The undead have descended upon the world? I possess a sword that can cleave the heavens once more!

"The domain expands, a realm of flesh and blood."

When the words from the Faceless Cult leader's mouth fell, they were incredibly light, but immediately afterwards, a blood-red wave exploded from his body.

The red spread quickly and evenly, as if someone had poured a bucket of scarlet paint into the air, spreading outwards from where the leader stood, instantly dyeing a large area of ​​the surrounding sky a thick, damp, dark red.

That red color didn't seem like light; it was more like something heavy. The air became sticky after being tainted by it, and every breath carried a rusty smell.

The blond-haired bureau chief, who had transformed into a golden streak of light, suddenly had his pupils shrink as the crimson energy spread in front of him.

His two straight eyebrows almost stood up, and his eyes were racing with judgment in that instant.

The attack of the two golden swords in his hands was forcibly withdrawn, and the golden light on the swords was extinguished instantly, as if an electric current had been cut off.

Without any hesitation, he pushed off the ground with both feet, making a sharp turn and shooting off in the exact opposite direction from the Faceless Cult Leader, at a speed three points faster than when he arrived.

The golden streak left an arc-shaped afterimage as it made a sharp turn, like a short trail of gold dust drawn across the gray-blue sky.

As he was ejected outwards, his mind raced with thoughts: "Domain? When did this guy break through to the eleventh level?"

As the director of the provincial bureau, he was thoroughly familiar with the information about the Thousand-Faced Corpse Clan.

In the real world, the only way for a Thousand-Faced Corpse to advance its rank is to devour a large amount of flesh and blood.

Ordinary flesh and blood can sustain their existence and rank, but to break through to the eleventh rank, the flesh and blood of ordinary people or even low-rank ability users are far from enough. They must have the flesh and blood of mid- to high-rank ability users as nourishment.

The disappearance of a large number of mid-to-high-level ability users would raise high alert and prompt a comprehensive investigation in any province, making it almost impossible for the situation to remain unknown for long.

He hadn't heard of any recent large-scale disappearances of ability users, not even a whisper of it.

"How exactly did this rat break through to the eleventh level?" He had asked this question repeatedly in his mind, but there was clearly no time for him to stop and think about it now.

Not only that, but another, even deeper worry was also weighing on his mind.

In the past, the highest combat power of the zombie species that appeared in the real world was only the ninth rank. The combat power of the tenth rank could only be temporarily reached by relying on various rituals or summoning the will of the gods.

Based on this situation, the strongest personnel the Investigation Bureau has stationed in each province are only at the tenth rank, because a tenth-rank torchbearer can handle most situations that occur in the real world and is sufficient to guard a place.

The higher-ranking Torchbearers were deployed to the core battlefield of the deep dark domain to prevent higher-ranking zombies from entering the real world.

The advantage of this arrangement is that the main battlefield is confined to the deep dark domain, so no matter how fierce the battle is, the impact on the real world can be minimized, and the lives of ordinary people will not be greatly disturbed.

However, once the zombie species invade reality on a large scale, the main battlefield for resisting them will be forced to shift to the real world. Although the strength of the zombie species entering the real world will indeed be limited and weakened to a certain extent, which is beneficial to humanity in the short term, the Bureau of Investigation's considerations never stop at just a few steps ahead.

Once high-level battles break out around a city, the damage to the city, the disruption to the lives of ordinary people, and the reduction of the population base are all long-term hidden dangers that cannot be ignored.

The probability of a person with special abilities awakening is already low. As the population base declines, the subsequent supply of manpower will become tighter.

At the same time, being a torchbearer is a high-risk profession, with a consistently high casualty rate. Given humanity's current overall weak position, it is impossible to quickly defeat the zombies; a protracted war is the only option. And the biggest fear in a protracted war is dragging the battlefield into one's own territory.

That's why the Bureau of Investigation established this defense system of "lower and middle-level officers guarding the real world, and higher-level officers stationed in the deep dark domain".

But now, without the deep dark domain defense line being breached, a corpse in the real world has quietly reached the eleventh rank!

This is extremely bad news!

