The Purgatory Calamity
Chapter 505 - 480 The Escaper and the Stayer_1

Chapter 505: Chapter 480 The Escaper and the Stayer_1

Duan Yun looked out over the heart of the continent where the Demon Sect was located and expressed his own views.

But he resolutely kept silent about rushing into the Demon Sect to find out the truth for himself.

Just like him, other Great Cultivators from various places also said that the disaster on the land was very likely related to the Demon Sect, yet no one dared to charge toward the Demon Sect’s mountain gate headquarters to confront Xiang Shengwei.

The intimidating power of the Demon Sect had long since been deeply ingrained in the hearts of those in the Second Realm.

Towards the Demon Sect, towards a powerhouse at the peak of the Immortal Realm like Xiang Shengwei, these people harbored fear.

Suddenly.

A garishly dressed, flamboyant middle-aged beautiful woman, with a pointed remark, said, "Our Liang Family is a vassal family of the Demon Sect. No matter what the Demon Sect does, we dare not hold them accountable."

"Heaven Treasure Li Family, Sword Tower, you are the ones who can exert pressure on the Demon Sect."

"You two..."

The Liang Family Elder, a cultivator at the beginning stages of the Immortal Realm and over two hundred years of age, encouraged Pang Jian and Li Jie with her heavily powdered face: "We are not far from the Demon Sect headquarters. You two should visit the Demon Sect and ask their Elders about the situation."

Li Jie burst out cursing, "Liang Lu! Do you want to kill me?"

Without waiting for the Liang Family Elder to respond, he continued angrily, "This whole continent is suffering, yet the Demon Sect remains silent; even an idiot knows there’s something wrong with the Demon Sect!"

"The Demon Sect is either the creator of the catastrophe, or... their situation is worse than anywhere else!"

"Regardless of the situation, if Pang Jian and I charge in, it’s suicide!"

"I only want to survive; don’t even think about using me as your pawn!"

As Li Family’s current genius Artifact Refiner of this generation, Li Jie didn’t give any face to someone like Liang Lu, a clan elder dependent on the Demon Sect. He pointed towards the direction of the Demon Sect and said, "If you want to investigate, you might as well go there yourself. Or perhaps, you can lead the way, and Pang Jian and I will follow to take a look!"

Upon hearing this, the heavily made-up Liang Family Elder immediately fell silent.

Heaven Treasure Sect was the strongest force in the First Realm, and Li Jie was the youngest Artifact Refining genius of the Li Family of this era. She, merely an elder of a family dependent on the Demon Sect, how could she truly provoke Li Jie?

She had thought that because of Li Jie’s youthful vigor, the young man would be easy to manipulate, which was why she tried to instigate him to go to the Demon Sect.

"Since the incident, the Demon Sect has experienced the fiercest infighting. Our sect is close to the Demon Sect. From a distance, I saw thick smoke rising from inside, with several branch buildings and palaces destroyed." Huang Xi, the current Sect Master of Gold Stone Sect, also at the beginning of the Immortal Realm, said in a deep voice standing next to Duan Yun, "The disaster might be related to the Demon Sect, but the Demon Sect should be the one that got hit hardest!"

"Are you saying that the situation in the Demon Sect is the most dire?" Duan Yun exclaimed.

"All of us know that of all the cultivators in the Purgatory World, those who have deviated in their practices from the Demon Sect are the most numerous. In other words, if one cultivates the devilish secret skills of the Demon Sect, the malicious and evil thoughts in one’s heart are relatively more intense," Huang Xi methodically explained, answering seriously, "After an evil force that encourages wickedness erupts, it is natural for the disciples of the Demon Sect to lose control the easiest."

Some were horrified, "Inside the Demon Sect, isn’t it a slaughter so gruesome that the skies darken and the sun and moon lose their light?"

Others said, "Perhaps the current calmness of the Demon Sect, the silence of those Elders, is because they died in battle or perished in deviation from their demonic practices."

