Absolute, soul-crushing terror was an emotion the Blood-Hand Duke had not felt in over a century. He was a master of his own domain, a fifth-level Soul Formation expert whose very name could quell rebellions and make lesser cultivators faint. Any true danger that he was in, he would be more than capable of escaping with his life. That was how he and the two others had faced off against Theron these last couple of weeks. Never engaging him directly but simply being here to make sure he stayed.

Yet now, suspended in the air, he was as helpless as a mortal fly caught in a spider’s web. He could not move. He could not channel his spiritual energy. He couldn’t move to use any talisman or any other protective treasure. The one protective treasure that activates automatically only stopped a strong attack, but he wasn’t attacked, at least not yet. He was simply held here, helpless, a feeling he thought felt worse than death.

He could not even scream as the handsome, black-robed man stood on the air above him, an effigy of absolute power. He wanted to beg, to plead for his life, to offer up his treasures, his sect, anything to escape this suffocating, silent doom. But the words were frozen in his throat, and the indifferent gaze of the man above told him that such pleas would be as meaningless as the rustling of leaves in a hurricane.

Jian Xuan, seeing his moment, let his triumphant grin spread across his face. He was the master of this stage and it was time for the second act.

"You see this!!" he roared, his voice a clarion call that drew the eyes of every single person on the battlefield. He pointed a dramatic finger at the three frozen commanders. "The pretenders are frozen solid out of fear and awe from one of our true prophets!!! The mighty Khaos!! The Crab God can speak through him! Bow before the might of the one true god!!"

This time, his words struck a different chord. Before, it was the ranting of a powerful madman. Now, it was a sermon punctuated by an undeniable power.

Inside the walls of Aethelgard, the defenders stared, their hearts pounding in their chests. They knew who the Blood-Hand Duke was. They had lived under the shadow of his threat for weeks. They had seen their own elders and commanders engage in frustrating hit-and-run battles with these enemy leaders, who would strike and then vanish before they could be cornered.

Yet now, these untouchable phantoms were captured, effortlessly, before they could even launch an attack. The sheer, casual dominance on display was a concept so foreign it was difficult to process. For a few, a very select few, a strange thought began to bloom in the fertile soil of their desperation.

This "Crab God"... this "Abyssal Crab Cult"... could it be real? Others were simply filled with a profound curiosity, their fear of the enemy being replaced by a bewildering awe for their new, insane allies. The madman out there said this city was now under their protection, they must be some sort of ally if Grand Elder Theron didn’t say otherwise.

Outside the city, the effect was even more profound. The scattered, retreating remnants of the assault force around the city walls watched from a distance, their faces pale with shock. They had just been annihilated by the first man. Now, their three most powerful commanders whom they thought were invincible were neutralized without a fight by the second.

A seed of doubt, poisonous and potent, began to sprout in their minds. Were they believing in the wrong god? Some among them were not even true believers, just mercenaries or conscripts from smaller sects that had been subjugated by the revolutionary factions. They had no loyalty to any god; they followed strength. And what they were witnessing now was a strength so absolute it bordered on the divine.

Seizing the momentum, Jian clasped his hands together once more, his expression one of ecstatic piety.

"Praise the God Crab, his mighty claw! His boundless void are our laws!"

"The Crab God’s might will never wane!! Through shell and claw his rule shall reign!!"

But this time, as he finished the chant, something else occurred.

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A pressure descended upon the battlefield. It was not the explosive, fiery pressure of a cultivator's aura, but something far older, far more profound. It was a pressure that went beyond just the physical, a crushing weight on the body and soul itself. A terrifying whisper that spoke of insignificance in the face of an endless, hungry void.

And in the sky above Khaos, reality itself seemed to bend and tear. An ethereal, translucent image began to bleed into existence. It was a form so colossal it dwarfed the very mountains on the horizon, an image that defied mortal comprehension.

