Zhang Xian caught the jade pendant from the miniature Zhiyin hovering before him. The jade felt warm and smooth against his palm, sending a stream of refreshing coolness up his arm and into his inner palace, settling his mind instantly.

He inwardly gave a thumbs up. Having a professional support carry the team is just different. Look at these logistics. Look at these AOE buffs. Top tier.

As for how much his own massive injection of funds contributed to the R&D of these pendants? Details. A whale doesn’t care about the process; a whale only cares about the results.

He had just fastened the pendant to his waist when his heart gave a violent lurch. A vast, suffocatingly cold aura surged from the gray horizon like a tidal wave.

“Here they come!” Zhang Xian’s eyes narrowed, his Divine Sense exploding outward to scan the field.

Hovering in the void above the desolate plain stood a figure clad in familiar black robes. A white mask covered his face, revealing only a pair of eyes as cold as glacial ice.

The White Venerable, Xuan Zhou.

Waves of terrifying Nascent Soul pressure radiated from him, distorting the air. Behind him stood a dark, dense mass of cultivators—at least a thousand strong. Most had dull, lifeless eyes, their bodies wreathed in faint black mist. They looked less like men and more like marionettes. Far behind them, a distorted, vortex-like spatial gate churned slowly.

“To think you actually found this place directly,” Xuan Zhou’s voice filtered through the mask. It was flat, even, and utterly devoid of emotion.

Xia Chengyan stood at the prow of the formation disk and let out a loud, mocking laugh.

“Hahaha! So you’re the White Venerable? The guy who hides his head and shows his tail?” He pointed a finger at the masked figure. “Xia Chengyan of the Heavenly Abyss Alliance is here! You demonic trash, surrender now and I might make it quick!”

Xuan Zhou’s gaze seemed to sweep over the alliance forces, but it didn’t linger for a fraction of a second, as if he were looking at empty air. He slowly raised a hand toward the dark mass of puppets behind him and clenched his fist in the void.

“ROAR—!”

“KILL—!”

The thousand-plus corrupted cultivators snapped to action like machines with a flipped switch. Black threads surged into their eyes, erasing the last vestiges of reason. Like floodwaters bursting a dam, they launched a fearless, suicidal charge.

Zhang Xian noted grimly that the front lines were filled with Foundation Establishment and even Qi Condensation fodder.

“Delusional,” Emperor Xia Xuanyin snorted coldly. “Form ranks! Engage!”

The elite disciples, deacons, and Elders of the great sects had long since formed their battle arrays.

BOOM!

Spiritual light erupted across the front line. Sword Qi crisscrossed the sky like a net; spells roared like thunder. It was less a battle and more like a scythe sweeping through dry wheat. The demonic minions at the front were vaporized instantly. The low-level cultivators were as fragile as paper, turning to ash before they could even scream.

It was a one-sided slaughter.

In mere moments, the thousand-strong army was annihilated. Corpses carpeted the barren earth.

Xia Chengyan flicked his imaginary sleeves, looking incredibly smug. He shouted across the battlefield, “Is that it? That’s your army? Hey, old thief White Venerable! Stop hiding behind trash and come 1v1 me!”

Xuan Zhou continued to ignore him completely. His icy eyes scanned the righteous alliance forces as if observing a colony of ants. He spoke again, his voice possessing a terrifying lack of inflection.

“Just a bunch of worthless discarded pieces. I simply borrowed your hands to clean house. They aren’t even worthy of the word ‘demon’.”

He turned slowly, facing the massive vortex gate. His voice pierced the void, clearly ringing in every cultivator’s ears.

“This White Venerable awaits your esteemed presence inside the Demon Nest.”

With that, he took a single step into the distorted vortex and vanished.

The alliance army halted before the swirling vortex of light.

Perfected Being Wang Ya stared at the pale white portal, noting the faint Five Elements spiritual light flowing at its edges. “This is it. The entrance to the secret realm. The Demon Nest is right in front of us.”

