Chapter 287: Alone into a Desperate Situation! Going to a Meeting Alone with a Single Sword! Qin Feng's Heroic Spirit

Chapter 287: Entering the Desperate Land Alone! A Lone Blade Against the Domain Lords! Qin Feng’s Heroic Spirit Confronts the Masters! A Great Slaughter Begins!

"The Island of Dead Meteors is a perilous realm condensed by the will of the universe; it holds no resources, offers no opportunities, only endless slaughter and the struggle for territory."

The Stone Buddha’s voice was low and gravelly, heavy with an exhaustion and weariness that stood in stark contrast to his solemn, divine appearance.

Within his stony eyes, the lights of the Tianxuan Ancient Kingdom’s capital were reflected, yet they held not a flicker of warmth.

"The entire island is divided into an inner and outer ring.

The inner island is the core of the conflict, where the war is most brutal and the rules most unforgiving; even for a Marquis, stepping foot there is a nine-in-ten chance of death.

The outer island, however, serves as the battlefield for Black Hole and Domain Lord level powerhouses; the state of war and the balance of victory there directly dictate the rules of the inner island.

Simply put, the outer island is the 'foundation' of the inner."

He paused, as if searching for more precise words.

"That is how it is.

As for the deeper details—how the rules of the inner island shift, or how victory on the outer island quantifies into advantages—these are core secrets, unknown even to me.

I can only tell you that, by my reckoning, there are still several millennia before the outer island opens to allow a new batch of souls to enter."

Qin Feng listened quietly, his fingertips tracing the rim of a cold jade cup.

He rapidly constructed a preliminary model in his mind from the information provided, assessing the difficulty and risks of this mission.

A mysterious, treacherous land where slaughter was the only theme... these waters ran far deeper than he had imagined.

"I understand."

Qin Feng nodded slightly.

"Are you prepared to complete the mission of the universe's will?"

The Stone Buddha shifted the topic, a hint of concern creeping into his voice. "Are you heading to the final destination?"

"Yes, straight to the end."

Qin Feng’s reply was crisp and decisive, devoid of any hesitation.

His journey through the Forbidden Blood Zone had yielded resources beyond his wildest dreams, and his strength had undergone a final metamorphosis; now was the perfect time to complete the "Path of the End," a mission of death-defying difficulty.

"I wish you luck."

The Stone Buddha spoke solemnly, the blessing coming from the depths of his heart.

His pact with Qin Feng was built upon the premise that Qin Feng would survive.

If Qin Feng were to perish in the final slaughter, all his schemes would vanish like smoke.

"Good."

Qin Feng nodded, raised his cup, and drained it in one gulp.

The fiery liquor slid down his throat, turning into a warm current, yet it could not melt the icy resolve within his heart.

He bade farewell to the Stone Buddha but did not leave immediately.

Instead, he went to see Feng Zhiyu once more.

Meeting an old friend required no elaborate formalities; they simply drank a few cups together and spoke of their recent lives.

Feng Zhiyu had gained much in the Forbidden Blood Zone, and after emerging, he had received resources from the royal family as an apology, his strength steadily climbing, leaving behind the wretchedness of the past.

Seeing Qin Feng’s current achievements, he felt only heartfelt admiration and joy.

After their pleasantries, Qin Feng officially departed from the Tianxuan Ancient Kingdom.

His figure transformed into a streak of light, merging into the boundless deep space of the universe; his crimson-gold wings unfurled behind him, and with every beat, he traversed distances unimaginable to ordinary men.

"Now that I have stepped into the God-Forbidden realm..."

Qin Feng’s black-gold spiritual power flowed through his mind like the deepest sea of stars as he calmly reviewed his own strength, "...I have only reached the ninety-fourth floor of the Blood God Tower, and the tower has ninety-nine floors in total."

This realization left him without a shred of complacency.

The ninety-fourth and ninety-ninth floors seemed a mere five-level gap, but for a trial of the Blood God Tower’s caliber, every single floor could be an insurmountable chasm.

This meant that within the "God-Forbidden" domain, he still had vast room for growth.

"In the God-Forbidden realm, I have not yet reached my limit; my combat power can still rise."

His gaze turned incredibly firm.

Conventional cultivation methods were already difficult for someone who stood where he did.

To achieve a leap in combat power in a short time, there was only one path.

