“Rash, thank you for being here as well.” Standing in front of a tall marble gate glowing of an ivory light, Jianmen said to Rash standing beside him: “I know you’re still recovering - so be very very careful, okay?”

“Like I told you before, Mr. Yu, no need to thank me.” Rash chuckled and said: “It is the destiny of our kind to die on the trail of absorbing and neutralizing the pollutants of the world. You have already saved me once and gave me another life, and this is the chance to have a more decent death. I can’t see myself missing out on it.”

“Well, try to stay alive - I could use more of your help when this is all done.” Jianmen smiled and raised his arms in the air and faced his palms at the gate.

The gate slowly swung open from the middle, and bright but warm and comforting came out through it. The next moment, everyone in the hall landed on a piece of grassland, amongst flowers of different colors and a few trees with weird trunks and wide crowns and had leaves and fruits of various colors.

Not far from the position where they landed was a dark red and dark blue energy dome with symbols and words glowing in orange and golden light hovering over a crater. A beam of orange and golden energy was shooting down from a portal in the sky and through the top of the dome into somewhere deep underground.

“We don’t have much time, my array containing the tear in the world is running out of power.” Jianmen said to everyone: “Everyone, get in your battle formation, and lay down your traps and devices.”

Everyone around started choosing their positions around the crater, and Jianmen floated up into the sky and started sensing the conditions in the realm. Right now, the beam of energy was already slightly thinner than last time Jianmen was here, this was, aside from the fact that the array powering it was running out of energy, also because the array was damaged in the process of continuing releasing this beam of energy.

Just this moment, a loud crack came from the portal through which the beam of energy came, and a giant ripple of energy blew down and struck the dome. All the symbols and words written on the dome’s service flickered, then glowed in brighter color. The wall of the dome started moving, and the energy flow inside sped up.

“It’s okay, it’s nothing to worry about.” Jianmen immediately told everyone: “The spell was almost completely out of energy. It would switch to a separate mechanism of containment. Everyone, make haste.”

As the beam of energy slowly grew thinner, the opening at the top of the dome gradually closed up to not leave any room for the things trapped inside the dome to go out. Jianmen concentrated on the position of the dark orb being blasted by the beam - the embodiment of the tear of fabric of reality and karmic chains of the world, with the beam growing weaker, it expanded in size.

“Boom!” When the beam of energy shrunk past a certain threshold, the dark orb exploded like it was detonated from inside. This created some small disturbance in the dome and the beam of energy, and a temporary disconnect between them. Several tiny beams of completely dark energy shot out from the small gaps at the top of the dome and into different directions above.

“Fuck!” Jianmen’s figure turned into a stream of orange and golden energy and shot at these dark energy beams trying to intercept them. In the matter of mere moments, Jianmen was able to obliterate all but two of these dark beams of energy. The other two beams escaped Jianmen, and were then blocked and weakened by the energy barrier at the edges of this very realm. Though the barrier on the outer edges of the realm was slowly growing in strength from Jianmen’s spell, it was not strong enough to completely block off these two beams of energy, and thus still let them escape through tiny cracks.

“Fuck!” Jianmen cursed again, but this was no time to go out and pursue them, as by his estimate, these two beams of energy might contain some relatively weak karmic pollutants or small amounts of weaker Defilers, which would still pose serious threats to the world, just not as dangerous as his leaving the realm and leaving the fighters waiting to face the Defilers head on.

“Where are the other forces? When will Tze Cha and other reinforcements be here?” Josephine Wong sent a message to Jianmen through magic.

“In a bit of time, they needed more time to prepare than us.” Jianmen sighed and replied.

Just this moment, a portal radiating dark and foul energy appeared in the air beside Jianmen, and a dragon with dark scales, dark horns and claws the length of a bus swam out from it.

“Well well.” Tze Cha scoffed at the sight of the humans preparing below around the crater: “This is not a lot of humans, is it? I thought you were planning on overwhelming the Defilers with numbers.”

“No, after some calculation on the resources, this seems to be the way with the highest chances of success.” Jianmen shook his head and looked at the traps and devices below: “The blessings I shared with them should be enough for everyone to deliver enough damage to the Defilers, that the world would heal or at least stabilize enough so that no more of them could come through.”

“Well, I understand your plan. But I still have my reservations.” Tze Cha peeked deep into the energy dome, and saw that the dark orb was bouncing around inside, rapidly changing in size and leaving traces of dark energy around: “This is an interestingly powerful barrier, didn’t know that you would get your hands dirty and use malice magic.”

“Desperate times.” Jianmen sighed: “And I did not do it on my own - I sorta had to strike a deal with the infamous family that once owned this place.”

“It’d be a shame if the godhood of compromises and deals was grabbed by someone else.” Tze Cha flew closer to the dome and circled around it.