Beyond the jagged spine of the southern mountains lay the Blood Sea Demonic Barrens. A lonely expanse of cracked red dark rock, rotten-egg mud vents, and withered thorn forests. Here, the soil was soaked with hundreds of years of discarded offering gore. The rivers ran thick with crimson iron silt that smelled of copper and rotting marrow.
Deep within an underground cave blasted from the fiery bedrock, Elder Han Gu stood upon a high terrace carved from black iron.
He was a withered, skeletal figure cloaked in robes of clotted red silk that dragged on the stone like dried scabs. His eye sockets were sunken pits where twin pinpricks of malignant crimson soul-fire flickered. His fingernails were three inches long, as black glass and sharpened like razor-sharp needles. An early Nascent Soul tyrant who had butchered mortal cities to cultivate his blood arts, his very presence warped the surrounding air into a choking, greasy heat.
Before him, held suspended above a lake of bubbling crimson fluid by eight massive chains of cold-forged demon iron, hung the pride of the sect: the Nine-Ghost Blood Soul Cauldron.
The ancient vessel loomed five hundred feet tall, its star-bronze flanks crusted with hundreds of years of demonic patina and etched with thousands of screaming faces. Tendrils of thick, dark red vapor pulsed through the relief carvings. It hissed like trapped vipers whenever the bubbles in the lake burst.
At Han Gu’s feet knelt three trembling demonic students. Their foreheads were pressed against the red iron plates.
“Still no response?” Han Gu’s voice sounded like dry gravel grinding between millstones. He carried a freezing chill that caused frost to form upon the students’ collars. “Deacon Xue San and the eight scouts of the Crimson Phantom Unit have been silent for four days. Their life-slips in the soul hall haven’t shattered, yet my fortune-telling mirrors show only white mist.”
“E-Elder...” the lead student quavered, his voice thin with terror. “The mist over that southern forest possesses bizarre properties. It scatters spiritual senses and mirrors back illusions. Could... Could Deacon Xue have been captured by the beast horde?”
“Captured?” Han Gu sneered, his skeletal fingers curling into claws. “Xue San was an early Foundation Establishment killer with eight years of shadow training. If he fell to wild beasts, his blood-magic charm would have blew up. He scorched the forest for five leagues around! No... Something else is happening in that valley. The rumors of unbranded beastfolk, divine wine, and vast repositories of pure spiritual qi... They’re not mere merchant exaggerations.”
Han Gu raised his head, staring into the dark stalactites of the cave roof. A sadistic, manic grin split his pale lips, revealing two rows of sharpened, shark-like teeth.
“It matters not,” Han Gu hissed, his aura flaring until the red iron chains groaned under spiritual deep ring. “Whether it’s an overgrown toad spirit or an ancient hermit hiding in the bushes, nothing can withstand the tide. I’ll wait no longer for scouts! The time has arrived to complete the old family cooking pot!”
He raised his skeletal right arm, his sleeves snapping like iron sails as he drew a jagged bone dagger across his palm.
A fountain of blackish-red blood sprayed across the central altar. It splashed onto a huge sphere of blood-crystal three paces wide.
VWWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The cave shook wildly as an invisible, underground hum exploded outward from the altar.
Across three hundred miles of the southern barrens, thirty-six massive obelisks carved from cursed red dark rock ignited at the same time. Pulsing crimson blast waves rippled through the earth, boring into the skulls of one hundred thousand wild beasts that had been captured, corralled. Then it branded over three years of relentless harvesting.
Every single beast had a nine-inch needle of cursed blood-iron hammered directly into the base of its skull.
The moment the obelisks ignited, the needles burned with painful demonic deep ring.
The beasts’ eyes—amber, brown, and gold—were instantly dyed a horrific, eerie-glowing crimson. Foaming spit mixed with bile dripped from their jaws. Their muscles knotted and tore under supernatural stimulant frenzy. Their old family instincts were wiped out, replaced by a single, all-consuming outer-brain command:
MARCH NORTH. TRAMPLE EVERYTHING. Eat ALL FLESH.
From holding canyons, underground pits, and razor-wire stockades, the horde burst forth.