"The Singularity of the End! I must rely on the Singularity of the End."

It was the supreme reward promised by the will of the universe upon completing the death-difficulty mission.

A legendary, peerless foundation that stood above the "Eternal Singularity."

Once forged, the earth-shattering change in his strength was something even Qin Feng could not predict.

"Once I complete this mission for the will of the universe, I shall possess the true bearing of the invincible."

He muttered to himself, his eyes burning with an unprecedented fire.

The voyage was tedious and long.

Qin Feng’s body flickered between different galaxies through repeated short-range spatial jumps.

He was like a lonely phantom, drifting through the dead, silent starry sky.

Along the way, it was unexpectedly calm.

The pursuers who had once clung to him like maggots had vanished, as if they had never existed.

The universe was vast, but with the intelligence networks of those peak races, locking onto his trajectory was no difficult task.

This current peace felt highly unusual.

Qin Feng pulled up the mission panel of the universe's will, his eyes falling on the number of those who had accepted the hostile mission.

—Sixty-eight people.

The number made his eyes turn cold.

Of the seventy-two prodigies who had besieged him, excluding the four he had personally executed, the remaining sixty-eight were all accounted for.

"Not a single one of them gave up the mission of the universe's will."

He recalled the pleas and promises of Neil and Heiyu beneath the light curtain of the Forbidden Blood Zone.

Pressed by the threat of death, they had sworn oaths to abandon the mission, their words earnest, as if they truly meant it.

Now, it was clear those were merely lies uttered to survive.

Not one of them had truly given up!

"I suspected as much."

Qin Feng sneered.

Between him and the myriad races, it had long been a situation of life and death.

The journey was calm and uneventful, yet the ultimate murderous intent had yet to reveal itself.

He sensed the hollow tranquility of the cosmos, his mental faculties coiled in high alert; beneath the placid surface lay turbulent, hidden currents.

He was nearly certain that a web of inescapable doom was slowly unfurling at his destination.

This time, the forces mobilized by his enemies would surely dwarf any he had faced before.

"There might even be a Domain Lord lurking in the shadows to ambush me..."

Qin Feng mused, a cold, sharp curve touching his lips, "But now, I no longer fear even a Domain Lord."

Having refined two hundred thousand blood jade crystals to forge an unprecedented black-gold consciousness, his physical form and foundation had long since been reborn.

His current Divine Prohibition was built upon the most pristine essence, and its terrifying combat power was far beyond that of a mere novice in the realm.

While contemplating the various possibilities of the final battle, Qin Feng probed the contents of his subspace storage.

Within that isolated void, a colossal cocoon, radiating endless lightning, hovered in silence.

The lightning flickered, at times morphing into runes, at others condensing into divine chains, pulsing with the breath of life.

Zhou Yu’s aura resided within, gestating and transforming at a slow yet resolute pace.

Compared to before, the glow of the lightning cocoon had grown increasingly incandescent; the moment of her final emergence was drawing ever closer.

This added a layer of urgency to Qin Feng’s heart.

He had to return to Thunder Universe City as quickly as possible to deliver Zhou Yu to safety; it was a promise he had made to her, and a requirement of the cosmic will.

Without further hesitation, Qin Feng pushed his speed to the limit, initiating intergalactic jumps one after another, his figure turning into an elusive phantom that tore through space, racing toward the mission’s end—the farthest outpost of Thunder Universe City.

Along the way, he did not pause for even a moment.

...

Thunder Universe City, Frontier Outpost No. 999.

This was the terminus of the Path of Finality, and the last line of defense for the human race in this sector of the stars.

Ordinarily, save for the stationed soldiers and the occasional passing caravan, there was little sign of life here.

But today, this dead expanse of space had become "lively" as never before.

Outside the outpost, in the vast cosmic void, countless figures hung suspended in a dense, suffocating throng.

They belonged to different races, varied in form, yet each radiated a terrifying aura that made the soul shudder.

The pressure gathered from ten thousand such auras was enough to dim the nearby stars.

They were all Peak Black Hole entities, interspersed with dozens of Half-Step Divine Prohibition powerhouses whose auras were even more unfathomable!

"Hahaha, the Monster race has truly gambled everything this time, even bringing out a Domain Lord-level array disc for the 'Ten Thousand Monster Heaven-Locking Formation'! Are they that desperate to kill this Qin Feng?"

