At this moment, Shen Jizhi was only five steps into the hall.
Behind him, a number of male demons followed.
The sudden closing of the door interrupted the procession of demons. The last demon to enter was momentarily stunned, then immediately turned around and began pounding on the door with great force, his voice filled with confusion and anxiety, "Why did the door suddenly close? My brother hasn't come in yet!"
But no matter how hard he struck, it was futile.
The doors of the Demon Palace were exceptionally heavy, crafted from the finest thousand-year-old demon wood and reinforced with the dark scales of demon beasts on the surface, further strengthened by demonic arrays.
Any spell cast upon the door would vanish like mud sinking into the sea, leaving not even a crack.
After a moment of silence, the guests in the hall, whether standing or sitting, began to feel uneasy. The atmosphere grew restless.
"What's going on? Is the door broken?"
"That can't be! This is the Demon Palace's door—how could it break?"
"Ladies, could you please tell us what's happening?"
"Yes, my father and brother haven't come in yet! They paid their demon crystals too..."
"..."
The maids and servants, who were being bombarded with questions from the guests, also looked bewildered.
Clearly, they had no idea what was going on either.
Standing between the male and female banquet tables, the female official in charge of the demon banquet arrangements paused for a moment.
Frowning, she scanned the noisy crowd of demons and shouted, "Quiet! Everyone, quiet! Return to your seats at once..." As she spoke, she took a step forward, intending to investigate the issue with the door.
But just as she took that first step, the ground beneath her feet suddenly began to tremble violently!
In an instant, the entire hall shook, and tables swayed.
Delicate cups, bowls, and plates shattered, scattering fragments across the floor.
The guests, like toddlers learning to walk, were thrown off balance, their bodies colliding with tables, chairs, and walls, filling the air with cries of pain.
Amidst the rising panic, a few terrifying sounds of the ground splitting echoed through the hall.
Crack.
Crack.
The ground in the center of the hall, at the junction between the left and right sides, split open along a spiral 'S' curve, rapidly widening.
Thick, snake-like demonic vines shot out from the cracks. The female official, who was closest to the fissure, didn't even have time to react before a vine wrapped around her waist.
The vine tightened around her flesh, and before she could even scream, her body exploded with a loud bang. Black blood and dismembered limbs rained down into the crack below.
The hall descended into chaos as demons fled in all directions.
"What the hell is this thing? Help—help!"
"Let us out! We came here for the banquet, we paid our demon crystals! How could this happen, how could this happen..."
"Open the door, open the door—ah!!"
The sharp cries were abruptly cut short. In just a few breaths, countless members of the Demon Clan were reduced to clouds of blood mist, like black fireworks exploding in the night sky on New Year's Eve.
The demonic vines, stimulated by the blood and flesh, grew even more frenzied. Their branches whipped wildly, indiscriminately reaching out to seize anyone and anything in the banquet hall.
Shen Jizhi remained hidden among the crowd of demons.
Even with his disguise, the coldness on his face was unmistakable.
He could feel it.
In the shadows, a pair of eyes stared at him with excitement and greed—
Focused on the demonic core within him.
He had been targeted the moment he entered.
The young man's lips pressed into a thin line as his mind raced. His calm eyes swept across the widening 'S'-shaped fissure in the center of the hall, landing on the other side.
Among the group of women, Jian Huan's right foot slid a half-circle to the right on the ceramic shard-covered floor, her body leaning back to avoid a demonic vine lunging toward her.
With a sharp clang, Jian Huan drew her sword. A flash of silvery light sliced through the long vine, cutting it into countless pieces.
The small vine segments fell to the ground like hailstones, clattering noisily.
As Shen Jizhi observed, a vine shot toward him.
With a flick of his finger, he executed a precise sword technique. A flash of cold, sharp sword energy shattered the attacking vine into pieces.
Yin Yusheng, wielding a sickle used for gathering herbs, hacked through a vine and quickly approached Shen Jizhi. "Brother Shen, our junior sister is over there!"
As if sensing their gaze, Jian Huan suddenly turned her head, her eyes locking onto Shen Jizhi and Yin Yusheng.
There was no time for silent communication.
Jian Huan had been using her evasive maneuvers to gradually move closer to the second-floor balcony.
The sealed doors, the splitting ground, and the sudden appearance of the demonic vines were all highly unusual.
It felt like... a sacrifice.
This gave Jian Huan a very bad premonition.
But no matter what, their immediate priority was to rescue the two elders.
