After confirming that the arrangements outside the door were in place, Qian Ying turned to Zhou Zixing beside him and barked, "Go!" Before his words had even faded, he leaped over the burning ring of fire and stepped out of the cabin.
Zhou Zixing followed close behind. Before leaving, he instinctively glanced once more at Chen Mo, who sat motionless. Chen Mo still had his eyes closed in concentration, with no movement around him at all, as though the howls of the Black Shadows outside and everything they had just done had nothing to do with him.
Zhou Zixing frowned, his doubts deepening, but he did not dare linger. He immediately followed Qian Ying outside and stood at the cabin entrance.
"Roar—!"
Fierce howls rose and fell across the entire plaza, their echoes reverberating through the vast Great Hall with piercing intensity. The Black Shadows lurking in the darkness on all sides sprang out at once, densely swarming toward Qian Ying and Zhou Zixing.
But when they rushed close, the layers of fire rings blocked their path. The Black Shadows could only stop, either circling around the flames to flank them or leaping into the air and diving down from above.
"Hold back the other Strange Beasts for me!" Qian Ying growled. The Xiantian Short Sword in his hand shone coldly as he locked his gaze onto a Black Shadow diving from the air and fully unleashed his Xiantian Domain. The invisible pressure of the domain instantly enveloped the Black Shadow, forcibly imprisoning its airborne body and leaving it suspended in midair for several breaths, unable to move.
The fused Black Shadows possessed speed and agility far beyond ordinary Strange Beasts, and their reactions were extremely quick. But with its body tightly locked down by the domain, it had no