Chapter 1157 - 785: Opening the Ice Hell

The demon gods wore expressions of anger, but unfortunately, while the Twelve Yuanchen Array was strong, the Blood Sea Array was not something to provoke either.

As the Blood Sea Array operated, much like how the demon race used the Twelve Yuanchen Array to tear a rift in the Blood Sea Array, now the Twelve Yuanchen Array was being ripped open by the Blood Sea Array. The passage quickly stabilized itself, and even with the demon gods tirelessly operating the Twelve Yuanchen Array, they could not close it.

"Charge out!" Seeing this, the cultivators inside Jinling City were overjoyed and, transforming into shadowy figures, rushed out. The startled citizens of Jinling City soon followed, creating a massive wave of people charging out of the city like a vast ocean.

Zhang Chen stood within the array, not rushing to act but sensing the movements of the Dragon Tiger Escort Agency. He saw thousands of escort masters forming a formation and charging out of the city along with the crowd.

In that moment, Pleiades Chicken looked at the surging crowd with a murderous glint in their eyes, "Trying to escape? What a delusion! Beast horde, arise!"

With Pleiades Chicken’s command, countless beasts and great demons outside the city lunged towards the people heading for the passage.

Although the human race had broken through the crowd, an even greater challenge awaited them outside the array — a massive army of demon beasts.

"Kill!"

The human martial artists and bloodline practitioners looked at the overwhelming beast horde with a fierce gleam in their eyes, actively charging towards the tide. Now that the Twelve Yuanchen Array had been torn apart, escaping was up to each person’s skills.

"You fiend, seeking death!" Zhang Chen looked at the vast beast horde and vanished with the Invisibility Technique, appearing outside Jinling City the next moment. Dragon Qi surged as he employed the Beast Control Technique, instantly taking control of all beasts and demon beasts of the eighth tier and below within sixteen thousand meters. They quickly turned to attack their companions.

"The elite of the demon race are all tied up in the Twelve Yuanchen Array, so I can carve a path to the river for the human race. Better for the citizens of Jinling City to align with the Yellow Heaven Dao than to be slaughtered by demon beasts." With this thought, all beasts and demon beasts within thirty miles turned back and attacked their own kind, causing chaos as the ground turned into a bloody sea.

"What is happening! Are you all insane?" A demon beast was horrified at its kind charging at it.

Zhang Chen moved forward, causing the beast horde to bite back step by step, plunging the area into chaos and darkness, and countless demon beasts perished, with countless wild beasts slaughtered.

Though the martial artists of the human race didn’t know what was happening, they rejoiced and rushed towards the distant river.

The great river mentioned by Chen Sanliang was exactly thirty miles from Jinling City, within the range of Zhang Chen’s Beast Control Technique. All demon beasts began to kill each other as they crossed the river, as if they had lost their sanity. Before long, the river ran red.

At that moment, ice ships emerged from the river water. These ships continuously carried human citizens aboard, then transformed and shrank into submarines, disappearing from the water’s surface.

"Gu Mingyue is truly worthy of being the Water God of the Yangtze River. Once in the water, it’s his territory, and to use such magical means to transport the citizens out... indeed, the divine spirits have their miraculous aspects," Zhang Chen marveled to himself.

The demon gods in the fierce battle sensed something was wrong. Seeing the demon beasts attacking each other, they immediately recognized someone was covertly meddling and shouted, "All demon race armies, retreat and station thirty miles away, remain still and do not engage."

The demon god quickly discerned the anomaly. The irrational beasts killing their kind were within a thirty-mile range, so they swiftly countered. For the demon race, the priority was killing Gu Mingyue, and other battles could be postponed.

"Kill!"

Shouts of battle rang from the array as ten demon gods poured their power into crushing the array.

In the human tide of Jinling City, a water demon noticed the ice ships, and promptly energized, organizing water demon ambushes.

Human efforts have their limits, and though Gu Mingyue was an Eleventh-Tier Divine Spirit, most of his focus was on managing the Blood Sea Array. Facing millions of citizens, he couldn’t transport them all; countless citizens could only helplessly gather in the thirty-mile space Zhang Chen created. Soon the area was crowded, and many in the city couldn’t even get out.

As things stood, Zhang Chen couldn’t do much but wait for Gu Mingyue’s transportation efforts.

The city was engulfed in earth-shaking shouts of battle, and just when Zhang Chen thought he could continue waiting, after three hours a whistle sounded inside the city. Gu Mingyue had withdrawn the Blood Sea Array, seizing the chance to escape through the passage with Yellow Heaven Dao’s cultivators from Jinling City.

