The pupils of the huge face that Nine Gloom had conjured up in mid-air contracted slightly.
Not too far away in the air, a figure slowly revealed itself and walked slowly in Nine Gloom’s direction.
The figure wore a trench coat and was rather slim in build. In its hand was a black walking stick, and a golden mask covered its face.
Even though he could not see the figure’s face, Nine Gloom could still vaguely sense the sophisticated charisma radiating from them.
“An outsider?!” Nine Gloom needed only a glance to ascertain the other party’s identity.
“You’re right. However, I’m sorry, there’s no prize for guessing correctly.” The golden mask on the masked man’s face appeared to be smiling.
“Outsider, are you barging into my territory to provoke me?” Nine Gloom did not attack the masked man right away.
One of the reasons he did not do so was because he had just gone through a major battle, and his Divine Power and physical strength were severely drained. Another reason was that he sensed a threat emanating from the other party. Although this individual had concealed their combat strength, judging from what Nine Gloom could sense, they were definitely an overlord-rank powerhouse. Their ability was probably by no means inferior to Four Face or Silver Armor.
In all honesty, considering that he was not in the best of conditions right now, Nine Gloom did not particularly wish to have a direct confrontation with the other party.
“No, I’m not trying to provoke you…” The masked man raised both his arms. However, his arms abruptly dropped a second later. “I just want to kill you!”
As soon as he finished speaking, hundreds of monsters with formidable auras rapidly consolidated in the air. Howling, they charged toward Nine Gloom in an attack.
“An Imperial Censor?!” Nine Gloom could not help exclaiming in astonishment.
His opponent was able to control several hundred ninth-rank heavenly god-level monsters. Each of their auras was at peak ninth-rank, and more than a dozen of them had auras no lower than overlord-rank.
At this very instant, it occurred to Nine Gloom that this was karma. He remembered that he had used a similar technique to kill Silver Armor half an hour ago. He never expected that retribution would come so soon—this time, he was the one being besieged.
Regaining his composure slightly, Nine Gloom immediately extended countless vines, attempting to defend himself against the monster horde’s attack.
“He fell for it.”
From a short distance away, the man with the golden mask sent two voice transmissions in a certain direction.
The minute he finished speaking, two figures swiftly came into view. In a flash, they appeared beside the masked man at practically the same time.
One of them wore a gray monk’s robe. His head was completely hairless and covered with Buddhist ordination scars. The biggest difference between himself and ordinary monks was that he had eight very skinny arms.
Meanwhile, the other person was clad in a black robe and even wore a black mask under his hood. The loose black robe enveloped his entire body, shielding him from any probing from the outside world. The only recognizable feature he possessed was his tall, muscular body.
These three figures were Virtuoso, Saber9, and Lin Huang’s forms in Phantom City.
As he watched Nine Gloom standing in a daze on the spot, Lin Huang asked from under his black mask, “Aren’t we going to seize the opportunity now and attack?”
“There’s no rush, just wait a little longer.” Virtuoso, on the other hand, was very patient.
“If he’s still at his peak, then it would definitely be best to attack him the instant he falls into the trap because he might be able to struggle free of my illusion at any time. However, I’m estimating that currently, he only has 30% to 40% left of his total ability. The chances of him freeing himself from my control aren’t very high in the short term. Let him sink deeper into the illusion for a while—it still won’t be too late if we attack later on.”
Naturally, Lin Huang and Saber9 understood Virtuoso’s explanation.
Based on Nine Gloom’s actual abilities, it was quite unlikely that he would fall prey to Virtuoso’s illusion. Even if he accidentally became ensnared by it, he would be able to free himself in a very short time. Therefore, they had to strike swiftly.
However, now that Nine Gloom had been through a major battle, the Divine Power within him had been significantly drained, and his Divine Telekinesis had flagged considerably. This was the reason why he had fallen into Virtuoso’s trap so easily. However, Nine Gloom was not completely blocked off from perceiving the outside world, since he had only just fallen prey to the illusion. As soon as he sensed anomalies in the outside world, he might realize that he was in an illusion and struggle to free himself.
That was also why Virtuoso had told Lin Huang and Saber9 to delay making their move.
Virtuoso wanted Nine Gloom to be ensnared even further. Once Nine Gloom was too busy within the illusion to attend to anything else, naturally, he would not have any excess energy to sense the anomalies in the outside world—this, then, would be the best time to launch an attack.
Lin Huang and Saber9 could hear the certainty in Virtuoso’s tone. Therefore, they said nothing more and waited patiently.
Meanwhile, Nine Gloom—having fallen prey to the illusion— was currently facing a major crisis he had not previously encountered.
Individually speaking, there were not many imperial monsters that could pose a threat to him.
However, what made things difficult for him was that this horde of imperial monsters was not battling him one-on-one individually; instead, they had formed small teams. In every team, there were one or two with powerful defense capabilities, a few with controlling and assisting abilities, and a few with sufficiently powerful attack capabilities to incapacitate him.
What made things even harder was that no matter which team he locked onto and attacked, the other teams would immediately interfere and come to their rescue, temporarily giving the first team a respite from battle.
Over ten minutes went by, and Nine Gloom had made no progress at all. He was not able to kill even a single imperial monster. (Time in the illusion was a perception of his consciousness and was by no means the actual time flow in the real world).
Nine Gloom began to panic. He was very much aware that in his current condition, he was not fit for a protracted battle. The longer things dragged on, the higher the chances that he would suffer defeat.
After a mere moment of hesitation, he made a decision to open up his God Territory again and envelop the entire vicinity within it.
It was not just those several hundred imperial beasts that were swallowed up—even the man with the golden mask was also enveloped within the God Territory.
However, what Nine Gloom did not know was that in the real world outside the illusion, the lips under the golden mask quirked up just a little.
The second Nine Gloom slackened his efforts slightly, Lin Huang and Saber9 heard Virtuoso’s voice clearly in their ears.
“Go!”
Without hesitation, Lin Huang and Saber9 attacked like lightning.
Lin Huang held nothing back in this attack.
It was the perfect integration of twelve compounded levels of sequence power and Sword Dao heavenly rule, which consolidated into a dazzlingly bright blood-red arc.
It surged through the air as fast as a bolt of lightning, looking like a moving galaxy.
This move was almost at the limit of what Lin Huang’s current physical body could handle.
Even Virtuoso’s eyes betrayed a flash of amazement.
Meanwhile, on the other side, Saber9 finally brought out his trump card, which he very rarely revealed.
Millions of golden saber gleams consolidated in the air before him.
His eight skinny arms pointed in the air, and the millions of golden saber gleams consolidated into eight saber formations. The eight saber formations then rapidly integrated into an even more massive saber formation.
Boosted by this giant saber formation, the Saber Dao heavenly rule’s aura grew increasingly powerful more than several dozen times over.
In the air, countless saber gleams consolidated into a massive golden dragon. It opened its giant maw and charged straight at Nine Gloom…
