Leo stood in the shadows atop the city wall, his raised foot hesitant to land. He had an instinctive feeling that if he took that step, something terrible would surely happen.
Every cell in his body was instinctively resisting his advance, as if an invisible force was pulling him back and preventing him from moving.
A faint stinging sensation between my brows—a harbinger of impending danger.
Yaoyao didn't bother Leo, but instead looked around with her big eyes, as if searching for something interesting or fun for him.
After a long while, Leo Xixu withdrew his raised foot.
The moment his feet touched the ground, Leo felt a strange sense of relief, and the feeling of crisis vanished.
Leo secretly breathed a sigh of relief. He trusted his instincts, especially his body-refining instincts for perceiving danger, which were particularly strong.
It seems that this main city of the Tiger Beastmen is far more dangerous than I thought; there's no way to hide even in the shadows.
Leo didn't leave. He hadn't even seen the Tiger Beastmen that Yanis called a top-tier level three, so how could he be willing to leave?
A pair of calm eyes swept across the entire main city. Outside the city, five huge craters left by nuclear explosions could be seen, which should be the traces left by Alice and her team after their last failed attack.
There were no signs of life in the city. Not to mention the Tiger Beastmen, there wasn't even a trace of animals. If Alice hadn't told Leo that this was the Tiger Beastmen's main city and that it was a dead city, Leo would have believed it.
Infiltrating rashly is dangerous. Even though Leo didn't infiltrate in the real world, but sneaked in from the shadows, he still felt a deadly danger.
This was the first time Leo had felt danger while in the shadows; it was a feeling he had never experienced before.
Leo relied on his talent for hiding in the shadows, a skill he possessed among Leo many abilities, but this time it failed...
There are so many souls here.
Just as Leo was at a loss about how to sneak in, Yaoyao excitedly said that he seemed to have found something fun.
"How do you see so many souls here?"
Leo looked at Yaoyao in confusion. He didn't see any souls; apart from the terrifying aura that enveloped the entire city, he felt nothing.
"I saw it from the Shadow World, and I'll take you there."
Yaoyao grabbed Leo's earlobe with her little paws and pulled hard, directly taking Leo into the Shadow World.
Leo felt his body sway slightly, and then the world around him turned completely into a shadowy gray.
The shadows cast by sunlight create an abstract effect, but the layout of the Main World is still barely visible.
The main city is still the same main city, but it has tilted at a 30-degree angle. The elongated city wall looks like an irresponsible noodle maker who has stretched belt noodles into hand-pulled noodles, creating a strange feeling.
Where there is no life, there are no moving shadows; the shadows simply change slowly and abstractly with the changing angle of the sunlight.
"Look, these are all souls."
Guided by Yaoyao's tiny paws, Leo saw what was supposed to be a soul.
It is actually the shadow of the soul.
They were Yaoyao shadows that Leo would never have noticed if he hadn't told them. They were like small fish swimming in the ocean, drifting with the currents towards their warm homes.
However, here, they are all heading towards the center of the main city!
Leo stared wide-eyed at the soul beside him. Even in the abstract atmosphere of the Shadow World, it was still clear that these were the souls of the Tiger Beastmen. That thick tail was too distinctive.
Centered on this city, countless souls converged here like rivers flowing into the sea.
Leo lifted his foot, intending to move closer to the city's center. The moment he took a step, the sense of danger he felt while Shadow Walking in the Main World and in the shadows vanished.
Leo understood that the aura of those level-three Tiger Beastmen enveloped the entire city, including the shadows within it, but their strength was far from enough to influence the Shadow World.
Leo is safe in the Shadow World!!!
If the world were like a multi-layered cake, then the Main World, or the universe, would be the outermost layer of white cream.
Leo's Shadow Walking positioned at the closest layer of cake beneath the white cream.
As for the Shadow World, it might just be the innermost layer of soft cake!
"Take me there," Leo said to Yaoyao.
The Shadow World is Yaoyao's territory. Leo needs Yaoyao to move around safely. Otherwise, in such an abstract world, a single step could lead Leo to who knows where.
Yaoyao grabbed Leo's ear, her legs moving forward rapidly as if she were riding on wheels of fire, while Leo's body moved under Yaoyao's claws.
Before the abstract painting style in front of them had changed for even a few frames, Yao Yao's little feet, Yaoyao were riding on her flaming wheels, came to a stop.