In the brief moment he was speeding away, he glanced behind him out of the corner of his eye. The figures in black cloaks stood still, making no move to pursue him, just silently watching him fly away, like wooden figures. The blood-red wave continued to spread, its speed remaining steady, with dark liquid light surging at its edges, like a tide spreading across the sky.

Then the tide suddenly rose a bit.

The expansion speed suddenly increased, and the blood-red fluctuations seemed to be pushed from behind by something, instantly catching up with the blond bureau chief's figure and enveloping him completely.

The moment he was enveloped by the crimson domain, the color of the air in the surrounding space changed, the temperature changed, and even gravity seemed to be manipulated. His body sank slightly, and his speed immediately decreased.

Immediately afterwards, one after another, deformed, scarlet limbs appeared out of thin air. They were all different in shape, some like giant claws without skin, some like twisted vines, and some like irregularly arranged chains of joints. Each one was covered with a sticky sheen and rushed towards him from all directions at tricky angles and at extremely fast speeds.

The blond bureau chief was forced to start dodging.

He dodged left and right, sometimes diving and sometimes rising, golden streaks of light weaving between the crimson limbs. His movements were much more chaotic than before, and his speed was also slowed down.

The scarlet limbs grew more numerous and denser, like a rapidly growing thicket of thorns, and he was the flying insect trapped in the center of the thicket.

He glanced back at the figures in black cloaks in the distance, his expression shifting from composure to a hint of urgency.

Then he took a deep breath, a vein throbbed on his forehead, and then his full head of blond hair turned black almost instantly, darkening from root to tip.

Then, with a loud bang.

A phantom, over a thousand meters tall and entirely black, rose into the air.

The illusory figure's outline was not complicated, its lines were simple and solid, but the oppressive aura made all the surrounding scarlet limbs pause for a moment at the same time.

Immediately afterwards, an exceptionally bright golden light burst forth around the illusory figure. The golden light exploded outward from the illusory figure's body, like a giant firework being lit, shattering all the scarlet limbs that were surging in from all directions the moment they touched it.

The shattered limbs turned into dark red dust in mid-air, falling like shards of glass.

After shattering all obstacles, the enormous pure black phantom quickly transformed into a jet-black stream of light, moving even faster than its previous golden form, and sped towards the edge of the city.

The blood-red domain fluctuations were accelerating in sync with him, but after chasing for a distance, the expansion speed suddenly dropped sharply, as if it had reached some kind of limit.

Upon seeing this, the leader of the Faceless Cult frowned slightly, his pale chin, which was partially exposed, tilted slightly toward the direction of the dark light. Then, his figure and the several black cloaks behind him flashed and disappeared from the spot.

Residents in the outskirts of Jiangdong City have already seen the commotion in the sky.

That thin layer of blood-red, which covered a vast area, hung in the sky, its edges gleaming with a dim light, casting an unnatural dark red hue on the walls of the buildings below.

Beyond the crimson edge, a thick, jet-black streak with a long, thin tail was rapidly moving towards the outskirts of the city, its streak across the sky resembling a shooting star in the night, though it was still afternoon.

On a sixth-floor balcony, a middle-aged man wearing a white vest with several holes in it held an unlit cigarette in his hand, looking up at the dark streak of light that swept across their building, forgetting to put the cigarette in his mouth.

He opened his mouth, then turned and shouted into the house, "Wife, come out and see God!"

More residents leaned out of their windows, rooftops, and streets, raising their mobile phones of all models and pointing them at the sky.

At this moment, the dark streak of light was still flying.

The blond bureau chief moved away from the city as quickly as possible. The tall buildings beneath his feet soon turned into low-rise houses, the houses into fields, and the fields into rolling hills.

His speed did not slow down at all; in fact, he continued to increase it.

Only one thought echoed repeatedly in his mind: "No, battles at the tenth rank and above are too destructive!"

"Even if we're going to fight, it has to be somewhere far from the city center!"

Beyond that field lay even more open mountains, and behind those mountains lay even more desolate abandoned mining areas.

He needs to maintain a distance far enough that even if the domain were to unleash its full power, it wouldn't affect anyone.

As he flew, he kept his eyes fixed on the gray-green mountain range that was gradually getting closer, his teeth slightly clenched, and the speed of the dark streak of light increased again.