Ye Xian's gaze locked on the City Lord's mansion at the center of the chaos. The dome of white light shimmered above them, stretching far overhead like a cage of divinity.
The arena, once a place of celebration, now lay in ruins, burning, bloody, crawling with red-eyed Cultivators .
"She went in there alone..." he muttered.
Sheng Qianying looked up at him.
"Ye Xian, what if something happened to her inside?"
"All of you stay together! Don't let them get close! Coat your weapons with Ki to boost them!"
Ye Xian looked to the side and saw Ye Shen and some others around his age forming a circle and withdrawing from the arena.
Inside the circle were some women, and Sheng Qinhua was also among them, protected by the group.
Ye Xian thought for a second, then pulled Sheng Qianying along as they raced toward Ye Shen's group.
Ye Shen was in the Element Disciple realm. His group of protectors numbered around twenty.
Beside him were three more cultivators at the Element Disciple realm, each taking a position at one of the four sides, while the others at the Ki Warrior realm stood beside them, forming a solid circle.
Whenever a red-eyed cultivator approached from any direction, Ye Shen would use his wind element to block them, and the nearby cultivators would attack the red-eyed enemies right after.
Ye Shen and the other three Element Disciple realm cultivators held back the red-eyed cultivators using their element attacks, while the Ki Warrior realm cultivators attacked to incapacitate them.
Ye Shen couldn't help but think about the red-eyed cultivators. Their cultivation realm was lower than his, but their actual strength was almost equal to those one realm above them.
The more he fought them, the stronger the red-eyed cultivators became. They grew more powerful as the fight continued, as if they were evolving through battle. But that wasn't really what was happening.
The more these cultivators pushed themselves, especially when fighting and killing stronger opponents, the spider-like cracks around their eyes began to spread further and further.
Ye Xian noticed it too. Over time, those cracks would grow larger. And when they faced stronger cultivators, the cracks spread even faster.
They fought like wild animals, completely lacking any human fighting technique. It was as if they had lost their sanity and reasoning. They didn't care whether it was a child, an elder, or anyone else. They attacked everyone in the same brutal way.
From what he could observe, Ye Xian could tell these cultivators had once been normal people. But now, they had clearly been poisoned and forced to lose their minds, fighting like savage beasts.
Their strength didn't come from cultivation alone. It was being drawn from their life force, which made them far stronger than they should have been.
Drawing power from one's life force was forbidden. It could give someone enough strength to face stronger enemies, but at a terrible cost. It would shorten their lifespan, and if they pushed too far, it would kill them outright.
But looking at these red eyed cultivators, Ye Xian felt deeply disturbed. They had no mind, no sanity, only an endless thirst for slaughter.
How could someone without any reasoning still have enough control to burn their own life force?
Ye Shen group was fully engaged when several more red-eyed cultivators suddenly jumped at them from different directions.
The simultaneous attack made it difficult for Ye Shen and the others to hold the formation. Still, they managed to fend off most of the attackers.
But one red-eyed cultivator broke through. As the others were distracted, he leapt over their defense and clawed at the nearest woman inside the circle.
Sheng Qinhua felt her breath catch in her throat as two red eyes locked onto her. A claw with sharp nails was descending toward her pale face.
A chill ran down her spine. Fear froze her. She couldn't move.
Ye Shen saw it happen, powerless to stop the red-eyed cultivator lunging at his mother as he was busy blocking another one that was trying to bite his throat.
Suddenly, a bright light flashed, and everyone instinctively shut their eyes.
Spurt!
When they opened them, expecting to see Sheng Qinhua torn to pieces, they instead saw a beautiful woman in a snow-white robe standing behind the red-eyed cultivator.
Her sword had pierced through its back, the tip of the sword protruding from its chest.
Sheng Qinhua fell on her butt, shocked as the red-eyed cultivator kept trying to claw at her.
Sheng Qianying twisted her sword, and blood spurted from the red-eyed cultivator's mouth and chest.
