Chaos

The Cloaked Figure slipped out of the spatial gate without a sound.

His gaze swept across the room, taking in his surroundings.

The wooden door from Yali City was wrapped in coils of black thread, resting at the center of a room roughly ten square meters in size.

He had entered by opening a spatial passage from beside the door.

Yet even with that spatial gate open, the entire Underground Containment Room had remained perfectly still — no one had noticed that an intruder had entered.

The Cloaked Figure glanced at the black wooden door, then paused briefly. Beneath his hood, his blood-red eyes narrowed slightly, and a flicker of uneasy uncertainty crossed his features.

He couldn't shake the feeling that the Abyssal Demon Gate was different from before — somehow diminished, as though a portion of its power had been stripped away. But whatever had caused it, he couldn't sense the reason.

No time to dwell on it. He drew a slow breath, then reached out and lightly pressed a finger against one of the black threads binding the Abyssal Demon Gate.

Dark flames erupted along the threads — silent, utterly motionless, without the slightest ripple of energy.

Within moments, the threads melted away and dissolved. The Abyssal Demon Gate was free.

The Cloaked Figure reached out and closed the spatial gate he had arrived through. The instant it shut, the wooden door from the Small World materialized inside the room, appearing beside the first.

Two identical doors, side by side, indistinguishable from each other.

He extended both hands and pressed them together. Tendrils of black mist curled around the pair of doors, enveloping them — and then, as if melting into each other, they slowly fused into a single door.

The entire process was utterly soundless.

Once merged, the combined door's surface was covered in intricate, cryptic patterns — arcane markings that seemed to writhe with hidden meaning. Any ordinary person who merely looked upon those markings would likely find themselves consumed by a creeping, inexplicable dread.

The Cloaked Figure gripped the door handle and turned it gently.

In the next instant, spatial gates erupted open throughout every room in the Underground Containment Room — over two hundred of them, appearing all at once.

But when the Cloaked Figure sensed their number, his brow furrowed.

Not because there were too many — but because there were too few. He glanced at the merged Abyssal Demon Gate, and his expression darkened.

His earlier instinct had been right. Something was wrong with the gate.

*How did it end up like this?* Aberration Entities were supposed to be impossible to damage or harm — so why had this happened?

The question churned in his mind, but his hands didn't stop moving.

With a single act of will, black arms reached out from every spatial gate, seizing the Aberration Entities housed in each room — some D-Grade, some C-Grade, and large numbers of S-Grade, A-Grade, and B-Grade entities.

In containment room A39, the small girl whose unknown energy Lu Yuan had drained still lay on the floor, pale and visibly weakened.

When the space above her tore open and a massive black hand reached through, she could only watch as it closed around her and began hauling her toward the door.

The corners of her mouth split wide in a bloodthirsty, savage grin.

All of this unfolded in perfect silence.

Then, without warning, the Cloaked Figure jerked violently inside the Abyssal Demon Gate's containment room and let out a strangled, painful grunt. The black mist wreathing his body surged out of control.

In the Underground Containment Room's guard station, two Battle Sovereign rank warriors and eight Battle King rank warriors were on duty.

Some were deep in meditation. Others were passing the time with games. But every single one of them kept their senses sharp and their alertness wound tight — ready for any sign of trouble.

They were well aware that someone might try to make a move on the Aberration Entities inside the facility. It was why so many had been stationed here recently.

No one dared to relax.

At that moment, the white-haired Battle Sovereign elder who had been sitting in quiet meditation opened his eyes slowly and spoke:

"Baming — time for a patrol. Take Liu Yu and Kurus with you. Check for anything unusual."

Three Battle King warriors who had been playing cards stood up and nodded.

Then, both the white-haired Battle Sovereign and the middle-aged Battle Sovereign simultaneously went rigid. They lurched to their feet and turned toward the interior of the Underground Containment Room. A moment later, the eight Battle Kings rose as well, all of them staring inward with expressions caught between alarm and confusion.

The middle-aged Battle Sovereign's face went hard, his gaze glacial. "Elder Zhang! I'll take them inside. You hold the entrance."

Elder Zhang's expression settled like stone. "Don't act rashly. If you can't hold, notify me at once!"

The middle-aged Battle Sovereign gave a sharp nod — and vanished.

The Battle Kings surged after him, streaking toward the source of the disturbance.

