A distorted wind blade slammed into the palm of a man with four wings on his back, as noble and magnificent as the Night Monarch, producing a sound akin to the chiming of gold and jade.

The man's fingers moved slightly, stirring up a surge of dark flames. In an instant, the entire hurricane was dyed pitch-black, becoming a vortex of black flames.

The black flames seemed to be burning something, creating a hissing sound in the air, reminiscent of a snake flicking its tongue.

Guard Ying and his companions saw traces of semi-transparent distortions shooting out from the black flame vortex, like countless transparent venomous snakes attacking the four-winged man.

The four-winged man's eyes were calm, and invisible ripples emanated from his body.

The ripples swept across the void, instantly stopping the movement of the transparent, distorted venomous snakes.

In a thousandth of a second, they began to reverse direction, retracing their previous trajectory.

The ripples also swept across Guard Ying and his companions, causing a sudden, unexplained sense of panic to well up from the depths of their hearts. For a moment, they even had the impulse to turn and flee, regardless of the consequences.

This impulse, controlled purely by fear, seemed somehow familiar.

The trio seemed to recall something. Their eyes widened as they were about to blurt out a name, but just then, everything before them rapidly dimmed.

Pure night descended upon the wasteland.

The moon's position in the sky was replaced by a gigantic, blood-red crow's eye.

That eye stared coldly at the trio. The moment they met its gaze, an icy chill threatened to freeze their very blood and marrow.

The three of them froze, standing rigidly and blankly on the spot.

They didn't know how much time passed before the illusion before their eyes vanished and they gradually regained their senses.

Looking back at the scene, they were astonished to find that the hurricane, flames, and distortions had all completely vanished.

In the vast, silent wasteland, a pale moon hung high.

Below the moon, the four-winged man hovered silently. His arm, encased in black crystal armor, was held level, his fist clenched tightly as if gripping something firmly.

Guard Ying and his companions stared fixedly at the scene.

After a while, they saw the bright moonlight outline a twisted, strange serpentine shadow in the man's hand. The shadow's color gradually deepened, and finally, a bizarre creature with a snake's head and body, but also possessing arms and wings, fully materialized before the three men.

Their pupils contracted as they finally realized what manner of creature had brought them to the brink of destruction.

After this winged, serpentine creature fully materialized, its body quickly petrified.

In no time at all, it had completely transformed into a stone statue of the same size.

The statue then decayed and weathered, sifting through the four-winged man's fingers like sand. His gaze flickered slightly.

When the last of the sand had trickled from his hand, he turned his head and, treading on the moonlight, walked step by step toward Guard Ying and his companions.

The massive black wings unfurled behind him, his magnificent armor reflecting a crystalline luster in the moonlight.

The Other Shore Flower mask on his face gradually faded, revealing a young, handsome, and calm countenance.

Seeing the man's face clearly, a suspicion in the hearts of Guard Ying and his companions was utterly confirmed.

Their bodies trembled slightly before they all knelt, greeting respectfully, "Greetings, Lord Demon Emperor."

Lu Yuan nodded slightly, but his mind was still on the winged, serpentine creature he had just killed.

His Spiritual Power swept over the area, and his expression suddenly changed. Soon, a grey stone tablet, buried in the sand, flew up from the ground and landed swiftly in Lu Yuan's hand.

That thing...

Lu Yuan casually held the tablet, looked down at Guard Ying and his companions, and asked lightly, "Did that creature come out of this tablet?"

"Yes." Guard Ying nodded, then quickly shifted the blame to the horse-faced, middle-aged man beside him. "He was the one, fiddling with it for no good reason, and ended up releasing the Evil Energy Guard sealed in the tablet! If Lord Demon Emperor hadn't arrived in time, we'd all likely have been killed because of you!"

The horse-faced, middle-aged man looked embarrassed. He wanted to retort but could find no grounds to do so.

Lu Yuan examined the grey stone tablet in his hand under the moonlight.

The face of the tablet was engraved with many ancient characters he didn't recognize. These ancient characters had strange shapes. Each one resembled a snake twisted into a different form.

The back of the tablet bore an image: a strange snake standing upright, its back covered in innumerable wings. It possessed a pair of human arms, which cradled a heart-shaped gemstone against its chest.

The strange snake also had tails so numerous they were difficult to count, and the tip of each tail seemed to bear a long, downy feather.

As Lu Yuan examined the tablet, he felt a slight tremor from one of his job panels.

He called it up to check and discovered it was the [Ancient Language Expert] and [Student] job panels. The fusion progress of the two job panels, which had been stuck at 45%, silently advanced by one percent to 46% after Lu Yuan touched the tablet.

Does this tablet hide a story?

A thought crossed Lu Yuan's mind. The tablet itself was just an ordinary stone slab; it seemed to have become a mundane object after releasing the serpentine creature Lu Yuan had just killed.

Lu Yuan looked down and asked the dishevelled Guard Ying and his companions, "Where did this come from?"

The three of them exchanged glances. Guardian Xiang, who was missing an arm, was the first to answer, "Reporting to the Lord Demon Emperor, this was found among the relics of the two previous Evil Emperors."

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