A gruff voice boomed, originating from a behemoth the size of a planet.

Its body was pitch black, as if it could swallow all light; upon its jagged horns, several miniature black holes rotated slowly, while a larger black hole core in its chest emitted a destructive gravitational pull.

It was a Star-Swallowing Beast, a branch of the galaxy’s dominant Starry Sky Behemoth race!

Opposite it, a monster with the head of a fish and a human body, wielding a trident, surrounded by the phantom of a raging sea, responded with a cold voice: "Qin Feng slew the Elder of Medicine at the Twin Rivers, and the Elder was a benefactor to our race’s Lord Blood-Slaughter Marquis. This debt, Lord Blood-Slaughter has noted. We have come by his command, and we shall claim his head!"

"Heh, fine words."

The Star-Swallowing Beast let out a low, mocking laugh, the sound waves shaking the void. "My Star-Swallowing clan shares an irreconcilable hatred with him as well!

The core material of the human race’s Heaven-Deriving Weapons, the Heaven-Deriving Alloy, can only be forged by fusing the flesh and souls of our kin.

Qin Feng alone possesses two such weapons; how many of our brethren have fallen to create them! Today shall be the day of his demise!"

No sooner had the words fallen than, from the other side, a lifeform composed entirely of precision machinery emitted a cold, emotionless electronic tone: "This human killed our Mechanical race’s once-in-a-millennium genius, Wild, and stole a cosmic wonder. This debt, our Mechanical God race will surely collect!"

"Our Undead race’s genius, Death-Knell, perished in the Blood-Colored Forbidden Land. Though not killed by his hand, it was because of him. This account must naturally be settled upon his head!"

A humanoid entity condensed from black death-qi spoke in a sharp, grating voice.

"This man slaughtered many of our Crystal race kin, and his Heaven-Deriving Weapons have devoured the bodies of countless Crystal powerhouses to evolve; it is hateful to the extreme! He must be torn to pieces to appease the spirits of our brethren!"

"..."

For a time, the void was filled with various cries of righteous indignation.

The Monsters, the Star-Swallowing Beasts, the Machines, the Undead, the Crystals... almost every peak race in the universe had dispatched powerhouses, each claiming a blood feud with Qin Feng.

Yet, amidst this clamor, there remained a vast number of silent figures.

They simply hovered in stillness, their eyes cold, their hearts sneering at these high-sounding excuses.

Everyone knew that in the universe, the law of the jungle was the only truth.

Beyond the fiercely unified human race, which other species had ever truly cared for the "death of kin"?

The purpose of everyone gathered here was clear and pure.

First, Qin Feng was a peerless genius of the human race, his growth so rapid and his potential so terrifying that it had struck fear into the hearts of all alien races.

It was rumored that he had even stepped into the legendary "Divine Prohibition" realm within the Blood-Colored Forbidden Land.

Such an enemy had to be strangled at all costs before he could fully mature! This concerned the fate of their races for the next billion years.

Second, and most importantly—the opportunities Qin Feng carried were simply too vast!

The Thunder Emperor’s inheritance, the Ancient Luo King’s inheritance, fragments of King-level treasures, two Heaven-Deriving Weapons... any one of these would make a Marquis-level powerhouse green with envy.

But what drove all living things to madness was the cosmic wonder he possessed—the [Twin Masks]!

A cosmic wonder was the manifestation of cosmic laws, a supreme existence that transcended all secret treasures.

Never mind Marquis-level powerhouses; even "Demigods" who had not yet ascended the divine throne would be consumed by greed!

It was said that only true gods could use their own great divine power to bypass the restrictions of a cosmic wonder.

For all beings beneath the gods, this wonder was equivalent to an extra life, a trump card capable of defying destiny!

Greed, vast and overwhelming, eclipsed all else.

Looking out, the ten thousand Peak Black Hole entities in the void beyond the outpost were like a dark cloud of destruction, completely sealing off this sector of the stars.

They had laid down layer upon layer of grand formations, and powerhouses held Domain Lord-level array discs, waiting only for Qin Feng to appear so they could activate them and trap him forever in this dead end.

And in the deeper, more distant reaches of the cosmos, in darkness invisible to the naked eye, even more terrifying and obscure auras lay in wait.

