Chapter 352 — The Return of the Ancient Desolation Ritual

A grey shadow flew from Zuo Jin's right hand.

It surged forth like a primeval beast released from its cage, its form swelling explosively as low, blood-chilling hisses rose on every side.

The Antiquity-Dredging Desolation Ritual!

Zuo Yan's last trump card—hurled without hesitation even now.

Within his sea of consciousness, Pu Yao's expression was a sight to behold—a tangle of emotions, faintly tinged with bitterness. The Antiquity-Dredging Desolation Ritual was a demon art his own master had created, and his master had never kept secrets from him; he could recite every part of its key techniques backward and forward. And yet, even so, a thousand years had passed and he had never once succeeded in casting it.

Thinking again of his old moniker, "the Compendium of Demon Arts," it now seemed to drip with mockery.

The Antiquity-Dredging Desolation Ritual looked simple, but in truth it was riddled with complexities—otherwise, how could Pu Yao have failed for so many years to grasp its essence? Last time, he had merely offered a couple of idle pointers, testing the waters, never imagining that Zuo Yan would actually succeed.

And today, though Zuo Jin's movements were still hopelessly clumsy, the fact that he had succeeded again proved he had truly mastered the art—not stumbled upon it by luck.

An art whose difficulty Pu Yao considered terrifying had been blithely, muddle-headedly grasped by Zuo Yan. Amid his wry self-mockery, he could not help but envy Zuo Jin's talent. Come to think of it, the old Zuo Yan had been utterly mediocre in every respect compared to who he was now.

This fellow had formidable staying power!

He suddenly cackled. His spiritual awareness was far stronger than Zuo Yan's. The prison arena could block Zuo Jin's spiritual sense, but it could not hinder Pu Yao's—he knew perfectly well what was happening outside.

In particular, when he saw the marvelous expressions on the surrounding demons' faces, his mood swung a full hundred and eighty degrees.

Perhaps having such a student wasn't such a bad thing after all. True, Zuo Jin was a demon and he himself a human, but to Pu Yao—a lifelong iconoclast—that was no problem whatsoever.

One of these days, he simply must egg Zuo Yan into paying the demon realm a visit.

Stirring up storms and chaos—now that would be fun!

Picturing the astonished, aghast faces of those old bastards, he could not help but burst into laughter.

Within the sea of consciousness echoed Pu Yao's wild, slightly unhinged laughter.

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Zuo Heng could not hear Pu Yao's mad laughter; his mind was focused utterly, pouring all his strength into casting the Antiquity-Dredging Desolation Ritual.

A desolate, majestic aura, as if a ferocious primeval beast were slowly emerging from dense fog—the pressure of it struck head-on, suffocating in its intensity!

Its movements were not fast, filled instead with a leisurely, unhurried composure.

Suddenly, it froze in place.

The watching demons felt their throats tighten, as though a rope had been slipped around their necks; they could scarcely breathe.

Terror surged suddenly up from the soles of their feet, an icy chill spreading through their whole bodies, their minds going blank.

In a daze, they seemed to see a primeval beast vast as a mountain, gazing down at them with indifferent contempt.

A mountain's worth of pressure, blotting out the sky and covering the earth, crushing down upon them.

The demons' courage shattered; they longed to turn and flee, and the timid ones went weak at the knees and collapsed where they sat. Even those who ordinarily boasted of their formidable strength now looked ashen.

Lord Qianliu's water breath was vast and teeming with life.

This grey shadow, by contrast, was all tyranny and annihilation!

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The Second Prison.

Countless demons suddenly halted what they were doing and raised their heads in dread.

An aura of danger brimming with tyranny and annihilation swept over them like a hurricane, roaring past.

The vast Second Prison fell into an eerie silence.

Moments later, the demons who had been buried in their training cast aside their work without a second thought, unfurled their forms, and flew toward a single direction. Viewed from above the Second Prison, countless figures could be seen rushing madly toward one point as if drawn by magnetic force.

Far off in that direction lay the entrance to the First Prison.

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Sensing the threat of the Antiquity-Dredging Desolation Ritual, the vast water breath that had been so gentle and placid moments before began to churn violently.

Zuo Yan found himself all at once amid a raging sea, towering waves rearing up, ready at any moment to swallow him whole. These furious swells carried the force to overturn mountains and drain the seas; were he brushed by the slightest touch of them, even with the Great Sun Demon Body, there would be but one outcome—ground to dust!

In stark contrast to the quiet harmony of moments before, the prison arena now swung to the opposite extreme. Zuo Yan understood: this too was another property of the water breath, and having crossed an ocean himself, he knew how terrifying the power of water could become when enraged.

Around him now swirled an abundance of water vapor beyond measure.

In the blink of an eye, a boundless ocean appeared beneath Zuo Yan's feet.

Insignificance—once again Zuo Yan felt his own insignificance!

Before such a raging, ocean-vast water breath, one could not help but lament how small one was.

Zuo Yan bit down hard on his lip, straining to hold his state of mind steady, his hands still tracing meticulous arcs through the air.

All his power surged and churned within his body!

Come on!

Zuo Yan abruptly lifted his blood-red eyes.

Almost in the same instant, two hollow red lights suddenly kindled within the grey shadow—like a pair of savage eyes. Lantern-sized red orbs blazed to life, and as if given a finishing touch, that primeval beast of a grey shadow, which had carried a certain ethereal drift before, now lost every trace of that wavering instability.

It was alive.

Though the beast's form still shifted and flickered, every demon there felt a powerful, illusory certainty: it was alive!

The desolate aura of tyranny and annihilation suddenly erupted like a volcano, surging straight into the heavens!

It truly was alive!

Every watching demon trembled head to toe as two terrifying auras battered them in turn—like a beauty freshly ravished, ravished once again!

Outside the prison arena, amid the dense throng of demons, lights flickered from time to time. Each flicker meant one demon could hold out no longer and was forced to withdraw from the Ten-Finger Prison.

Inside the Ten-Finger Prison, once one's mental defenses were breached, one was forcibly expelled. Such cases were rare—demons who cultivated their spiritual awareness were far stronger in willpower than cultivators or devils.

But today, battered in turn by two peerless auras, those still training in the First Prison were the first to give way. Even Nan Yue lasted only three extra breaths before being driven out by the Ten-Finger Prison.

Leng Yue and Chang Zheng fared much better—they trained in the Second Prison day in and day out, after all—yet neither showed the slightest ease; both looked to be gritting their teeth and enduring. The other surviving demons all wore expressions of anguish, but not one withdrew of their own accord.

Everyone knew that the clash between these two auras would be a collision to shake the world!

To witness a collision of such magnitude with their own eyes—for that, they would endure any pain, pay any price without a moment's hesitation. Such a chance came but once in a lifetime!

The lantern-like savage eyes glowed red and luminous, and the world-covering waves around it seemed to have no effect on it at all.

It suddenly opened its great maw.