Chapter 614 - 607: Siege
The Himalayas, Nanda Devi Peak, within the borders of Bosha Country.
Not long ago, in Brahma Hall at the summit of the Practitioners Saint Mountain, Zhou Yuanjue had just provided enlightenment and guidance for the cultivators of Bosha Country.
As a nation where the practice of cultivation had flourished since ancient times, Bosha Country had more participants in this guidance session than both Donghua and Beisha Country.
More than forty people attended, and in the end, five of them died during the guidance.
Thanks to Zhou Yuanjue’s efforts, the number of powerful individual combatants on the human side had once again increased by a massive amount.
At this moment, Zhou Yuanjue stood atop Nanda Devi Peak with his hands clasped behind his back. He gazed out at a landscape of rolling mountain ranges and sprawling glaciers.
The three Supreme Venerables of Bosha Country stood by his side.
"In less than half a month, nearly a hundred more people have broken through the limits of the human body. Given enough time, the Celestial Demons will no longer be a threat."
Giant Spirit Snake King Doram remarked with a sigh.
"But the one thing we lack most right now is time."
Zhou Yuanjue shook his head and gazed into the distance. For some reason, a persistent shadow had been looming over his heart recently, urging him to quicken his pace.
’He knew this was no time to relax. As for the Celestial Demons, those Primordial Ancestors who have already awakened surely have some unpredictable moves in store. They won’t just stand by and watch humanity rise.’
Especially considering his recent actions: he had purged the Celestial Demon spies within Donghua Country, ascended to the Kunlun Immortal Palace to forcibly suppress and seal the half-awakened body of Ancestral Ji, and then visited Beisha and Bosha. Including those in Donghua, he had guided nearly a hundred people to successfully break through their physical limits and enter the Saint Awakening Realm, causing humanity’s collective power to swell to an unprecedented degree.
Yet, until now, neither the Starry Sky Country nor the Celestial Organization had shown any reaction. This in itself was abnormal.
It was the calm before the storm. A terrifying tempest was bound to erupt.
And what he needed to do now was to bolster humanity’s strength as much as possible before that storm broke.
Normally, after encountering the guidance and inheritance of a high-level civilization in Beisha Country, he would have been greatly inspired. Following his usual habits, his personality would have compelled him to immediately enter seclusion in Beisha to digest the profound insights he had gained.
But he hadn’t. That persistent shadow in his heart kept pushing him forward.
"You’re right. I’ve had a direct encounter with that Primordial Ancestor from the Starry Sky Country. He is an extremely dangerous individual. He won’t just sit back and wait for his doom."
Kekao, the "Venerable Brahma" who was wrapped in bandages and had lost all five of his senses, communicated by vibrating the magnetic field.
"Next, I will depart from Bosha immediately and head to the next country..."
Zhou Yuanjue began to say.
However, before he could finish his sentence, Zhou Yuanjue’s expression suddenly changed.
He sensed it. In the direction of the Starry Sky Country, some terrifying entity had fully awakened. It was like an ancient Fierce Beast breaking free of its chains, brazenly unleashing its oppressive might.
As the first being in Earth’s biosphere to break through its layered restrictions, Zhou Yuanjue possessed certain esoteric permissions over the planet, and his senses were clear.
It was a strange, mournful cry, but it came from no person or living creature.
It came from the world itself.
The world seemed to be on the verge of a terrible catastrophe, and its unseen will was sending a distress signal to him—the being who stood at the apex of all life.
"The entity in the Starry Sky Country has completely broken its bonds! And its power... it has devoured the world’s beautiful dreams, swelling to an unimaginable degree..."
Kekao immediately communicated by vibrating the magnetic field. Having created a spiritual world within the void, he was more sensitive than anyone else to changes at the highest levels of existence.
"It seems they really won’t give us much time. Their counterattack is probably about to—"
THWACK!
But before Kekao could finish, he felt a large hand clap down on his shoulder. An unparalleled force surged through him, and his body shot into the distance like a cannonball.
It wasn’t just him. In that same instant, the bodies of Giant Spirit Snake King Doram and Wheel of Destruction Ludi were also sent flying like cannonballs.
And the one who had done it was none other than Zhou Yuanjue.
Watching the three figures fly off in different directions, Zhou Yuanjue slowly relaxed from his powerful stance and returned to a standing position.
His eyes were devoid of joy or sorrow, perfectly calm. He could clearly feel an unknown power locking onto him, but he couldn’t perceive where it was coming from, nor how it would manifest and attack.
An intense sense of crisis made the hair on his body stand on end. The feeling of suffocation, as if a hand were gripping his throat, was something he hadn’t experienced in a very long time.
"The counterattack isn’t coming soon," Zhou Yuanjue muttered to himself. "It’s starting right now."
BANG!
The next moment, a thick, gray smoke suddenly billowed out of the void around Zhou Yuanjue, instantly engulfing his body.
Then, the gray smoke, with his body inside, violently collapsed inward toward a central singularity.
「Elsewhere.」
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Propelled by Zhou Yuanjue’s immense power, the three from Bosha Country flew far into the distance, only coming to a stop when they crashed heavily into the side of a mountain.
Feeling their qi and blood churning within them, the three realized something was wrong with Zhou Yuanjue’s sudden, abnormal actions. They immediately looked back in his direction, and Kekao’s spiritual sense spread out rapidly, returning to the spot where Zhou Yuanjue had been.
However, whether visually, on a material level, or on the level of the magnetic field, Zhou Yuanjue had completely vanished, leaving no trace in the world.
’How is this possible?!’
’How could a living person just vanish into thin air like that?! This is completely beyond the realm of common sense!’
’What on earth happened?!’
’Did the Celestial Demons make their move? How did they do it?!’
A deeply ominous feeling flashed through the minds of all three.
After such a long period of silence, they never expected the Celestial Demons’ counterattack to be so sudden... and so bizarre.
’We have to notify Donghua immediately!’
...
...
Meanwhile, after his body was swallowed by the gray mist, Zhou Yuanjue felt the world spin. When the mist before his eyes finally dissipated, he found himself in another place entirely.
It was a massive, gray-black city in a European medieval style, with empty, deathly silent streets and towering buildings. In the sky above hung a colossal mass of gray fog, laced with streaks of blood-red.
Everything around him was a colorless gray-black. It was as if he had stepped into a city from a nightmare.