562: Chapter 562 Didn't you notice? The more you fight, the stronger this formation becomes.

The light screen of the Hehuan Sect's Grand Array flowed slowly under the moonlight.

Unlike the previous fake array, that light screen wasn't silvery-white and translucent; instead, it was a murky, heavy color, as if it had been stirred into a mixture of gold, red, purple, and black dyes, appearing too thick to dissolve.

From time to time, ripples surged across the surface of the light screen from all directions, converging at a certain point before slowly dissipating.

Those were the people of the Righteous Path Alliance attacking the Grand Array.

More than an hour had passed since they were trapped, and their attacks had never ceased.

Magical Artifacts smashed against the light screen, Techniques blasted it, spiritual talismans were plastered onto it, and some impatient Cultivators even slammed their bodies directly into the light screen.

With over a thousand people attacking simultaneously, the momentum was massive, causing the entire Grand Array to tremble slightly.

Every impact was like a heavy hammer striking a drum, producing a dull roar that echoed far into the night sky.

But the light screen remained motionless.

With every attack that landed, the light screen would only brighten for a moment before dimming, as if something had swallowed it.

It was swallowed completely, without even an echo.

Ancestor Xuan Yin stood in the center of the Martial Arts Arena, his white hair disheveled and his robes stained with dust and his own blood.

He had personally struck six times, putting ten-tenths of his power into every palm strike.

With the first strike, a massive ripple surged across the light screen; his arm went numb from the recoil, and a gash opened on his tiger's mouth, with beads of blood seeping out.

With the second strike, the ripple was smaller; his shoulder ached as if he had been lashed hard with a stick.

With the third strike, the light screen only brightened slightly; his entire arm went numb, and the skin on his palm began to turn black.

The fourth, fifth, and sixth strikes—each one more powerful and desperate than the last.

The Palm Energy exploded against the light screen, the roar so loud it made the eardrums of the low-level Cultivators behind him bleed, forcing them to cover their ears and crouch on the ground.

But not even a hair-thin crack appeared on the light screen.

He withdrew his palm and looked down; the skin on his palm was charred black, the flesh curled back to reveal the dark red raw meat beneath, and a scorched smell wafted from his hand.

He didn't understand why his attacks were being absorbed by the Grand Array, while his own spiritual energy decreased significantly with each strike.

He had already fallen from the Peak of Half-step True Immortal to the Middle Stage of Half-step True Immortal, losing nearly thirty percent of his spiritual energy.

The old man from the east walked back from the edge of the light screen, his complexion looking worse than a dead man's.

His gray Daoist robe had several holes burned into it, and the entire left sleeve was gone, exposing an arm as thin as a dry stick, covered in charred burn marks that looked like earthworms crawling on it.

His eyes were still gray, but now that gray layer held something more: unease, irritation, and a faint, irrepressible fear.

His breathing was heavy; with every gasp, his chest would heave for a long time.

"It's no good," his voice was as raspy as two pieces of sandpaper rubbing together. "My full-strength strike hit the light screen like it was hitting cotton; I couldn't exert any force at all."

"Even more bizarre, a portion of my spiritual energy was sucked away."

"It wasn't dissipated or consumed; it was cleanly extracted by something."

"It was as if a hand reached out from the light screen, grabbed a handful, and ran off."

He raised his palm, where several silver motes of light were swimming inside; they had burrowed in during his first attack.

He had tried to expel them with spiritual energy, drive them out with Divine Sense, and suppress them with various secret Techniques, but those motes of light remained motionless, as if they had grown into his flesh.

The old woman from the west slumped on the stone steps, her red and green robes crumpled into a heap like a mangled rag.

The gold and silver hairpins on her head were scattered, and her hair was as disheveled as a clump of withered grass, with several strands of white hair hanging by her face, covering half of her heavily powdered countenance.

She no longer spoke in a shrill voice, but merely leaned against the stone steps, gasping for breath. Her chest heaved violently like a bellows, and every breath produced a raspy noise from her throat, like someone playing a broken organ.

She had struck five times, each more forceful than the last, but each with worse results.

The last time, her Palm Energy hit the light screen, and it barely even brightened, as if it couldn't be bothered with her.

Her spiritual energy had dropped from the Middle Stage of Half-step True Immortal to the Early Stage of Half-step True Immortal; in just this short time, she had lost nearly forty percent of her Cultivation.

"This array is not right," she finally spoke, her voice weak as if drifting from very far away, so light it was almost inaudible. "I have lived for nearly ten thousand years, yet I have never seen such an array."

"It's not sustained by Spirit Stones, nor by spiritual energy, it's... it's something else."

She couldn't continue because she couldn't explain it; she didn't know what this array relied on to function.

Her Divine Sense probed the light screen, feeling like a hand reaching into a quagmire—the deeper it went, the heavier it felt, until finally, she could perceive nothing at all.

The light screen was like an insatiable mouth that had swallowed her Divine Sense as well, and once swallowed, it would not spit it back out.

Her Divine Sense had already lost more than ten percent; if she probed a few more times, she feared she would become a simpleton.

The middle-aged man from the south stood under a stone pillar on the east side of the Martial Arts Arena, his gray pupils flickering under the reflection of the light screen like two lamps about to go out.

He did not strike again.

He hadn't attacked from the beginning, merely standing there, watching.

Watching the reaction of the light screen, the flow of spiritual energy, the fluctuations of energy, and the breathing rhythm of the Array Pattern.

He had been watching for nearly an hour, his eyes aching from the strain, yet he still didn't understand.

Every line of the Array Pattern in this array was functioning at a rhythm completely foreign to him—not fast, not slow, but simply outside the realm of his comprehension.

"Everyone, stop," his voice was quiet, yet everyone heard him. "Don't attack anymore. Haven't you noticed? The more you attack, the stronger this array becomes."

The Martial Arts Arena fell silent for a moment.

In that instant, even the sound of the wind ceased, and everyone held their breath. Then, a commotion erupted.

"What?"

"Impossible!"

"Old Ancestor, could you have seen it wrong?"

"How could our attacks possibly make the Grand Array stronger? This defies common sense!"

Exclamations of shock, doubt, and rebuttal blended together like a pot of boiling porridge, bubbling over.

Someone refused to believe it and blasted another palm strike at the light screen. The light screen brightened, and the person let out a scream of agony, sent flying by the counter-force. They crashed heavily onto the ground, vomiting blood, unable to even crawl up.

The middle-aged man did not answer.

He lowered his head and looked at his own palm.

Inside his palm, several faint silver motes of light were swimming; they had burrowed in when he had tested the light screen earlier.