The subterranean cavern had ceased to resemble an architectural sanctuary.
Under the oppressive density of Shen Haoran's cold golden gaze, the surrounding granite walls groaned, weeping waterfalls of fine stone dust as fissures branched outward like dark spiderwebs.
The severed pillars that had supported the grand sect above hung suspended on sheared spatial edges, vibrating with the silent, terrifying acoustic resonance of a world holding its breath.
Yun Ming scrambled backward across the rubble, his heels slipping in the pooled blood of the woman he had just crucified.
Every nerve ending along his spine screamed with a deafening, biological terror that no modern human was ever designed to endure.
His fingers cramped against the cold shaft of his golden halberd, the knuckles white and slick with sweat.
In his eyes, the translucent interface was no longer a reliable strategic companion, it had instead become a strobe light of bleeding, broken red pixels.