The scene before him stopped moving; Leo had already moved from the city wall to the central area inside the city.
Here,
A cone-shaped shadow, occupying a third of the city, appeared in the center of the city.
Several huge, elongated shadows intertwined around it. Not yet accustomed to the operating rules of the Shadow World, Leo could only barely guess and conceive of the original forms of these shadows in the Main World.
Those souls that left faint traces in the Shadow World all threw themselves into that huge cone-shaped shadow, like moths drawn to a flame, or fish that walked into a net.
Standing beside these intertwined and distorted shadows, Leo, based on the angle of the sunlight and the specific objects he saw in the Main World, and according to the laws of geometric change, mentally reconstructed the shadows in front of Leo into their original form.
"This is an altar over two hundred meters high. Those shadows beside it must be the Level 3 Tiger Beastmen that Vice Dean Yanis mentioned; they are protecting this altar."
Although Leo had a thorough understanding of the Level 3 Tiger Beastmen that Vice Dean Yanis had repeatedly emphasized, he still couldn't help but be shocked to the point that his eyebrows twitched after calculating their true forms.
"Over 90 meters tall, a true Level 3 extreme creature!"
Leo has never seen a Level 3 creature longer than 70 meters; the largest he's ever seen is only about 60 meters.
While size doesn't necessarily indicate strength, their enormous size certainly reflects their considerable power.
According to the records of the wizarding civilization, the limit of a level three life form is 100 meters, which is the maximum energy peak that this level can withstand.
Breaking the 100-meter mark signifies a leap in life, reaching Level 4!
The theory is correct, but in reality, let alone 100 meters, even reaching 50 meters is considered quite good. For example, the theoretical value for the 100-meter dash for humans on Earth is over 9 seconds, but in reality, there are fewer people who can run it in under 10 seconds than those who have been to outer space.
Theory is theory, and practice is practice. There is a certain correlation between the two, but they are not necessarily equal.
Even ordinary native level three life forms, whose size is only about thirty meters, have exhausted all their potential and it is difficult for them to make any further breakthroughs.
A prime example is Benji from back then.
When he met Leo, he claimed to be Demigod powerhouse renowned throughout the Jeft World, swaggering and arrogant, his true form reaching an astonishing length of over thirty meters...
This was his most prized asset, but after witnessing the wizard civilization in Leo's consciousness, he realized that his strength was merely the weakest among the third-level beings.
He immediately put away all his pride and started working diligently.
Only after reaching level three will he know how difficult it is.
Now, having been infused with the essence of the Goddess of Darkness's blood, Benji's size has exceeded fifty meters, placing him at a mid-level among those at level three.
No wonder Vice Dean Yanis was so terrified of these Level 3 Tiger Beastmen. They had undergone an abnormal evolution, bringing their life essence infinitely close to the limit of Level 3. These were no longer the weak native beings. Even in the Wizard World, few wizards could reach such a terrifying level.
Looking across the entire universe, life forms with this level of intensity could be considered among the most advanced!
However, Leo didn't believe these Tiger Beastmen had the potential to evolve to the third-level limit.
The Tiger Beastmen are still in the early stages of evolution, experiencing a surge in intelligence; having a clear path for advancement is already a stroke of luck for them.
According to the laws of biological evolution, although they have the opportunity to advance to higher levels, they are always at the bottom of each level, the weakest among them.
This is why the Purple Flame Stigmata Wizard didn't keep them as slaves for his expeditions—they weren't strong.
The ultimate strength at level three can only be achieved by races with flawless genetic makeup and exceptionally well-rounded abilities in all aspects.
In other words, only a perfect race can reach the limit of life, and clearly the Tiger Beastmen is not a perfect race.
They are not only imperfect, but also the lowest form of life.
How could such a race suddenly evolve to the limit of level three?
Even if the entire race used up all its luck over tens of thousands of years in this era, and all its genes mutated towards perfection, it would still be impossible to support a level 3 life form to evolve to this extent.
Not to mention dozens!!!
Given their racial numbers, their probability of evolving to the peak of level three is even greater than that of wizards, which is completely impossible.
Aside from all other possible reasons, their level three limit strength is flawed and incomplete.
It must have been through some external force that forcibly increased their strength, pushing them to the limit of level three. The consequence of doing so is unbearable pain for every life, and it will inevitably lead to the most obvious flaws and weaknesses.