She stepped forward and helped Sheng Qinhua to her feet.
"Are you alright, sister?" Sheng Qianying asked.
"Mother, you didn't get hurt, did you?" Ye Shen asked as he pushed away the red-eyed cultivator trying to bite him.
The nearby cultivators surrounded the red-eyed cultivator, swinging their weapons.
They slashed and struck him repeatedly, but with each blow, their hands grew more numb and heavy as they hacked into their enemy.
The red-eyed cultivator's body jerked with each strike, but it refused to fall. Dark blood oozed from countless wounds, yet the creature continued thrashing against their weapons.
"Why won't it die?" One of the Ki Warrior realm cultivators gasped, his arms trembling from the strain.
He could tell from the aura of this red-eyed cultivator that it was only at the fifth stage of Ki Warrior realm.
But even with his companion's help, his sword couldn't cut through it completely, only leaving gushing wounds on the red-eyed cultivator.
Ye Xian arrived just as the group was beginning to panic. He observed the scene with sharp eyes, taking in the way the red-eyed cultivator's cracks had spread almost completely across its face.
"Step back," he commanded.
The cultivators immediately obeyed, creating space around the writhing creature as they didn't want to be near this thing for even a moment.
Ye Xian used Limit Release to condense his profound Ki into his fist and smashed it into the red-eyed cultivator's face.
The red-eyed cultivator's head exploded as wind burst outward from the impact of Ye Xian's punch.
Ye Xian's cultivation was at the 4th stage of Ki Warrior realm, but his raw strength was already comparable to the first stage of Element Disciple realm.
On top of using Limit Release, his strength was boosted and stacked upon his actual power, so his punch was comparable to that of a cultivator at the fourth stage of Element Disciple realm.
The red-eyed cultivator's face was already covered in spider cracks, which made it easier for Ye Xian to blow his head apart.
All of them were stunned by what they had just witnessed. They had tried their hardest to kill that red-eyed cultivator with everything they had, but they couldn't manage it. Yet Ye Xian had done it with barely any effort, using just his bare hand.
The most stunned in the group were Ye Shen and Sheng Qinhua, as they couldn't believe what they had seen. Ye Shen had been struggling just to push back the red-eyed cultivator he was fighting. He couldn't comprehend how his brother was able to defeat and crush that red-eyed cultivator with just a single punch.
Sheng Qinhua was already speechless and flabbergasted when she had seen that she was saved by none other than her 'sister,' whom she particularly didn't like since she was from another mother.
That was one thing, but now the "trash" Ye Xian had just killed a powerful beast that their entire group wasn't able to suppress, yet he had single-handedly smashed it.
She had even been secretly praying that in this chaos, Ye Xian would just get killed by these red-eyed cultivator beasts.
The silence that followed Ye Xian's punch was eerie.
Not even the howls of the red-eyed cultivators filled the air for a moment. It was as if the battlefield itself was stunned.
Ye Xian lowered his hand, the wind still faintly swirling around his knuckles. His eyes flicked toward Sheng Qinhua, who stood frozen, her expression unreadable.
"Tch... Still not grateful," Ye Xian muttered under his breath as he turned away.
"Form up!" he barked. "Keep moving toward the mansion. Stay behind me. If another one like that breaks through, don't even try to stall it. I'll handle them."
"Shouldn't we move out from this white barrier?" asked one of them.
This was what everyone in the group was thinking because they all wanted to leave this cursed place.
Ye Xian pointed in that direction. When the others looked, they saw someone approaching the barrier, desperately trying to break through.
The moment he touched it, his hand burned visibly as he screamed in anguished pain, his flesh sizzling against the dome surface.
The dome-shaped barrier covered the entire City Lord's mansion and all the surrounding areas. All of the people—whether they were in the courtyard, the arena, or inside the mansion itself, were trapped and imprisoned under the glowing white dome. A single dome was all over them like a cage, with no way out.