Jian Huan pointed a finger toward Gu Shan and Yu Qing, who were suspended from the second-floor balcony. After seeing Shen Jizhi nod in acknowledgment, she wasted no time. With a light tap of her foot, she shot upward like a meteor, heading straight for her masters!
Seeing this, Yin Yusheng said to Shen Jizhi, "Brother Shen, let's go too..."
"You go help her." Sensing something, the five-colored stone within him began to pulse wildly. Shen Jizhi's eyes flickered as he suppressed his discomfort. Without hesitation, he grabbed Yin Yusheng's arm and hurled him toward the second-floor balcony.
"Brother Shen!" Yin Yusheng exclaimed in surprise, quickly stabilizing himself mid-air and instinctively looking back.
After a glance, he tightened his grip on the sickle and understood Shen Jizhi's intention. He hurried toward Gu Shan.
In mid-air, Jian Huan stood on her silver sword, swiftly placing thunder talismans on the black demonic ropes binding Gu Shan and Yu Qing.
When someone approached, Jian Huan glanced sideways, her dark eyes pausing briefly, but her hands never stopped moving. "Where is he?"
Yin Yusheng reached Gu Shan and began channeling his healing energy into the unconscious man. Closing his eyes to assess Gu Shan's injuries, he replied, "He's covering us from below."
Hearing this, Jian Huan glanced downward.
In the chaotic, blood-soaked hall, amidst the constant explosions of black blood mist, the tall, black-clad youth wielded his sword, flying straight toward the fissure.
Wherever his sword light fell, the vines emerging from the crack were severed, preventing them from reaching her.
Jian Huan's long lashes fluttered, but she said nothing, her hands moving even faster in their urgent task.
Suddenly, Jian Huan pulled back, shouting, "Brother Yin, retreat!"
Yin Yusheng cut off his energy flow and dove downward into the empty hall.
Once he was clear, Jian Huan, her fingers stained with black blood, tapped the black demonic ropes.
The ropes, shrouded in dark energy and covered in a messy array of yellow talismans, suddenly exploded with a deafening roar.
Purple lightning illusions crackled through the hall, and the black ropes were blown apart.
Under the intense heat, the remnants of the ropes melted into thick, black liquid, dripping into the blood-filled cauldrons below.
Freed from the ropes, Gu Shan and Yu Qing began to plummet.
Two figures quickly pursued them. Jian Huan caught Yu Qing, while Yin Yusheng scooped up Gu Shan.
In Jian Huan's arms, the usually gentle and refined Yu Qing now had his long black hair singed and his face covered in gray ash.
But she had no time to dwell on it. Holding onto Elder Yu, she hovered mid-air, her eyes scanning the entire hall as her mind raced through the array and talisman texts she had studied over the years.
The doors of the hall had become part of an array, making them impenetrable and impossible to exit.
But every array had its weakest point.
Below, Shen Jizhi was tirelessly fending off countless demonic vines for her and Yin Yusheng.
With high-ranking demons like Jiang Wei absent, they were undoubtedly hiding somewhere, watching everything unfold like a spectacle.
Their lack of action suggested they were waiting for something.
Waiting for the demonic vines to absorb the flesh and blood of the demons, waiting for something beneath the fissure to awaken, or perhaps for some sacrificial array to be completed.
From the moment the doors closed until now, only a hundred spirit stones' worth of time had passed, yet more than half of the demons in the hall had already perished.
The three of them didn't have much time left.
Suddenly, Jian Huan's gaze fixed on a door to the southeast. She pointed her sword and shouted, "Let's go there!"
She took the lead, her black-and-red gradient skirt billowing in the wind like a vivid banner.
Yin Yusheng, carrying Gu Shan, followed closely behind.
Jian Huan landed and tossed a spatial bowl into a corner. Turning back, she urged, "Brother Yin, hurry! Take Elder Gu and Elder Yu inside first! Make sure to wake Elder Gu!"
Yin Yusheng, with one hand free, took hold of Yu Qing and nodded. With a step, he entered the spatial bowl.
The moment he stepped inside, all sounds from the hall vanished, replaced by an overwhelming silence.
Yin Yusheng glanced back, took a deep breath, and carefully placed the two elders on the ground before calming himself to assess the situation.
Although Elder Yu Qing had suffered some flesh wounds from the lightning talisman, as a Nascent Soul cultivator, his body was resilient, and the injuries were not severe.
The most pressing issue was the toxicity of the King Insect Demon Powder within Elder Yu Qing's body.
