It was a very spacious half-sphere with a diameter of 50 meters. At the center of the cave there was a red pond and suspended at the center of the pond was a ball of black gas. Over the pond were also suspended four circles of red qi with some runes of the same red qi suspended between them, that I didn’t recognize.

(Red) “What is this?”

(Gray) “A pond of blood and two formations made of blood qi. I don’t recognize those formations but they can’t be anything good. At least we now know where the kidnapped victims went. As for that black gas ball, I have no idea.”

(?) “Hihihihihi. It seems that I have some guests. And what guests? Guests from the accursed Myriad Forms Sect. Welcome, even if I am afraid you won’t be able to stay for long, in this world that is. Hihihihi.”

From the darkness at the end of the cave exited a black figure. He wore black and red robes, his skin was black, his hands clawed, his eyes yellow and he had a pair of obsidian ram horns on his head.

(Gray) “Fuck, a devil!”

Our group was surprised to see Gray breaking his calm facade.

(Huan Long) “What is a devil?”

(Gray) “ An enemy of the human race, even more of the demonic beasts. Other than their description I don’t know much because I didn’t have clearance. Their entire existence is kept under wraps by the higher-ups for some reason.”

(Devil) “Hihihi. You recognize me, I’m honored. Well, at least you recognize my race. Hmm, you seem a rather troublesome fellow. I will need to deal with you myself and activate my arrays before it’s time. They aren’t yet at 100% but that should do. Couldn’t you arrive a few days later?”

(Gray) “Your plan won't work, the reinforcements of the sect are already arriving. Besides, it’s so shitty that even I could figure it out at a glance.”

The devil ignored him and activated the arrays, then spoke: “Sorry if I ignored your poor attempt to make me panic and reveal my plans. So now shall we begin the battle?”

At his words, hundreds of blood constructs at the qi gathering realms emerged from the pool and started moving towards the exit.

(Gray) ”You guys use the exit as a checkpoint to kill the constructs we can’t allow to let them go outside. I will deal with the devil.”

Said so, he took out a metal ball connected with a chain and charged the devil.

I positioned myself at the entrance of the tunnel with Red at my right and Long at my left. Hai stayed behind to support us with her arrows. Then the battle began.

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The first construct had the form of a wolf, I tried tanking his bite and it injured me. Not a deep injury but enough that in great quantity could take me down. Then I gave him a qi-infused slap. That slap, which would have taken down most qi-gathering cultivators, only made the wolf retreat a few steps.

With this I made my conclusion: this was bad. High attack and high defense a hundred numbered construct. If they were let outside it would be a massacre. Probably that was part of the plan of the devil, the destruction of the city.

I regenerated myself and then tried to use the yin-infused paw attack and the result was very different. The attack went through as a hot knife through butter.

*Splat*

The blood splattered all over the floor.

In no time a humanoid and a lion-like construct were upon me.

*Splat* *Splat*

Two other constructs were down with two well-timed Yin Paws, as I decided to name the attack.

It seems too easy. As I was thinking that I noticed that the blood was flowing towards the pond where new constructs were emerging.

‘We probably need to deplete the energy within the formation to win. A battle of attrition it is.’

I decided to use the situation to train my regeneration skill and to tank all the attacks while delivering strikes using only normal-qi-infused attacks unless I found myself in a pinch. I started to go through the motions of the Bear combat style, hitting the constructs with a barrage of heavy qi-infused attacks until they went down.

The battle went on for an hour with me destroying the big part of the horde until the pond stopped spawning new ones. We were all dead tired, at some point Thai Hia had finished the arrows and had joined us in the frontline using a short saber.

As soon as we finished the last construct, we looked for Gray's situation and we found that he had long finished his battle. He was standing there with his stoic expression and the slightly messy clothes were the only sign of his previous battle, The devil was on the ground bound by the chain of Gray’s weapon.

(Red) “If you had already finished, why didn’t you help us?”

(Gray) “You had it covered, I am your team leader, not your babysitter, and I will not fight your battles. In any case, it’s a good experience for you”

(Devil)”Hihihi”

(Gray) “What do you have to laugh about?”

(Devil) ”Hihihi. You may think that you have won but while my plan has failed you will still all die.”

(Gray) “What do you mean?”

(Devil) “I might as well tell you, in any case, you have no chance. You see that black gas ball over there: it’s a heart demons’ distillation. Originally after the city was destroyed the second array would have used the blood and the death energy would have overcharged the distillation enough to make it explode creating a heart demons’ inducing mist that would have reached even your sect.”

He let the gravity of the plan settle in then continued: “ Of course, it’s now impossible to reach that standard but the sacrifice done so far should be enough to envelop half of this city and you with it”

(Thai Hua) “But you would be enveloped with us.”

(Devil) “Sorry, but we devils are immune to heart demons.”

There wasn't much time, I and Huan Long would probably survive the mist, but the others and half the city probably would not. I could survive it because of my koi fishes in the crystal mind lake and Huan Long because I have seen him survive a heart demons inducing mist before. (When he met Ling).

I sprinted toward the dried-up blood pond and, with a jump, swallowed the black ball. I just started hearing the cries of my companions and the curses of the devil when I had to concentrate all my attention on my insides.