That formless power could only be sensed by Feng Yuan himself. For ordinary people, they’d probably only notice it when the attack actually landed on them, but for Feng Yuan that wasn’t the case. With a wave of his hand, a Golden Rune Ribbon burst out from the Ancient Black Book, snapping down like a whip onto the slick ground and branding circle after circle of rune marks.
The invisible force crashed into the power of the marks and was instantly blocked, forced to reveal its true form. Seeing that blue glow, everyone was startled. Veronia said in some surprise,
"This seems to be a Fate Series power."
That force was extremely bizarre. Veronia was sure that even she would get hit if she slipped up, and only someone of Feng Yuan’s level could ignore it. Of course, getting hit was one thing; wanting to seriously injure him with it was impossible.
"It should be. Once you completely wipe out your own distorted form, this kind of thing shows up. Tsk, if that’s the case, it really is a bit troublesome."
As Feng Yuan spoke, he swept a glance at Qi Chen and the others. He himself wasn’t afraid at all, and that thing just now was unlikely to keep showing up. After all, if a special existence like that had no birth restrictions, that would be way too ridiculous.
It was just that Qi Chen and the others were different. Even War Qichen probably couldn’t stomach taking a hit from this kind of Backlash, and this sort of special power was something even Tamur’s Mythical Era Projection couldn’t block. If they really wanted to stop it, only Feng Yuan could make a move.
That also meant that if they ran into Qi Chen and the others’ projections, Feng Yuan’s group wouldn’t be able to use the direct-elimination approach. Of course, not that they could easily wipe them out in the first place.
"It really is troublesome. Forget it, let’s hurry up and see if there’s anything different around here."
As he spoke, something occurred to Feng Yuan and he looked at Veronia.
"Can you keep pushing this space further down?"
"Keep going into a deeper layer of the Qi Realm? I can give it a try."
Veronia gave Feng Yuan a surprised once-over, not knowing why he was suddenly in such a rush. Transforming back into the Crystal Queen, this time her attack actually triggered the World Barrier directly.
"So this is... as far as we can go."
Seeing the World Barrier appear, Veronia understood that trying to go deeper by destroying space layers was no longer possible. Of course, this was also recorded in the information provided by Qi Realm Dou Yanlan.
It was just that, in their information, this place was marked as the very bottom of the Qi Realm. But Feng Yuan and the others knew very well that although this was a Deep Layer of the Qi Realm, there was still some distance to the true bottom. At the very least, there were still space layers beneath them.
"According to the data, this is the lowest level of the Qi Realm, and also the most dangerous place. Their people who come here have a very low chance of making it back alive."
Dou Yanlan’s expression didn’t look good. She couldn’t help it; Feng Yuan’s encounter just now had already proven how dangerous this place was. Compared to before, where most of the threat was invisible fear with no real substance, this bottom region was a completely different story.
They couldn’t kill these enemies, and they would keep attacking them. Add in the possibility of other changes, and this place truly lived up to its reputation as something the Qi Realm Countries deeply dreaded.
However, Dou Yanlan had overlooked one thing: their method of entering the Deep Layer was different from that of the Qi Realm Countries. People of the Qi Realm World alerted those Qi Realm Beasts as soon as they entered the shallow layers, unlike them, who only started encountering these Qi Realm Beasts after penetrating into the Deep Layer.
"Simply destroying space layers can no longer take us further. Looks like we have no choice but to explore this time."
Gazing over the constantly appearing Qi Realm Spirit Beasts, Feng Yuan swung The Black Scythe in his hand again. But this time, like Veronia, he only focused on trapping those things instead of killing them outright.
Although Qi Chen and the others couldn’t join the battle under Tamur’s protection, they stayed tense and on guard the whole time, afraid that the Barrier would suddenly break and they wouldn’t react in time, dragging Feng Yuan down.
"The enemies converging on us are getting more and more numerous."
The Crystal Queen Veronia glanced at the endless stream of enemies in the distance and reminded Feng Yuan. There was nothing she could do about it; even she felt strained facing an increasing horde of undying enemies. After all, her power had limits, and with so many enemies gathering, just their numbers alone could completely block the way.
"Open a beacon and throw them up to the shallow layers!"
Feng Yuan shouted to Eclipse. Even though they didn’t have a dedicated Space Divine Beast with them, Eclipse’s ability wasn’t being restricted here.
