Chapter 127

“Plan changed.” Purgin’s voice, amplified by powerful draconic magic, echoed instantly in the minds of all dragons—clear, calm, and unquestionable.

“Our target is no longer to storm the rift, but to lure that ‘Hill’ and most of its minions at least twenty kilometers away from the fissure, into the ‘Maw Gorge’ of the Black Spine Highlands.”

Fidemina’s roar shattered the battlefield: “Clumsy, rotting flesh! Your flames are fit only to polish my scales!” The ultimate insult and tangible searing pain successfully pinned the demon lord’s primary hatred.

Several elite wedge formations of metallic dragons, led by Purgin himself, launched multiple highly threatening yet precisely controlled assaults.

Their target: the “Abyssal Colossus” and “Soul-Bound Guards” at the rift’s edge. Purgin himself unleashed a concentrated stream of metallic breath, melting and shattering one colossus’s arm;

the golden dragons’ sacred charges forced the Soul-Bound Guards into defensive formations. These actions sent the demon lord a clear signal: the dragons intended to forcibly breach the line and make direct contact with the rift! This triggered “Gorgultan’s” core instinct to defend its domain.

Purgin saw the hatred was now firmly anchored. As the demon lord let out a deafening roar and began advancing with mountainous strides, directing its main forces toward the metallic dragons’ assault direction, he immediately ordered:

“All units, maintain contact, withdraw in order!”

The dragons ceased fighting outright, instead forming a loose circular line, continuously bombarding the front and flanks of the demon army with breath and spells—especially constantly “provoking” the demon lord himself, ensuring he would not lose interest.

…………

When the demon lord’s roars and the dragons’ rearguard clashes echoed twenty miles away in the gorge, the core region of the Howling Abyss fell into an eerie, relative silence.

Sakavi fully materialized from a thick, living shadow. Behind him followed the silent, sharp-eyed black dragon Karava and his dragon-beast subordinates.

Like the most loyal shadow guardians, they swiftly scattered, occupying several key energy nodes around the rift, efficiently and silently eliminating residual demons or abyssal derivatives.

Sakavi did not immediately look at the rift. Instead, he raised one foreclaw. Shadows coiled between his claws, coalescing into several rapidly spinning, impossibly complex dark runes.

From his throat came short, shrill syllables—not draconic speech for communication, but pure incantations to guide the essence of shadow.

As he chanted, a heavy grinding sound emerged from the ground. Twelve obsidian obelisks, long lurking nearby and magically disguised as ordinary rock pillars, burst forth from beneath the living tissue, slowly rising.

They were precisely manipulated, inserted around the rift to form a twisted, non-Euclidean geometric array centered on the fissure.

Their surfaces were etched with dense, flowing runes mixing abyssal and draconic script, yet their cores had been utterly “corrupted” and reconstructed by unique shadow arts.

The instant they settled, the obelisks began absorbing ambient abyssal energy and light, dimming the glow of the Abyss Heart, and condensing at their peaks a profound darkness that seemed capable of devouring souls.

A powerful, strange shadow binding field began to form—not only isolating the violent exchange of energy inside and out, but also subtly “suppressing” the rift’s own pulsing frequency.

He opened his jaws and exhaled a long, low sequence of draconic incantations, rich with multiple resonances and eerie harmonies. The spell sounded neither holy nor furious, but carried a cold, procedural, rule-deepening distortion.

Suddenly, the incantation’s pitch sharpened like ten thousand rusted blades scraping—black light blazed across the obelisk array, focusing a massive, transformed shadow-corrupted force upon the rift.

This force sought to forcibly accelerate its “disorder” and “inertness.” The purple-black glow of the fissure darkened, mottled; its edges began spreading rust-like, crimson energy crystals. The rift’s expansion and contraction weakened, slowed, grew sluggish.

Residual abyssal energy spontaneously coalesced into tentacles or demonic faces to strike back—but all were suppressed and scattered by the dragon-beasts and the obelisk shadow field.

Sakavi’s focus reached absolute extremity. His yellow slit pupils held no emotion—only cold calculation and absolute mastery over the art of darkness. The rift shrank and dimmed visibly, its surface increasingly covered in spiderweb-like shadow patterns and rusted crystals.

Yet, just as the sealing reached its critical moment, the rift on the verge of complete closure, a sudden anomaly erupted! Deep within the rift, the once chaotic but violent abyssal will underwent a strange metamorphosis due to imminent total sealing.

It suddenly coalesced into an ultra-concentrated beam of pure malice and retaliatory will—purple-black, ignoring all shadow tendrils—and shot straight at Sakavi!

This was no longer scattered energy—it was the abyss’s most venomous curse-recoil against “termination” itself. The corruption seal ritual had reached its most dangerous moment.

As the concentrated curse-beam of abyssal malice was about to pierce the black dragon’s chest, deep within his emotionless yellow slit pupils, a flicker of premeditated, almost cruel light flashed.

He did not interrupt the long, complex sealing incantation—only the final tone shifted imperceptibly, sliding from a note promoting “rust” to a dark syllable signifying “grafting” and “transfer.”

Simultaneously, the shadow that had always cloaked his left foreclaw—thicker than any other part—suddenly peeled away!

That shadow was not mere darkness. In the instant it detached, it became a shadow mirror, perfectly matching Sakavi’s current magical resonance, Yingxiang the beam.

