335: Chapter 335 The Captain is Missing!

It wasn't just the two of them; Yan Qinghuan and Helan Que, who had caught up, along with the fifty or sixty prodigies from various schools behind them, all came to a halt, surrounding this "large white ball of light" like they were watching monkeys in a zoo.

"What... is going on?" A member of Kuangsha Academy scratched the back of his head. "Why hasn't he turned into light and flown away yet?"

Inside the light barrier, Gu Changfeng tentatively extended a finger and poked at the white screen in front of him.

The barrier was incredibly tough and bounced his finger right back.

He tried shifting his butt, and to his surprise, the light barrier acted like a hamster ball, rolling half a turn along the ground with his movement.

"..."

Gu Changfeng sat cross-legged inside the barrier, looked at Captain Shen Xiuan outside, and shrugged, indicating that he was just as helpless as they were.

The devilishly charming and arrogant smile on Captain Shen Xiuan's face slowly froze and collapsed.

His eye twitched violently. He stepped forward, curled his finger, and knocked three times on Gu Changfeng's light barrier, "tap, tap, tap," just like knocking on a watermelon.

The crisp echoes reverberated through the canyon.

Captain Shen Xiuan swallowed hard, turned his head to look at Yan Qinghuan beside him, his tone filled with a sense of incredible absurdity:

"Blind Yan... tell me."

"After the official jade token shatters... does the teleportation loading bar usually take this long? Is it lagging due to network latency?"

Hearing this somewhat absurd guess from Captain Shen Xiuan, Yan Qinghuan, who was standing on his formation disk, his expression darkened, and he refuted it mercilessly on the spot:

"Impossible! This is absolutely not some network latency."

Although Yan Qinghuan was blind, his spiritual perception far exceeded that of ordinary people.

He maneuvered the formation disk to float forward half a meter, his brow furrowed even tighter than Captain Shen Xiuan's:

"Over half an hour ago, when that chubby kid from Magic City Martial Arts University, Hao Yun, crushed his jade token, we were all there."

"Back then, from the moment the light barrier rose to the arrival of the teleportation white light, there wasn't even a half-second interval. This jade token is a spatial artifact refined by a Tier 5 Grandmaster; how could such a low-level error as latency occur?"

As soon as he said this, the fifty or sixty prodigies from various schools who had followed in pursuit began to whisper among themselves.

"Captain Yan is right. In previous grand competitions, I've never seen a case where the light generates a shield but doesn't teleport."

"Could it be that this kid's jade token got damp in his pocket and short-circuited?"

"Why don't we all attack together and just smash this turtle shell to pieces!"

Several hot-tempered members of Kuangsha Academy stepped forward, brandishing their heavy hammers and battle axes, and unleashed a flurry of attacks directly onto the light barrier where Gu Changfeng was located.

"Bang! Clang! Boom!"

A series of deafening metallic clashing sounds reverberated through the canyon, sparks flying everywhere.

However, after a dozen Fourth-Order experts took turns attacking until they were panting for breath, that seemingly thin white light barrier didn't even ripple. Instead, it sent a shockwave back that tore the webs between the thumbs and forefingers of several unlucky ones, almost making them drop their weapons.

"What the hell!" One member rubbed his aching wrist, his face full of disbelief. "We've been attacking here for ages and it's useless. This damn barrier just won't teleport him away!"

Gu Changfeng, inside the light barrier, had originally prepared himself for a heroic death.

But when the blades struck, the shield lit up, but he didn't leave.

Now, looking at that group of flushed, furious prodigies outside, venting their impotent rage against the shield, a strange sense of absurdity rose in his heart.

Gu Changfeng sat cross-legged on the ground, simply tossed his dulled longsword to the side, propped his chin in his hands, and scrutinized the group through the transparent barrier as if watching a monkey show.

"This guy from Magic City Martial Arts University is still mocking us from inside!"

Someone saw Gu Changfeng's gaze and stomped their feet in anger.

And just as the attention of these dozens of people was completely drawn to this unbreakable "large white ball of light."

No one noticed.

