparing to look around other places.

He originally wanted to strike a deal with Venerable Yun Miao, using Spirit Stones or other Resources to exchange for the Yun Miao Sect's Cultivation Technique Legacies, Spell scriptures, Alchemy and Artifact Refining catalogs, as well as records of the basic situation of this realm.

However, Venerable Yun Miao generously gave all these things to Yu Xuzi directly. As for Spirit Stones, he wouldn't take them even if it killed him.

He stated plainly that it was to repay the life-saving debt.

"This person is indeed of true character, with a pure heart and worth befriending. I hope he can pull through."

Yu Xuzi took one last look back and sighed.

At the summit of the Yun Miao Sect, Venerable Yun Miao and the remaining Disciples were still bowed in a long, respectful salute.

In the end, Yu Xuzi left behind five High Grade Rank One Puppets he had refined himself, along with a set of defensive Formations.

It was the same set from the Hunyuan Sect of the Qingyuan Realm, with a grade reaching Low Grade Rank Two.

Venerable Yun Miao initially didn't want the Formation, but since the Yun Miao Sect's original Mountain Protecting Grand Formation had completely shattered and was unusable, if the Demons came again, the remaining tens of thousands of Mortals would essentially be certain to die.

Finally, under Yu Xuzi's persuasion, he accepted it... "Demons! Demons!"

"The records in the 'Overview of the Mountains, Seas, and Great Thousand' were indeed correct—frenzied, bloody, tyrannical, and cruel."

"Complete and utter chaotic lawlessness!"

High in the sky, Embracing Star flapped its wings through the sea of clouds, like a golden meteor tearing through the firmament, leaving a brilliant golden trail.

On the eagle's back, Yu Xuzi looked down at the 'Hell on Earth' below. Even though he had seen many tragic scenes, his expression couldn't help but turn grim at this moment.

A blood-colored mist, mixed with a dense demonic aura, shrouded the entire land, looking like the resentment formed from the evaporated blood of countless living beings.

The once prosperous human world had now been reduced to a hunting ground for Demons, with scenes of appalling cruelty everywhere.

Cities had been turned into ruins.

Towering city walls were collapsed by brute force, revealing the broken buildings inside, with mutilated corpses lying haphazardly across the streets.

Some were disemboweled with their organs removed; some had only half a body left, the lower half missing; others were hung upside down from eaves, blood dripping from their toes and pooling into small crimson puddles on the ground.

Bite marks remained on those white bones, some of which were even chewed into fragments.

Even from high in the air, Yu Xuzi could smell the nauseating mixture of rot and blood permeating the atmosphere.

"Truly damnable!"

Yu Xuzi murmured to himself.

This was not like any battlefield he had seen before; it was more like a 'genocide' targeted at the Human Race!

No... not just the Human Race.

Including other wild animals, Yao Beasts, and all sentient beings—all were within the Demons' hunting range.

In the rolling mountain ranges, the once vibrant scenes no longer existed.

Countless ancient trees were uprooted and lay scattered on the ground, and the corpses of wild animals were visible everywhere, enough to make one's skin crawl.

Even more terrifying were the polluted spiritual lands.

Places of Spiritual Veins that were once misty with Spiritual Qi were now eroded by the aura of Demons. Precious Spirit Medicines and Spiritual Plants began to mutate, and even the Heaven And Earth Spiritual Essence in the air carried a thick 'demonic' scent... For several days, Embracing Star carried Yu Xuzi across tens of thousands of miles, and the scenes he saw remained the same.

"What is that?"

Yu Xuzi suddenly discovered an anomaly ahead.

In the ruins of a massive city, a dark red 'mirror surface' spanning a thousand feet appeared.

It was a... Blood Pool.

The surface of the pool was constantly roiling and boiling, as if some gargantuan creature was struggling at the bottom.

At the edge of the Blood Pool, countless corpses were piled up like mountains.

Mortals, Cultivators, Yao Beasts... these corpses were being pulled by some force, slowly sliding into the Blood Pool.

*Glug, glug, glug—*

The crimson pool water was as thick as plasma, with shredded meat, organs, and bone fragments floating on the surface.

They were reassembling in the pool, gradually forming distorted skeletons.

Some skeletons had three heads, some had six arms, and others had dozens of bone spikes extending from their spines.

Immediately after, flesh and blood rapidly grew onto the skeletons, turning into writhing tumors of various sizes, looking like beating hearts.

Vague outlines were faintly visible inside the tumors.

Those were unformed Demons, curled up inside the tumors, constantly absorbing the essence from the Blood Pool.

Yu Xuzi saw with his own eyes a certain tumor contract violently and then suddenly expand.

A crack appeared on the surface of the tumor.

Then, a massive claw tore through the tumor and reached out, covered in pitch-black scales, its fingertips sharp as knives and glinting with a chilling light.

"Roar—"

A sky-shaking roar erupted from the tumor.

A new Demon had been born.

It spotted Embracing Star circling high in the sky. Its crimson pupils instantly revealed a hunger for the flesh of living beings. It spread blood-colored wings nearly a hundred feet wide and roared as it flew up to charge.

This was a Demon that possessed Late Stage Rank One strength the moment it was born.

And there were at least a hundred such existences currently gestating in this Blood Pool.