These were true Domain Lord-level powerhouses, lurking like vipers in the shadows, ready at any moment to deliver the most lethal strike.

This was the ultimate killing trap, unprecedented and never to be repeated, aimed at a single Black Hole-level cultivator!

...

Unlike the tense, murderous atmosphere outside, the mood within the outpost was equally grave.

Many human Black Hole-level cultivators stationed there looked through the outpost’s defensive screen at the sky-obscuring enemy fleet, unable to stop themselves from gasping, their scalps tingling.

"This... this formation is too massive..."

"Over ten thousand Peak Black Holes, plus Domain Lord array discs and hidden Domain Lords... have the ten thousand races gone mad? To kill Qin Feng, they are willing to pay such a price?"

"Mad, they’ve all gone mad..."

In the outpost’s command center, the burly frame of the Thunder-Burst King stood like an immovable mountain, silent at the head of the room.

His face was as dark as a storm-tossed sea, a massive hand pressing down ruthlessly upon the head of a young man whose body crackled with intricate, purplish-blue lines of lightning, the veins bulging on the back of his hand betraying the terrifying force he exerted.

"What is it, Lei San? Now that your strength has grown and your wings are fully fledged, you think your own master can no longer restrain you?"

The voice of King Thunderstorm was piercingly cold, every syllable vibrating with the latent fury of an impending tempest.

The youth pinned beneath his grasp was none other than Lei San, his foremost disciple.

Thunderous light flashed wildly around Lei San, and the sheer pressure that leaked from him inadvertently was enough to shake the surrounding space, revealing him to be a genuine, bona fide King-ranked powerhouse in his own right!

Possessed of matchless talent, he had cultivated for a relatively brief span of years, yet his strength had already fast approached that of his own master.

At this moment, however, this otherwise fearless King-ranked expert was completely suppressed by his mentor, unable to budge an inch.

Nearby, King Thunderstorm's other two disciples, both Domain Lord-level figures, kept their heads bowed in absolute silence, not even daring to breathe too loudly, intimately aware of how catastrophic their master's wrath truly was at this hour.

"Master!"

Lei San finally could not endure it any longer; he snapped his head upward, his eyes blazing with a turbulent mixture of fury and unyielding grievance. "You know better than anyone just how vital the Thunder Emperor's inheritance is to our Thunder Cosmic City! To hand it over now to a brat who hasn’t even lived ten thousand years, and to let him drag Junior Sister into a lethal trap where death is absolute—isn't this pure nonsense?!"

His voice resounded through the command center like a sudden peal of thunder.

"Does a mission from the Cosmic Will carry more weight than the Thunder Emperor's inheritance? Why won't you let me go escort them?! I am a proud King-ranked expert; could I possibly fear the ambushes of those bastards outside?!"

Lei San roared, his violent, kingly aura spilling out uncontrollably in all directions.

"Silence!"

King Thunderstorm bellowed in a low, thunderous voice, and a far more terrifying pressure instantly crashed down, thoroughly crushing Lei San's momentum back into his body. He glared at his most prized disciple, a flicker of profound disappointment passing through his eyes. "Qin Feng is infinitely more important than the Thunder Emperor's inheritance! Mark my words well: even if Zhou Yu perishes, Qin Feng must not fall!" Hearing this, Lei San fell silent.

His master's words were like a divine bolt from the highest heavens, striking deep into his heart.

He could not comprehend why an outsider, a mere junior who had not even attained the rank of a Domain Lord, could possibly be more important than the complete inheritance of the Thunder Emperor.

Yet he dared not defy him again; he merely stared ahead with eyes glittering with electricity, still thoroughly unresigned.

He gazed quietly into the distant starry expanse, his mind already made up.

The moment Qin Feng appeared, he would strike immediately, forcibly tearing through the encirclement of the myriad races to carry Qin Feng and Zhou Yu straight back to Thunder Cosmic City.

As for that damned Cosmic Will mission? To hell with it!

Ensuring Zhou Yu's safety so that the Thunder Emperor's legacy could endure was the ultimate priority.

What a formidable figure King Thunderstorm was; he saw through Lei San’s intentions with a single glance. He exhaled a soft sigh, his tone softening slightly but still carrying an unyielding, majestic weight as he spoke with earnest solemnity, "Lei San, remember my words. If you dare to act recklessly and disrupt the plans of the human race's high command, not even I will be able to shield you when the time comes."

