As the Forbidden Gate slowly opened in the cavern, it had only swung halfway open when a cold, eerily calm voice suddenly echoed from beyond the threshold, sending a chill through everyone present — whether it was Shi Feng and his companions or the awakened Golden Whelp.
"A little golden lizard, a Chosen One — no, you don't belong to this world. How interesting, how very interesting. The Book of Darkness is damaged? Good! That is wonderful!"
The demon's words drifted through the gate, reverberating directly inside everyone's minds.
Though the voice was indifferent and flat, the overwhelming pressure radiating from behind the gate left every person in the cavern frozen, unable to move a muscle. Even the Golden Whelp stood rigid, its gaze fixed on the doorway, eyes filled with wariness.
"A Fifth-Tier Demon King?" Shi Feng felt the terrifying pressure pouring through the gate and couldn't help but feel a wave of disbelief.
He had expected that summoning a Demon Lord would already be pushing the limits, given that the Book of Darkness was still incomplete. But the existence now about to step through the Demon Gate was clearly far more powerful than any Demon Lord.
He had never felt this kind of oppressive might from even a Tier 5 being before.
"This book isn't suitable for a little creature like you. Hand it over to me! Only in my possession can this book truly bring me down to that land — and turn this entire realm into a home for my kind!"
One sentence from the Demon King behind the gate, and Shi Feng immediately felt the Book of Darkness growing unruly in his hands, faintly pulling toward the massive door.
Shi Feng stared at the Book of Darkness straining to escape his grip, stunned. He hadn't imagined that a demon could openly resist the power of the Book of Darkness, let alone seize control of it. He frantically poured his full strength into maintaining his hold.
"Don't waste your effort, little creature. I'll be taking this damaged Book of Darkness. Once my kind fully descends upon this world, I might even spare your life!"
As the voice finished speaking, Shi Feng felt the Book of Darkness pull even harder, to the point where even the faint thread of connection between him and the book was completely severed. All that remained was brute force, his fingers white-knuckled around the tome.
"You despicable human — you actually dared to summon *that* thing!" The Golden Whelp had clearly realized what kind of existence lurked behind the gate, and it roared in fury. "Die! I will not let you complete the summoning!"
With a thunderous dragon roar, the Golden Whelp threw its maw wide open. A triple-layered magic circle materialized before it in an instant.
"No! That's Dragon Breath — everyone, get clear!" Shi Feng's face went pale the moment he recognized it.
A demon of indeterminate power was already wrestling control of the Book of Darkness, and now the Golden Whelp was opening with its trump card — Dragon Breath.
A Tier 4 Dragon Breath carried destructive force on par with mid-Tier 5. Forget Tier 3 players — even Tier 4 players caught in it would be obliterated. The only option was to dodge.
But the Golden Whelp was simply too fast. Before anyone could react, the triple-layered magic circle had fully formed. A beam of annihilation surged toward them like the end of heaven and earth itself, leaving no angle to evade, no crevice to hide in. All they could do was watch the Dragon Breath bear down on them.
Wherever it passed, everything was reduced to nothing. It was not something any Tier 4 player could hope to withstand.
"It's over…" Lionheart Boiling Blood closed his eyes as the Tier 4 Dragon Breath descended.
The others wore expressions of despair and bitter resignation. They had once thought there might be a chance to fight, but now, witnessing that sky-blotting Dragon Breath and its world-ending power, any notion of resistance was a joke. All they could do was await death.
Just as the Dragon Breath was about to swallow Shi Feng and his entire group, a cold shout rang out from within the half-open Demon Gate.
"A little lizard dares to stop my descent?!"
In the blink of an eye, a colossal hand materialized out of thin air before Shi Feng and his companions. It snatched the Dragon Breath's sphere of destructive energy out of the air as though plucking a fruit from a branch, and the dragon's attack halted mid-stream.
Then, with a single squeeze, the giant hand crushed the sphere into countless motes of light that scattered and dissolved into nothing…
"How is this possible?!"
The scene left every person in the cavern struck dumb.
Dragon Breath of such world-ending magnitude, deflected as effortlessly as swatting a fly. One could scarcely imagine how powerful the demon behind that gate truly was.
But Shi Feng's expression didn't improve — if anything, his face grew darker.
Even with the gate only half-open, this being had casually blocked a mid-Tier 5 Dragon Breath. That level of power pointed to the peak of Tier 5, which meant the existence beyond the gate was no ordinary Tier 5 Demon King.
It was a Grand Demon King standing at the very pinnacle of the Divine Realm!
If a Grand Demon King of that caliber truly set foot in the Divine Realm, even in the ancient era, it would have been a catastrophe for the ancient Divine Realm.
But before Shi Feng and the others could recover from their shock, the Golden Whelp had already risen into the air above them. Golden runes blazed to life across its entire body, and the aura radiating from it surged dramatically, visibly stronger than before.
"It can still grow stronger?" Shi Feng stared at the Golden Whelp hovering overhead and felt truly shaken for the first time.
The Golden Whelp was far more powerful than he had imagined. Any comparison to Tier 5 was laughable — the force and majesty it now displayed had more than doubled in an instant. Even with his own Burst Mode activated, he doubted he could survive a single blow…
"Despicable demon! You're on the other side of that gate — you can't unleash your full power from there. And I know you can only use that strength a handful of times! I refuse to believe you can keep blocking forever. The moment your summoner dies, you'll be trapped in that endless abyss forever — and never come out!"
The Golden Whelp locked its gaze on the massive stone gate, a trace of contempt and mockery in its eyes. Then it opened its maw once more and unleashed another Dragon Breath.
And this time, the Dragon Breath was even more terrifying than the last. Just from the Golden Whelp drawing a single breath, Shi Feng and the others felt every trace of magic in the cavern vanish…