A naturally cautious cultivator spoke up, voice tense. “Everyone, be extremely careful. Could this be like last time? What if the gate vanishes the moment we enter, trapping us in a dead zone?”

His worry wasn’t unfounded. The lesson from the previous encounter was written in blood; demons were cunning, and spatial traps were their specialty.

Hearing this, several experts in formations and spatial theory immediately stepped forward. Some pulled out compass artifacts, watching the needles spin wildly. Others formed complex hand seals, firing beams of probing light into the vortex. A few cautiously tossed specially crafted spatial beacons into the gate to test its stability.

Lin Xiaozhu didn’t move. She stood quietly at the edge of the formation disk, eyes half-closed.

A vast, refined, and incredibly precise wave of Divine Sense spread out from her. It didn’t just scan the gate; it penetrated deep into the very core of the dead world beneath their feet.

A moment later, her eyes snapped open. Her gaze was clear and calm.

“You need not worry. This vortex isn’t a temporary trap. It is a stable space formed after the origin of this small world was forcibly severed.”

“I have analyzed the world’s origin,” she explained. “This small world’s vitality was cut off at least a thousand years ago. This secret realm… it was a final refuge. The survivors of this world used forbidden methods to slice a piece of their reality away from the dying parent world to create a lifeboat. But now, it seems this lifeboat has become a true demon’s den.”

“Whether it is a dragon’s pool or a tiger’s den, or a pit of monsters and ghosts, it matters not,” Xia Xuanyin declared, his voice iron. “The Demon Nest is before us. The enemy is inside. We are cultivators—what is there to fear?”

His eyes blazed like torches. With a snap of his black dragon robes, the Emperor stepped into the spatial turbulence, charging boldly into the vortex.

The army followed, filing through the distorted tunnel.

After a brief wave of dizziness, they emerged on the other side. A suffocating aura of death slammed into their faces.

The moment they landed, Xia Xuanyin’s Divine Sense flooded the area. His expression instantly darkened.

“There isn’t a single living soul.”

Wang Ya crouched down, crumbling the dry, cracked earth between his fingers. He had never been here personally, but years ago, he had heard Zhiyin Two describe this place as indistinguishable from a mortal kingdom. Why was it now a barren wasteland?

The group advanced in silence. Soon, they reached the core of the secret realm—a massive, once-prosperous capital city.

But the sight that greeted them was a horror that choked the breath from their lungs.

The city walls were crumbled ruins. The streets were empty of life. But they were not empty.

As far as the eye could see, the ground was paved with white bones.

Tens of thousands of skeletons lay everywhere. They were frozen in disturbing, casual postures. Some were curled in corners. Some lay by the roadside. Others were still standing, locked in poses of walking or chatting, as if time had been instantaneously frozen.

Under the dim gray sky, the sea of bones gleamed with a pale, sickly luster.

“Ah!” Lin Yinyin, still possessing the heart of a young girl, couldn’t help but gasp, covering her mouth in horror.

Zhang Xian looked out over the city, his expression heavy. Through the positioning of the bones, he could almost see the ghosts of the past.

One second, this city had been bustling with the noise of the market, children playing, merchants shouting. The next second, invisible death had swept through like a plague, stripping every living being of their vitality instantly.

There had been no struggle. No resistance. Only silent, total annihilation.

“It is the effect of the [Withered Glory Samsara Restriction] pushed to its absolute limit,” Lin Xiaozhu’s voice trembled slightly. “The moment the formation activated, it extracted the life force origin of every living being in the realm. They didn’t even have time to realize they were dying. In a few breaths, an entire civilization turned to dry bones.”

She took a deep, shaky breath. “Judging by the weathering… this happened about two years ago.”

“Two years…” Xia Xuanyin’s eyes burned with a terrifying cold light. “Right after we discovered the traces of the Demon Nest. To hide their tracks, they didn’t hesitate to slaughter the entire population of their own secret realm.”