Kraken stood atop the monster, looking down at the scene below.
He had a panoramic view of the entire Dusk Island.
The chaos on the streets continued; the mob was hacking and slashing, while innocent civilians fled in terror.
Meanwhile, a significant portion of the Byakhee that had been wreaking havoc in mid-air was now following behind him.
The Byakhee did not attack; they simply followed.
Kraken accepted this with ease, recalling a mention in the archives.
【Byakhee are suspected to possess a subordinate consciousness. Once an individual within the group is tamed, other Byakhee may perceive it as a leader and follow its movements.】
"Truly... strange creatures."
Kraken pulled on the Byakhee beneath him, turning it toward the distant skyscraper.
Behind him, dozens of Byakhee formed a queue and followed closely.
...
Atop the distant skyscraper.
"Sect Leader, things have taken a turn for the worse!"
"The Sky Ghosts are acting strangely—they're gathering!"
A young man lowered his binoculars, his voice trembling.
Beside him, the man known as the Sect Leader stood with his hands behind his back.
He was young, appearing to be under thirty, with a handsome face and a steady gaze that betrayed a maturity beyond his years. He wore the same style of clothing as the mob slaughtering people in the streets, but the material was more refined and edged with gold.
Clearly, this Sect Leader was the person in charge of this operation.
"Pay it no mind. Something must have piqued their interest," the Sect Leader said.
He looked up at the monsters, his eyes filled with the certainty of one who had already won.
"We have summoned so many Sky Ghosts. We can drive them to tear apart every stumbling block in our path."
At this stage, he considered the plan a success.
Well... a basic success.
The rifts had opened, the Sky Ghosts had descended, and they would wipe out the other sects in one fell swoop.
By the time the law enforcement of Dusk Island could react, everything would already be settled.
All he needed was time—time for more Sky Ghosts to descend and begin the slaughter.
Unfortunately, he was celebrating prematurely.
"Sect Leader, someone seems to be riding a Sky Ghost over there!" the young man's voice became even more shrill, his hands shaking as he held the binoculars.
"What?" The Sect Leader's brow furrowed slightly. He snatched the binoculars and held them to his eyes.
Through the lens, he saw a figure leap high from a nearby rooftop, grab the tail of a Sky Ghost, and then nimbly flip onto its back.
The Sect Leader's expression flickered, but he quickly regained his composure. He tossed the binoculars back to the young man and snorted. "He's just seeking death."
"Sky Ghosts are otherworldly demons. Do you think an ordinary person can just tame them at will? That man's fate will be nothing more than being torn to shreds, and then—"
"But he's coming this way!"
The young man's voice trembled, his face twisting with an expression of sheer incomprehension.
The Sect Leader froze, snatched the binoculars back again, and looked.
Through the lens, a man was riding a Sky Ghost, flying straight toward their building.
Behind him, dozens of Sky Ghosts were lined up in formation, following close behind.
"How is this possible?!" the Sect Leader's hands began to shake.
...
On the other side.
Kraken sat on the Byakhee's back, feeling the howling wind on his face as he patted the obedient creature beneath him.
"The Alliance's data was right. These damn things are born to be mounts."
He looked ahead.
The skyscraper was getting closer.
He could faintly see several figures on the roof.
"Found you."
The corners of Kraken's mouth curled up.
He steered the Byakhee and flew directly toward the target building.
The Byakhee adjusted its posture, ascending vertically along the exterior wall, perfectly parallel to the surface.
The wind whistled in his ears.
Glass windows flashed past him; every floor appeared empty.
This building had long been cleared out and turned into a base for those people.
Kraken's gaze was locked onto the rapidly approaching edge of the rooftop. He gripped the Byakhee's fur tightly, his muscles tensed.
The moment he reached the roof, his eyes landed on the center of the terrace.
There was a supernatural array there, about five or six meters in diameter, covered in strange runes.
A dozen people in bizarre attire sat around the array with their eyes closed, their lips moving as they chanted something inaudible.
The entire floor of the rooftop was covered in a blood-colored curse seal, the lines writhing slowly as if they were alive.
Kraken's intuition was correct. The source of the disaster on Dusk Island was right here.
Instead of making the Byakhee hover over the roof, he steered it higher into the sky.
The high-altitude wind whipped the hem of his jacket, making it snap loudly.