If left untreated, Elder Yu Qing would eventually succumb to demonic corruption, losing all reason and descending into a mindless state of slaughter.
However, at the moment, the last Earth Fruit was still ripening on the hillside of the Jade Clarity Sect, and there was no immediate antidote available.
Yin Yusheng fed Elder Yu Qing some healing pills and, after a moment of thought, also fed him a living dead insect. He then stored Elder Yu Qing in a spatial pouch.
This way, even if they were unable to escape the Demon Palace today, if the people of the Nine Provinces managed to break in later, Elder Yu Qing might still have a chance of survival.
After dealing with Elder Yu Qing, Yin Yusheng focused entirely on healing Gu Shan.
The toxicity of the King Insect Demon Powder in Gu Shan had already been neutralized by the Earth Fruit Pill, but he had suffered severe internal injuries, with many of his meridians severed. Time was of the essence.
Even if he couldn't fully recover, at the very least, they needed to wake Gu Shan up.
After ensuring that Yin Yusheng and the other two were safely inside the spatial bowl, Jian Huan exhaled lightly and was about to turn around to see if Shen Jizhi had arrived.
Suddenly, a demonic branch as thick as a forearm shot through the air toward her. Her delicate brows furrowed, and instead of dodging, she stepped forward, a talisman pinched between her fingers, ready to wrap around the tip of the branch.
But before she could activate the lightning talisman, the agilely wriggling branch in mid-air suddenly froze, like a head rolling off a neck, and plummeted straight down.
Jian Huan paused, her dark eyes instantly darting toward the distance.
At the far end of the long demonic branch, Shen Jizhi stood suspended in the air, a snow-white sword in hand. His gaze was slightly lowered, and the strands of hair in front of his forehead danced in the wind stirred by his sword.
A smile appeared in her eyes, and she tilted her chin up, pounding her chest twice with a fist, calling out loudly, "Thanks, bro!"
Shen Jizhi: "..."
Shen Jizhi sighed slightly, already accustomed to her outrageous remarks.
As long as she didn't call him "bro" in bed, he could tolerate it.
Jian Huan wasn't deliberately trying to smile, but as she looked at him, her lips naturally curled up, revealing her pearly white teeth. She waved at him, "Why are you standing so far away? Come over here."
The young man stood ten steps away, his gaze steady as he effortlessly cut down every demonic branch that came her way. He replied nonchalantly, "This position is more advantageous."
Jian Huan glanced around and realized that his location indeed offered both offensive and defensive benefits, so she didn't press further.
Time was of the essence. Thanks to his cover, she was able to free both hands. Facing the towering palace doors, she placed one hand on her waist and the other on her temple, desperately trying to recall past memories.
Got it!
Jian Huan's eyes lit up as she stretched out her hand, and a thick tome titled *Advanced Array Formations* appeared in her palm.
The array formation books came in three volumes: *Basic*, *Intermediate*, and *Advanced*.
Jian Huan had specifically borrowed *Advanced Array Formations* from the Jade Clarity Sect's library before leaving.
She had read all three books from cover to cover. The *Basic* and *Intermediate* volumes were relatively simple, and she had already mastered most of their contents.
However, *Advanced Array Formations* contained material primarily for Nascent Soul cultivators, and many of the array symbols in the book were beyond her comprehension.
She lowered her head, her nimble fingers flipping through the pages until she reached the chapter on "Array Breaking Techniques."
Within the "Array Breaking Techniques," there was a so-called "Key Talisman" that could supposedly break most door arrays.
But this talisman was far beyond her capabilities—it was something only Nascent Soul cultivators could draw.
As a Golden Core cultivator, she would feel dizzy every time she tried to study it, let alone memorize it.
But it didn't matter. She could just follow the book and copy it step by step.
She had borrowed this book precisely to use it as a reference guide.
She flipped to the page, tore it out with a forceful motion, and tossed the heavy book back into her spatial pouch. Holding the thin sheet of paper, she stepped onto her silver sword, which hovered beneath her feet.
Jian Huan swallowed a Spirit Recovery Pill, and spiritual energy surged at her fingertips. She closed her eyes briefly, preparing to study the slightly yellowed paper.
Although she couldn't be sure if the "Key Talisman" would work on this demonic door array, it was worth a shot.
But before she could open her eyes, her heart suddenly raced uncontrollably, and a wave of panic, like ice-cold water, flooded her limbs, causing her hand holding the paper to tremble.
This sense of life-and-death crisis instantly reminded her of her past life, when she had been crossing the street and a dump truck running a red light had turned and barreled toward her.