It was a crab, yet not a crab. Its massive shell was not made of chitin, but of a swirling, starry void, a captured piece of the night sky filled with dying galaxies. Its legs were like jagged mountain ranges and its two immense claws, each large enough to crush Aethelgard itself, seemed to be forged from pure, solidified darkness. It was a being of cosmic scale, a creature of the abyss made manifest.

This was Khaos’s true form, a phantom of it that was actually much larger than his real size. He had unleashed it upon the world. This was part of the shock and awe. The final and undeniable statement. If he could create a legend so terrifying that no one would dare approach this city, his three months of guard duty would be a quiet, uninterrupted period of cultivation.

The three frozen commanders, their minds already strained to the breaking point, were now drowning in a sea of existential dread. The being above them... it was an existence beyond their understanding. The pressure it emitted was primordial.

Could it be? Could it be that the Crab God was real? Was that the Crab God manifesting through their true prophet, the man that the madman called Khaos? Just look at that magnificent, terrifying creature in the air. Look at the absolute power of the man below it. If a god was not empowering him, what else could it possibly be?

They would never find out.

As the ethereal image of the great crab loomed over the world, Khaos moved. He raised his own arm and the black chaotic energy of the void coalesced around it, forming a shimmering, razor-sharp energy claw that mimicked the phantom in the sky. He did not fly; he simply appeared next to the frozen first-level commander.

With a motion that was almost too fast to see, he swept his claw sideways. The man's head went flying, but there was no spray of blood. Instead, the body and the severed head immediately began to dissolve, turning into a cloud of black smoke that was reabsorbed into the void, leaving absolutely nothing behind. Khaos then appeared next to the third-level female commander and repeated the act, her form disintegrating into nothingness.

Finally, he stood before the Blood-Hand Duke. The Duke’s eyes were wide, screaming the terror his mouth could not. Khaos met his gaze for a fraction of a second, his expression one of utter disdain, before his claw swept through the Duke's neck. The fifth-level Soul Formation expert, a man who had been a terror, ceased to exist.

As the last wisp of black smoke vanished, a few glittering rings clattered onto the ground. Jian, who had been waiting for this exact moment, shot forward like a golden arrow, expertly scooping up all the storage rings before they could even bounce twice.

He then flew back to his position above the city gate, raised his sword and with the terrifying phantom of the great crab still looming in the sky, he chanted one last time, his voice a triumphant roar that was now tinged with the undeniable authority of victory.

This was the final nail in the coffin.

The remaining enemy forces outside the city broke. It wasn't a retreat; it was a rout. They dropped their weapons, abandoned anything they had stationed here and fled in every direction. A tide of terror-stricken soldiers, their minds shattered by what they had just witnessed. Their all power commanders were dead and they were powerless to defend. They would carry with them the story of a new terrifying power, the Cult of the Abyssal Crab, and the image of its magnificent, horrifying god.

On the airship, which was now slowly descending towards the city, Lysander stared, his mouth agape. The psychological warfare he had just witnessed was on a level he couldn't begin to comprehend. He was a righteous fighter so doing such a thing hadn’t crossed his mind but he understood the idea.

He had to admit, if he had not known Jian Xuan and Khaos beforehand, he too would believe their little act just now. They made it completely believable, their power their main selling point. They were so incredibly powerful that others just wouldn’t be able to comprehend them. He knew and he still sort of believed it.

Inside Aethelgard's command spire, Grand Elder Theron watched the last of the enemy forces vanish over the horizon. He looked at the slowly fading phantom of the great crab, then at the arrogant, floating form of Jian Xuan. He did not look shocked or awed. He simply looked tired but relieved. He heaved a long deep sigh, one filled with the weary resignation of a man who has seen too much.

"Unbelievable," he muttered to himself, shaking his head slowly. "Utterly insane, over-the-top and fanatical." He paused, a small, weary smile touching his lips. "But effective. We asked the right people to come. We need this level of madness to fight back the crazy forces."