"The Soul Infant Sect will be destroyed today!!!"
Suddenly, a booming voice rang out across the sky, overpowering the roar of billions chanting in unison.
The moment that voice sounded, everyone was stunned.
The Soul Infant Sect was, at this point, the very beacon of hope for everyone looking to advance their cultivation. How could anyone dare say something like this?
It was nothing short of treason.
"So, you've finally come. Ying Mingchao… I knew you would show up eventually."
At that moment, the Soul Infant Sect Master gazed into the distant horizon with a serene smile on his face.
Most of the people present lacked the cultivation to perceive anything that far away. But the Soul Infant Sect Master was, after all, a second-ranked True Immortal. With his level of power, his range of vision was naturally immense.
And so, he had already spotted the allied army marching toward their Chen Family Heavenly City.
Before long, the allied army led by Ying Mingchao came into everyone's view.
"Ying Mingchao — it's really them?"
"What? Ying Mingchao is here? What are they doing here?"
Not everyone present could see Ying Mingchao and his forces with their own eyes.
But through word of mouth, it quickly became clear that Ying Mingchao and his army had arrived.
"Ying Mingchao, wasn't the humiliation you suffered that day enough? You actually dare come back to cause trouble again." The sect master of the Sword-Wielding Immortal Sect addressed Ying Mingchao directly.
"How merciful, how merciful. Benefactor Ying, why must you do this?"
The abbot of the Buddha Radiance Heavenly Temple rose to his feet as well, his words laced with no small amount of sarcasm.
"Ying Mingchao, the sect master already showed you mercy that day and let you go. Yet here you are again, stirring up trouble. How can someone be so shameless?"
More and more people began to pile on, heaping scorn upon Ying Mingchao and his companions.
They were the uninformed. First, they truly believed that the Soul Infant Sect would help them.
Second, they had no idea that the Soul Infant Sect Master had secretly pursued and attempted to kill Ying Mingchao and his allies.
All they knew was that Ying Mingchao had once led the allied army to attack the Soul Infant Sect.
He had been defeated by the Soul Infant Sect Master, but rather than exacting further punishment, the sect master had simply let Ying Mingchao and his people go.
And so, in their eyes, Ying Mingchao coming back today to cause more trouble was nothing but stubborn pestering — the act of a man who refused to accept defeat with any dignity.
Naturally, they looked down on Ying Mingchao and his people. Naturally, some began to openly attack them with their words.
"Tch, if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I never would have believed that the great Lord Ying Mingchao was this kind of person."
"You really can't judge a book by its cover."
The number of people mocking Ying Mingchao only grew. Those who hadn't even been present for the original incident, those who couldn't even see him with their own eyes, joined in the jeering as well.
In the blink of an eye, a man who had been a hero in countless people's eyes had become the target of universal scorn — an object of disgust, of attack, even of hatred.
"How foolish."
Looking at these fickle faces, a look of deep contempt surfaced on Ying Mingchao's own.
He had witnessed the fickleness of the world many times before. But this scene, in particular, cut him to the bone.
After all, many of those now condemning him had once been his admirers, his devoted supporters.
And yet, the moment their interests shifted, they had changed their tune without hesitation.
That kind of turnaround truly chilled him to the heart.
"The Soul Infant Sect Master, is it? My brother Chu Feng… where… where… where is he right now?"
Just then, Wang Qiang stepped forward from within the allied army, planting himself at its very front.