"I'm not trying to act recklessly..."

Lei San suppressed his burning anger, arguing his case, "Look out there, Master! One, two, three... a total of seventeen Domain Lord arrays! And there are no fewer than ten Domain Lord powerhouses hiding in the shadows! On the surface, there are over ten thousand Limit Black Hole experts, and a full thirty or more half-step God-Forbidden entities! With a grand array like that, on what grounds can Qin Feng safely escort Junior Sister through?!"

"If a cosmic mission fails, then it fails. What we must consider now is how to minimize our losses, not to gamble and speculate on how much we stand to gain!"

"Ignorant!"

King Thunderstorm snapped in anger, his eyes filled with the bitter disappointment of one whose expectations had been failed. "This is Qin Feng's own path, and it is a tribulation he must personally endure!

If he proves no match for them, he will naturally send out a distress signal. At that moment, it will not be too late for us to intervene!

To strike right now—what would that achieve? That would be a denial of his own Dao, and a violation of the high command's will! Absolutely not!"

The root of this dispute lay entirely in the asymmetry of information.

The Scarlet Forbidden Ground was the handiwork of a deity; what transpired within its depths could hardly be scrutinized by the outside world.

Though the alien races knew that Qin Feng had stepped into the God-Forbidden realm and had even achieved a staggering result in the Blood God Tower, they had merely passed this intelligence along to the high command of their respective factions. None of them were idle enough to spread the grand renown of a human prodigy far and wide.

Furthermore, due to the nature of the divine forbidden ground, the updates to the Hidden Dragon Rankings had suffered a significant delay.

Consequently, the high command of the human race ironically became the least informed party.

Based on the colossal battle formation deployed by the myriad races and their understanding of the Scarlet Forbidden Ground's rules, figures of the high command like King Thunderstorm could only arrive at a rough deduction: Qin Feng had reaped immense gains from this journey, likely reaching the half-step God-Forbidden realm, or perhaps even touching the true threshold of the God-Forbidden realm itself, and had held his own in a confrontation with the Stone Buddha, who ranked second on the Hidden Dragon Rankings. Only this could have prompted the myriad races to execute such an unsparing, costly encirclement.

But as to how grand his specific harvests were, or what heights Qin Feng’s current combat strength had truly reached, they remained entirely in the dark.

For a high-ranking figure like King Thunderstorm, this deduction was sufficient to inspire confidence in Qin Feng and to strictly adhere to the supreme command of "no intervention unless absolutely necessary."

Yet for a being with a temperament as violent and impulsive as Lei San's, this meager shard of information was far from enough to set his mind at ease.

His own "path" leaned somewhat toward the extreme, which deprived him of the patience and the grand perspective that King Thunderstorm possessed.

Much like the warriors of the Sacred Blood Angel Chapter, who would fall into an absolute frenzy once the Black Rage was triggered, this was a flaw inherent to one's own path; outsiders could not correct it, and it could only be broken through by oneself.

And so, a bizarre standoff materialized.

Beyond the outpost, the powerhouses of the myriad races stretched their necks in anticipation, their killing intent palpable as they waited in absolute silence for the arrival of their prey.

Within the outpost, the human powerhouses led by King Thunderstorm clenched their fists tightly, their hearts fraught with a mixture of anxiety and anticipation.

Time trickled away, second by second, minute by minute, amid this suffocating wait.

A day, a month, a year...

A full year passed by, yet that deep cosmic expanse blockaded by the army of the myriad races remained as deathly still as ever; Qin Feng’s figure had yet to appear.

Just as Lei San was beginning to grow frantic with impatience.

On the far shore of the cosmic deep, within the darkest recesses of that abyss, a speck of red-gold light ignited without any warning whatsoever.

That light tore through the fabric of space, instantly crossing an endless distance at a velocity that transcended the comprehension of all living things.

A streak of flowing light, enveloped by massive red-gold wings, shattered the year-long silence, finally coming to a halt at this last station of the End Road.

Qin Feng had arrived!

...

He hovered quietly in the vacuum of space, his posture as upright and unyielding as a great spear piercing the vault of heaven.

