Not good.

Taihao could even imagine how pale his face must be. The desolate lion's demon flames didn't emit much heat while burning; on the contrary, their temperature was far below freezing.

Hohenheim's spells, the spirit energy of the Side of Truth, his qi sea – all became fuel for the demon flames' expansion and swelling...

Boom—

The crimson lotus demon flames expanded like a prairie fire, instantly covering the entire space. Wherever they went, the soil froze into ice, and the metal ruins froze and shattered.

Li Ang used the Tiyun Vertical Leap, stepping on invisible stairs to ascend into the air.

Kuángrán Huǒ, standing on flames, pulled Amberlee up as well. The alien cultivators like Dan Chenzi in the distance were included in the eye of the storm by the desolate lion, spared from the crimson lotus demon flames. The blind monk also retracted his Luohan phantom.

As for Zhanlu, who couldn't fly on his own, he carried the same kind of jetpack as He Yuyi and Xinzhong.

"F*ck..."

Zhanlu's eyes reflected the boiling, cold lotus fire sea. He cursed in front of the detectors, "Isn't this a bit too exaggerated?"

"Welcome to the world of the top five in individual combat power."

Kuángrán Huǒ grinned. "Now you know the despair ordinary people face when confronting Michael, right?"

"But those who can stand before Michael aren't ordinary people either, right?"

Li Ang took a deep breath. He hadn't seen Michael's true appearance yet.

He glanced at the boiling, low-temperature fire sea below, then at the shadows of the desolate lion, Dan Chenzi, and others in the distance, in the demon flame hurricane. He silently calculated in his heart and asked, "These demon flames can devour energy and continuously expand. Their mystery is very high.

Do you have any skills that can theoretically counter them?"

"I do,"

Amberlee nodded, exchanging a glance with Kuángrán Huǒ. "But we need to be close enough to the target."

The hurricane flames around the desolate lion hadn't been canceled. They had to be crossed or shattered first.

Unless someone possessed a particularly all-encompassing power system, one could deduce the scope of their abilities through the permutation and combination of equipment, props, and skills on the transcendent.

Calculating what they could and couldn't do.

"Energy attacks are forbidden, relying solely on physical damage,"

Zhanlu said in a deep voice, "I have a skill."

Li Ang raised an eyebrow and said, "Your sword?"

"Yeah." Zhanlu nodded, correcting him, "Lü Dongbin's sword..."

On the other side of the space, Taihao manipulated a qi dragon, smaller than before, to carry himself away from the sea of fire.

Not far away, Hohenheim, inside a Klein bottle-shaped container, also rose from the sea of fire. The Klein bottle he was in could compress and reduce the incoming flames, preventing them from harming Hohenheim himself.

Of course, there were cracks all over the bottle, covered with frost, looking like it couldn't last long.

Whoosh—

The waves of the fire sea churned, and a pitch-black sphere-shaped object, similar to the stellar imprisonment summoned by Nebula before, rose from the sea of fire.

The sphere kept shrinking, as if being absorbed by the energy-absorbing demon flames, but at least it escaped the karmic fire demon flames before completely shattering, disintegrating on its own, revealing the Side of Truth inside, smoking all over.

"Phew, good to be alive."

Hohenheim breathed a sigh of relief and put away the Klein bottle.

Rumble—

The floor shook more violently than ever before. The floating players felt the dome above them about to collapse, and tons of rubble hung precariously overhead like the Sword of Damocles.

Around the safety door where the hurricane was, the hunched gray-robed figures from the so-called Cult pushed their chanting to its peak.

The loud sound of giant tentacles crawling across the dome echoed in their ears once more.

"We don't have much time left."

The Side of Truth threw the last magic potion to Hohenheim, his voice low and deep, "Who else has a physical attack-type skill that can break through the flames?"

"We'll talk about that later. The flames are shrinking."

Taihao pointed below, interrupting their conversation.

The low-temperature flames on the ground were gradually gathering and rejoining the hurricane, leaving behind a large area of frozen ground.

An opening appeared at the bottom of the hurricane, and Dan Chenzi and the blind monk stepped out of it.

Through the opening, one could see the static force field in the shape of a bronze bell, the gray-robed people, and the desolate lion.

Deep in the eye of the storm, the desolate lion expressionlessly stretched out its beastly paw and gently touched a large stack of summoning tokens floating in the void.

Buzz—

The space vibrated slightly, and dozens of ripple-like undulations suddenly appeared in mid-air. A group of demon beasts leaped out from them, landing beside Dan Chenzi and the other two.

Taihao and the others didn't know the names of the demon generals Yanshan and Evil Dragon, but that didn't stop them from seeing the giant pipe, the pale blue gem, and the silver-white cross sword in the hands of the one-eyed giant tortoise-shaped demon general Yanshan.

"Sandman, Tian Jing Huo Tu, Saint..."

Taihao's voice was almost inaudible.

These three pieces of equipment belonged to the Vice Presidents of the Evil Demon Scientist Alliance, Sandman and Tian Jing Huo Tu, and Saint of the Inquisition – Saint's ranking was only one place behind Taihao.

"...Not only that, but there are also traces of Wang Bu Liu Xing, Boreas, and Balalaika."

Under the hood, the Side of Truth's voice was as calm as ever.

No wonder there hadn't been any news about Tian Jing Huo Tu for so long. They were attacked by demon generals...

"The ritual is about to begin,"

The desolate lion stared coldly and mercilessly at the demons, who were all slightly injured except for the demon generals.

Its voice, as loud as a bell, could still be heard clearly in the howling hurricane, "Stop them."

After saying that, its body floated up, hovering above the safety door.

Although the opening in the demon flame hurricane closed at this moment, Hohenheim still clearly saw the last scene that happened inside –

The desolate lion's tough skin on its body inexplicably burst open, forming thirteen wounds.

A steady stream of blood poured out from the cracks in the desolate lion's body.

Influenced by the gray-robed people's chanting, the blood floated in the air, divided into thirteen strands, all directed towards the thirteen gray-robed figures.

"The desolate lion is providing energy to those gray-robed people..."

Hohenheim's voice grew softer as he looked at the Evil Dragon, who first grinned ferociously at them, then opened its bloody maw, and his pupils contracted, his figure instantly disappearing into the wall.

Buzz—

The Evil Dragon spat out a beam of destructive light, instantly crossing hundreds of meters and arriving at the location of Hohenheim and the others.

In front of the destructive beam, the tough wall was more vulnerable than tofu.

The wall was as if erased by a rubber, leaving behind a long and twisted annihilation trace.

The beam gradually weakened.

The Evil Dragon with pointed horns on its head swept the entire field with its serpentine vertical pupils, flicked its forked tongue, and casually said to Yanshan beside it in a foreign language: "Missed.

Did you smell that? The scent of Qingqiu."

"Yeah."

Yanshan nodded, his single eye looking at Li Ang and the others in the distance, whose expressions had changed drastically, "It seems that they killed them..."