Instantly, the Twelve Yuanchen Array operated, resealing the gap through which they fled from Jinling City.

"Gu Mingyue, how dare you betray us!" Upon witnessing this scene, Zhang Chen couldn’t help but be filled with fury, his eyes almost tearing apart. In these short three hours, less than ten million civilians had escaped from Jinling City, while another forty to fifty million remained trapped inside.

"Damn demon beasts, you just wait for revenge from my Yellow Heaven Dao. We won’t let you off!" Gu Mingyue laughed heartily towards the sky after escaping from the city, his voice filled with exhilaration: "Men of Yellow Heaven Dao, charge out with me!"

Zhang Chen understood that Gu Mingyue had maintained the stand for three hours to create time for the followers of Yellow Heaven Dao. Now that the followers inside Jinling City had likely escaped, he betrayed his allies and broke his promise.

"Consolidate the array, encircle and kill Gu Mingyue! Today, Gu Mingyue must not be allowed to escape; if he gets away, we will be in great trouble, and those two demon gods will never return!" Pleiades Chicken saw Gu Mingyue escaping and, without a word, withdrew the Twelve Primordial Stars Array, transforming into a stream of light and charged towards Gu Mingyue.

The remaining nine demon gods followed quickly, chasing after Gu Mingyue.

As for the civilians in Jinling City? With millions of troops besieging it, even without the array, they don’t stand a chance to escape; they’ll only become blood food for the demon beasts.

Moreover, this array was not originally set up for the civilians of Jinling City; how could mere civilians be worthy of such a treatment?

All the demon gods retracted the array and chased after Gu Mingyue, beginning to entangle and battle with him, while the demon race army simultaneously launched an assault towards Jinling City, intending to destroy it.

"Damn it, Gu Mingyue, you beast! You’ll surely face retribution from me one day. I’ve subdued two demon gods; if I hide secretly and the demon race can’t find me, they’ll pin this debt on you. You’ll suffer for it! Besides, I’m a practitioner of Yellow Heaven Dao myself; the demon race definitely wants to deadlock with Yellow Heaven Dao." Zhang Chen watched the overwhelming surge of demon beasts flooding into Jinling City, furious but helpless.

His Beast Control Technique’s range is only thirty miles, not enough to protect the entire Jinling City.

"Damn it, since we’re all bound to die, none of you shall survive either. Let’s just perish together!" Zhang Chen glanced at the demon beast tide and the terrified civilians within it, and the frantic people of the Dragon Tiger Escort Agency, feeling a chill in his eyes.

He had another option, but unless it became absolutely necessary, he wouldn’t use it lightly. Yet now, Zhang Chen had no choice.

Zhang Chen’s figure flickered as he used Escape Technique to reach the demon race army, revealing himself amidst the beast tide, then unleashed the Ice Domain: "There’s only this one way left now. Even though unleashing the anomalies from the Exquisite Tower would cause great harm, leading to the deaths of countless civilians, releasing tens of thousands of anomalies would definitely scatter the demon race army, and those ordinary civilians might have a chance to escape."

As for directly using Sun True Flame to kill demon beasts? He didn’t dare, fearing the gaze of the ten demon gods, which would spell his doom.

Indeed, leveraging his tactics to release all anomalies is the best choice for Zhang Chen; when tens of thousands of anomalies burst forth, the demon race army will surely be in complete chaos.

The anomalies suppressed by the Exquisite Tower can’t even be eradicated by the Great Victory Dynasty, only contained, demonstrating the difficulty of dealing with them.

Twelfth-tier and even the three twelfth-tier Innate Spiritual Treasures of the court cannot eliminate these entities, showing their terrifying nature.

"Open the Ice Hell for me!" With Zhang Chen’s furious roar, the cages within Ice Hell continuously opened, and bizarre existences emerged from the Ice Hell, rushing from the Endless Void towards the beast tide.

"Roar~"

Rumbling roars shook heaven and earth, terrifying Qi Mechanisms spread throughout the world, with black smoke anomalies at the tenth tier traversing the beast army, turning swathes of demon beasts into dust.

Some anomalies laughed, drawing out souls of all living beings within tens of miles, becoming food for the anomalies.

Other anomalies glanced across the earth with their eyes, turning all life into sculptures wherever they passed.

In an instant, chaos erupted outside Jinling City, with anomalies engaging in fights amongst themselves or with demon beasts, leading to complete disarray and scattering of the demon beast army.

As the demon beast army dispersed, the civilians within Jinling City grabbed swords, spears, and sticks, grouping together and rushing in all directions afar, despite the arduous path, ultimately finding a chance for survival.