Han Li was flying back toward his residence when his body suddenly dimmed its light, and he halted in midair, gazing upward with a look of alarm.
Above Tianyuan City, the sky — which had been a clear, cloudless blue — had somehow conjured seven enormous crimson stars, painting the entire expanse a fiery red.
Even though the whole of Tianyuan City was shielded by layers of protective restrictions, one could still feel faint traces of searing heat.
Whether they were guards hard at work or ordinary cultivators meditating in their quarters, everyone flew out to stare at the strange phenomenon overhead with equal astonishment.
As a Body Integration cultivator, what Han Li perceived through his spiritual sense was far beyond what ordinary cultivators could detect. His gaze fixed on the sky, a rare flash of gravity crossing his face.
He could faintly sense that the vast law of the heavens wielded by those seven crimson stars possessed a terrifying power capable of gravely wounding — or even obliterating — him.
How could such a realization not fill him with profound dread?
At that very moment, the seven crimson stars began to pulse with restless waves of red light. Then, centered on the seven stars, an impossibly complex grand formation diagram materialized out of thin air high above.
The formation glowed red as fire, seeming to envelop nearly half of Tianyuan City beneath it. After a violent fluctuation of heaven-and-earth law power, the seven stars within the formation suddenly blurred and coalesced into the phantom of a colossal firebird, which let out a piercing cry as it dove from the heavens.
**BOOM!**
An earth-shattering explosion rocked the entirety of Tianyuan City. From the direction of the city walls, a mushroom-shaped cloud of crimson fire surged skyward, rising a full ten thousand zhang.
Even from this great distance, Han Li could make out the churning, monstrous form of the fire cloud, and his heart clenched.
Almost simultaneously, the area of the demonic siege — bounded by the golden light screen as a dividing line — became two entirely different worlds.
One side remained exactly as it had been, without the slightest anomaly. The other had been transformed into a literal ocean of flame.
Crimson waves of fire spread beneath the mushroom cloud across nearly a thousand li.
The demon beasts caught within the inferno were annihilated into ash in the very instant the attack erupted — utterly incapable of withstanding even a fraction of such devastating force.
As for the demon cultivators, though their magical artifacts and treasures offered a modicum of protection that let them hold out briefly, they had no hope of fleeing an area-of-effect attack this vast. One after another, they shrieked as they were engulfed and perished in the flames.
Only the five super demon beasts managed to survive. Each instantly projected a layer of dense protective spiritual light from its body, keeping them momentarily safe. But clearly, none of them could endure such horrific temperatures for long.
The massive black avian beast launched itself skyward at once. A single spread of its wings transformed it into a streak of black light that shot a hundred li away, then flickered several more times, escaping the entirety of the sea of flames at an inconceivable speed.
The crimson giant ape, meanwhile, slammed both feet into the ground without the slightest hesitation. Its colossal body vaulted upward like a meteor, transforming into a howling hurricane that tore through everything in its path, splitting the flames apart by sheer force. Although its speed fell slightly short of the avian beast's, it was not far behind, and it too burst free from the danger zone right on the avian beast's heels.
The two white snails and the three-headed purple serpent, however, were far more clumsy in their movements and could not enjoy the same fortune as the first two.
Despite desperately racing through the waves of fire, they managed only a few hundred li before their protective spiritual light finally collapsed. Piercing wails rang out as all three were swallowed by the rolling flames and perished.
Shortly after the three super demon beasts had fallen, two figures — one in purple, one in green — shot out from the fire cloud. Without a moment's pause, they transformed into two streaks of brilliant light and rocketed away, covering over ten thousand li in a single breath before finally halting.
They were the purple-armored giant and the green-robed elder — two high-ranking demon cultivators.
Truly worthy of being high-ranking demons at the Body Integration stage, they had somehow managed to survive even this catastrophic attack.
But looking at their tattered clothes and the acrid smell of char clinging to them, it was clear they had come perilously close to death themselves.
As for their expressions when they turned to look back at the sea of flames — they were ashen, utterly grim.
"I never imagined the humans would deploy this kind of attack against us. They really do think highly of us!" the purple-armored giant said through gritted teeth, his face contorted with unwillingness.