Twenty thousand razor-tusk boars, their thick hides hardened into jagged bone armor, snorted geysers of hot steam as their iron hooves tore the earth into furrows. Fifteen thousand armored blood-rhinos. Their horn-plates were heavy with barbed iron rings, smashed through timber gates like battering rams. Twelve thousand four-armed venom apes leaped from dead thorn trees. It screeched with ear-splitting fury as purple poison dripped from their curved claws. Behind them surged tens of thousands of iron-bone wolves, shadow hyenas, and horned gore-hounds, with twelve hundred elite infantry and students of the Blood Sea Sect riding upon floating platforms of woven bone.
The ground didn’t merely shake. It groaned as if the land-wide plate were fracturing under the weight of one hundred thousand frenzied monsters.
Above, the heavens responded to the horrific gathering of blood qi.
The twin moons of the Azure Cloud Realm climbed toward the zenith. But their cool, silver radiance was swallowed by a roiling ocean of sanguine clouds. A horrific crimson eclipse formed in the sky. He cast an eerie, blood-red pall across the mountain peaks that made every rock, tree, and river look as if it were drenched in fresh gore.
Ten thousand feet above the southern ridges, soaring through the churning upper winds, an amazing raptor wheeled through the crimson sky.
Da Peng’s feathers glowed with sky azure and gold. It caught the eerie red moonlight along his razor-sharp main wingtips. His piercing golden eyes, capable of counting the scales on a lizard from five miles away, locked onto the southern horizon.
A solid wall of churned crimson dust, thirty leagues wide and two hundred feet high, was surging across the wasteland toward the Grand Lonely Forest. It moved like an unstoppable red ocean, devouring hills and snapping ancient trees like dry twigs.
“Screeeeee-awwwk!”
Da Peng let out a piercing, sky-splitting screech that parted the red clouds. Tucking his massive wings against his flanks, the golden-azure raptor dived toward the forest at three times the speed of sound, trailing twin ribbons of white sonic water drops behind him.
***
In the heart of the Myriad Spirit Safe hall, the gentle evening peace shattered.
DONG... DONG... DONG...
High in the boughs of the ancient spirit willow, Su Ling’er struck the great bronze temple bell three times. The deep, ringing tones rolled across the volcano bowl. He carried an urgent ringing hum that pierced every home, workshop, and field pavilion.
In the northern vegetable gardens, Deacon Xue San and Gu She dropped their wooden watering cans, their heads snapping toward the southern sky.
“The bell,” Gu She gasped. She grabbed his chest as he saw the horizon turn the color of dried liver. “Brother Xue... The sky is red. He’s here. Han Gu has mobilized the tide!”
Xue San wiped potting soil from his palms, his jaw setting with grim fury. He picked up his heavy iron garden spade, testing its weight. “He wants to turn our turnip fields into a slaughterhouse. Inform Old Ba! We move to the rally point!”
Across the volcano bowl, one thousand safe hall citizens moved with calm, practiced smooth speed. There was no screaming, no frantic stampedes. Fox mothers ushered the cubs into the deep granite cellar chambers beneath the willow. Otter runners sprinted along the river water chutes to secure high-pressure locks. And three hundred earth-bear warriors marched in formation toward the armory, their heavy footfalls ringing against the stone.
Atop the southern stone low roof wall overlooking the narrow gorge, Lin Xiao sat comfortably in his woven bamboo basket.
A small plate of salted roasted pumpkin seeds rested beside him. Lin Xiao popped a seed into his core, chewing thoughtfully. He watched the distant red cloud billow above the southern ridges.
Xiao Hei stood beside the basket, his twelve-foot frame streaming cold shadow mist, his silver star-pattern runes glowing like polished steel. “Sovereign. Da Peng has sighted them. The vanguard is less than eighteen miles out. One hundred thousand corrupted beasts, led by twelve hundred demonic students.”
“A hundred thousand,” Lin Xiao murmured, his curved white eyes watching the red clouds with deep, quiet sorrow. “Look at that dust. Those poor creatures have been starved, beaten, and driven mad by iron spikes in their brains. Han Gu treats them like coal to be shoveled into an engine.”
Xiao Hei lowered his snout. “Shall we forge pit-traps, Sovereign? The wolves can harvest their throats in the dark.”
Lin Xiao gently tapped Xiao Hei’s black ear with a soft blue slime arm.
“No throats, Xiao Hei,” Lin Xiao said, his voice calm, steady, and unmoving as the mountain roots. “Those beasts aren’t our enemies. They’re victims of a cruel tyrant who thinks power comes from suffering. Our home stands for life, not slaughter. Assemble the council beneath the willow. It’s time to show this demonic elder how civilized folks fight a war.”