85: Chapter 85 Shocking Change

Su Chen's steps froze right where he was.

In the stands, the hundred thousand spectators were still immersed in the fanatical atmosphere of that Heaven-Defying reversal just now. The birth of the provincial top scorer broke the barrier between commoners and noble families, making countless people's blood boil with excitement.

Near the VIP platform, big shots and reporters were busy chatting and taking photos, everyone wanting to get first-hand exclusive information about Su Chen as soon as possible.

The defenses of the entire Arena had dropped to their lowest point in history.

Major General Lei Wuji was turning around to arrange the matters of Su Chen's reserve status.

Instructor Lin Yi was holding Jiang Feng, who had just woken up and recovered a little, preparing to lift him onto the medical team's hovering stretcher.

Su Chen stood at the edge of the stage.

Originally, he only wanted to maintain his Observation Haki at its lowest power to keep an eye on his surroundings, just in case the Zhao family made an underhanded move in the dark.

But at this very instant.

Deep in his mind, a tense string seemed to be violently plucked by a pair of invisible, terrifying hands.

"Buzz—!!!"

An extremely piercing red alarm blared frantically inside Su Chen's spiritual Sea of Consciousness!

The intensity of this alarm was more than ten times more terrifying and violent than when he had discovered that blood-colored altar in the abandoned subway station a few days ago!

Su Chen abruptly lowered his head.

His pitch-black eyes seemed to penetrate the charred alloy floor of the stage, passing through layers of hard concrete and soil, staring intently into the deepest subterranean depths of the Arena.

In the holographic black-and-white radar map of his Observation Haki.

That dark-red abyss energy, which had originally been hidden in the deepest parts of the city's sewers like a dormant underground river, suddenly went berserk.

It was like a super active volcano being forcibly detonated!

The dark-red energy expanded thousands of times within a millisecond, surging madly towards the surface along the underground psionic pipe network with an unstoppable, destructive force!

"There's something underground!"

Su Chen suddenly roared.

Compressed by his Observation Haki, his voice exploded near the VIP platform like a dull clap of thunder.

Major General Lei Wuji stopped dead in his tracks and abruptly turned to look at Su Chen. "What did you say?!"

"Rumble—!!!"

Giving no one any time to react at all.

A violent earthquake swept through the entire giant holographic simulation Arena without any warning!

The ground beneath their feet shook frantically, throwing the hundred thousand people in the stands off balance. Screams and cries of alarm echoed everywhere.

"What's going on? Is it an earthquake?"

"Quick, hold onto the handrails!"

Before the military guards could even activate the Arena's emergency response plan, a despairing scene played out before a hundred thousand terrified eyes.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

Accompanied by deafening explosions, the hard ground of the Arena cracked and shattered inch by inch!

Exactly thirty-six pillar-like, crimson beams of light emitting a pungent, bloody stench shot straight up from the deep underground!

These crimson light pillars, like thirty-six spears piercing the heavens, rapidly intertwined and refracted thousands of meters high in the sky above the Arena.

Within just a few seconds.

A massive, Blood-colored Hexagram Formation that completely sealed off the entire hundred-thousand-person venue formed with a boom in the sky!

The moment the Formation began to operate.

The sky was dyed a suffocating blood-red.

"What... what is this thing..." In the stands, a low-tier Martial Apprentice student looked at the Formation overhead, his face pale as sheet.

Before he could finish his sentence.

An extremely bizarre and chilly suction force descended from the blood-colored array above, enveloping the entire venue.

"Ah! My body..."

"It hurts so much! My blood qi is draining away!"

The ordinary citizens and students with lower cultivation levels in the stands instantly let out shrill screams.

To their horror, they discovered that the blood qi inside their bodies was actually turning into wisps of visible red mist, seeping uncontrollably out of their pores and surging wildly towards the massive Formation in the sky!

The blood qi of a hundred thousand people was being forcibly drained by this vicious Formation!

"Enemy attack! It's abyss energy!"

On the VIP platform, Major General Lei Wuji and the other big shots' faces changed drastically.

As an iron-blooded veteran who had guarded the Star Gate front lines for years, Major General Lei Wuji was all too familiar with this aura.

His eagle-like eyes instantly filled with blood, his eyes nearly splitting as he roared hoarsely into the microphone, "It's the Abyss Cult's Blood Sacrifice Array! These beasts have gone mad, actually daring to launch a blood sacrifice in the city center! Entire army, on high alert! Evacuate the crowd immediately!"

"Boom!"

Major General Lei Wuji took the lead, bursting forth with the towering blood qi of his Grandmaster realm, turning into a bolt of purple lightning as he tried to rush into the high sky to shatter the core of the Formation.

Several other Great Grandmasters of Jiangnan City also soared into the air one after another.

But...

It was already too late.

Under the frantic infusion and pulling of the blood qi of a hundred thousand people, the Blood-colored Hexagram Formation erupted with an unprecedentedly blinding light.

In the center of the Formation, the Void Realm enveloped by the blood light.

Suddenly cracked like a mirror violently struck by a heavy hammer, making an overburdened "crack" sound.

Immediately after.

Under the extremely terrified, even despairing gazes of everyone.

The sky shattered.

"Rip—!"

Accompanied by a loud noise that sounded like fabric tearing, a black rift over a hundred meters tall, emitting the endless stench of the abyss, was forcibly ripped open in the sky above Jiangnan City's most prosperous city center!

That rift was like a giant vertical pupil belonging to a demon, coldly looking down upon the hundred thousand humans below.

From behind that bottomless rift,

Came waves of hair-raising beastly roars, as if connecting to the eighteen levels of Hell.

"Roar—!"

"Awoo—"

The dense roars converged into a physical sonic boom, pouring down from the rift and causing the eardrums of countless people below to bleed.

It was a terrifying sound that would only appear in the deepest parts of the wilderness, or even on the front lines of the Star Gate battlefield.

"Star Gate... it's a Star Gate rift!"

In the stands, a military recruitment officer turned pale as death, his legs giving out as he knelt on the ground.

"They used the Blood Sacrifice Array as an anchor... to forcibly open a temporary Star Gate in the city center!"

A temporary Star Gate rift.

To the civilians of the Great Xia living peacefully within the high steel walls, these words were synonymous with doomsday.

Major General Lei Wuji hovered in mid-air, looking at the hundred-meter-tall black rift. His fists clenched so hard his knuckles turned white, and his teeth ground together.

"All Zhenyuan Army soldiers, hear my command! Guard the stands to the death! Cover the students' retreat at all costs!"

Major General Lei Wuji's roar echoed through the blood-red sky.

But his voice was quickly completely drowned out by the increasingly violent beastly roars coming from the rift.

At the edge of the stage.

Su Chen still stood there.

The blood-colored light shone on his face, casting a bizarre hue over his calm features.

He paid no attention to the crowd around him fleeing and crying in panic, nor did he look at the Great Grandmasters in mid-air who were trying to stop the rift from expanding.

His gaze pierced through the layers of bloody light, staring intently at the massive black rift.

He heard those roars.

He smelled that thick, high-dimensional energy-filled abyss aura.

The corners of Su Chen's mouth slowly, bit by bit, curled upward.

This was not a tremble of fear.

This was the uncontrollable excitement of a hunter seeing prey all over the mountains and fields.

"Finally, you couldn't hold back anymore."