As Shi Feng activated the Teleportation Stone, the world before him plunged into darkness. Moments later, a strange realm unfolded before his eyes.
It was a dim world, blanketed in darkness and silence — as though he had been thrust into a pitch-black room. Even as a Tier 2 player, Shi Feng could see no more than twenty yards ahead. And within that twenty-yard radius, all he found was barren wasteland, utterly devoid of any signs of life.
System: Dark World discovered.
System: As you do not belong to this world, you are subjected to the world's oppressive force. All perception reduced by 50%, all attributes reduced by 30%, all experience gained reduced by 95%.
System: Within the Dark World, players cannot communicate with the outside world in any way. Upon death, your soul will be expelled from the Dark World.
Three system notifications echoed in rapid succession through Shi Feng's ears.
"Even at Tier 2, the suppression is this severe?" Shi Feng frowned slightly upon hearing the system alerts.
He wasn't surprised by the situation, but he hadn't expected the suppression to be this extreme.
Higher planes were nothing like ordinary otherworlds. They were not only vastly more expansive, but also fiercely hostile to outsiders. His arrival here was essentially an act of plane invasion, and the more powerful the creature that entered, the greater the suppression it faced.
In his previous life, he had entered other higher planes as well, though at that point he had already been a Tier 3 class. Even then, his base attributes were suppressed by a full 40%, and only by wearing a complete set of Epic equipment could he barely match a Great Lord of the same level in raw stats. His vitality took a heavy hit too, making it nearly impossible to fight same-level Great Lords on their home turf.
He hadn't anticipated that a Tier 2 class would face such crushing suppression.
After all, Tier 2 classes were absolute bottom-feeders in higher planes.
On top of that, the monsters in higher planes far outstripped those found on the God's Domain continent. Their superiority came entirely from their higher lifeforms and far superior combat capabilities.
On the God's Domain continent, the dragon race was the stuff of legends. Yet in higher planes, monsters on par with dragons in terms of lifeform tier weren't exactly commonplace, but there were no shortage of them either.
This was why venturing into a higher plane without sufficient strength was a nine-in-ten-death gamble. Even though higher planes harbored rare, high-grade resources unavailable on the God's Domain continent, the major superpowers didn't dare casually send forces to conquer them.
Beyond monster strength and the world's oppression, the most significant difference was the environment.
Standing within the Dark World, Shi Feng felt an indescribable heaviness weighing on his entire body — as though gravity had multiplied three or fourfold in an instant. Moreover, the dense dark energy relentlessly gnawed at him. Without extremely high dark resistance, one would be killed by the dark energy alone without lifting a finger. It was nothing short of a barren wasteland.
Shi Feng didn't dare waste time. He immediately produced the Dark Bible and began summoning a Tier 3 demon.
In the blink of an eye, a demon wielding a battle saber and clad in blood-colored scale armor materialized before him.
Blood Edge Demon — demon creature, Tier 3, Level 80, HP: 34 million.
As dark creatures that wielded the power of darkness, demons were right at home in the Dark World. They suffered no suppression whatsoever, and thanks to the Demon Sovereign effect of the Dark Bible, their stats were actively boosted.
This was precisely why Shi Feng had dared to come.
In a place with visibility of only twenty yards, any random monster would outclass his current self. He would more likely be detected and ambushed before he even spotted his enemy.
By controlling the demon, however, he could see through its eyes. Shi Feng gave it a try, and the difference in vision was like heaven and earth.
Through the demon's vision, Shi Feng could see across a range of four to five hundred yards. He immediately discovered that this area was a field of scattered rocks, and roughly three hundred yards away, a cluster of ten Dark Venomous Scorpions — each three to four meters tall — were crawling about. Every scorpion waved three tails, though one boasted five. Its pitch-black carapace shimmered with a faint purple glow.
Dark Venomous Scorpion — Dark creature, Lord, Level 65, HP: 18 million.