"The Demon Sect may have already become a realm of death!"

"Those who have survived, who knows what kind of terrifying demon fiends they may have become. Anyone who goes there is going to die!"

"..."

The crowd discussed fervently.

Standing on the "Heart of Winter," Pang Jian gathered golden God’s Thought in his eyes and looked in the direction of the Demon Sect, indeed observing that the Demon Element Power there was exceptionally thick and intense.

He too felt that the Demon Sect, being the closest to the Demon Abyss, was inevitably the place on the continent which suffered the most severe blow, and probably had very few survivors left.

As everyone continued their heated discussion, Pang Jian pondered for a moment before suddenly declaring, "It’s the Demon Stone towering over the Demon Abyss that has undergone changes, pulling in countless negative emotions and tearing at the nearby souls."

"It had two strange tremors; the first caused the souls of those near the Demon Stone to fly away."

"The second tremor affected everyone who entered the Demon Abyss for their trial, and no one was spared."

"If there’s a third tremor..."

Glancing at Duan Yun, Liang Lu, and others at the Immortal Realm like Huang Xi, Pang Jian was unsure whether their Spiritual Soul powers would be able to withstand another tremor from the Demon Stone and its resultant pulling force.

As the others were shaken and perplexed, Pang Jian asked, "Li Jie, have you tried going out?"

"Not just me, everyone has tried, no one can get out!" Li Jie responded.

"I’ll give it a try!"

Pang Jian, standing over the "Heart of Winter," headed toward the dark blue sky dome that covered the entire continent, while warning those below, "You’d better be mentally prepared. When the third tremor erupts, I hope you can hold onto your Spiritual Souls and not get absorbed by that Demon Stone."

"What I’ve seen is that even those at the Extinction Realm like myself had their Spiritual Souls devoured by the Demon Stone."

Upon hearing this, those who had not ascended to the Immortal Realm were ashen-faced.

The anxious people hesitated, glancing down at the Demon Abyss and then towards their families and Sects from where they came.

"The abnormality in the Demon Abyss is clearly not something we can handle," they said.

"True, if we stay, we will end up like the other Extinction Realm cultivators, our Spiritual Souls being sucked away when the Demon Stone tremors," someone else added.

"Obviously, this is a long-premeditated invasion of the Demon Abyss Continent by the Great Demon God from beyond the heavens! The catastrophe on land should be resolved by the True Gods!"

Those at the Extinction Realm left these words behind and immediately withdrew from above the Demon Abyss, flying towards the farthest edge of the Continent.

Only when they were far enough from that Demon Stone could they withstand the pressure to a smaller extent, barely survive, and hope for the True Gods to break the seal.

"The Liang Family cannot lose me. If I die, the Liang Family will be finished."

"Brother Duan Yun, I’m sorry."

The ancestor of the Liang Family, despite being in the Immortal Realm, felt a chill in her heart at that moment. She helplessly sighed, bent down to pay respect, and then promptly left without looking back.

"With an ancestor like you, the Liang Family is doomed sooner or later!" Li Jie sarcastically remarked without any courtesy.

Liang Lu turned a deaf ear to it.

After she left, the remaining Immortal Realm Great Cultivators thought about the terrifying scenes described by Pang Jian, wavering in their hearts.

"Whoosh!"

"Whoosh whoosh!"

Three more Immortal Realm Great Cultivators, without even a word of explanation or apology, turned around and flew away from above the Demon Abyss.

At this moment in the Demon Abyss Continent, although there were areas where people were fighting fiercely, there were also those with steadfast hearts who remained unaffected, able to keep themselves out of it.

They were such people.

As long as they could maintain control of their malicious thoughts and evil intentions, as long as they abstained from involvement and found a corner far from the Demon Stones to hide, they could avoid the corruption of the Demon Stones.

At least, in the short term, there should be no big problem.

