"That's impossible!"
Every single player in Ancient Rock City stared with eyes nearly bulging out of their sockets.
The scene before them defied all imagination — even the Zero Wing members who had arrived could do nothing but click their tongues in disbelief.
Fourth-tier Classes were currently the pinnacle of combat power in the Divine Realm, a showcase of any guild's true strength.
Yet now, under the domain of Shi Feng's Thought World, forget about maintaining their combat power — each of them could only unleash roughly twenty to thirty percent of their original strength. Even their ability to fly through the air had been stripped away, and as for manipulating the ambient mana, that was nothing but a pipe dream.
These fourth-tier Classes, who had once reigned as kings throughout the Divine Realm, were now no different from ordinary third-tier Classes in the outside world…
At this point, not only would fighting someone like Shi Feng — a fifth-tier Class — be out of the question, but even an ordinary fourth-tier expert could slaughter every last person in Ancient Rock City with ease.
"Is this the power of a fifth-tier Class?"
Far from the city, players who had already evacuated stared up at Shi Feng, who stood proudly in midair overlooking all of Ancient Rock City. Every one of them was struck speechless by a mixture of awe and terror.
Everyone in the Divine Realm knew that each tier's advancement brought an enormous gap in power, and that fifth-tier Classes currently stood above all other players. But only by witnessing it firsthand did they truly grasp just how vast that gap really was.
A sheer numerical advantage of fourth-tier Classes against a fifth-tier Class was nothing but a joke!
The only ones who fared somewhat better on the scene were the fourth-tier Legendary monsters, since monsters relied mostly on their base attributes and rarely manipulated ambient mana in combat. Even so, each fourth-tier Evil Dragon's combat power had dropped by at least half, and the upper-tier Legendary monster, the Holy Sculpture Soul Slasher, had lost over thirty percent of its strength — on top of losing the ability to fly. Compared to fourth-tier players who could still take to the skies, they were in an utterly passive position…
Yet Shi Feng, hovering in midair, was completely unfazed by all of this.
What the others didn't realize was that his domain was no ordinary magical domain. It was a Thought World — a technique that restructured all the mana within its boundaries into a miniature world. Its power was incomparable to any standard magical domain.
Even another fifth-tier Class would be at a disadvantage against a fifth-tier expert who had mastered the Thought World, let alone fourth-tier Classes and fourth-tier monsters.
The Beast Emperor stared at Shi Feng in the sky. A glimmer of wariness entered his gaze, but he still sneered: "Don't get too cocky, Black Flame! Don't forget — this is Ancient Rock City!"
The moment the Beast Emperor finished speaking, a colossal triple-layered magic array materialized above the city lord's manor. Ambient mana surged toward it like a tidal wave, and in the span of an instant, waves of mana radiated outward across all of Ancient Rock City. The weight that had been crushing the city's inhabitants suddenly eased.
Though they remained suppressed by Shi Feng's Thought World, their combat power — bolstered by the city's magic barrier — clearly recovered to roughly eighty percent of its original level. They could fly once more and were now able to stand against Shi Feng's Thought World to some degree.
Shi Feng regarded the barrier enveloping the entire city and raised an eyebrow in mild surprise. "Impressive magic barrier. To actually rival my Thought World — you've clearly invested a great deal of effort into Ancient Rock City."
His Thought World rendered even grandmaster-level magic barriers meaningless. To contest it, one needed at least a grandmaster-level magic barrier — and such barriers were exceedingly rare throughout the entire Divine Realm, to say nothing of grandmaster-level city defense arrays. Each one was worth at least two or three fragments of Legendary-grade items.
"Black Flame! Did you think you were the only one with means to protect a city?" The Beast Emperor looked at Shi Feng with disdain. "This magic array of mine is a lost ancient grandmaster-level formation. Though Ancient Rock City hasn't yet reached the level of a main city guild stronghold, its defensive capabilities are in no way inferior. You may be a fifth-tier Class, but if you think you can take Ancient Rock City — come back in ten years!"
A main city-level defensive barrier could fully withstand the attacks of a fifth-tier Class. As long as the energy supply held, a fifth-tier Class could forget about ever breaking through.
And draining the barrier's energy reserves was something no single fifth-tier Class could possibly accomplish. Those fallen kingdom capitals had typically required multiple fifth-tier experts attacking in concert, or siege weapons with fifth-tier destructive power working in tandem, just to bring down the NPC main city defenses.
Shi Feng was merely a single fifth-tier Class. Taking down a main city-level defensive array was nothing but a fantasy!
As the Beast Emperor spoke, the various major factions throughout Ancient Rock City breathed a collective sigh of relief. Their gazes toward Shi Feng now carried cold, mocking smiles.
"So what if you, Black Flame, became a fifth-tier Class?"
"Exactly! Do you really think one man can defy the heavens?"
When Shi Feng had first displayed his overwhelming power, every major faction in Ancient Rock City — even the fourth-tier experts of the Hand of the Sacred Heart — had felt an enormous pressure bearing down on them.
But now, with Ancient Rock City's defensive barrier in place, even a fifth-tier Class like Shi Feng couldn't do a thing to them.
What followed would simply be a battle of attrition.
They weren't the least bit afraid of that. Setting aside the massive mana crystal reserves Ancient Rock City had accumulated through the Sacred Heart Amulets, the foreign world's NPC factions were running out of time before they launched their second great offensive.
And the primary target of those foreign world factions was Zero Wing. Zero Wing couldn't afford to play a game of attrition — the longer they dragged it out, the faster they would be destroyed!
"Guild Master, why don't we launch a coordinated strike in a moment? I'd love to see how long they can hold out!" Fire Dance glared at the smug crowd in Ancient Rock City, grinding her teeth in frustration.