His suit of blue-gold power armor possessed sleek lines that exuded a profound sense of raw power, with deep blue energy patterns flowing through every seam of the armor, as though holding the very breath of the stars within them.

Clutched tightly in his hand was that pitch-black Star-Devouring Spear, its body so deep it seemed capable of absorbing all light, save for the spear tip where several miniature black holes rotated slowly and stably, silently tearing at the surrounding space and exuding a heart-stopping aura of annihilation.

Most striking of all were the red-gold wings slowly unfurling behind his back.

They were no creation of flesh or pure energy, but a secret treasure forged from the highest order of metal.

One hundred and eight complex and profound restrictions flowed ceaselessly across the surface of the wings, transforming at times into ancient runes and at others into the phantom silhouettes of divine birds; every single flap seemed capable of stirring the torrent of time and leaping past the barriers of space.

Qin Feng had not materialized the helmet of his power armor, leaving his young, resolute face completely exposed to the gaze of all living beings.

His eyes were as calm as an ancient well, yet his deep pupils reflected the grand cycle of cosmic birth and destruction.

From his form, an invisible, intangible aura diffused outward, yet it was as heavy as a mountain.

It was a domain constructed by his own mental fortitude, bearing an unprecedented hue of black-gold.

This black-gold mental energy was no longer a matter of simple radiation; it seemed to possess a life and a will of its own, carrying an innate elegance and nobility that seemed to originate from the very birth of the cosmos.

Yet beneath this nobility lay a hidden tyranny and coldness capable of devouring all creation.

As this tide of mental energy swept past, every single one of the tens of thousands of Limit Black Hole powerhouses present felt their souls seized by an invisible, massive hand, causing even their thoughts to stagnate for a fleeting instant.

This was an absolute suppression originating from the very hierarchy of life itself.

When prodigies met, there was no need for blades to clash; a single glance from their first meeting, a single collision of their auras, was enough to roughly gauge the true depth of the opponent.

The moment he appeared, without uttering a single word or making a single redundant motion, Qin Feng had dragged every living being present—including those Domain Lords concealed in the shadows—into his invisible field of force.

Even the hostile entities present, who wished for nothing more than to grind his bones to ash, could not help but sigh from the very depths of their hearts with genuine admiration:

What a magnificent prodigy of the human race!

Such poise, such spirit; he is worthy of the title "Imperial Chief" and the fearsome reputation that has stirred the entire cosmos.

The deathly silence of the standoff persisted for several heartbeats, finally shattered by a cold, rasping voice.

From the ranks of the monster race, a creature with the head of a fish and the body of a man, clutching a trident, stepped forward. He was wreathed in the crushing pressure of the deep sea, every droplet of vapor heavy as a star.

He fixed his emotionless fish-eyes upon Qin Feng, his voice vibrating through the vacuum: "Qin Feng!"

"A millennium of hunting, the Path of Finality—today is your end. Did you ever foresee that so many powerhouses, so many races, would gather here to send you to your grave?"

His voice was heavy with the condescension of a judge, as if Qin Feng were already fish on a chopping block.

As his words fell, the auras of the ten thousand warriors surrounding them linked in an instant, coalescing into a tangible psychic storm that bore down upon Qin Feng with crushing force.

It was a torrent of ten thousand streams of malice, greed, and spite, enough to shatter the Dao-heart of any half-step god-forbidden expert.

Yet, in the face of this world-destroying pressure, Qin Feng’s reaction defied everyone’s expectations.

"Ha... Hahahaha—"

He chuckled low, then threw his head back and roared, his laughter bold and unconstrained, filled with infinite ease and wild abandon.

The sound was like a peerless blade, instantly piercing the psychic storm and tearing it to shreds.

His laughter echoed through the starscape, dripping with contempt for this so-called "inescapable net."

"How could I not know?"

Qin Feng’s laughter ceased, his gaze sharp as a knife as he swept across every face present. "If I did not know of such a formation, why would I have come alone?"

His words were calm, yet they held a confidence more chilling than any roar.

Now, it was the turn of the hunters to be stunned.

They had anticipated his anger, his fear, his despair, or even the bluster of a cornered man, but they had never imagined he would be so calm, so... matter-of-fact.

"Hahaha—"

On the other side, among the Star-Devouring Beasts, a creature as vast as an asteroid let out a thunderous, rumbling laugh.

