The moment Shi Feng initiated the summoning on the rooftop of the Summoning Tower, the purple mist wreathing the Ice Dragon's claw pounced on it like a starving beast, devouring the dragon claw — which was several times harder than Black Iron — in the blink of an eye.
Once the claw dissolved, the mass of purple mist surged with power, as though some slumbering behemoth had been jolted awake.
The terrifying pressure was so intense that even Shi Feng felt his body grow impossibly heavy, far worse than facing a Tier 5 NPC. Had any Tier 2 player been present, they wouldn't even have been able to stand — they would have been flattened to the ground on the spot.
As the energy mass grew ever stronger, the pressure on Shi Feng mounted correspondingly. Just when he felt he was about to reach his limit, the purple energy mass plunged straight into the ancient magic array carved into the altar.
Boom!
The instant the purple energy surged in, the surrounding space seemed to shatter. Fissure after fissure tore across the void, as though reality itself could not bear the force.
After lasting several seconds, the space at the center of the altar began to collapse. Beyond the crumbling void lay absolute darkness — and that darkness was expanding rapidly, swallowing the majority of the rooftop.
Just as the encroaching darkness was about to reach Shi Feng's position, the ancient magic array inscribed on the altar suddenly blazed with silver-white light. The spreading darkness was immediately suppressed, frozen at the altar's edge and unable to advance any further. Yet even so, the ambient mana concentration around the rooftop was plummeting, nearly all of it being siphoned away by the dark expanse.
"A Land of the Void!" Shi Feng stared at the endless black hole before his eyes, a chill running through him. "What's going on?"
The Summoning Tower worked by sacrificing a medium to open a passage to a plane of existence, from which the player would then guide out the summoned creature. The more powerful the medium, the more formidable the plane that the magic array could access.
But now it had opened the Land of the Void…
The Land of the Void was a dead zone — a place of absolute silence and nothingness. No creature in the Divine Realm could survive there. Not only was there no mana, there wasn't even the faintest trace of energy of any kind. Life simply could not exist.
Just as Shi Feng was grappling with bewilderment, a system notification chimed in his ear.
[System: You have triggered the Epic quest "Hollow Cage." Quest objective: Find a way to rescue the Silver Sacred Dragon imprisoned within the Land of the Void. Rewards: Unknown. Failure carries no penalty. Do you wish to accept this quest?]
"A Silver Sacred Dragon?" Shi Feng stared at the system prompt, momentarily dumbfounded.
He had only offered an Ice Dragon's claw as the medium — he never imagined it could open a passage to wherever the Silver Sacred Dragon was being held.
A Silver Sacred Dragon!
In the Divine Realm, the Dragon race stood at the very apex of all beings. Any adult dragon possessed Tier 5 strength at minimum and was reputed to be invincible among its peers — even human heroes blessed by the gods were no match.
And within the Dragon race, dragons were further divided into strict ranks.
Those called Sacred Dragons were dragons that carried the bloodline of an Original Dragon — or at least a thread of it — unlike ordinary dragons whose bloodlines had thinned to the point of irrelevance after countless generations.
The gap between a Sacred Dragon and an ordinary dragon was the gap between a common monster and a Primordial species — they were simply not on the same level.
An ordinary dragon could at most claim invincibility within its tier, but a Sacred Dragons was said to be capable of fighting above its own rank.
That was why the people of the Divine Realm held Sacred Dragons in the deepest awe and dared not provoke them. Shi Feng even suspected that the Jealousy Witch — widely regarded as a walking catastrophe — might not be a match for a Tier 5 Sacred Dragon.
Without much deliberation, Shi Feng accepted the quest.
Though the Epic quest carried no penalty for failure, declining it would mean forfeiting the summoning entirely. The Summoning Tower could only perform one summon per month — there was no way he was giving that up.
Moreover, an opportunity to summon a Sacred Dragon might never come again.
If he succeeded, the payoff would be astronomical.
Summoning a Tier 6 deity in the Divine Realm was practically impossible. In his previous life, even a super guild with its vast resources and connections had never managed to obtain even the remains or medium of a god, let alone the current Zero Wing.
And with Tier 6 deities out of reach, a Tier 5 Sacred Dragon ranked at the very top of what was achievable.
As soon as Shi Feng accepted the quest, the magic array on the altar reshaped itself, projecting a silver-white magical barrier around his body. The oppressive weight lifted at once, and he felt as though even stepping into the Land of the Void would be no great matter.
"Am I supposed to go in there?"
Shi Feng examined the barrier surrounding him, noting a new Blessing buff on his status that would last three full days. He then turned his gaze toward the expanse of darkness before him.
The Land of the Void was an absolute death zone for living beings. Aside from deities and Void Souls born within it, virtually nothing could survive inside. And even with the magical barrier's protection, in a space completely devoid of mana, his Mana Body's power was still sealed — at best, he could draw on twenty to thirty percent of his true combat strength.