Yet this mirror was no simple illusion—it was a pre-prepared channel, tightly linked to a distant “anchor point.”

The abyssal curse struck the mirror precisely. The torrent of purple-black malice surged in, seeking to corrupt and tear apart his soul essence.

But the next instant, this destructive force, through the shadow channel, was forcibly grafted—faster than space—to the soul of a pre-prepared demon in the Sulphur Vale, twenty kilometers away.

The rift’s final glow extinguished. The once-pulsing, purple-black wound now became a grotesque scar, thickly coated in rust-red “rust scabs” and spiderweb-like shadow patterns, permanently branded into the earth.

All abnormal sucking, howling, and energy surges ceased. The direct channel between the abyss and this plane was utterly locked by a cold, inert, twisted-shadow seal.

Then Sakavi did something seemingly insignificant: he extended his claw and made a Xuwo gesture toward the thickest part of the rust Jia at the seal’s center.

A small, unremarkable fragment of “scar tissue”—marked with rust-red stains and shadow patterns—detached silently and vanished into the shadow beneath his wings. Was this his reserved “backdoor” or “key”? No one knew.

When the black dragon’s message arrived, the rearguard forces in the gorge, under Purgin’s command, unleashed a final, overwhelming volley of synchronized breath attacks.

Then, using the explosion and smoke as cover, all formations rapidly ascended, broke contact, and flew toward the prearranged coordinates—the “Ancient Crown” highland.

…………

This was a towering peak, isolated on the edge of the Black Spine Highlands, far from direct abyssal corruption. Its summit was not sharp, but a vast, unnaturally flat plateau—as if carved clean by a mythic blade.

The rock was gray-white, dense, and naturally resistant to abyssal energy.

It was the “twilight” hour of this plane: the horizon churned with eternal warlike crimson and deep violet, yet above the highland, the sky was eerily clear—a special magical channel formed a natural, faint barrier, shielding it from the lingering filth and howls below.

Scattered along the plateau’s edge were several massive, heavily weathered square stone pillars, carved with ancient patterns now unrecognizable, hinting that this place, in an unfathomably distant past, may have been a watchtower or sacred site.

The dragons landed one by one, their heavy bodies crashing onto the rocky platform with thunderous booms, echoing through the thin air.

As the last dragon settled on the “Ancient Crown” highland, the weary panting and scale-rustling had not yet fully faded when Purgin slowly lifted his scarred head.

Twilight, like congealed bloodscab, coated his amber scales. His usual calm slit pupils now held shadows heavier than mountains.

His voice was low, yet like a meteor striking a silent ice lake, shattering the brief, illusory peace of survival:

“The rift sealing mission was a great success. All present here have proven worthy of dragon honor.”

He paused. The thin, high-altitude wind swept across the plateau, as if holding its breath.

“However,” Purgin’s tone sank, each word scraped like metal, “I bring bad news from afar.”

His gaze swept over every dragon eye on the platform—whether burning, cold, or wise.

“While we fought here and sealed the Howling Abyss, the ‘Pale Pass’ to the northwest… has fallen.”

He spoke the name as if spitting out toxic ice shards.

“The Holy Order’s Paladin Captain, ‘Unbroken Bulwark’ Bayer, along with his twelve-member Holy Sigil Knight contingent… have been confirmed dead.”

“The secondary rift they attempted to seal did not close—it shattered completely under violent backlash and concentrated demonic assault.”

A wave of uncontrollable scale tremors and heavy snorts rose from the platform.

“They burned themselves to ash, yet failed to ignite the seal’s flame. Pale Pass is now the newest, and most furious, wound through which demons pour into this plane.”

He delivered the final, cruel conclusion, his voice hollow and cold in the twilight:

“Our victory here cannot mend the fatal breach in the entire frontline. This grand joint operation to block abyssal infiltration… has failed strategically.”

From the shadows, Sakavi’s hoarse voice spoke again, like a venomous snake sliding over cold rock.

He did not look at any dragon. His yellow slit pupils fixed on the horizon, slowly being swallowed by abyssal twilight—as if he already saw the terrifying tide approaching.

“Then,” he spoke slowly, each word wrapped in a cold, almost mocking “pragmatism,” “the most dignified, and wisest course of action for you great victors… is now only one—”

He paused deliberately, letting the word “dignified” hang in the bloody air, thick with irony.

“Split up and ‘take cover.’ Or, find a deep enough, hidden enough cave, and properly ‘store’ yourselves away.”

He finally moved his head, his gaze sweeping over the scarred, massive bodies. His tone held no trace of relief—only cold, unsettling prediction.

“What crawls out of that fresh wound at Pale Pass… won’t be the same mindless abyssal trash we just slaughtered.”

His voice dropped lower, carrying the chilling certainty of someone who knew too much: “The first wave of fully intelligent hunters… their claws will crave nothing but us—those who just successfully ‘humiliated’ the abyss, still carrying the fresh scent of new seals.”

A faint gurgle escaped his throat—a dark chuckle.

“Before the slow-moving ‘main forces’ of the Pantheon finally deign to move their noble steps into this mess,” he used a deliberately contemptuous term.

“We had better go utterly… ‘quiet.’ Let shadow become scales. Let silence replace roars. Any unnecessary exposure is equivalent to nailing a glowing tombstone to your own back.”