Starting at the Nascent Soul stage, a rogue cultivator is incredibly poor.

"Who?!"

Qingyouzi was shocked and furious, and suddenly turned around! His magic power surged instantly, and countless threads were ready to be unleashed, while the Demon Dragon Shield gleamed faintly.

He was horrified. This place was remote, and he had deliberately hidden himself. How could someone see through the murderous aura and ancient demonic energy within him at a glance? And how could the other party have approached him silently from behind?

Just as he turned his head and scanned the street behind him with his divine sense...

The scene before my eyes suddenly distorted and blurred!

It was as if a basin of clear water had been splashed with thick ink. All the colors and shapes of the surrounding carriages, pedestrians, shops, buildings, and bluestone streets faded, stretched, and melted in an instant, swallowed by endless darkness!

In a mere blink of an eye, Qingyouzi found herself in a pure, boundless darkness.

A solid feel came from underfoot, as if it were some kind of flat ground, but as far as the eye could see, up, down, left, right, front, and back, everything was heavy and pitch black, without the slightest glimmer of light.

"An illusion? Or some kind of spatial teleportation?"

Qingyouzi felt a chill run down his spine. Without hesitation, the dark demonic dragon shield flew out from his sleeve, expanding in the wind and slowly rotating around his body.

At the same time, with a thought, he slightly opened the mouth of the spirit insect bag, and with a buzzing sound, thousands of crimson fire demon insects surged out, emitting faint flames, like specks of starlight, barely illuminating the surrounding area of ​​several dozen feet.

By the firelight, one could see a smooth, dark stone ground beneath their feet, stretching into the distance and disappearing into darkness. Looking up, all that remained was an endless black void.

"It's an illusion array!"

Qingyouzi forced herself to calm down.

The fact that the opponent could create such a realistic illusion without the opponent noticing shows that their mastery of formations is absolutely astonishing.

But every formation has a key point and a flaw in the flow of spiritual energy!

He took a deep breath, unleashed his vast divine sense, and scanned the ground beneath his feet with utmost care, sweeping past the surrounding darkness and piercing the void above.

His divine sense carefully sensed the spiritual energy fluctuations and structural stability of every inch of space, searching for any discord.

However, what returned was still a stagnant, uniform, seemingly eternal darkness and nothingness. This illusion, it seemed, was perfectly integrated, flawless?

Qingyouzi frowned, refusing to believe it.

He raised his right palm, palm down, and slammed it hard onto the ground!

His magical power penetrated his palm, and at the same time, hundreds of cyan threads shot out from his sleeves and the corners of his robe, like serpents burrowing into the ground, instantly spreading rapidly in different directions and at different depths to explore!

The silk thread extended downwards, ten feet, a hundred feet, hundreds of feet...

The tactile feedback was consistently the same stone structure, as if the platform were endlessly thick.

Some threads were diverted to explore in parallel directions to the left and right, and the result was the same.

Just as Qingyouzi was deep in thought, several threads exploring the void above suddenly gave an unusual response.

It wasn't empty; rather, it touched some kind of... tough and slightly cool "barrier"? And this barrier didn't seem to be vertically upward, but rather had a certain curvature?

Qingyouzi's pupils contracted slightly.

He had clearly looked up and seen only emptiness and darkness. Yet the texture of the silk threads felt completely different.

"I see……"

A glint of light flashed in his eyes.

"My vision, and even some of my divine sense, have been distorted and misled! This isn't a vast platform at all, but rather a closed, gently curving... spherical space? Or some kind of dome structure!"

The brilliance of the illusion array lies in its distortion of the user's basic understanding of space!

Once the key to cognitive distortion is identified, the path to breaking the formation becomes clear.

Without hesitation, Qingyouzi aimed at the spot in the silk thread feedback where the "barrier" sensation was most abnormal and the flow of spiritual energy seemed to be slightly stagnant. He clenched his fist with one hand, gathered his magic power, and threw a punch from a distance!

