There were simply too many Demon Fiends.

In that instant, Yang An understood the intentions of those pulling the strings inside the city.

To prevent the Cultivator side from losing their nerve before the battle even began, they had secretly pulled some strings. It made these people unconsciously lose their minds, growing more frenzied the longer they fought, to the point where they wouldn't even care if they died.

This way, the Cultivators could match the Demon Fiends in a war of attrition for a time, preventing a collapse in morale and a panicked retreat.

Once both sides had been worn down to a certain point, the Great Powers would finally make their move and settle the conflict in one fell swoop. This would also give Ten Directions City a high chance of being successfully defended.

'Otherwise, if they did nothing, what was the point of gathering so many Cultivators? To watch a show?'

'When it came down to it, regardless of your Cultivation Level, every single person standing here was just cannon fodder in the eyes of the true powers that be.'

The current situation confirmed Yang An's suspicions. Nearly all the Cultivators had entered a state of fearing neither life nor death, desperately using every method at their disposal to attack the Demon Fiends.

Some Cultivators even directly activated Pain Amplification, delaying the backlash to maximize their offensive power.

For others, the backlash had already set in. Some had gone completely insane, even starting to attack their own allies.

The scene was utter chaos.

It was the same among the Demon Fiends. The battle between the two sides gradually devolved into a multi-sided free-for-all, pitting Demon Fiends against Cultivators, the lucid against the delirious, and the sane against the mad.

Before long, everyone was mixed together in a total brawl, making it impossible to tell who was fighting whom.

Some Cultivators near Yang An let out agonizing howls. The onset of the backlash was brutal; some even collapsed and writhed on the ground in pain.

Other Cultivators had begun to slaughter indiscriminately, unable to tell friend from foe. A few even came for Yang An.

But a black light pulsed from Yang An's body, enveloping an area several meters around him and making it impossible for them to approach. Only then did they back off.

He surveyed the scene. 'Everyone has been affected. This influence most likely comes from the Power of Rules, and it's nearly impossible to detect.'

'If Bow Lady hadn't bitten me, I might not have snapped out of it in time.'

Yang An knew he couldn't just stand there. 'I have to do something. Otherwise, if everyone else is affected and nothing's wrong with me, I'll easily be found out.'

'The issue is my collection of Light Magic. The Treasure Light Glaze Purification Technique and the Dark Communication Secret Spell are manageable, but my other techniques are all indiscriminate, area-of-effect attacks.'

'I'm afraid I'd kill a pile of Cultivators before I even hurt any Demon Fiends. Plus, people would easily recognize it as Light Magic and trace it back to me to pry into my secrets.'

'You never feel like you have enough techniques until you're in a pinch. In the future, I must find time to cultivate a few more physical-type techniques or a Body Refining Technique so I can better hide my trump cards.'

As for the present, Yang An thought for a moment before reaching for his lower back and touching the Spinal True Feather.

With a sharp, satisfying pang that went straight to his core, he pulled out the Spinal True Feather.

The massive plume, composed of red and white plumage, resembled an oddly shaped longsword in his hand. Countless White Feathers flew from it, like so many sharp daggers.

Despite having been nourished and tempered by a great deal of blood, the Spinal True Feather was still in its nascent stage.

Yang An had no idea when the Spinal True Feather would evolve to its next stage.

But this was clearly a good thing. The more blood required for evolution, the stronger the next stage was bound to be. Yang An was very much looking forward to it.

Although it was still in its nascent stage, the controllable range of the White Feathers had already reached over ten meters, barely enough for mid-range combat.

Yang An quickly found a spot with relatively few Demon Fiends and Cultivators and started to slack off.

Countless White Feathers danced through the air, slipping through gaps in the fighting to occasionally strike a nearby Demon Fiend from the shadows, only to vanish again in an instant.

Of course, in a battle of this enormous scale, the flying White Feathers inevitably got caught in the crossfire.

The slender sinews connecting to the White Feathers would snap whenever they were accidentally hit by an attack.

Fortunately, the Spinal True Feather was an extension of Yang An's own body and shared its Immortality. Even if the sinews snapped, they would regenerate in the blink of an eye.