Kraken took a deep breath, looking down from above to calculate the distance and position.
Now!
He yanked hard on the Byakhee's fur.
The Byakhee let out a screech, its hideous head tossing back as it made a sharp 180-degree turn and dove vertically.
Its speed surged instantly, more than twice as fast as its ascent!
Because of the change in direction, Kraken was now facing the rooftop.
The wind was so strong he could barely keep his eyes open, but he forced himself to stare straight at the people on the terrace.
Similarly, those people were looking up at him.
Both sides were thinking the same thing: Who the hell is this?
However, the shock of the people on the rooftop was clearly much greater.
From their perspective, it wasn't just one person falling from the sky—it was over a dozen Byakhee.
The sight was overwhelming, blotting out the sun like the coming of the apocalypse.
Kraken's idea was simple and crude: the array on the roof was likely the key to summoning the Byakhee.
He wasn't sure if he was right, but why not just try to destroy it?
Trying wouldn't hurt.
So he forced the Byakhee to charge at the terrace, intending to smash the roof along with it!
A cultist screamed in terror, "Sect Leader, get out of here!"
"We have already summoned a large number of Sky Ghosts; the plan is almost a success—"
"Success?" The young Sect Leader let out a self-deprecating chuckle as he looked up at the rapidly approaching Byakhee.
"No, we failed."
"We failed in a way we never even considered."
"However, we still have a chance to turn the tide."
"He can ride one Sky Ghost, but we can interfere with the others behind him and reclaim the initiative."
As he spoke, he pulled several talismans from his left sleeve. They were covered in twisted, illegible scribbles, identical to the ones used by the old man who had committed suicide in the Law Enforcement Office.
Obscure incantations spilled from his mouth. The sounds didn't resemble human language; every syllable was distorted and slimy.
Unspeakable whispers emerged from unknown places.
The cultists who had been kneeling around the array were lucid one second and collapsed into a stupor the next.
Their skin split open, and blood gushed out, flowing rapidly toward the array below.
The talismans in the Sect Leader's hand seemed to come to life, the twisted scribbles extending into thin black threads that wrapped around his fingers.
At the same time, blood leaked from his seven orifices, dripping onto the ground.
Every drop of blood seemed to turn into an independent lifeform, swaying like a red slug.
Then, they all burrowed into the Sect Leader's shadow.
A second later, a blood-colored eye opened within his shadow.
As the incantation continued, more eyes opened in the shadow one after another, crowded together until they filled the darkness.
Blood continued to erupt from the Sect Leader's mouth. His originally slender frame began to collapse; his skin sagged, and his cheekbones protruded, making him look twenty years older in an instant.
He looked up at the swarm of Sky Ghosts in the sky, madness flickering in his eyes.
"Die!"
He wanted to see that smug face torn to pieces by the Sky Ghosts in mid-air.
Wait, where was he?
The Sect Leader's pupils contracted. The person on the Sky Ghost's back had vanished in the blink of an eye!
A gust of wind blew toward him.
The next second, the Sect Leader felt a chill on his neck, and his fingertips felt empty.
His throat had been slit by a sharp playing card.
Blood geysered out.
The talismans in his hand were snatched away.
"Are you stupid?" a voice came from behind him, dripping with mockery.
Kraken stood behind the Sect Leader, flipping the stolen talismans between his fingers.
"Next time you're chanting a spell, can you find a hidden place to hide first?"
"With such a long casting time, I'm not blind. You're not some magical girl; I'm not going to just stand here and wait for you to transform."
The Sect Leader clutched his throat, making a gurgling sound as he tried to speak, but he couldn't utter a single word.
His eyes went wide as he stared at the young man, his gaze filled with resentment and disbelief.
Kraken fanned out the talismans, glanced at the eyes on the ground with a frown, and then looked away.
He walked behind the Sect Leader and delivered a sharp kick to the man's back.
The Sect Leader was sent flying into the center of the rooftop, where a dozen Byakhee were diving down with thunderous momentum.
Boom!
The center of the rooftop cracked instantly. The strange array, along with the collapsed cultists and the Sect Leader, all vanished into the collapsing rubble and dust.
Kraken stood at the edge of the roof, looking at the debris shrouded in dust.
The array was broken, the Sect Leader was dead, and the others had fallen with the collapsing roof.
