Only one day had passed.
When Shi Feng arrived at the Fifth District once more, he found that it had undergone a drastic transformation.
"What happened here?" Shi Feng stared at the scene before him, his heart filled with shock.
The Fifth District shelter, once vibrant and flourishing, had been reduced to ruins. The towering city walls had vanished entirely, and collapsed buildings littered the area with no sign of life.
Rotting monster corpses lined the broad streets everywhere he looked. These were all high-level creatures, uniformly above Level 40—far exceeding what should appear in this zone. The majority were Elite-grade, and among them were numerous Special Elites and Leader-grade monsters.
"Lord!" Shi Feng had barely walked two streets into the Fifth District when he spotted a massive black bear standing three stories tall.
Nightmare Bear, demonic creature, Lord, Level 40, HP 2.8 million.
Even across the entire Demon Realm, Lord-grade monsters were exceedingly rare. As far as Shi Feng knew, monster assaults on shelters almost never produced Lords—they were typically Leader-grade creatures at most.
Yet here, three or four Lord-grade monster corpses lay sprawled across the streets. He could only imagine how fierce the battle must have been.
"What on earth happened here?" Shi Feng sprinted through several streets without finding a single player. It was as if the Fifth District had become a ghost town overnight.
Normally, even if a shelter was breached, players wouldn't evacuate the entire area so quickly.
Just as Shi Feng reached the central avenue of the Fifth District, a player's agonized scream echoed from the distance.
Though Shi Feng had heard such cries of pain before, that had been in his previous life. In this life, it was his first time hearing screams so desperate and filled with anguish.
Shi Feng immediately activated Wind Walk and dashed toward the source.
However, the moment he stepped within two hundred yards of the origin, his body suddenly grew heavy, as though he had plunged into a swamp.
"Damn it—this is a Domain!" Shi Feng launched himself upward in a single leap, vaulting out of the Domain's range.
A Domain was something only high-tier creatures could wield. Just like Wiseman, the Fourth Tier Archmage who governed White River City, who could deploy a magical domain to suppress enemies within it while bolstering his own power. For anyone without a domain, this was an enormous disadvantage—unless one possessed strength far beyond the domain's user, the only options were to flee or die.
The minimum tier required to use a Domain was Fourth Tier. That meant at least one Fourth Tier creature was at the source of those screams.
If a player was screaming in agony, there was no need to wonder whether that Fourth Tier creature was friend or foe.
"Why would a Fourth Tier creature come here?" Shi Feng murmured in disbelief.
Players' current levels meant they should never encounter such beings, let alone in a low-level zone like this.
Shi Feng quickly leapt onto the roof of a collapsed building and peered cautiously ahead.
Three players still survived on the central avenue. Leading them was the man Shi Feng had seen once before—Punishment Heaven—flanked by a Level 28 Assassin and a Level 28 Berserker. All three had barely any HP remaining. Surrounding them on every side were Level 40 monsters of every variety, making escape utterly impossible. And hovering above them all, lofty and untouchable, was a figure with bat-like wings, its entire body pitch-black—a Blood-Eyed Demon.
Knetrel, demonic creature. Archdemon, Level 60. HP 50 million.
"A Fourth Tier Archdemon—why would it come here?" Shi Feng's heart lurched with shock as he beheld Knetrel.
Demons were the enemy of all humanity. Whenever a demon appeared within the Divine Realm, the armies of every nation would mobilize to exterminate it. True demons were virtually impossible to encounter on the Divine Realm's continent, let alone an Archdemon.
Though this Archdemon's level was relatively low at just 60, it was still an invincible existence from the perspective of current players. Provoking it was unthinkable—one could only flee as far as possible at the mere sight of it.
"Wretched humans, I will grant you one chance to live. Surrender the Ring of Molok that you stole and submit to me," Knetrel declared, gazing down at Punishment Heaven with cold contempt. "Otherwise, I will let you taste the agony of soulfire—just like your companions before you, your souls will be utterly annihilated."