On the muddy canyon floor beneath their feet, covered in dead branches and fallen leaves, a silent, imperceptible change was occurring.

Wisps of ink-black mist, so dense it couldn't be dispersed, were slowly seeping out from the cracks in the rocks on the ground.

This black mist seemed to possess a life of its own, devoid of any spiritual energy fluctuations and emitting not a shred of killing intent.

It was like a pool of mercury spilled on the ground, clinging to the soles of everyone's shoes and spreading quietly under the cover of shadows.

Soon, a small area at the very back of the group had been silently surrounded by this ink-black substance.

"Ah—!"

Suddenly!

A sharp, feminine cry of surprise exploded from the back of the crowd without any warning!

The sound came too suddenly; in this canyon where the atmosphere was already somewhat eerie, it was like a thunderclap striking everyone's nerves.

"What's going on?!"

"Enemy attack! Who's screaming?!"

The dozens of elite prodigies reacted instantly; their instincts as martial artists caused them to draw their weapons within a second, their Qi and blood exploding as they all turned in unison to look toward the direction the sound came from.

However, when they focused their eyes, they discovered that the area at the back of the group was completely empty.

There were no ambushes from Magic City Martial Arts University, no hideous demonic beasts, not even an extra tree branch had fallen.

Only one girl, wearing a deep blue water-patterned team uniform, was left sitting slumped on the muddy ground covered in fallen leaves.

This girl was a member of South Sea Martial Arts Academy, named Xiao Ru.

At this moment, her face was as pale as paper, her eyes wide with terror. One hand was tightly covering her mouth, while the other pointed at a patch of empty grass beside her, her whole body trembling like a sieve.

"Xiao Ru! What happened?"

The crowd parted, and the captain of the First Team of Nanhai Academy, Chu Tiankuo, walked over with large strides.

He carried a heavy sword without an edge, his brows furrowed tightly, his gaze exuding a sense of authority.

"Chu... Captain Chu..."

Xiao Ru swallowed hard, her voice trembling so much she could barely piece together a complete sentence: "She... she disappeared..."

"Who disappeared? Speak clearly. Who from our team disappeared?" Chu Tiankuo asked with a dark expression, stepping forward to pull her up from the ground.

Xiao Ru clutched Chu Tiankuo's sleeve tightly, tears welling up in her eyes, and pointed to the spot behind her just a moment ago, explaining hurriedly:

"It's Captain Ji Xiaoyun! Just now, Captain Ji Xiaoyun was following right behind me, we were less than half a meter apart! That scream just now came from her!"

"I heard the sound, and when I turned around... she had just vanished! She left nothing behind, just disappeared into thin air!"

"What?!"

Chu Tiankuo's heart sank abruptly, and his usually calm and aloof handsome face instantly changed color.

He knew the "Captain Ji Xiaoyun" the other girl referred to all too well.

That was the captain of their Nanhai Academy's Second Team, Captain Ji Xiaoyun!

Although this girl had a somewhat flighty personality, in the Nanhai Academy expedition team, her strength was second only to him, Chu Tiankuo!

She was a genuine mid-Fourth-Order expert, and her mastery of her Star Supernatural Ability was incredible.

A mid-Fourth-Order expert, in broad daylight, right under the noses of over fifty of the Great Xia's top prodigies, without even having time to send out a distress signal, had just vanished into thin air without a sound?

How terrifying must that level of strength be?

To be able to achieve this, the opponent must either have strength that crushes everyone present, or possess some kind of special Supernatural Ability that is impossible to guard against and bizarre to the extreme!

Cold sweat slid down Chu Tiankuo's temples.

"Captain Chu, did your team member not sleep well last night, and get something wrong?"

Helan Que walked over from the side.

He scanned the surroundings and sneered:

"We have fifty or sixty people standing here, including several Peak Fourth-Order experts. I can hear a mosquito flying within a hundred meters; how could a living person disappear right under the noses of so many of us?"

Captain Shen Xiuan also adjusted his black-rimmed glasses and chimed in: "Exactly. Maybe that girl had an urgent call of nature and went off to relieve herself somewhere. This little girl is just jumpy and making a fuss over nothing."