The surging pink tide didn't just fall outside the city; it also poured into it.

Yang An's position happened to be right within the range of this oncoming torrent of slime.

Seeing that he was about to be splattered by the disgusting slime, Yang An could no longer afford to hide. He immediately summoned the Buddha's Radiant Wheel, activated his Light and Shadow Escape Technique, and vanished from the spot in the blink of an eye.

The very instant he disappeared, the gigantic pink wave crashed down. A second later, and he would have been caught within it.

Once he was clear of the area covered by the pink slime, Yang An reappeared a kilometer away, standing atop a pavilion and gazing out at the scene inside and outside Ten Directions City.

The sight was horrifying. Even for someone without trypophobia, a single glance was enough to make their scalp tingle.

Whether they were Cultivators or Demon Fiends, there was no longer any distinction between friend or foe.

Any living being touched by the slime rapidly sprouted pink, bean-sized pustules all over their body.

On their feet, their hands, their bodies...

Especially on their faces!

The dense clusters of pustules even grew from their facial features, completely obscuring their true appearances. They even grew on their eyeballs.

Like a virus, it spread through the areas where Cultivators and Demon Fiends had gathered, creating a sea of pink.

Any other color might have been bearable, but it was specifically pink—a color that should have been fresh and delicate, yet now looked utterly sinister.

The Cultivators and Demon Fiends covered in these pustules all collapsed to the ground, scratching frantically at their bodies in agony, as if desperate to claw everything off.

But when their hands touched the pustules, they fell off with ease, becoming little granules.

In their place, tiny, densely packed holes were left in the flesh, from which blood gushed like fountains.

And that wasn't all!

As blood poured from every hole in their bodies, new pink pustules sprouted endlessly and at an incredible speed. Before their flesh could even begin to heal, another wave of growths had already appeared.

Meanwhile, the pustules that had fallen from their bodies sprouted cicada-like wings, which began to vibrate rapidly, gathering in the air to form a massive pink torrent.

A deafening buzz suddenly filled the air above the city walls. Just hearing it was enough to make one's very soul tremble.

Yang An was almost struck dumb by the sight, gaining a new understanding of the Demon Fiends' methods.

The pink pustules fell off the Cultivators and Demon Fiends again, and a new wave quickly formed.

This cycle repeated several times before finally ending.

When no more pustules could be produced, the Cultivators and Demon Fiends collapsed, their bodies shriveled into nothing more than skin and flesh.

They were like empty husks, unable to regenerate.

It seemed that the process of creating the pink pustules had consumed their Immortality as well.

High above, the winged pustules swarmed like insects. Their numbers were terrifyingly vast, likely numbering in the hundreds of millions.

Having killed countless Cultivators and sacrificed swarms of Demon Fiends, these creatures—part pustule, part insect—were bound to be horrifyingly powerful.

Without a second thought, Yang An immediately began to retreat.

But just then, the pink torrent in the sky began to surge wildly, descending upon Ten Directions City below with overwhelming might.

At that exact moment, the Cultivators defending Ten Directions City, already afflicted, made no attempt to dodge. Instead, they charged recklessly toward the oncoming torrent.

But in the blink of an eye, a great number of them were completely engulfed, failing to slow the swarm's advance even for a moment.

By the time the monstrous pink torrent had stormed into Ten Directions City, the Cultivators on the city wall where Yang An had been were gone without a trace, vanished completely.

Whether they were eaten or simply killed, it was impossible to say.

Whatever the case, the people from the Golden Thread Pavilion had yet to make a move. The only thing Yang An could think to do was run.

He pushed his Light and Shadow Escape Technique to its limit, traversing several kilometers in the blink of an eye, but that only carried him across a small section of the city.

Ten Directions City was simply too large. As the capital of Celestial Jing State, it had now become a cage.

The sky-blotting pink torrent surged forward even faster than Yang An had imagined, hot on his heels and closing in.

He was already using his Light and Shadow Escape Technique at full power, yet he was still about to be overtaken. Yang An felt helpless.

He had seen what these things could do, but that didn't mean he was afraid.

They were powerful, but he was confident that he had nothing to worry about as long as he used his Light Magic.

The problem was, this wasn't a good time to reveal his techniques, as it might attract unwanted attention. Besides, things hadn't reached a critical point yet.

'It's not like I don't have other tricks up my sleeve!'

Remember how the Great Brightness Buddha Golden Zen Spell had an application called Helical Ascension?

