Pillar of Yita

Moreover, there are some of their ’kind’ currently causing chaos at the center of the Holy Sanctuary. The Xinsas Serpentfolk from a thousand years ago could hardly distinguish the factions among these humans, not to mention whether organizations like Guilds even existed at that time was questionable.

Fang Hong turned and ran. Fortunately, they had already crossed two-thirds of the bridge, and the remaining third was not too long for them.

But just as he stepped onto the end of the bridge, something terrifying happened. Fang Hong felt as if the bridge under his feet suddenly came to life. It jerked backward fiercely, pulling out from the land not far away.

The bridge surface suddenly moved away from under his feet—

Fang Hong felt his soul almost leaving his body, but thankfully his reason remained. He shot a Flying Claw forward with his hand, which snapped onto the edge of the Central District’s land with a clap, swinging him over and crashing heavily onto the ground.

But he had no time to check himself and hurriedly got up to look back, just in time to see the bridge detaching segment by segment from the arches, resembling a pale bone whip. The bridge piers collapsed under the external force, scattering and plunging into the churning mist of the Abyss below.

Meanwhile, Tainaric was running with Parker on the retracting bridge surface. In the final moment, he leapt into the air, covering a distance unimaginable to humans, rolled upon landing, and naturally, the Papalarian he was carrying flew out as well.

But that guy was really lucky; he rolled several times on the ground yet was completely unharmed.

Fang Hong breathed a sigh of relief.

But then he heard Sophie’s severely disrupted voice coming through the channel, ”...watch out behind you!”

Having spent so much time together, Fang Hong had roughly understood the meaning behind the Silver Weslan’s Little Princess’s words and, without thinking, hurled himself forward as the sharp whistling sound of something cutting through the air approached from behind, as if a massive object had struck right where he had been.

A roar thundered, the ground shook slightly, and the cliff there also collapsed due to the impact, bringing down a large chunk.

Fang Hong narrowly escaped disaster with his dive. He looked back, heart still racing, only to realize that the gray-white bridge that had detached was moving away from the cliff—it was then he saw it clearly.

It wasn’t a bridge at all, but a long tail.

After the missed strike, it curled up and retracted back into the mist below, leaving nothing above the Abyss but a few isolated bridge pillars.

Fearing the creature would climb up, he thought about the size of its nearly thousand-meter-long tail and shuddered at the prospect of its true form. However, strangely enough, after the tail retracted, all was quiet again below the Abyss, and the mist seemed to calm.

Fang Hong watched apprehensively, then felt somewhat drained as he got up from the ground. He wasn’t sure whether the creature had settled for good or if it was merely the calm before the storm. But for now, it was best to get as far away from this place as possible.

His best move was to head immediately to the center of the Central Holy Sanctuary District.

There, even if the creature emerged, he could try to lead disaster elsewhere, letting the Jiefulite Red Cloak Team taste some hardship.

He glanced in Tainaric’s direction and saw that the tail’s previous strike, which had collapsed part of the cliff, had indeed created a gap between them. While it wasn’t very long, it still split them apart.

Tainaric also happened to look in his direction at that moment.

Fang Hong waved at him, not daring to speak loudly, and signaled to meet up on a street block ahead by circling around the gap.

The hand signal wasn’t complicated; the Lizardman Prince quickly understood, nodded, grabbed Parker, who was still playing dead on the ground, and ran in that direction. Fang Hong didn’t dare linger either—after one last glance at the misty Abyss, he turned and ran toward the street block.

Luckily, things were better than he had anticipated. Murphy’s law didn’t come into effect here, as the giant creature from the Abyss seemed to have some reason not to surface immediately—Fang Hong let out a sigh of relief, then thanked the Silver Weslan’s Princess:

”Sophie, thank you.”

Come to think of it, this was not the first time she had helped him while he was fighting alone underground.

Sophie shook her head, apparently not wanting to elaborate.

Fang Hong noticed the worry in her expression, ”Is there still no news from Miss Xi?”

”Our communication with you is sporadic, and there is complete silence from their side,” Sophie frowned, ”The Ether Passage is greatly affected by Fenris’s drastic changes, and now the only stable passage left is the military’s A3 Passage—”

”It might be because of the channel interference...” Fang Hong responded.

Sophie nodded, now only wishing to believe this explanation.

”Excuse me for interrupting,” Ambassador Liao’s voice came through the channel at that moment. Due to the military’s maintenance of the Ether Passage for strategic Spell, his voice was particularly clear, ”We have received news from Miss Xi’s side, so don’t worry, they just haven’t had time to contact you—”

Sophie’s beautiful eyes lit up, ”What happened over there?”

”Sorry,” Ambassador Liao shook his head, ”we probably don’t have time to discuss this now, Mr. Xiaya, we have found the person you were looking for.”