The force of the punch pierced the air, accompanied by a low whistling sound, and slammed hard into that seemingly empty darkness!

"boom--!"

A muffled thud was heard; it wasn't that the punch missed its target, but rather that it had actually struck something!

Immediately afterwards, as if glass shattered or a scroll was torn apart, the surrounding stagnant, boundless, and flawless darkness instantly disintegrated into countless spiderweb-like bright white cracks!

The cracks spread and widened rapidly.

"Splash..."

As if the tide were receding, the darkness was peeling away and dissipating piece by piece.

The scene before my eyes suddenly became clear.

Qingyouzi was already inside an extremely tall and spacious palace.

The roof of the palace is high up, inlaid with bright pearls that emit a soft white light.

On the left side of the stone wall next to a stone pillar where he had just attacked, there was an inconspicuous groove. Inside the groove, half of the charred flagpole remained, emitting wisps of smoke.

Clearly, one of the key elements that maintained that realistic illusion had been destroyed by his punch.

Qingyouzi looked around, her brows still furrowed.

"It was broken so easily? Or... is what we're seeing now just another illusion?"

He dared not let his guard down. The being capable of setting up such an illusionary array must possess far more skills than that.

"Oh……"

That aged, soft laughter rang out again, echoing in the empty hall, its exact source unclear.

"Kid, stop being so paranoid. This isn't some kind of illusion."

Qingyouzi's mind was tense. He once again scanned the entire hall with his divine sense, not missing a single stone pillar, every inch of the ground, every dome, or even the slightest change in the airflow.

Still nothing.

The opponent's concealment skills are far beyond imagination!

"In the short time you spent searching for weaknesses while trapped in the 'Boundless Black Prison'..."

The old voice spoke slowly, with a hint of mockery and instruction.

"If it were truly a life-or-death struggle, the enemy would have killed you a hundred or a thousand times over. In the art of formations, adaptability comes first; clinging to 'seeing through' can sometimes be a path to death."

Qingyouzi was greatly shocked!

The opponent not only had unfathomable mastery of formations, but also seemed to know everything about my response and mental state in the illusion just now!

What kind of formation is this, and what level of cultivation is it?

He suppressed his shock, his voice cold and icy:

"Hiding your head and revealing your tail, playing coy! Who is it? Show yourself!"

"Hehe..." Laughter drew closer.

Tap, tap, tap...

Clear footsteps echoed from the depths of the main hall, unhurried and approaching, standing out distinctly in the tranquil and spacious environment.

"What? So many years have passed, and you don't recognize this old man anymore?"

The aged voice carried a hint of emotion.

"Speaking of which, you've studied my book on formations for quite some time. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to call me half your mentor, would it?"

"I still vividly remember your heartfelt words from back then."

The footsteps stopped.

A figure slowly emerged from the shadows behind a thick stone pillar.

The newcomer wore a simple gray robe, his beard and hair were all white, his face was thin and wrinkled, but his eyes, though seemingly cloudy, occasionally flashed with a glimmer of insight into the ways of the world.

The magical energy emanating from him was only at the early stage of the Nascent Soul realm, and it seemed somewhat unstable, as if he had just broken through not long ago.

Qingyouzi's gaze fell on the other person's face, and her pupils suddenly contracted!

He recognized the face!

Although he had aged considerably and his demeanor was completely different, his facial features remained...

"you……"

Qingyouzi's voice was dry, with a slight tremor of disbelief.

"How is this possible?!"

He subconsciously took half a step back, his muscles tensed, his magical power surged, and his vigilance was heightened to the extreme.

According to common sense, it is absolutely impossible for the person in front of us to break through from his previous realm to the Nascent Soul stage in just over ten years!

Moreover, the array formation skills, concealment techniques, and spatial control that the opponent is currently displaying do not resemble those of a cultivator who has just entered the Nascent Soul stage.

Who exactly is this person? What are their intentions?