"The wind has also arrived!"
Upon seeing the towering wave, Luo Qingyan immediately felt the change in the surrounding wind pressure.
"This is outrageous..."
"Normally, the wind blows the waves, but here, the waves rose first and brought the wind along!"
"Could it be that within this barrier, even the rules of the world have been altered?"
Lin Ran tilted his head.
"This is clearly because of the formation stirring up the wind and clouds beneath!"
"Meaning, beneath this sea area, there's a formation node serving as an energy nexus!"
"All we need to do is go underwater and retrieve that formation node, and all problems will be solved."
"What I don't understand is, are these people intending to sink the entire Kyushu Island? To trigger such a large-scale disaster..."
Before Lin Ran could finish speaking, the situation on the field changed again.
Dong! Dong! Dong! Dong! Dong!
The previously calm ground suddenly began to tremble with rhythmic thuds. The sensation was also gradually expanding from afar, as if it were closing in on them.
"Huh?"
"An earthquake too?"
Luo Qingyan quickly merged her fourteen wings into two and flew towards the sky ahead of Lin Ran.
Lin Ran didn't hesitate to watch further and also shot upwards, reaching mid-air with Luo Qingyan.
"It doesn't seem like it..."
"Compared to an earthquake, I feel this level of vibration is more like..."
Lin Ran's words were cut short by Luo Qingyan, who had also noticed something abnormal.
"Over there! A beast tide!"
Indeed!
This sudden series of tremors was not an earthquake in the traditional sense, but a surging beast tide, wave after wave, caused by ferocious beasts covering the mountains and plains!
It was unclear from which forbidden area of Kyushu Island this beast tide originated, as Lin Ran was not familiar with it.
However, judging by the ranks of the ferocious beasts within the tide, this assault was quite fierce. Not only were the beasts mixed within the tide of high quality, but they also didn't just charge blindly, appearing somewhat organized in their movements. It was highly probable that some Lord-level ferocious beasts capable of command were mixed in!
It remained to be seen whether these Lord-level ferocious beasts were at the forefront of the beast tide or observing from a hidden location.
"A beast tide erupting at this juncture..."
"Could it be that the Sakura army guarding the strategic passes has also been annihilated by that mysterious force?"
Luo Qingyan cautiously observed the scale and composition of the beast tide as she asked Lin Ran.
Lin Ran shook his head.
"It's unlikely..."
"Based on my estimation, even setting aside the energy consumed by that annihilation magic, its activation conditions should be extremely stringent."
"At the very least, the range cannot be this vast."
"To cover half of this small city seems to be its limit."
"How could something that cannot even encompass an entire city possibly affect the soldiers guarding the passes?"
Luo Qingyan looked down at the city beneath her feet and murmured, "Half the city..."
"If that's the case..."
"Ah! I've suddenly remembered something!"
"Our current location is actually not far from where the competition was held."
"But why haven't we seen any of those contestants appear yet?"
"With the rising waves, the beast tide, the bizarre red moon, and eighteen gray stars hanging in the sky here."
"Unless they're blind, they should have seen it!"
"But it's been who knows how long since we first noticed the red moon, and yet not a single powerful individual has appeared here..."
"They... they... they..."
Lin Ran looked at the mottled moonlight of the red moon in the sky and sighed.
"It's spatial displacement!"
"I can only say I discovered it a bit late... Only now have I finished analyzing all the energy pathways."
"Combined with the formation patterns appearing on the ground, I've finally found a flaw in one of the sub-formations."
"I must say, the Forgotten Ones are playing a really big game."
"They actually utilized a teleportation formation, laid out here countless years ago and covering an extremely wide area, to lock onto everyone in the city."
"As a result, except for us who managed to hide in the Divine Might Space at the moment the formation activated, all the humans around were hit by this teleportation formation."
"And this teleportation formation, in order to slightly reduce costs on an already extremely extravagant system, had no security measures and maximized magical backflow."
"So, ordinary people without cultivation were likely all killed by the energy of molecular restructuring during the displacement..."
"As for the significant powerhouses, they have now been teleported to other locations."
Luo Qingyan took a deep breath.
"So, this is the truth behind the disappearance of the town's residents?"
"Then, can you, through further energy analysis, track their teleportation destinations?"
Lin Ran tapped his head.
"Yes and no..."
"The so-called annihilation magic did indeed exist, that's correct..."
"After all, this accumulation of death qi might not be fake."
"However, the order of events is slightly off."
"The trigger time for this annihilation magic was before the spatial displacement."
"So, nearly half of the residents were first hit by this so-called annihilation magic—actually, this annihilation magic might not be true annihilation that leaves no trace..."
"Afterward, their corpses and residual traces were teleported away."
"Furthermore, the spatial displacement is extremely precise—this is likely why we didn't even truly smell the scent of blood."
"As for your second question..."
"I can only say that analyzing it is possible, but it will require a significant amount of time."
"Because everyone involved in the spatial displacement, who was hit by this teleportation formation, had different destinations, with only a very small number sharing the same destination..."
Lin Ran's words left Luo Qingyan dumbfounded.
"Huh?! This... this is possible?!"
"Such an exaggerated and intricate formation and technology, could it truly be achieved by those scattered Forgotten Ones?"
Lin Ran shrugged.
"I don't think so..."
"There must be a very powerful supporter behind those Forgotten Ones..."