About six hours later, the three of them had almost recovered. Of course, they had only regained some of their strength and were now able to fight again. As for their internal injuries, they needed a little more time to heal.
At this point, however, the lines from the array in front of them began to fade away quickly. Within only a few seconds, the whole space created by the array had already disappeared and they found themselves in the middle of another strange place--a rather dark palace.
Before they could figure out what had happened and where they were, their attention was soon attracted by something on the palace's walls. There were many black holes on the walls of this dark palace, and from inside the holes, blood was slowly streaming out and dripping down to the floor. The red blood seemed fresh and warm, like it was directly flowing out from someone alive.
Without having to confirm with each other, they all knew for sure that the blood belonged to all the warriors who had entered the graveyard just now. And the black holes they just saw were used to be the entrances to the caves hours ago.
The rivers of blood kept flowing and converging with each other, until they all streamed as one into an altar at the center of the palace.
It was obvious that the altar was in fact the center of this sealing array, but the strong smell of blood had already turned it into an altar for blood sacrifice.
By then, the altar was no longer operational even though there was still blood pouring into it, because the blood sacrifice had already been completed. As the three of them stared at the altar, a black figure rose from it and shot out into the air. It was none other than Yates himself.
But he was hardly the same person that he used to be. His aura had totally changed. Although strong and endless evil spirit could still be felt from him, they were all restrained or rather condensed deeper into his body. It could be imagined that once he unleashed his power, it would be very devastating. Ricky knew that they were now facing a powerful enemy whose strength had multiplied a lot.
Now they were beginning to feel that Yates had not only become the center of this palace, but also of the whole broken world of this ancient battlefield. All the energy that surrounded them was being attracted to him.
Ricky had met the Shadow King before, who was a powerful upper spiritual king. But based on what Ricky could feel right now, he was certain this Yates was far greater than that. If the Shadow King stood in front of Yates, he would probably be reduced to a helpless insect--he feared it would also be their fate.
"It seems that this is the real body of Yates. Since his real body has shown up, he must have combined it with his replicate. Considering the energy he just unleashed, there's a chance he's a demi-spiritual emperor already!" Ricky said to himself as he detected Yates' energy levels.
But surprisingly, instead of feeling nervous or scared, Ricky found himself pretty calm facing this powerful enemy. Not only him, when he looked at Tyson and Kristen, he didn't see a single sign of panic on their faces. Ricky knew that they weren't just faking their calmness.
But he also understood that none of them was feeling very confident about the impending fight either. The truth was, they were either fully prepared for the coming death just like an ant seeing an elephant and coming for it, or they had simply been through too much that they couldn't care less about facing death anymore. Anyway, it didn't matter what they were thinking at the present, what mattered was that they were going to face the situation head on together and try their best to survive and defeat the enemy.
"I am Yates, a spiritual emperor!" Yates announced, breaking the silence in the dark palace. Then in a dry and condescending tone, he said to Ricky and the others, "What are you waiting for, you puny humans? If you have no plans on killing yourselves, I can be kind enough to crush all of you myself. It wouldn't be any different from killing some helpless ants."
"You think too highly of yourself, you evil creature. You are merely a demi-spiritual emperor and you can't fool us. What do you think other real spiritual emperors would do if they heard about your lies? I'm pretty sure they will do everything to hunt you down to the ends of the earth," Ricky replied flatly as he heard Yates' threatening words.
"How dare you speak to me in such manner, you insects? Seems that you badly need someone to teach you a lesson," Yates said a bit more sternly at Ricky's mockery. But he wasn't really irritated. At least for now, he still didn't think that the puny humans standing in front of him were worth the hassle of getting furious.
After all, he was a demi-spiritual emperor, it would be too impulsive of him to be affected by humans' threatening words. Why would a lion give a damn about a sheep's opinion anyway?
"How nice of you to offer and save us from all the struggle. I don't think we have the courage to take our own lives even if we wanted to," Ricky answered mockingly. "But may I ask a question before you pull out your weapon? How come you have survived for such a long time? I think you have been sealed for hundreds of thousands of years, if not a million." Ricky was quite confused. "After all, you were merely a spiritual king at that time, who should only have a life span of several thousand years!" he added.
"I don't think it's necessary to speak of ice to some insects that could barely survive one summer." Yates had only shaken his head slightly as a response to Ricky's question.
As soon as he had done speaking, he raised two of his fingers and created three blades out of evil spirit. The blades didn't seem very hard and just kept swirling around his fingers. But they were definitely sharp. Apparently, he didn't want to waste any more time on the three of them.
Seeing this, Ricky and the others knew instantly that it was time for them to fight for their lives or suffer tragic deaths.
"Tyson, Kristen, we have to bring the best out of us and enjoy the end game!" Ricky called out, preparing himself for the upcoming battle.
"You got it!" the two of them shouted their answer at the same time with calmness in their voices.
They all feared death, there was no doubt about that. But since it seemed inevitable, they decided to just fight bravely and die a decent death in case they failed.
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