On the competition stage, seeing this, Lin Xi directly released two other special puppets.
Two rays of light lit up simultaneously by her sides, and the moment those two puppets landed in her hands, a strange fluctuation of Mental Force surged around Lin Xi.
With a toss of her hands, the two puppets suddenly expanded and grew larger in mid-air, followed by a rich green light erupting from the surface of Lin Xi's body, rapidly condensing behind her into a pair of huge Phantom Butterfly wings, upon which shimmering, dreamlike brilliance flowed, as if countless butterflies were dancing gracefully within them.
Sleep Nightmare Douluo naturally noticed this scene as well, sensing that Lin Xi's Mental Force was climbing at a terrifying speed, and the barrier that was already exceptionally sturdy became even thicker, so much that even the Mental Force that surged after he burned his Spirit Ring could not easily pierce through it.
His brows could not help but furrow, slightly tricky.
Before coming here, Sleep Nightmare Douluo had already carefully studied Lin Xi's matches, but through that light screen, he could not see much, especially regarding judgments about Mental Force, which was almost completely imperceptible.
He had watched the previous match between Lin Xi and Xi'er very carefully, noting that after Lin Xi used the battle formation, she actually failed to block Xi'er's attack, and Xi'er's sickle still easily tore apart that layer of illusion.
Judging by conventional logic, the strength of a battle formation is reflected in Mental Force, and since it failed to block Xi'er's attack, Lin Xi's Mental Force should not be too outstanding.
But standing here now, Sleep Nightmare Douluo realized that he was wrong, and quite absurdly so.
He originally thought he had overestimated Lin Xi enough; after all, for a teenage girl, having a Mental Force on par with his own was already astonishing enough.
But he did not expect that after using the battle formation, Lin Xi's Mental Force could actually continue to climb, and the magnitude of the climb was much greater than he had anticipated.
Although Sleep Nightmare Douluo was shocked in his heart, the movements of his hands did not pause.
His arms abruptly spread open, and the nine Spirit Rings burning with grayish-black flames released an even more dazzling light, with countless nightmare shadows more solid than before drilling out from those flames and rushing towards Lin Xi with sharp, screeching wails.
A flash of firm light swept across Lin Xi's emerald-green eyes, her hands rapidly forming hand seals before her, and the Phantom Butterfly wings behind her suddenly vibrated.
"Myriad Beast Illusion!"
As this cry fell, the green light around her body violently expanded, and one phantom beast after another condensed and formed from within. Different from the previous time, the phantom beasts condensed this time were obviously much larger and more solid.
Tiger roars shook the heavens and eagle cries split the sky; the bodies of those phantom beasts were no longer semi-transparent, but almost indistinguishable from real Spirit Beasts. In the eyes of each phantom beast burned emerald-green flames, aggressively meeting those nightmare shadows.
Grayish-black and emerald-green collided once more on the competition stage.
This collision was more violent than before, and the shockwaves of the two Mental Forces spread outward in circle after circle.
Sleep Nightmare Douluo's nightmare shadows intertwined with Lin Xi's phantom beasts, biting each other, with nightmare shadows constantly shattering and dissipating, and phantom beasts continually collapsing into points of light.
The Mental Forces of both sides were consuming at a high speed, yet Lin Xi's recovery speed was still faster than Sleep Nightmare Douluo's, and that layer of green barrier never showed any cracks.
At this moment, Sleep Nightmare Douluo's heart was full of impatience.
The power he erupted by fighting in the manner of burning Spirit Rings was certainly terrifying, but this was not without a price.
The power released by the burning of Spirit Rings was equivalent to overdrawing his own foundation; the longer the duration, the heavier the backlash he would bear afterward.
He had to win this match as soon as possible and could not drag it out any longer.
However, Lin Xi's defense was airtight, and the attacks of the phantom beasts were endless. He wanted to break through that barrier, but could never find a suitable Breakthrough point.
The more anxious he was, the more flaws there were.
Just as Sleep Nightmare Douluo tried to mobilize more nightmare shadows to launch a surprise attack from the left, he suddenly felt an unusual fluctuation coming from behind him.
His pupils shrank violently, instinctively wanting to turn around, but it was already too late.
