"What...are those?" Henrik pointed at the mirror in shock.

Hazel and Fulke who were keeping some distance were also left speechless. Their mouths fell open upon witnessing the scenes playing out in the mirror in front of Hao Xuan.

"It's started..." Hao Xuan mumbled despondently.

On the mirror, a bloody scene of carnage played out, as if it was taken directly out of a horror movie.

The most significant change was in the environment. It looked nothing like the empty valley they had left just over an hour ago.

The hole created by the claw of that unknown creature had gotten much bigger. There were hundreds of threads that looked almost like thick veins coming out of it the hole. Everything within several tens of meters around the hole was covered like the canopy of an old tree. The ground wasn't even visible under them.

Some of these thicker veins pulsed every few seconds as if they were alive, while continuously stretching further outwards. As if the planet itself was diseased.

No matter what was in their way, it would be covered by the veins within seconds. This included the corpses of the few cultivators, the summoned monsters as well as the roaches.

But all this was just happening in the background.

What Henrik and the others were referring to were the creatures that accompanied this corruption.

Like a never-ending tide, they crawled out of the hole. Deformed creatures of all shapes and sizes. Some looked like they were once human while others resembled the beasts commonly found on the planet.

But they were disfigured, contorted, and twisted into horrendous things. There were tumourous growths all over their bodies, pulsing incessantly. Many of them had new limbs growing out of their backs and sides, extra eyes, ears, etc while some had none of them, just wriggling torsos on the ground with mouths full of sharp teeth.

They were magnified to several times the original sizes. Most of them were only about 1.5-2 meters tall but a rare few towered over the others like behemoths at more than 5 meters. Sharp bony fragments protruded from their hulking bodies.

They were built like tanks with muscles over muscles. (Google 'resident evil monsters' and go to images, that would be a great reference.)

The cultivators had also increased in quantity. There seemed to be three distinct groups of them fighting creatures.

Dai Zhi was flying in the air just as before, shooting down red sword glows.

Every second they would kill hundreds of these monsters but their frequency didn't decrease in the slightest. Instead, the newer creatures would eat the flesh of the deceased ones and grow even bigger and stronger.

From a first glance, it looked like the cultivators were winning but if observed from afar, they were slowly getting pushed back. And as time passed, the frequency of the larger creatures coming out of the hole was increasing steadily.

Glows from all different kinds of weapons shot through the rainy night, cutting the creatures in half. On the temple's side, which was led by Dima himself, the majority of the cultivators were unarmed. They had muscular physiques and used different unarmed combat techniques to tear into the waves of incoming creatures. They were the ones closest to the hole as well.

At the forefront were many young men and women exuding heroic auras as they moved back and forth amid the neverending waves of creatures, every time claiming a few lives.

The hall had the most people which were led by a youngster with short black hair. He held a single black sword and moved all around the battlefield like a ghost with his exquisite footwork. Whenever a cultivator was in danger, he would appear next to them and helped them out.

Throughout the fight, his expression never changed once. It was blank, like he was doing the most mundane of tasks.

Behind this group was a young man casually sitting under a rock, taking cover from the rain. He wore a black jacket without a shirt. This was Tian Zheng (Ch 450).

Every now and then he would give a few orders, compliment someone's skills or make a random comment. But he never moved a muscle to fight.

Thunder rumbled in the sky above and the rain got even heavier.

After looking at the image for a few minutes, Hao Xuan spoke up again.

"Can you go further back?"

Henrik woke up from his dazed state, "Eh? Go back?"

"Yeah, further back. An hour should be about right," Hao Xuan asked with a serious expression.

"I...can try," Henrik commented and started his chanting once again. The scene slowly started to change, going further down into the hole.

But it was pitch black. There was no sound so they could only go by whatever was visible on the mirror, which currently was nothing at all.

"This is far back as I can go," Henrik said through gritted teeth. He was channeling every last bit of his Qi into the formation and was at his limit.

Hao Xuan silently stared at the mirror for a few seconds, not even daring to breathe. Finally, he let out a small breath of relief.

"It's fine, you can stop it," he mumbled and got up.

'Looks like it hasn't woken up yet,' Hao Xuan thought inwardly, relieved to a great extent.

"Come, let's catch up to the rest," he patted Henrik's shoulder, "I'll explain everything once we get back."

***

A few minutes later, several thousand meters under the surface of the earth, the exact spot the mirror was showing.

A white light pulsed through an embryonic sack of about sixty meters in size, lighting up a faint silhouette that was moving within.

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