Chapter 305: Sliced in Half Like Paper
The hundred-meter crimson arc tore through the sky, burning with a sickening mixture of dark red blood-mist and pitch-black demonic Qi.
It didn’t just move through the air, it ripped the sky open, leaving a boiling, corrupted tear in the atmosphere that hissed with unholy energy.
The raw, suffocating pressure descending ahead of the blade flattened the surrounding rooftops, shattering tiles into dust and turning the air so heavy that nearby spectators fell onto their knees, gasping for breath.
From inside the high-ceilinged council chamber, time seemed to grind to an absolute halt.
Through the shattered stained-glass windows, Meng De, Zhao Tianxing, and the trembling elders looked out in sheer horror.
The blinding blood-red light illuminated their terrified, pale faces.
The blade was a colossal mountain of pure destruction, roaring toward them at blinding speed.
They had less than ten seconds before absolute annihilation struck.
"Activate the defenses! NOW!" Meng De shrieked, his voice cracking in sheer panic.
With a frantic flick of his wrist, the Array Master pulled a heavy, dragon-engraved bronze array disc from his storage ring.
Without a second thought, he forced half of his total Golden Core Qi into the center of the artifact.
HUMMMMMM—!
The defensive network embedded within the foundation of the Golden Cauldron Union roared to life!
Massive, brilliant golden runes erupted from the stone floor, swirling together at blinding speed to form a towering, hemispherical barrier of light that completely enveloped the building.
This was the Union’s ultimate defense: a peak Tier 3 Grand Guardian Array.
Engineered to casually deflect strikes from late-stage Golden Core masters, it possessed enough structural integrity to absorb a few direct blows from an early-stage Nascent Soul powerhouse.
Relief flickered across Meng De’s face as the golden light solidified.
"Hold! It will hold!" he roared.
Outside, the demonic slash slammed downward, its crimson edge mere inches from making violent contact with the glowing golden sphere.
And then, disaster struck.
Without warning, the brilliant golden runes flickered violently.
A sharp, unseen disruption rippled through the central ley-lines of the building.
The grand array gave a dying, choked hum, and the golden sphere abruptly shut down, plunging the entire headquarters into total vulnerability for a critical five-second window!
"WHAT?!" Zhao Tianxing screamed, his eyes bulging in sheer disbelief.
Five seconds was an eternity.
Before the array could reboot, the gigantic, dark-red blade of demonic Qi crashed through the naked roof of the right wing with apocalyptic force!
BOOOOOOOOOOM—!
A blinding flash of crimson light consumed the vision of everyone inside.
The massive, multi-tiered right wing of the Golden Cauldron Union was sliced in half like paper.
Marble pillars shattered into fine powder, reinforced stone walls disintegrated, and the violent shockwave tore through the grand meeting hall, obliterating everything in its path.
The deafening rumble echoing across Crimson Iron City slowly faded, replaced by the crackle of burning ruins and a heavy, suffocating silence.
Dense, black smoke and blood-tinted dust hung thick over the central district.
As the dust began to settle, the horrifying reality of the strike was laid bare.
Nearly the entire right side of the grand complex had been reduced to a gaping, smoldering crater.
Dozens of lower-realm disciples and servants in the lower floors had been instantly turned to bloody mist.
Scores of others lay trapped under giant stone slabs, groaning in agony.
Only a few lucky individuals positioned on the far left edge of the building had escaped the blast radius unscathed.
Inside the ruined remnants of the meeting hall, debris shifted.
"Cough! Haah..."
Bai Ruolan coughed up a spray of fresh crimson blood, her face pale and her delicate Vice-Chief robes torn and caked in white dust.
The sheer, kinetic shockwave of the slash had hurled her body straight out of the hall, blasting her through two thick stone walls into an adjacent storage room.
Her chest heaved as she leaned against the rubble, her eyes sharp despite her injuries.
The Foundation Establishment elders who had been sitting near her had met a far grimmer fate.
Almost all of them lay lifeless among the shattered rubble, their bodies crushed beneath the immense weight of the collapsed stone ceiling, with only two or three bleeding out and barely clinging to life.
Ruolan leaned weakly against a ruined pillar and looked up through the gaping crater.
High above, the ancient defensive array snapped back, its golden runes reigniting and swirling violently into place to seal the breach, five seconds too late.
Swallowing down the copper taste in her mouth, she tapped her storage ring, summoning a small crystal vial containing the high-grade healing pills Shen Yu had given her four days prior.
Uncorking it with trembling fingers, she popped a glowing pill into her mouth.
The moment it dissolved, a soothing wave of pure, refined medicinal energy washed through her meridians, knitting her cracked ribs and soothing her internal injuries at a visible rate.
’This better go exactly as he planned,’ she thought, her eyes narrowing as she forced her breathing to steady.
A cold mountain wind whistled through the ruined hall, driving away the thick, sulfurous smoke to reveal the devastation below.
Descending slowly from the open sky, shrouded in swirling, violent torrents of dark red demonic Qi, an imposing figure hovered in midair.
Draped in a heavy black cloak that billowed in the gale, his broad shoulders squared and his midnight-black beard framing a sharp, rejuvenated face, Peng Kai looked down at the survivors like a cruel executioner.
His glowing, hellish crimson eyes swept across the blood-soaked ruins, drinking in the sight.
Seeing the once-arrogant leaders of the Golden Cauldron Union bleeding, screaming, and crawling in the dirt beneath his boots, a deep, raspy vibration began to build in his chest.
"AHAHAHA! HAHAHAHAHAHA!"
Peng Kai unleashed a wild, monstrous laugh that echoed viciously off the cracked walls, dripping with pure, unadulterated malice.
His burning red gaze swept past the bloodied, coughing forms of Meng De and Zhao Tianxing, locking directly onto the pale, hyperventilating figure of Ye Jun.
The Head Treasurer was pinned flat beneath a collapsed stone pillar, clutching his shattered arm in sheer terror.
Peng Kai’s smile widened, stretching into a jagged, predatory sneer that glinted with sharp teeth.
"So... Head Treasurer Ye," Peng Kai purred, his deep, resonant growl vibrating through the ruined hall like a death knell.
"Do you remember me?"