NOVEL WEB Chapter 345: Dark Spiritual Qi
Feng Fan's expression hardened. "I'm the one your father hired to rearrange that face of yours, so your future husband can sleep without nightmares."
The deformed-faced man's brows drew together in a deep frown. As his frown deepened, spiritual qi surged violently around him.
"Kill him," he snapped.
While the order was given, Feng Fan calmly studied the other five opponents. Three of them were ordinary Transcending Tribulation experts, but the last two caught his attention. Their eyes were vacant, and a chilling dark qi clung to their bodies.
'Zombies, too?' Feng Fan mused. 'These must be the protectors from the Intergalactic Council. Looks like they were taken out even before the invasion began.'
The two zombified experts lunged at Feng Fan. Though stripped of their former techniques and intelligence, their bodies still retained the raw power of Transcending Tribulation cultivators—an overwhelming force that, under normal circumstances, would have easily crushed a Dao Seeking realm opponent like him.
But Feng Fan was far from ordinary.
The void trembled as two mountain-shattering punches ripped through space and time, aimed to crush his skull and pierce his heart. There was no time to dodge, but Feng Fan didn't even try. He simply stood there, his robes fluttering lightly under the pressure.
Feng Fan didn't flinch. There was no panic, no rushed attempt to dodge.
When the blows were about to land, a faint shimmer rippled across Feng Fan's body. Instead of colliding with a solid barrier, the punches were swallowed into the golden membrane like stones sinking into still water. For a split second, it seemed as though the attack had simply vanished.
A heartbeat later, two surging waves of spiritual qi exploded outward, infused with the force of the absorbed attack. The waves struck the zombies before they could even react.
The first wave crushed their bones.
The second wave tore their bodies apart.
Chunks of rotting flesh and twisted bones were scattered on the ground.
Deformed-face staggered back, his twisted features frozen in disbelief. "You... impossible!" he rasped.
A sudden thought flashed through his mind, and his bloodshot eyes widened in shock. "You're the tier 9 Array Master!"
Feng Fan's gaze darkened. "How do you know about me?" he asked coldly. A trace of suspicion flickered in his heart, 'Was there a traitor among them? But judging by the man's reaction, it was unlikely they had come specifically targeting me.'
If anything, it seemed his presence here was an unexpected and unwelcome surprise.
"Kill him!" Deformed-face roared, though he made no move to follow through on his own order. After witnessing the instant demise of the two Transcending Tribulation zombies, he didn't dare linger another second. Without hesitation, he turned, shattered the void, and fled.
His three subordinates, whom Feng Fan assumed didn't know the word 'loyalty', shared the same thought as him. Ignoring their leader's command completely, they too broke the void and vanished from sight.
Feng Fan let out a slow breath, a hint of frustration flickering in his eyes. Although he had the will to pursue and kill them, he lacked the means. Unless they chose to attack again, or were foolish enough to step inside one of his prepared formations, he couldn't stop them. The arrays woven around him were formidable, but not omnipotent.
Right now, his speed was still inferior to that of most Transcending Tribulation cultivators.
A few seconds after the unknown cultivators vanished, Feng Fan's allies emerged behind him.
"Senior Feng, did you locate the array's core?" Xue Feng asked, noting how Feng Fan stood motionless, arms crossed and eyes fixed on nowhere in particular.
Feng Fan scanned the area one last time, then nodded. "I found it, but there were more people here."
He relayed what had happened.
Xue Feng's brow furrowed. "I know the man you saw. He's Qian Chen, one of the top figures in the Nightmare Demon Venerable's cult. But this is the first time I've heard of him targeting a place outside Green."
"Xue Feng, how many Transcending Tribulation experts are stationed in Starlight City?" Feng Fan asked.
"There should be at least five. All major cities across the Seven Planets have a minimum of five experts overseeing their defense."
"Then…" Feng Fan's brows knit together. "Where are the other three?"
"This…" Xue Feng hesitated, unable to offer a response.
Seeing his silence, Feng Fan sighed and waved a hand. "Forget it. Let's reclaim control of the city's array. We can search for them later."
He moved forward a few paces before halting. Just ahead, a massive swirl of spiritual qi and twisted heavenly laws hovered, shifting unnaturally. Raising his hand, Feng Fan summoned a soft glow of spiritual energy and began to manipulate the array.
Small cracks webbed across the core, half of the laws that made the array had reverted back to normal heavenly laws.
'They sabotaged the array core… but did that happen before or after the invasion?' he wondered. 'And if it was intact beforehand, how did they even get inside? Is breaching a city really that easy?'
Countless questions hovered in Feng Fan's mind, but there was no one left to answer them. Still, one thing was painfully clear.
'They knew a tier 9 Array Master had arrived, and suddenly, they launched a full-scale assault on planets they normally ignored. If I can't see this is because of me, then I'm a fool.'
In just a few minutes, Feng Fan restored Starlight City's array and seized full control of it. He eradicated the remaining zombies shambling through the streets. As each corpse crumbled, dark spiritual qi rose from the bodies and drifted toward the sky.
Feng Fan's eyes narrowed.
'Who gave you permission to leave?'
Whatever that dark energy was, he wasn't about to let it return to its master so easily. With a swift motion of his hand, he locked down the escaping qi, sealing it within a secluded section of the city.
When he had time, he would go there himself to investigate. He had a hunch that the dark spiritual qi was the true motive behind the attacks.