Several rays of Golden Radiance appeared behind Yang An, about to coalesce into the fan-bladed propeller he had experimented with before. He was preparing to give himself a momentary "Deja Vu" boost.

With this technique combined with his Light and Shadow Escape Technique, he could use a sudden burst of speed to get away, leaving the swarm so far behind they wouldn't even see his taillights.

But just as the Golden Radiance was rapidly forming into the shape of a propeller, Yang An's gaze suddenly sharpened.

In the center of Ten Directions City, atop the tallest pavilion in sight, a figure had appeared at some unknown moment, standing with his hands clasped behind his back.

It was a tall, thin old man, a full three meters in height. He wore gray robes embroidered with golden patterns and looked just like a bamboo pole.

But at the top of this "bamboo pole," it was as if red flowers were in full bloom.

This was because there was a hole the size of a human head in the old man's chest. It pierced through his torso but not out his back, and it showed no signs of healing, a truly shocking wound.

The instant the old man appeared, Yang An sensed his presence.

'This Cultivation Level... I can't see through it at all! He must be at least a Zombie God!'

'Is someone from the Golden Thread Pavilion finally making a move?!'

Just as the thought flashed through Yang An's mind, he saw the old man quickly raise his right hand and thrust it into the bloody hole in his chest.

KRAK KRAK KRAK—

Though he was far away, Yang An could almost hear it clearly—a repulsive sound, like the grinding of teeth.

In an instant, the tall, thin old man pulled a short sword, about a meter long, from the bloody hole in his chest.

Strands of flesh and tissue were wrapped around the short sword, snapping as the old man drew it out.

A flower of blood bloomed as a great amount of it sprayed out, only to instantly retract back into the old man's chest.

The sword was a meter long and seemed to be fused with the old man's palm. Its blade was slender, no wider than two fingers, and looked like a piece of soft flesh. Black, vein-like lines bulged slightly from its surface, as if blood were flowing within.

The old man's movements weren't particularly fast, but after he drew the strange sword, everything in the world seemed to slow down countless times over.

The old man held the sword horizontally before him, covered the blade with his left palm, and then pulled it outward.

As the blade slid across his palm, the flesh and blood of the left half of the old man's body seemed to boil and contort, absorbed by the short sword. In the blink of an eye, only half of his body remained, making him look even more like a bamboo pole. Yet, he still stood ramrod straight.

But a scornful smile appeared on the remaining half of the old man's face. While his flesh was rapidly regenerating, his gaze fell upon the approaching pink torrent. He seemed to pay it no mind, looking instead through it, toward something outside the city.

The next instant, he swung the sword!

The strike was so fast that Yang An couldn't even perceive or see the short sword's trajectory. But at that moment, he was shocked to discover that, with the old man at the center, half the sky in the direction he faced had turned red!

The sky, which had been blotted out by the countless pink monstrosities and dyed pink over half of Ten Directions City, underwent a dramatic change in a single moment.

All at once, the creatures exploded, but what burst out was not pink slime—it was crimson blood.

The blood rapidly gathered, converging uncontrollably and surging madly toward the old man, pouring into the bloody hole in his chest.

Not only that, but vast numbers of Demon Fiends outside Ten Directions City also exploded into countless clouds of blood mist, which joined the red tide in the sky and surged toward the old man.

The scene was as if the heavens themselves were on their period; the sky was dyed red.

But in less than two breaths, all the red blood had been absorbed by the old man, and the world returned to normal.

The sky-blotting pink torrent was gone, and more than half of the massive Demon Fiend host outside Ten Directions City had vanished.

A huge gap had been torn in the Demon Fiend ranks that had besieged Ten Directions City, leaving them wide open!

And now, still standing atop the pavilion of the Ten Directions Palace, the old man's vanished half had not only recovered, but his once-gaunt frame had also begun to fill out, transforming into the build of a normal person in an instant.

Within the bloody hole in his chest, one could almost see a terrifying, bottomless ocean.

HISS—

Yang An sucked in a sharp breath, completely dumbfounded by what he'd seen.

'Just like that, it's over? That's it?'

'Holy crap! This old man... is absurdly strong!'

His senses and his gaze were completely fixed on the old man, and he had utterly forgotten the predicament he was just in.

In the blink of an eye, the tables had turned.

However, their eyes met. An unseen gaze suddenly locked onto Yang An, and he froze.

'Wait! Why is the old man suddenly looking at me?!'