The battlefield was no longer a place of war.
It had become a sacrificial altar.
Smoke and debris veiled the bloodstained sky. The screams of dying beasts echoed across shattered mountains, and lightning as black as ink tore across the heavens. The aftermath of Shi Hao's battle with Fang Han still radiated chaos through the air. But something more ancient… more terrifying… was beginning to stir.
In the dead center of the battlefield, a black rift opened.
Not a portal.
Not a tear in space.
But a wound in reality itself.
A breathless silence spread like disease.
Suddenly, divine cultivators—Xu Yang, Lin Feng, Tang San, Nie Li, and even Chu Feng—turned their eyes toward it. One by one, they felt it: a presence that didn't belong in this era. A suppressed, forgotten force, older than even time itself.
"...This aura…" Nie Li murmured, frowning. "This shouldn't exist anymore."
Shi Hao, floating above the battlefield with blood still dripping from his cracked armor, clenched his fists. "This is no longer a clash of gods," he growled. "Something beyond us is waking."
From the rift, chains made of obsidian light burst outward—like tendrils seeking prey. They slithered across the air and stabbed into the ground, dragging up ancient stone pillars inscribed with runes in a dead language.
Xu Yang's eyes gleamed coldly. "The Sealed Domain... That's where they buried the traitors of the Void Era."
Fang Han appeared behind him, severely injured but still standing tall. "Those traitors are no longer buried," he said grimly. "They're calling back their generals."
Suddenly, a deafening scream burst from the rift—a voice not of flesh, but of concept. It shattered clouds, bent space, and made even the heavens tremble.
From the wound in reality, stepped a figure draped in voidfire robes, its face hidden behind a mask forged from broken halos.
It didn't speak.
But the world understood.
It was one of the Forgotten Ones.
---
Chu Feng narrowed his eyes, body cloaked in his lightning-black battle aura. "If these things are returning, this war will be meaningless. We'll all be puppets in their hands."
Nie Li summoned his spiritual pages. The scripts glowed, but many flickered erratically. "Our timelines are unraveling. They're consuming cause and effect itself."
Lin Feng cracked his knuckles. "Then we kill them before they consume us."
"Easy to say," Shi Hao said, stepping down, blood smearing his boots. "That one hasn't even fully awakened. But the world already feels like it's dying."
Fang Han smirked, teeth stained with his own blood. "Perfect time for the real monsters to rise."
---
Suddenly, the Forgotten One raised its hand.
A black sun ignited in the sky.
It wasn't light.
It was absence of hope.
Everything under its glow decayed. Trees wilted. Stones crumbled. The divine qi in the air twisted into screams. Even time bent sideways.
"Everyone! Form the Seal Formation!" Xu Yang shouted, drawing his celestial sword. "Before it devours the realm!"
Each of the top cultivators leapt into motion. Lin Feng, Tang San, and Nie Li spread into the four directions, setting up divine pillars etched with sealing glyphs. Chu Feng ascended above the others, black lightning raging around him like a celestial storm.
"I'll distract it," he growled. "Just make it fast."
"No!" Shi Hao snapped. "You'll die alone!"
Chu Feng turned, eyes gleaming with madness and defiance. "Then I'll die standing. Now go!"
He blasted forward—lightning crackling into a massive black dragon that roared as it slammed into the Forgotten One. The beast stumbled, pushed back for the first time.
A flicker of resistance.
A ripple of hope.
But it wasn't enough.
The Forgotten One raised its other hand and snapped its fingers. Reality fractured.
Chu Feng coughed blood, thrown across the sky like a broken comet.
Still, he stood again—lightning dancing across his torn robes, defying fate with every breath. "I am not done," he growled.
---
Below, the others completed the formation.
Xu Yang impaled the central rune with his sword. Tang San invoked the ancient spirits. Lin Feng fused his qi with time itself. Nie Li burned three of his own spiritual lives to anchor the seal.
The sky cracked.
The sun bled.
And then—
The seal activated.
The Forgotten One screamed—a sound that didn't belong in this world. Its form twisted and shrank, sucked back into the rift. Chains of paradox and fate bound it tighter and tighter.
But just before vanishing, it turned to Chu Feng.
And whispered into his soul.
"You will be our vessel."
Then it vanished.
---
Silence fell.
Breaths were held.
The battlefield… lived again.
But deep within Chu Feng, something had changed. The lightning inside him felt colder. The black marks on his skin refused to fade.
Nie Li watched him with suspicion.
Xu Yang tightened his grip on his blade.
Shi Hao simply stared at the skies.
"This war… is no longer between us," he muttered. "Something worse is coming."
---
To be continued…