It was suffocating darkness.
As if his head had been plunged into icy water, or as if he were walking against a storm powerful enough to destroy an entire city.
His eyes widened involuntarily as the feeling of suffocation spread. His brain went cold, and in an instant, he became incomparably clearheaded.
His spine tingled repeatedly, as though electric currents were racing through it.
The next moment, accompanied by a roar, overwhelming pressure descended with the force of something that could destroy the world.
Under the effect of that gravity, the floor of the Tower to the Heavens' Ninth Layer suddenly burst apart completely and collapsed.
Everyone fell downward inside the elastic amber sphere. Their bodies were flung about by the loss of gravity, colliding with one another, or crashing upward into the barrier before bouncing back.
Yet the sphere itself did not bounce at all—it gradually spread into a flat cake under the force of gravity after falling onto the Eighth Layer. The surrounding ground cracked further. The barrier did not shatter, but instead became a deadly trap itself.
It had already been compressed to less than two meters in height. Even raising his hand and failing to fully straighten his arm would make him hit the ceiling. Even Mu, the silent martial monk, could not withstand that tremendous pressure.
Mu raised both hands, trying to block the might that seemed to topple the sky. The muscles in both his arms bulged, his neck and shoulders had turned bright red, and his spine gave off a series of crisp cracks, yet the barrier continued to press down slowly.
"Master Insect Amber, dispel the Preservation spell!"
Siney was the first to react.
If they allowed it to continue flattening them, this incredibly tough Preservation spell barrier would probably squeeze everyone