Lin Xi seized that momentary Divided Soul of his.
A layer of emerald-green light suddenly lit up from beneath Sleep Nightmare Douluo's feet, climbing upward rapidly like vines, Binding his legs, waist, and abdomen, and then wrapping around his head.
Sleep Nightmare Douluo only felt that the World before his eyes instantly became distorted and blurry, and all the surrounding scenes receded like a tide, replaced by a gray space.
He stood on a desolate land, the sky was a bleak gray, and there was no sound around him, a dead silence.
Then he saw the first figure appear on the distant horizon—an old woman with a stooped figure, wearing coarse cloth clothes, holding a needle and thread in her hand, as if she were mending something.
Her face was full of wrinkles, her eyes were hollow, and she walked step by step toward Sleep Nightmare Douluo.
Immediately after, the second figure appeared—a young woman holding a child. Her eyes were similarly hollow, her complexion pale, and the child in her arms lay quietly without crying or making a sound.
Then came the third, the fourth, the fifth; countless figures emerged one by one from that desolate horizon, more and more, denser and denser, quickly filling Sleep Nightmare Douluo's entire field of vision.
Among those people were old and young, strong and weak, those he had killed with his own hands, and those who had lost their lives indirectly because of him.
There was no expression on their faces, but those pairs of hollow eyes stared straight at Sleep Nightmare Douluo.
Then countless hands stretched out simultaneously, grabbing toward Sleep Nightmare Douluo.
Some of those pairs of hands were old and withered, some were tender and slender, some had knotted muscles, and some were skin and bones, but no matter what kind of hands they were, they grabbed toward Sleep Nightmare Douluo with the same force and the same obsession.
Sleep Nightmare Douluo struggled frantically, mobilizing all his Mental Force trying to break free from this illusion, waving his hands to disperse those approaching figures, but it was completely useless.
There were too many of those figures, swarming up densely, piling layer upon layer on his body. Every time he broke free from a pair of hands, three pairs of hands would grab him again.
His body was dragged downward bit by bit, the ground beneath his feet seemed to have turned into a quagmire, and the hands reaching out from all directions pressed him tightly, allowing no possibility for him to escape.
"Let go! All of you, let go!"
Sleep Nightmare Douluo roared, but his voice was soon submerged in that dead silence.
Those figures still silently grabbed him, dragged him, and pulled him into the darkness step by step.
In the end, his entire person was dragged down.
The illusion shattered.
On the competition stage, Sleep Nightmare Douluo's figure suddenly stiffened, the light in those eyes abruptly extinguished, and his entire person fell straight forward like a piece of dead wood, crashing heavily onto the ground.
The grayish-black flames around his body extinguished at the same time, and the nine Spirit Rings also dissipated without a trace in an instant.
Lin Feng's voice sounded indifferently.
"Challenge failed."
As these words fell, the entire spectator stand fell silent for a moment, and then erupted into a chorus of discussions.
And right amidst these discussions, in a certain corner of the ordinary spectator stand, a figure silently stood up.
That person had a slender figure, skin without any trace of blood color, and his right hand gripped a slender cross sword.
The next instant, his figure disappeared, and when he appeared again, he was already standing on the competition stage, standing in front of Sleep Nightmare Douluo. That slender cross sword was raised high and then brought down fiercely.
Sword light flashed.
Sleep Nightmare Douluo's head rolled down from his neck, spinning around twice on the ground, and finally stopping in a pool of dark red blood.
That headless body twitched twice before completely stopping.
That man slowly retracted the cross sword in his hand, without any superfluous expression on his pale face.
"I am Harosa, Minister of the Holy Spirit Execution Department, and I hereby address all Evil Soul Masters on the Douluo Continent."
"If you can obtain victory in this competition, you may seek a sliver of survival; those who lose will die. After this grand event concludes, all Evil Soul Masters will also be thoroughly liquidated by us. Your locations have already been remembered, and do not think about harming innocent people during this period—you cannot do it, and your lives no longer belong to you at this moment."
After saying these words, he spoke no more, just standing there quietly, letting the blood droplets on that cross sword slide down drop by drop, blooming tiny dark-red flowers on the competition stage.
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A/N:
5 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter
1 Review = 1 Bonus Chapter
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