Chapter 191: Chapter 180: The Entire Team in Dire Straits! The Yang Plate as a Boat, the Heart Sword to Slay Demons
Han Feng patted the Iron-Feathered Vulture beneath him.
Every feather on the massive creature’s body stood on end.
A strange, rumbling sound emanated from its throat, filled with an animal’s most primal fear.
It was trembling, completely deaf to any command.
The world around them plunged into an eerie silence.
The sounds of wind and insects vanished completely.
"Snap out of it!"
Han Feng’s Divine Sense instantly converged into a needle.
There were no fancy techniques—just a brute-force application of Spiritual Power.
He jabbed it ruthlessly into the core of the Iron-Feathered Vulture’s mind.
The Iron-Feathered Vulture’s massive body went rigid.
Fear of a superior being finally overwhelmed its panic about its unfamiliar surroundings.
It quieted down, lying prone on the ground and not daring to move a muscle.
Han Feng moved swiftly, pulling a high-strength tactical rope from the side of his pack.
"No time to explain! Everyone, hook in!"
He locked the rope’s main clasp securely onto the Iron-Feathered Vulture’s pair of steel-like talons.
He then threw out eight secondary clasps.
"Wang Meng, you’re the heaviest! Get in front and act as a counterweight!"
"Captain Zhang Hao, Fan Jian, you’re the second echelon! The rest of you, clip on behind them in order!"
Everyone stared at the great bird pinned to the ground.
Then, they glanced at the void in the distance, which was being devoured by darkness.
A chill ran down their spines.
’This is insane.’
If the rope broke or the bird went berserk mid-flight, even an expert at the Meridian Passage Realm would be smashed into a bloody pulp.
But the oppressive feeling emanating from deep within the jungle behind them grew ever stronger.
It felt as if the very oxygen was being squeezed from the air.
No one wasted another word.
CLICK. CLICK.
The series of clicks from the metal clasps was piercingly loud in the dead silence.
Eight people, linked by a single rope, now dangled from the Iron-Feathered Vulture’s talons.
Han Feng didn’t clip on.
He took two steps back, ran, and leaped.
He landed steadily on the juncture of the Iron-Feathered Vulture’s neck and back.
His leg muscles tensed, gripping the bird’s neck tightly.
"Rise!"
The newly opened Dao Vein inside his body thrummed.
Silvery-white Sword Essence flowed from his palm, pouring without reservation into the Iron-Feathered Vulture’s spine.
This influx of pure Energy could both nourish the Demon Beast and instantly energize it.
SKREEE—!
The Iron-Feathered Vulture threw back its head and let out a high, piercing shriek.
Its wings snapped open, kicking up a turbulent gust of wind.
Dragging the string of "human pendants" from its talons, it launched itself off the cliff.
The moment they became airborne, a powerful sense of weightlessness washed over them all.
"Deploy wings!"
Zhang Hao roared from below.
FWOOMP! FWOOMP! FWOOMP!
Eight Wingsuits deployed almost simultaneously.
Their rapid descent halted abruptly, and the rope instantly snapped taut.
The team was less than five hundred meters away from the isolated island.
And then, the entire world went black.
There was no transition. The light simply vanished in an instant.
Absolute darkness consumed everything.
This wasn’t nighttime. It was a terrifying void, a dual deprivation of sight and Perception.
At the same time, a cold, clammy aura surged in from all directions, leaving no escape.
Mixed within it were countless malicious whispers.
Just as the team flew across the midpoint of the abyss, a faint yet piercing alarm blared, carried on the wind from the distant Wind Eye Market.
WOOO—!
The color drained from Zhang Hao’s face instantly.
"This is bad! It’s the alarm for the Gloom Period! It’s come early!"
Before the words had even faded, the team found themselves suspended in an endless, silent void.
"Hold steady! Don’t move!"
Han Feng’s voice boomed over the communications channel.
The Iron-Feathered Vulture beneath him began to struggle frantically the moment the darkness fell.
This instantly doubled the rate at which his Sword Essence was being consumed.
Worse still, his Spiritual Vision allowed him to see something in the darkness that made his blood run cold.
The blood-red mist in the abyss below was churning.
Countless twisted, blurry gray orbs of light were rapidly forming.
Letting out silent shrieks, they lunged toward the group.
"Spirit Bodies! They’re here!" Han Feng roared.
"Captain... I... I feel so dizzy..."
From the rear of the team, Lin Qing’s voice trembled on the verge of tears.
Her Spiritual Power was weaker than the others’, making her the first to be affected by the assault.
"Fengzi! We’re not going to make it! We’re too slow!"
Wang Meng shouted anxiously.
Han Feng glanced at his rapidly depleting Sword Essence.
Then he looked at the distant silhouette of the Floating Island, which seemed to be getting no closer, and gritted his teeth.
"Damn it, we’ll just have to push through!"
Controlling the Iron-Feathered Vulture with one hand, he plunged his other into his robes with lightning speed.
He pulled out an inconspicuous, disc-shaped Spiritual Artifact.
The Yang Suppressing Disc!
"Activate!"
Han Feng growled.
He poured the Sword Essence from his body into the disc as if it were free.
The ancient Runes on the surface of the Yang Suppressing Disc lit up in an instant.
Layer upon layer of intricate arrays began to activate.
HUMMM!
With Han Feng as its center, the disc projected a spherical, pale-gold field of light ten meters in diameter.
The soft golden light instantly drove away the surrounding darkness and cold.
The bone-deep chill and the whispers in their minds mostly vanished in an instant.
Han Feng, the Iron-Feathered Vulture, and Wang Meng, Zhang Hao, and Fan Jian, who were hanging at the front of the line, were immediately enveloped in the field of light.
"Holy shit! There’s light!"
Wang Meng let out a strange cry, looking at the world that had reappeared around him.
But in the next moment, everyone’s hearts sank.
In the darkness beyond the field of light, a dense swarm of Spirit Bodies had completely encircled them.
Countless twisted, featureless human faces pressed against the edge of the light field.
They snarled and clawed in silence.
"Su Yue! Old Liu!"
Zhang Hao glanced back, and his eyes felt as if they would tear at the corners.
Su Yue, Liu Cheng, Gu Yun, and Lin Qing.
The four people at the back of the line were still hanging outside the protective light!
"Agh! Get away! Get away!"
Liu Cheng’s body was convulsing violently in mid-air.
He had completely lost control of his Wingsuit, and his body began to spin helplessly.