They believed that the True Gods of the outside world must have noticed the abnormality of the Demon Abyss Continent and must be outside, strenuously working to break the Sky Curtain that shrouded the Continent.

They consoled themselves by thinking that all they needed to do was to keep themselves safe and wait until the seals cloaking the Demon Abyss Continent disappeared, and then they would naturally be saved.

They were the ancestors of their respective families, the pillars of their Sects’ power. They reassured themselves, telling themselves that their families and Sects needed them alive.

"Even those of the Immortal Realm are fleeing; this Continent is probably beyond salvation."

Li Jie’s face was stricken with anguish as he let out a neurotic laugh and said, "I naïvely thought I could make amends, that this Continent could still be saved. But they just ran away like that, and their descendants who are suffering the corruption of magic power are still killing incessantly."

"Those who can resist the influence of the inner demon, who can keep their reason and sanity, are not trying to find a way to rescue their clansmen."

"Why should I bother working so hard?"

"The homes and lands of my family are not on the Demon Abyss Continent!"

"What does the destruction of this world and the extinction of all its beings have to do with me?"

Li Jie, who had racked his brains to rescue the beings of the Demon Abyss Continent, felt like a joke as he cynically laughed with a bitter taste in his heart.

"I could hide too. I could hide in the farthest place from that Demon Stone, and after all, I’m only in the Soul Wandering Realm!"

He looked around and instantly knew which area of the Demon Abyss Continent was the farthest and safest from the Demon Stones.

He didn’t know when the third tremor of the Demon Stone would happen, but he knew that his best chance for survival was to leave his current location at once.

—Just like the escapees.

But the Kylin Bell he was in seemed to be firmly attracted by the Demon Stone, stubbornly hovering motionless.

He thought of the scenes within the cities, where people like him fought desperately, children wielding knives over trivial household disputes.

Some fought bloody battles over mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relations. Brothers harbored grudges over the distribution of good farmland that grew with the amplification of Demon Element Power, prompting them to attack each other with hammers and spades.

And there were children who, because of a teacher’s harsh reprimand, uncomprehendingly hurled bricks and stones with all their might.

What were initially minor evil thoughts gradually grew and brewed into horrifying consequences.

Li Jie wandered all the way, witnessing these scenes as he went along.

He truly couldn’t bear it, not wishing to see such a prosperous and affluent Human Race world fall like this, which is why he gathered strong practitioners everywhere, with his identity.

He had never imagined that those who had lived a century or two longer than him, those whose realms were a whole two levels higher, would cherish their lives more than he did!

He was the Li Family’s genius Artifact Refiner. Was his life not more noble and valuable than those old fellows?

He was just over thirty years old, he had not yet met someone he liked, he had not seen all the sceneries of Purgatory, and he had countless wonderful ideas in his heart that he had yet to realize.

As for those old fellows who had lived for hundreds of years, they had already experienced everything one could experience in life, and there should be too few regrets left, so why be so greedy for life?

Huang Xi of Gold Stone Sect shouted sternly, "Li Family youngster, find a place to stay alive. We will try to solve this. I don’t care about the others. I am willing to give up my life for this calamity!"

Suddenly, Huang Xi plunged into the Demon Abyss.

Almost at the same time when Pang Jian, who was piloting the Heart of Winter towards the Sky Curtain, touched the light screen of the beings below the seal, the Purgatory Gate in his chest, which had been still for a long time, suddenly became hot.

"Whoosh!"

The Heart of Winter was tucked into his dantian, and now he burst out of the Demon Abyss Continent, becoming the only one of Different Kinds who could leave.

The Immortal Realm Great Cultivators below, who all thought that he would surely fail and return soon, only reacted at this moment.

"He got out!"

"Li Jie, Pang Jian has broken out of the Demon Abyss Continent!"

"I saw it; he crossed over the light screen that closed off the whole world and disappeared in a flash!"

...