The world within the formation that Chu Feng and Jie Tian stood in carried certain restrictions.
Not only were Chu Feng's martial forces limited, but until the voice of the formation dissipated, the power of his barriers was restricted as well.
In simple terms, before the contest officially began, Chu Feng was unable to set up formations.
Presumably, Jie Tian faced the same restrictions.
Therefore, the formation Jie Tian was currently releasing had been deployed on the spur of the moment.
Yet its combat strength was in no way inferior to Chu Feng's.
And upon closer inspection, those were not ordinary armies — they seemed to possess life.
This was an extraordinarily sophisticated formation. It was not the sort of thing one should be able to deploy so casually.
"So the Spirit World Master genius of the Seven Realms Sacred Palace actually lives up to the name."
Seeing this, Chu Feng knew that Jie Tian was indeed stronger than Ling Xiao and Jie Baobao.
He suspected that what Jie Tian had deployed was no ordinary formation — it was very likely one from the Heavenly Dao Secret Manual.
The Heavenly Dao Secret Manual was a compendium of barrier arts belonging to the Seven Realms Sacred Palace. It contained numerous formations, and once deployed, they could push a Spirit World Master's abilities to their absolute limit.
In terms of personal combat strength alone, Jie Tian was inferior to Chu Feng. But his exquisite formations compensated for that deficiency.
But everything was relative.
The formations Chu Feng commanded were indeed not as refined as Jie Tian's.
However, his personal combat strength was superior, and he possessed one advantage that Jie Tian did not — mastery over the power of barriers.
This, after all, had been passed down from Qin Jiu.
Whoosh — And so, even though he recognized that Jie Tian's formation was no simple matter, Chu Feng remained perfectly calm.
He stepped through the void, planted his feet in a horse stance, and then drew into the posture of an archer.
A great barrier bow materialized in his grasp, and the barrier arrow it fired was fully three meters long.
Whoosh — The arrow shot forth, yet it trembled violently, swaying from side to side.
"What's going on? Did he fail?"
There were plenty of powerful experts present, and they could clearly see the details of Chu Feng's attack. They all noticed that the barrier arrow he had fired looked off.
Boom — The next instant, the barrier arrow exploded.
But instead of scattering into fragments, it transformed into countless barrier arrows — a single arrow splitting into a rain of arrows in the blink of an eye.
The arrow rain descended, and the vast army was cut down by more than half.
But something was wrong — under normal circumstances, they should have been wiped out entirely.
It turned out that the remaining one hundred barrier soldiers had changed form. They were no longer human but had become skeleton soldiers, and they looked far more ferocious.
Moreover, the barrier shields in their hands were all glowing — the shields had been reinforced, which was how they had managed to withstand Chu Feng's barrier arrows.
"So that's how it is."
Chu Feng narrowed his eyes, growing even more appreciative of Jie Tian's attainments in barrier arts.
Chu Feng noticed that each of those one hundred barrier soldiers had a dark thread running along its body, and those threads connected back to Jie Tian.
The threads were extremely subtle. Had Chu Feng not been observing with meticulous care, others would likely have been unable to perceive them.
This was no ordinary barrier formation. It was not a one-off attack but one that could continuously grow stronger.
The initial army of a thousand soldiers was not the complete formation — even now, it was far from perfected. Jie Tian was still continuously reinforcing them.
Sure enough, where earlier only the shields had glowed, by the time the hundred barrier soldiers closed in on Chu Feng, the long blades in their hands began to shine as well, causing the soldiers' combat strength to surge once more.
"Interesting."
But Chu Feng showed no fear whatsoever. He clenched a single fist, and a barrier longsword appeared in his hand.
He then engaged the hundred barrier soldiers in combat, wielding the barrier longsword.
Yet each of those barrier soldiers was extraordinarily powerful — not only were they proficient in both offense and defense, but they also knew how to coordinate with one another.
Even with Chu Feng's battle prowess, fighting one against a hundred, he found it difficult to damage them at all. All he could manage was a stalemate.
"Incredible!"
"That is the most formidable Spirit World Master genius of our era."
Among the onlookers, an elderly Dragon Spirit World Master had the word "astonishment" etched across his aged face.
"Master, who is incredible?" asked a young woman with wide, blinking eyes standing beside him.
Though she looked young and beautiful, her age had long surpassed Chu Feng and the others — she was no longer part of the younger generation.
But despite her advanced age, her cultivation realm was far below that of Chu Feng and Jie Tian.
She could not make out the specific details of the battle and could only turn to her Master for explanation.
"Both of them."
"Jie Tian, at the Robed Lord realm, has unleashed combat power on par with a Saint Robe — and with a single move, he has deployed one of the most powerful offensive formations from the Seven Realms Sacred Palace's Heavenly Dao Secret Manual: the Hell Soldier Summoning Formation."
"This Hell Soldier Summoning Formation is truly remarkable. Upon initial deployment it already possesses formidable power, but as time passes and the formation is refined, the barrier soldiers will only grow stronger. In its early stages, it strengthens the weapons; in its mid-stages, it strengthens the soldiers themselves; and in its final stage, they can deploy formations of their own."
"If the Hell Formation reaches completion, it will unleash power at its absolute peak — it may even achieve power capable of defying the heavens!"