Inside the Abyssal Demon Gate's containment room, the Cloaked Figure's eyes flickered. Behind those blood-red irises was something rare: genuine disbelief.

He could feel it clearly. Another servant had just been killed.

*What is going on?!*

Fury roared through him. He had already ordered all of them to abandon their original cities — so how was another one dead?

Before he could make sense of it, he snapped his head toward a specific direction. A powerful presence was closing in fast.

Cold killing intent surfaced in his blood-red eyes.

A heartbeat later, the middle-aged Battle Sovereign appeared in the doorway of the Abyssal Demon Gate's room.

His eyes fell on the Cloaked Figure inside — and shock registered across his face.

"How did you get in here?!"

He glanced at the wooden door, now stripped of its seals, and his expression grew grave.

This entire area had been spatially locked down by a Battle Emperor rank warrior using special treasures. Under normal circumstances, even someone possessing a Spatial Type Transcendent Gene would find it virtually impossible to enter undetected. Even if their Spatial Type gene was extraordinarily powerful — Emperor Grade quality or beyond — they might be able to force through the spatial lock, but it would have set off every alarm in the facility.

So how had this Cloaked Figure slipped in without a sound, without alerting a single person?

It made no sense whatsoever.

The Battle Kings arrived moments later. When they spotted the Cloaked Figure inside the containment room, they all froze, shock flickering across their faces.

The Cloaked Figure tilted his head slightly and regarded the middle-aged Battle Sovereign and the Battle Kings gathered in the doorway. His rasping voice carried through the room:

"A lone Battle Sovereign and a handful of Battle Kings... and you think you can stop me?"

Black mist curled and writhed around him, and within that darkness, spectral faces materialized — contorted, wailing, their cries somehow silent yet unmistakably present.

The oppressive weight of that aura washed outward, and ice flooded the veins of everyone standing in the doorway.

"Battle Emperor rank?!"

The middle-aged Battle Sovereign's pupils contracted to pinpoints. He let out a roar, savage power erupting from his body as he sent out an emergency warning signal.

A Battle Emperor rank warrior was something none of them could hope to stop.

The Cloaked Figure raised one pale hand and swept it toward the doorway.

**BOOM!!**

A torrent of black mist crashed into the reinforced door with catastrophic force. The alloy — solid enough to withstand a Battle Sovereign rank strike — shattered instantly. A flood of black mist poured through the breach and slammed into the middle-aged Battle Sovereign and every Battle King behind him.

The middle-aged Battle Sovereign roared, layers of cyan-gold Spirit Power erupting across his body, coalescing into an enormous spectral tortoise shell before him.

The shell spread out to cover both himself and the Battle Kings.

He tore Talismans, gene boosters, and spirit fruits from his storage, consuming them in rapid succession. His aura spiked sharply — but the force he was channeling exceeded his body's limits, and gashes split open across his skin as flesh tore under the strain, blood pouring freely.

Even so, he didn't hesitate. He had no choice. Without this desperate, all-or-nothing stand, he couldn't hold against a Battle Emperor rank opponent for even a moment.

With every amplifying measure activated, the tortoise shell blazed with blinding radiance — and the torrent of black mist crashed into it.

**BOOM!!!**

Cracks spiderwebbed across the spectral shell. Then, with the middle-aged Battle Sovereign watching in widening horror, it shattered completely.

The flood of black mist swept over him and every Battle King, hurling them all off their feet.

The middle-aged Battle Sovereign slammed into the wall, coughing up mouthfuls of blood, his face drained white as chalk.

As for the Battle Kings behind him — though each managed to activate their emergency survival measures in time, Battle King level countermeasures offered little against a true Battle Emperor's strike.

Two middle-aged men and a graceful, refined woman lost their lives on the spot.

The rest lay on the floor, critically wounded and barely conscious.

And that was only because the middle-aged Battle Sovereign had thrown himself fully in the path of the blow. Without his sacrifice, not a single one of them would have survived.

Having struck once, the Cloaked Figure made no move to follow up. His goal wasn't to kill the guards — it was the Aberration Entities. The Abyssal Demon Gate's weakened state had been an unwelcome surprise; if it could open only two hundred spatial gates at a time, every second counted.

He directed the black arms with another act of will, pulling another batch of Aberration Entities through their spatial gates, then began opening passages into additional rooms.