He waited in place for a while.
A minute later.
He looked up at the sky.
The rifts were still there.
Moreover, even more things were pouring out from the fissures, blotting out the sun.
Kraken frowned. "What's going on?"
Had he guessed wrong? Was the array on the roof not the key to this disaster at all?
The rifts in the sky weren't closing; instead, they were expanding.
The horizontal cracks spread like a spiderweb, covering nearly half the sky.
Countless monsters poured out from behind the rifts.
In addition to the Byakhee he recognized, there were two other types of horrors he had never seen before.
One was a bird-like monster, even larger than a Byakhee, with a wingspan dozens of meters wide. Its body was covered in multi-colored scales, and its head was a mix of a reptile and a bird, featuring a curved beak and a dozen eyes of varying sizes, each reflecting a different scene.
Following them were masses of thick, writhing black smoke with no fixed form. They drifted through the sky, sometimes coalescing into bat-like shapes and other times scattering into countless tiny fragments.
At the same time, a thunderous roar came from the seaside.
Kraken turned and held a card before his eyes.
He saw the seawater churning as if it were boiling.
Monsters were crawling out of the sea and onto the shore.
Grey-green creatures with fish heads and human torsos emerged from the waves in droves.
Their eyes bulged, their gill slits opened and closed, and their webbed feet left wet tracks across the sand.
There were also many serpentine creatures that seemed to appear from nowhere—half-human, half-snake, with snake tails for their lower halves and humanoid upper bodies.
Their skin was covered in scales, their eyes had vertical pupils, and they constantly flicked their forked tongues. They carried various strange weapons as they swarmed toward Dusk Island.
Kraken's face paled. It was over. He didn't even need to think to know these monsters weren't here on a friendly visit.
The situation continued to worsen with the dead who had been resurrected by the Sect of Deliverance.
The dead who had walked out of the Immortal Sand pools were mutating.
Their skin split open to reveal greyish-white flesh beneath. Their backs arched, and their bones popped and cracked as two rows of bone spurs erupted from their shoulder blades.
Their hands and feet deformed, their nails fell off, and curved talons grew in their place. Their heads elongated, their mouths protruded, and their teeth became sharp and dense.
Every resurrected person on the island turned into such a monster, pouncing on the living around them.
For a time, screams and gasps flew together, while brains and intestines merged into a single hue.
The islanders who had just been celebrating the return of their loved ones were now being torn to shreds.
Standing at the edge of the roof, Kraken witnessed the various monsters slaughtering people.
The entire Dusk Island was screaming.
Kraken's whole body trembled.
He had destroyed the array, thinking he could stop the disaster.
Why hadn't it stopped? Why was it getting even worse?
Kraken took a deep breath.
He had to do something.
But what could he do?
Looking around in a daze, his gaze suddenly landed in a certain direction.
There was an inconspicuous residence there.
A second-story window was open, and a slender figure stood by the window, holding a snow leopard in his arms and a talisman in his hand.
The pitch-black runes were identical to the ones used by the Sect Leader earlier.
No.
They were even more eerie and evil!
Kraken's breath hitched for a moment; he clearly recognized who that person was.
As if sensing something, the figure turned and gave him a faint glance.
Even across such a distance, Kraken could still feel the malice in that gaze.
In an instant, Kraken seemed to understand everything.
He didn't know how this disaster had started, but once the fuse was lit, someone had been fanning the flames.
...
Yue Shi’s sense of entitlement had always been extremely high; he felt that all the good things in the world should belong to him.
Therefore, he often acted out, vowing to take back everything that didn't belong to him.
At this moment, he held three similar ancient books in his hands.
One was the 《Record of Cultivating Character and Prolonging Life》, one was the 《Immortal Sand Soul-Returning Record》, and the other was the recently acquired 《Record of Summoning and Binding Demons and Ghosts》.
Its primary function was to summon otherworldly creatures.
The spells recorded in these books were actually massive traps; they would screw over anyone who used them.
While Yue Shi himself likely had no use for them, he could package them up and give them to others.
They would make perfect new rewards for a certain someone's heaven-defying system.
"Is it convenient to talk?"
A voice rang out in his ear.
A cheongsam-clad girl, half-hiding her face with a folding fan, suddenly appeared in Yue Shi's field of vision.
Rate on N.U.