Letting out a roar, Eclipse slashed its claws, ripping open a spatial fissure in the blood-red sky that looked very much like Crimson Judgement. With a soft snort and a wave of her hand, Veronia sent crystal flower-vines coiling around that army of Qi Realm Beasts and flung them toward the rift in the sky.
A huge number of Qi Realm Beasts were thrown into the spatial fissure. Veronia didn’t know how Eclipse was actually doing it, but none of the Qi Realm Beasts that went into the fissure ever managed to come back out.
Even with the spatial fissure helping them deal with the endlessly spawning Qi Realm Beasts, Feng Yuan and the others still ran into trouble. Those things just kept appearing, like monsters in a game, inexhaustible and without end.
At the moment, all they could do was keep repeating the motion of tossing Qi Realm Beasts into the spatial fissure. To better conduct their investigation, Veronia simply took on this tedious task herself so Feng Yuan could have his hands free to inspect their surroundings.
However, this region turned out to be even more barren than they’d imagined. Aside from what they could see with the naked eye, there was nothing hidden here at all. In fact, Feng Yuan even spotted a shattered, broken stele.
This Stele had clearly been intact to begin with, but now it looked as though something had chopped it apart, leaving pieces scattered all over the ground.
Curious, Feng Yuan pieced it back together and found that it was actually a tombstone with his own name on it.
"So I was right. Once you get down here, the Curse Stele is complete. Wait, if that’s the case, maybe that thing was actually caused by the Curse Stele?"
Muttering to himself, Feng Yuan clapped his hands as something occurred to him. Veronia, busy clearing out the incoming Qi Realm Beasts, glanced at him and said,
"So what then? Just smash the Stele?"
"Mm, I’m worried smashing the Stele will cause Backlash too. Forget it, leave it for now. I’m guessing everyone else’s Stele is in the same state."
Thinking it over, Feng Yuan abandoned the brash idea of directly destroying the Stele. The shattering of the Stele was definitely related to killing his own projection in the Qi Realm, but he couldn’t say exactly what the relationship was.
Now that the Stele with his name on it was gone, if they wanted to try again, they’d have to use Veronia and the others’ Steles as test subjects—and Feng Yuan felt that wasn’t very appropriate.
It wasn’t that he was afraid of hurting Veronia. With her power, even though the Backlash was strong, it wouldn’t be enough to seriously injure her. It was just that doing so would make them lose their main combat power for a while.
Thinking of something, Feng Yuan looked over at Eclipse. If it was Eclipse’s Stele, they might be able to try it. After all, if the Backlash landed on Eclipse, it might not even be able to hurt it.
"Once we find Eclipse’s Stele, we’ll break that one first and see what happens."
"Oh? You really aren’t holding back at all."
Veronia snorted softly but didn’t object. Eclipse was stronger than she was, and apart from opening a spatial fissure it hadn’t been doing much else. Even if something unexpected happened, it wouldn’t really affect their operations.
Of course, she could understand why Eclipse wasn’t pulling its weight. The other party was the Guardian God of the Yin World, only here because Feng Yuan had called it for help. In Eclipse’s eyes, even if the entire Qi Realm was turned upside down, it had nothing to do with it, so naturally it wouldn’t take the initiative to do much.
Given that, being used as a test subject by Feng Yuan wasn’t exactly something she’d feel bad about on its behalf.
Qi Chen and the others did feel it was a little off, but seeing that Eclipse itself didn’t seem to mind, they kept quiet. They understood that if they didn’t figure out the mechanism of the Cursed Stele, they’d be in trouble for the rest of their operation.
After all, their projections weren’t the same as those Qi Realm Beasts. Take Feng Yuan’s projection—its Combat Power was exactly the same as the real Feng Yuan’s. Wait, thinking about it like that, Qi Chen and the others felt something didn’t add up.
If it was their projections, they probably wouldn’t have much fighting ability at all, right?
Even for the more combat-capable War Qichen among them, once you removed the Beast Tamer’s power, he’d have a hard time winning even against a Good Level Spirit Beast.
There was nothing they could do about it. Human bodies were what they were; compared to Spirit Beasts, they were no match at all. They weren’t those special types who trained their bodies to the point of physically contending with Spirit Beasts.
As for whether they would appear with their Spirit Beasts, they really weren’t sure. After all, Feng Yuan’s projection earlier had shown no sign of any Spirit Beast.
So who would it be this time?
Suddenly, Feng Yuan noticed a presence different from the Qi Realm Beasts drawing near. His eyes narrowed slightly as he muttered under his breath, fingers tightening once more around the long handle of the Dark Scythe.

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