Visitors from the Abyss

On the other side of the spatial rift, Zhang Shou and his three companions had been guarding the corpse for more than ten minutes. Xiong Da pulled a bottle of honey water from his storage space, took a sip, and asked, "It should be dead by now, right? This damn place gives me the creeps all over. Why don't we pull out?" "Yeah, let's get ready to leave," Gong Qian said with a nod. Yet just as they turned around to head back toward West Gemini Mountain together, the thick, dark clouds in the sky suddenly dispersed. All four froze mid-movement, cold sweat breaking out across their foreheads. Xiong Da's mouth twitched frantically as sharp fangs slowly emerged. With a sudden low roar, he wrapped his left arm around Zhang Shou and Cheng Pi and his right arm around Gong Qian, flames erupting across his entire body as he charged madly forward. Strange, dense sounds echoed out. The once dreary, gray earth turned blood-red, and human faces even bulged up from the ground, countless chaotic facial features jumbled together across the surface. "Blazing shines the grand sun, illuminating Fusang... Fiercely burns the scorching sun, incinerating robes of cloud... At dawn, the Lord of the East, embracing the six realms... At dusk, the Crimson Emperor, reigning over the eight wilds..." A dense cacophony of overlapping voices drifted through the air. From beyond the heavens, corpses of all shapes and sizes marched forward step by step, treading upside down toward this already dead world. "Aaaargh..." The human faces upon the earth opened their eyes and mouths one after another, emitting terrifying shrieks. Two bear faces sprouted on Xiong Da's back, ravenously gnawing at one another. His pupils filled with blood as he realized they were running out of time—the mouths on the ground were affecting him too severely. "Hurry, rush upward!" Cheng Pi warned at that moment. Cheng Pi's condition was just as terrible. Tumors sprouted all over his body, and atop these tumors grew the bodies of miniature humanoid figures, as if the tumors were their heads. Zhang Shou was in the most agonizing state. Because his body had the strongest rejection response, his face had swollen like a pig's head, and countless silhouettes bulged beneath his skin, as if more bodies were fighting to burst out from inside him. Hearing Cheng Pi's words, Xiong Da looked toward Zombie Mountain. An inadvertent glance at one of the corpses in the sky caused one of his eyeballs to violently burst. Yet he had no time to worry about that. Letting out a furious roar, he erupted with flames and flew upward at an angle, dragging Cheng Pi and the others along. The closer they got to the sky, the more severe their mutations became. Suddenly, a bear head sprouted from Xiong Da's buttocks and bit viciously into his flesh. Wracked with pain, his flames instantly snuffed out. "Bastard!" Xiong Da frantically tried to reignite his flames, but he simply couldn't do it. Fortunately, Cheng Pi had managed to pull himself together by then. A pair of golden wings unfurled from his back. Gripping Xiong Da's arms tightly, he howled, "Boss, save us!" As he screamed, he poured every ounce of strength into flying upward, inching closer to the rift in the sky. The moment he crossed the rift, his body plummeted downward, the gravitational pull of the Heavenly Megastar instantly dragging them toward an impact against its surface. Fortunately, Yu Xian's divine sense had been enveloping the surroundings all along. Just as the four were about to plunge into the magma, their bodies hovered suspended in midair before Yu Xian guided them safely down to the ground. "What terrible luck. Now we're in real trouble," Zhang Buyao sighed softly upon seeing the battered state of the four. Yu Xian stowed the Heavenly Megastar and looked up at the sky. A moment later, countless zombie corpses rained down, and spreading outward from the rift, everything was stained with a layer of red. He had originally wanted to ask Auntie Number Two if there was anywhere else besides the God Vault Space where Zuo Zhengzong could be imprisoned. Now, however, there was clearly no time left. He turned to Zhang Buyao and said with certainty, "Abyss monsters?" "The Abyss Praisers are here, and they seem to have brought quite a few other things with them. Prepare for battle," Zhang Buyao nodded. She had mentioned earlier that if the Infinite Sea Corpse Vein Dragon continued releasing corpse qi nonstop, it would attract creatures like the Abyss Praisers. They had thought the monsters wouldn't show up, but against all odds, they had arrived after all. Only, instead of invading this world directly from the Abyss, they had crossed over from that dead world. At that moment, centered around the spatial rift, countless hairline fissures began to spread. Behind these fractures, eyes appeared one by one, seemingly scrutinizing this world. "Blazing shines the grand sun, illuminating Fusang... Fiercely burns the scorching sun, incinerating robes of cloud... At dawn, the Lord of the East, embracing the six realms... At dusk, the Crimson Emperor, reigning over the eight wilds..." Inside some of the fissures lay not eyes, but mouths. Every mouth was chanting the ballad. Under the ethereal, grotesque sound, even Yu Xian instantly felt unwell. He immediately looked toward Zhang Shou and the others, and bubbles materialized at once to envelop everyone present. "Go!" Yu Xian instantly teleported Zhang Shou and the others away. He had no time to treat them right now; everything would have to wait until this immediate crisis was handled. The King of the Abyss Battle Armor enveloped his body in an instant. He thought of Zuo Zhengzong and glanced at the eerily quiet man, only to feel helpless. Zuo Zhengzong had possessed the weakest strength of everyone present, so he had perished almost instantly. Right now, Zuo Zhengzong's corpse, which originally had only one head, was covered with dense clusters of tiny heads. Anyone with trypophobia would have fainted dead away on the spot from the sheer revulsion of it. "Forget it. Let's make our move." Yu Xian sighed, and in the next moment, he rocketed into the sky. Zhang Buyao, weapons in hand, followed right behind him. In a flash, both crossed through the spatial rift, whereupon they were greeted by an endless swarm of monstrosities. The dead world had transformed into a colossal red human face, comprised of countless minuscule human faces. Upon closer inspection, one would notice that these faces bore a resemblance to the Sun Emperor, Feng Laixian, yet also exhibited traits of various other creatures—such as the features of apes, crocodiles, pythons, and more... Some of the monsters crouched on these human faces, gnawing at them ravenously, a sight that made Yu Xian's skin crawl. "Kill!" Zhang Buyao dove downward without hesitation, slashing out with her sword in her right hand. On Earth, she had never dared use her full power; after all, with her strength, a single strike would tear through the universe. But in this world, she had no such reservations. With one slash, heaven and earth split asunder. The entire dead world was cleaved in two, and countless monsters were reduced to ash under the strike. The sword qi then slashed toward the ends of the world, surging all the way into the Abyss. In the blink of an eye, an untold number of the Abyss monsters encircling this world were annihilated. Yu Xian did not remain idle either. Turning to face the Abyss, he unleashed a direct blow with his right fist. As he threw this punch, the World Eye blossomed like a flower, and in an instant, boundless spatial energy merged with his fist intent, sweeping across the firmament. The countless Abyss creatures that were still stepping forward from the heavens, advancing one deliberate footprint at a time, were pulverized into dust beneath this single strike. These Abyss monsters were not particularly powerful; many were not even Dragon-rank. Their only terrifying aspect was their innate Abyss attribute. If not for the fact that making contact with them brought disruption, distortion, and corruption, Dragon-rank powerhouses would have been more than enough to deal with them. After throwing his punch, Yu Xian watched as even more Abyss monsters emerged. Across the crimson Abyss, there seemed to be spatial nodes scattered everywhere, allowing them to traverse freely. Just then, he spotted a tall yet emaciated figure materialize out of thin air from the Abyss.