He was like an assassin hiding in the shadows, perfectly concealed.

The battle between the Demon Fiends and Cultivators grew ever more intense. Both sides were now truly enraged, employing lethal tactics and holding nothing back.

Even though most on both sides had a Cultivation Level at or above the Visceral Stone Realm and possessed Immortality, casualties were still inevitable under such a dense barrage of attacks.

Many Cultivators died, but even more Demon Fiends fell.

Relatively speaking, the Cultivators still had a few advantages. In terms of combat, at least, they were more versatile than the Demon Fiends.

As the battle grew white-hot, the entire area outside Ten Directions City had become a Purgatory of the Human World, with rivers of flowing blood.

Even the walls of Ten Directions City were collapsing in succession, about to give way completely. The ground was scarred and in complete shambles.

Time ticked by, and casualties on both sides continued to mount.

Yang An silently kept a tally. While taking advantage of the chaos, he had killed over a dozen Demon Fiends, but the number of Cultivators who had died by his hand had already reached more than twenty...

He couldn't really be blamed. Those guys were so frenzied they attacked anyone nearby without a second thought. Yang An could only react in self-defense. 'Better them than me,' he figured.

'At this rate,' he thought, 'who knows how long this fight will drag on.'

But just as Yang An was starting to worry, a violent tremor suddenly shook the world.

A colossal dark shadow suddenly appeared from within the Demon Fiend ranks.

The shadow blotted out the sun, rising a thousand feet into the air. Its immense form cast countless Cultivators into darkness.

It was a bizarre-looking stone statue, rising from beneath the ground. Six enormous arms twisted behind its back into an embrace, as if hugging the void.

Atop the statue was a massive head. It had no eyes or nose—only a gaping, bottomless maw.

The instant the statue appeared, countless writhing black sinews erupted from its base, spreading out in all directions and rapidly extending beneath the feet of numerous Demon Fiends.

Any Demon Fiend touched by the sinews was instantly immobilized, standing frozen to the spot.

Then, in the blink of an eye, masses of vein-like flesh and blood rapidly enveloped those Demon Fiends. The flesh quickly withered, and its essence flowed back along the sinews on the ground, surging into the statue.

Within the embrace of the six arms behind the statue, a massive black sphere immediately formed.

At the same time, the great mouth on the statue's face began to emit drifting black smoke, as if it were about to spew something out.

The instant he saw the statue, Yang An knew this was bad.

'The Demon Fiends are clearly unleashing their ultimate attack,' he thought. 'I have to get out of here and avoid being caught in it.'

The thought spurred him to action. Without hesitation, Yang An grabbed a nearby Cultivator who had just regenerated his flesh. As the baffled Cultivator stared blankly, Yang An transformed into a black shadow, using the man as a shield as he shot toward Ten Directions City.

'This way, I'm not the one leading the retreat,' he thought. 'Someone else is.'

Just as Yang An re-entered Ten Directions City, he casually tossed aside the still-baffled Cultivator and sprinted deeper into the city.

RUMBLE—

A deafening explosion erupted behind him, and a massive shadow instantly enveloped half of Ten Directions City.

Yang An instinctively looked back and couldn't help but swallow hard. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

The giant statue's mouth was agape. The black sphere that had been in its six embracing arms was gone. In its place, an enormous, grotesque object had appeared in the sky above the walls of Ten Directions City.

The grotesque object seemed to be composed of countless fleshy tumors. Though it was a massive sphere, its surface was covered in red nodules.

If Yang An had to describe it, it looked just like the apple snail egg clusters from his past life—those red eggs commonly seen by riverbanks. And now it was hurtling at breakneck speed toward the walls of Ten Directions City.

With a sickening SPLAT!

The grotesque object exploded, spewing out a massive amount of pinkish slime that blotted out the sky. Like a surging tide, it washed over and completely submerged the masses of Cultivators and Demon Fiends below.

Any Cultivator or Demon Fiend touched by the slime visibly broke out in a dense rash of red nodules all over their bodies, becoming identical to the grotesque object itself.