The feeling was exactly the same.
She immediately kicked off her silver sword, flipping backward and hastily retreating to a safe distance.
Almost the moment Jian Huan moved, a mass of demonic energy appeared where she had just been standing.
The demonic energy was soft and fluffy, like a cloud, but it carried an overwhelming killing intent. When the energy dispersed, the entire palace hall shook violently.
The residual waves of the demonic energy brushed past Jian Huan, causing her to grunt in pain as a metallic taste of blood rose in her throat.
This was... an attack from a demon equivalent to a Mahayana-level cultivator.
Shen Jizhi's eyes sharpened, but he hesitated, not moving toward Jian Huan.
Instead, he circled around her, cutting down demonic branches as he asked, "Are you alright?"
Jian Huan wiped a trace of blood from the corner of her mouth, stuffing a spirit fruit into her mouth as she glanced in the direction from which the demonic energy had come. She murmured, "I'm fi—"
The word "fine" caught in her throat, vanishing as her gaze turned grave.
In the short time they had been trying to save their master and break through the door, the ground in the grand hall had completely cracked, all the way to the entrance.
Not a single tile remained intact in the hall.
The once-crowded banquet hall was now eerily silent, the guests reduced to lifeless husks, their flesh and blood having fed the shadowy, writhing tendrils beneath the ground.
Crack, crack.
The once-sturdy second-floor platform, which had previously been immovable, began to crumble.
The black jade throne toppled over, crashing to the ground with a deafening roar as the entire platform plummeted into the bottomless abyss below, filled with writhing demonic branches.
The wall behind the throne, adorned with a massive black stone dragon carving, also disintegrated into dust.
The air was filled with swirling dust, like autumn leaves caught in a gust of wind.
Soon, Shen Jizhi and Jian Huan's hair, eyelashes, and clothes were all coated with a layer of ash.
Jian Huan hovered in mid-air, shaking off the dust. She gripped her silver sword tightly with one hand, while the other hand, hidden in her sleeve, was poised to unleash a talisman sword technique. She cautiously scanned the surroundings.
As the dust settled, the scene around them became clear, as if washed clean by rain.
Behind the mural was the canopy of an enormous tree.
The canopy was incredibly dense, resembling the cap of a giant mushroom. It was black with a faint red glow, exuding an eerie, sinister aura.
Above the canopy stood a nine-person-tall pagoda, its shape resembling a bamboo shoot, stretching toward the blood-red moon above.
Countless black demonic branches, like the tentacles of the demonic tree, extended toward the canopy, winding around the pagoda's body like ivy crawling up a wall. They tightly embedded the pagoda into the tree's canopy, making the two inseparable, as if they were one.
Under the moonlight, the pagoda, tightly bound by the demonic branches, still emitted a faint, gentle green light from the gaps, radiating a sense of compassion and mercy.
Jian Huan and Shen Jizhi, standing ten steps apart amidst the ruins of the hall, exchanged a glance.
The pagoda before them was none other than the Bodhi Pagoda they had been searching for.
The door of the Bodhi Pagoda faced them, tightly shut.
The blood mist of countless demons fell into the hollow of the demonic tree below, their blood absorbed by the demonic branches, which carried it upward, flowing toward the Bodhi Pagoda.
The pagoda's surface was now entwined with black bloodlines.
The spiritual energy of the Bodhi Pagoda and the demonic energy of the bloodlines clashed, causing the entire pagoda to tremble violently.
In the natural order of the world, light and darkness were opposites, and spiritual and demonic energies were incompatible.
If the Bodhi Pagoda had a spirit, it must be in excruciating pain.
The bloodlines of demonic blood on its surface were not random; they formed an ancient, profound array, pulsating with a chilling, ominous aura.
The black and green forces ebbed and flowed, locked in a silent, relentless struggle.
Beneath the Bodhi Pagoda, the branches of the demonic tree forked, coiling around a black dragon.
Beside the dragon, a demonic branch carefully cradled the body of a young girl—Jiang Qiaoqiao.
In the air below the branches, Jiang Wei and seven demon envoys knelt in reverence, not daring to make a sound.
The black dragon's tail twitched restlessly on the branch, its deep black compound eyes fixed unwaveringly on Shen Jizhi.
Greedy and frenzied.
Drip, drip.
Drops of foul-smelling saliva dripped from its mouth. With a sinister slurp, the black dragon's eerie voice echoed through the air: "After a thousand years apart, my demon core has finally returned to me..."