The black hole core in its chest spun violently, greedily devouring the surrounding light. "Good! A fine Qin Feng! To know the trap and still come single-handedly—I respect you as a man of character!"

The laughter cut off abruptly, the beast’s tone turning sinister: "Since you are a man of character, you should know when to yield!

Obediently hand over the Thunder Emperor’s inheritance, the cosmic wonder [Twin Masks], and return the Heaven-Deriving weapons you stole from our race. Perhaps, in honor of your courage, we might spare you and let you reincarnate!"

His words were like a boulder cast into a calm lake, stirring up a thousand waves.

"Qin Feng, hand over the Twin Masks!"

A mechanical race expert of the extreme black hole level flickered with cold red light in his data-stream eyes.

"Qin Feng, pay for the life of our Necromancer prodigy! Today is your death day!"

A powerhouse from the Necromancer race, wreathed in gray death-mist, roared with a raspy voice.

"You slaughtered my Crystal kin and forged weapons from their bodies; this blood feud shall never be forgotten!"

"..."

For a time, roars, howls, and curses rose and fell, the combined voices of ten thousand powerhouses forming a destructive sonic wave that ground the surrounding asteroid belt into dust.

The spectacle was so vast that it not only drew every eye on the Path of Finality but also attracted countless beings from across the universe, watching through various means from the distant starfields beyond the outpost.

Inside the outpost, the human warriors of the Thunder Universe City and the Heaven-Swallowing Universe City felt their hearts leap into their throats.

They clenched their fists, palms slick with cold sweat, trembling for the lonely figure in the distance.

Facing this tsunami of condemnation and declarations of greed, Qin Feng’s expression did not change in the slightest.

He seemed like an outsider, listening to these "last words" with keen interest.

"Oh?"

He ignored the clamor of the crowd, instead taking his time to survey the world sealed by seventeen Domain Lord formations. His black-gold psychic power, like the most precise radar, swept through the space inch by inch, discerning every node of the arrays, every aura of the warriors, and even the flow of energy within their bodies with absolute clarity.

Finally, his gaze pierced through layers of space, as if ignoring the limits of physical distance, and fell precisely upon the deep cosmos, upon the ten Domain Lord-level experts lurking in the shadows like vipers.

He could "see" them clearly, and they could feel the gaze of Qin Feng piercing through everything.

This sent a chill through the hearts of those ten Domain Lords.

They had been discovered!

And discovered so easily, so directly!

"Interesting."

A playful curve touched the corner of Qin Feng’s mouth. He withdrew his gaze, looked around at the "army" before him, and slowly asked a question that caught everyone off guard.

"The Stone race did not come?"

His voice was not loud, yet it reached the ears of every living being.

In this moment of drawn swords and boiling murder, he spoke as if he were merely chatting about daily trifles.

The question brought a moment of silence to the scene.

No one had expected him to ask this.

Even the hidden Domain Lords felt a sense of bewilderment.

They searched carefully and realized that among the ten thousand warriors present, there was indeed not a single member of the Stone race.

"Hmph, the Stone race? A bunch of cowardly wretches!"

The Crystal race’s extreme black hole expert, Heiyu, let out a cold laugh; his voice was sharp and grating, like grinding crystal. "Ever since the Blood-Colored Forbidden Land, their prodigy, the Stone Emperor’s son Ye Luo, has been scared out of his wits by you."

"That’s right!"

Another well-informed expert chimed in, "A year ago, the Stone Emperor’s son proactively petitioned the Cosmic Will to abandon the mission to hunt you down."

"I see."

Upon hearing this, a flash of understanding crossed Qin Feng’s eyes.

He shifted his focus to the Cosmic Will mission panel and found that the hostile marker for Ye Luo, the Stone Emperor’s son, had indeed faded to a neutral gray a year ago.

It seemed he had truly been traumatized.

However, instead of feeling contempt, Qin Feng held a higher regard for the Stone Emperor’s son, whom he had never actually fought.

From the Hanging Mountain to the Ancient Luo King’s Ruins, and then to Thunder Mountain, this son of the Stone Emperor had followed in his footsteps, only to miss every opportunity, failing to even taste the dregs of his success.