Then a jet-black spatial gate split open — and Li Xinghai stepped through.

He glanced at the fallen Battle Sovereign and Battle King warriors on the floor, then turned his gaze to the Cloaked Figure standing amid the wreckage. His expression was cold and unyielding.

The Cloaked Figure noticed Li Xinghai's arrival. His own expression went flat.

*A Battle Emperor rank opponent. That was fast.*

While the Cloaked Figure was still processing the situation, black mist began bleeding off Li Xinghai's body — identical in color to the Cloaked Figure's own, yet entirely different in nature. Where the Cloaked Figure's mist carried supernatural, shrieking shadow-things, Li Xinghai's was pure, concentrated darkness, without any of that uncanny quality.

The mist surged outward before the Cloaked Figure could react, engulfing him completely.

Trapped within it, he felt the space around him go utterly dead — as if he had been transported into a different world entirely.

His blood-red eyes carried a thread of ice. His voice rasped: "Dark Domain?"

Li Xinghai didn't answer. His weathered, deeply-lined face held nothing but lethal focus. Spirit Power surged, shadow-forms materialized throughout the Dark Domain, and sword light raged inward, converging on the Cloaked Figure at the center.

Even the Cloaked Figure — a fellow Battle Emperor rank warrior — felt genuine mortal danger pressing down on him.

His pupils tightened. His body became an afterimage — and vanished.

At the same moment, a dark silhouette appeared beside the Abyssal Demon Gate and slammed it shut with tremendous force.

The moment the gate closed, every spatial gate throughout the containment rooms snapped shut with it.

The Aberration Entities the Cloaked Figure had already extracted, however, were gone — wherever they had been taken, they were beyond recovery.

A cold rigidity came over the Cloaked Figure when he saw this. Only now did he understand: Li Xinghai's true objective had never been him — it had been the Abyssal Demon Gate.

"You think closing that door ends this?" His voice sharpened. "Kill you, and I'll take every Aberration Entity in this facility regardless!"

Black mist surged around him in waves, bleeding into the surrounding Dark Domain.

But unlike the Domain's pure darkness, his mist arrived with company — screaming soul-shades, shrieking faces trailing in its wake.

The black mist condensed into a long blade bearing a grotesque, writhing visage. It vanished from where it formed and appeared at Li Xinghai's side, slashing downward with a sound like a chorus of wailing ghosts.

Li Xinghai's expression didn't change. He raised his black longsword and met the blade.

**Clang!!**

Steel rang against steel — and within the Dark Domain, two Battle Emperor rank warriors began tearing into each other.

Outside the Dark Domain, Elder Zhang arrived with the two Battle Kings who had stayed behind at the entrance. The moment they saw the carnage, both the elder and the Battle Kings went still — then rushed forward.

"Perkin! Are you all right?"

The three of them checked the survivors' auras. When they found the three dead Battle Kings, their eyes turned red.

Elder Zhang snatched elixirs from his storage and barked: "Make them drink — now!"

The two Battle Kings scrambled to administer the medicine.

Once the elixirs were down, they produced healing Talismans and began treatment. Perkin and the three surviving Battle Kings slowly regained color in their faces — the three Battle Kings especially, who had been hanging by a thread, were finally out of immediate danger.

As Perkin's condition stabilized enough, he grabbed Elder Zhang's arm, his voice hoarse:

"Elder Zhang! My Lord Li Xinghai is holding the intruder off — that man's target is the Aberration Entities. Move them now! And get word to the other Battle Emperors — we need everyone here to surround and kill that intruder. Avenge Tony and the others!"

Elder Zhang cast a glance toward the shroud of darkness where the battle raged, then spoke:

"I've already notified the other Battle Emperors. My Lord Si Qi is on the way. We're moving the Aberration Entities right now."

While battle erupted in the Underground Containment Room, in a quiet corner of the Imperial Capital, Tong Shu and Tong Menghan stood watching the direction of Night Watchman Headquarters.

Tong Shu's face burned with fervent excitement. "My Lord has made his move — which means it's time for us as well. Once we finish this, we'll be welcomed into the organization. And then..." His voice dropped to something almost reverent. "We'll be the ones in control."

Tong Menghan's beautiful face was utterly cold. She took a slow breath. "Understood, Father."

Dark mist swirled within her eyes. Then a torrent of shadowy forms burst from her body, streaking toward the residential building beside them.