As Shi Feng stepped forward on the battlefield, his calm voice drifted outward, and the onlookers in the distance were left utterly dumbstruck. The sneering Star Ranger's expression froze instantly as he stared in disbelief at Shi Feng, who had just taken that single step.
"Is Black Flame courting death?"
"The four great superpowers are only holding back out of respect for the Senluo Pavilion and War Soul — how dare he?"
"He must have given up on himself!"
The experts and leaders of the various factions were all stupefied, unable to understand why Shi Feng would insist on going down this path. The auction arena contest had only just begun, and more energy crystal balls would continue falling. Even if the four superpowers wanted to seize them all, they simply lacked the numbers and manpower to cover every spot — there would inevitably be gaps.
And Zero Wing's strength in the auction arena was second only to the four superpowers. They had every opportunity to snatch the crystal balls the superpowers couldn't reach. There was absolutely no reason to go head-to-head with them.
While everyone whispered among themselves, the purple-robed beauty from Return of Kings suddenly darkened.
"Black Flame! Do you really think that with the Senluo Pavilion and War Soul behind you, we wouldn't dare touch you?" The purple-robed beauty stared at Shi Feng, her voice frigid.
Her fury instantly made the entire space feel as though it had frozen solid. Her pressure was in no way inferior to the War Ghost Tian Ming — in fact, the ambient magic in the surroundings began turning violent and chaotic, making the players caught within it feel increasingly agitated and short-tempered.
The sudden eruption of aura made the distant faction experts all gasp, and Qin Yin, experiencing it firsthand from the observation room, turned ashen.
"How can she be this strong? She can influence the magical elements just through a shift in emotions?" Qin Yin stared at the purple-robed beauty, her expression indescribably grave.
As a half-elf, while she wasn't blessed by the elements the way full-blooded elves were, her affinity for magical elements was extremely high. Every half-elf was an exceptionally talented mage.
But even so, she couldn't freely manipulate magical elements at will — only during active spellcasting could she manage it. Yet this purple-robed beauty had just done exactly that.
It might seem like nothing, purely superficial, but as a magic-class expert, she understood all too well how terrifying the implications were.
Normal spellcasting required chanting first to summon and gather magical elements, concentrating them rapidly, then forming them into a magic array. If one could directly summon the magical elements upfront, it would cut out a portion of the gathering time — meaning that with the same spell, the purple-robed beauty could cast it significantly faster.
In the Divine Realm, the weaknesses of magic-class combatants were casting time and mana consumption. If casting time could be shortened, a magic-class combatant's combat power could multiply several times over.
"Of course — she's Return of Kings' most prized genius, Hua Luo Huang Quan, known as the Thunder Witch. In terms of pure combat record, she even surpasses the War Ghost. If not for the agreement between Return of Kings and the Celestial Mechanism Pavilion, Hua Luo Huang Quan would have been in the top fifty of the Wind and Cloud Rankings long ago." Sin Judgment gazed at the purple-robed beauty with a hint of reverence in his eyes. "Now that Black Flame has provoked Hua Luo Huang Quan, there's no need for anyone else to lift a finger — Hua Luo Huang Quan and Tian Ming alone can wipe out every member of Zero Wing from the first battlefield."
Hua Luo Huang Quan's combat record was known to very few. Aside from the superpowers themselves, practically no one was aware of it. Moreover, Hua Luo Huang Quan operated exclusively within superpower circles — even the experts of first-rate guilds never had the chance to cross paths with her.
He had personally witnessed Hua Luo Huang Quan's terrifying power.
Back when the various superpowers had gathered — seven or eight factions including his own Setting Sun Guild — to contest a newly opened mysterious legacy, they had even dispatched their old monsters. Yet in that battle, a completely unknown woman had single-handedly restrained one of Setting Sun's old monsters through sheer strength, allowing Return of Kings to claim the legacy.
What manner of people were those old monsters of the guild?
They were figures who had made their names over a decade ago, some even several decades prior. Their combat experience was so vast and their skill so refined that they had arguably surpassed the limits of human ability — calling them anomalies would not be an exaggeration.
Yet Hua Luo Huang Quan, who was even younger than him, had managed to hold one in check — and had even been able to spare enough attention to prevent him from advancing a single step. She was simply inhuman.
Had the old monster not forced Hua Luo Huang Quan to devote the vast majority of her focus, he suspected he wouldn't have lasted more than three or four exchanges before being obliterated.