Finally, in the Blood-Colored Forbidden Land, he had witnessed the "miracle" of Qin Feng refining two hundred thousand blood-jade crystals to reach the summit of the Blood God Tower.

After suffering so many painful blows and psychological shocks, he had managed to suppress his resentment and jealousy, withstand the pressure of his race, and decisively abandon a mission destined for failure.

Such temperament, such forbearance and decisiveness, were indeed beyond the reach of other prodigies on the Hidden Dragon List.

To know when to bend and when to stretch is the mark of a true hegemon.

This Ye Luo might become a genuine enemy in the future, but at least today, he had made the wisest choice.

Confirming this, the last shred of doubt in Qin Feng’s heart vanished.

He shifted his gaze away from the clamoring "small fry" and cast it once more toward the ten Domain Lords in the deep void.

A scorching fervor for battle, like a volcano dormant for eons, began to stir, surge, and finally boil within his chest.

From ascending to the black hole level and forging the Eternal Singularity, to twenty million years of grueling cultivation in the Blood God Tower, refining two hundred thousand blood jade crystals, and stepping into the realm of divine prohibition...

His strength had undergone a cataclysmic transformation, yet until now, he had never truly engaged in a full-scale battle against an equal, let alone a superior, opponent.

The scene before him was no desperate trap or death sentence; it was the ultimate whetstone.

It was time to test exactly how wide the gap remained between himself and a true Domain Lord.

"Then... enough talk."

Qin Feng slowly raised his Star-Swallowing Spear, pointing its tip toward the ten thousand warriors ahead, and spoke these words with chilling calm.

These five words acted as the final spark to ignite the powder keg.

As the words fell, the heavens and the earth shifted in color.

It turned out that while engaging Qin Feng in conversation to apply psychological pressure, those holding the Domain Lord arrays had already completed their final preparations and guidance in the shadows.

They had been waiting for a moment of vulnerability, a lapse in Qin Feng’s focus.

And Qin Feng’s declaration, brimming with fighting spirit, became the signal for their assault.

"Strike!"

"Kill!"

Boom—!

Boom, boom—!

Seventeen super-arrays of Domain Lord caliber were fully activated in the same heartbeat.

In an instant, centered on Qin Feng, space in all dimensions—above, below, past, and future—was locked, solidified, and began to collapse violently inward.

Visible chains of spiritual energy emerged from the void, forming a mythical cage that turned this vacuum of space into a lethal prison.

Space twisted like braided rope, time lost all meaning, and light refracted into billions of shards.

The spiritual and energy fields across the battlefield turned chaotic, a violent storm capable of tearing even a black hole to shreds.

Countless killing arrays erupted simultaneously!

Divine beams as thick as galaxies, carrying the power to purge all existence, pierced through the void;

A meteor shower blotted out the sky, each stone wreathed in malicious curses and deathly miasma;

Invisible blades of space sliced silently through all matter;

And psychic shocks struck directly at the soul, manifesting as billions of demons roaring within Qin Feng’s consciousness.

This was merely the assault of the arrays!

Simultaneously, the ten thousand peak black hole beings and thirty-plus half-step divine prohibition experts unleashed their most powerful attacks.

Ten thousand strikes capable of annihilating star systems were launched at once—a spectacle of terrifying grandeur.

The cosmic vacuum, before such power, was like fragile paper, disintegrating in vast swathes to reveal the deeper, more terrifying nothingness beneath.

The star map of the Thunder Universe City border was rewritten in that moment by the brilliance of this violent energy.

This sector of space transformed into an ocean composed purely of destruction and death.

And Qin Feng was but a lone skiff at the heart of this oceanic storm.

But it was not over yet!

Just as the torrent of world-ending attacks was about to submerge Qin Feng, deep in the void, the ten Domain Lord-level experts who had remained hidden until now unleashed a lethal glint in their eyes.

Under the cover of ten thousand attacks, amidst the interference of seventeen arrays, in the very instant Qin Feng was forced to divide his focus, they saw their chance for a thunderous, one-hit kill.

Ten killing intents—some subtle, some overbearing, some treacherous—locked onto Qin Feng’s vitals from ten distinct dimensions, waiting only for the moment to strike alongside the tidal wave of energy with a fatal blow.

Domain Lords, stooping to ambush Qin Feng!

Seeking only a single strike to kill, then vanishing into the dark.