Chapter 420: A Terrifying Existence

That angry shout erupted from the sky, like a stone thrown into calm water, sending waves of wind spreading in all directions.
The robot was blown away by the strong wind, and Ye Feng had to grab a nearby skeleton to keep his balance.
When the wind subsided, Ye Feng’s back was drenched in sweat. He had now witnessed a true powerhouse—just one angry shout could create a storm strong enough to blow him away. What kind of power was this!
He glanced at the robot blown away by the wind, hesitating for a moment, but then clenched his fists and disappeared from the skeleton’s sight.
When he reappeared, he was already beside the robot that had been flung high into the air. He no longer cared about finding out where the voice had come from. He grabbed the robot, ready to put it in his storage ring, when he heard footsteps approaching.
The sound resembled wooden geta hitting marble floors, distracting Ye Feng slightly.
“Is that soulless guy someone you sent?” asked a man of similar build to Ye Feng, standing about ten zhang away.
Ye Feng knew this man was likely one of the three Dark Kings, and clearly, his soul was intact.
“Yes,” Ye Feng replied. He knew lying now was pointless—the other party had already seen everything.
“Hah, you admit it so easily? I thought you’d deny it stubbornly. Now that you’ve confessed, things get a bit boring…” The man laughed after hearing Ye Feng’s answer. “I had planned many different ways to torture you into admitting it…”
Ye Feng was relieved he hadn’t lied earlier.
“Well, though my favorite part is skipped, it won’t delay the rest of the process,” the man said with a smirk. “Since you admit it was you, as a reward, you can choose your method of death.”
“What?” Ye Feng was momentarily stunned, but quickly realized the other party was just teasing him.
“Normally, at this stage, I decide the method of death based on my mood. But today, I’ll let you choose it yourself—consider it a special favor!” The man stepped forward. “You have time to think before I get to you.”

At this moment, Ye Feng’s first reaction was to run away, but he suddenly realized that the energy within his body had stopped flowing, and his mental power seemed to be restrained by something, preventing him from even performing basic self-examination.
“What have you done to me?” Ye Feng asked in horror. He had thought he could return to the Refinement Realm or the Flowing Palace, but now his mental power was completely unusable, and he had lost all connection to them.
“Nothing much. Though I knew you couldn’t escape, I didn’t want to watch my prey dart around. So I restricted the flow of your vital energy throughout your body. Since some special teleportation techniques rely on mental power, I wasn’t sure if you knew how to use them, but just to be safe, I restricted them all as well.” The man spoke as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world, taking another step forward.
Ye Feng immediately sensed something unusual—the other man was using pressure to intimidate him.
But ever since Ye Feng had encountered his godfather and elder brother who appeared out of nowhere, his resistance to such pressure had become extremely strong. So when the other man took the first step, he wasn’t greatly affected. His focus was on his suddenly halted vital energy and mental power, and he didn’t notice the anomaly.
However, when the other man took a second step, the pressure doubled, causing Ye Feng to feel slightly uncomfortable.
Seeing Ye Feng’s reaction completely different from what he had expected, the man frowned slightly. “Is this kid just holding on, or is he really unaffected by my pressure?”
Seeing no sign of discomfort on Ye Feng’s face, a hint of confusion appeared on the man’s face as he took another step forward. “Have you made up your mind? How do you want to die?”
By now, Ye Feng finally felt the pressure from the other man’s aura, which had doubled again. He sensed his body starting to stiffen, as if trapped in mud. Ignoring the other man’s question, he silently thought of a strategy.
“Huh, this kid is quite strange!” The man took another step forward, his aura surging once more. Even the skeletons watching from afar dared not move. Ye Feng’s muscles were completely stiff; apart from his eyelids, he couldn’t move at all, as if frozen in a wax statue—without any sense of cold.
In response to this comment, Ye Feng could only blink. That was all he could do at the moment.

But he soon realized that most of the skeleton racks within his line of sight were staring at the man in front of him with terror on their faces. It was only then that Ye Feng noticed the appearance of the man before him. His face wasn’t particularly handsome; in fact, it was quite ordinary, with little distinctive features, making it extremely difficult to recognize him in a crowd. He was about the same height as Ye Feng, though slightly thinner. He was dressed in tattered clothes that were dirty and covered in cuts from sharp objects, resembling the attire worn by zombies in zombie movies. Thinking of zombies, Ye Feng then noticed that the man’s body was actually intact, just thin—nothing more. Seeing that Ye Feng had started to examine him, the man showed a strange expression on his face. He said nothing but stepped forward again, his imposing aura doubling once more. Ye Feng felt a heavy weight on his back, as if carrying tons of burden, so heavy that it left him feeling weak. Seeing Ye Feng’s reaction, the man finally smiled. “I don’t know how you do it, but it seems the game has just begun. Usually, by the time I take my second step, the opponent reacts like you do now. But you only reacted after the fifth step…” “Let’s see how long you can hold on!” The man crossed his arms and comfortably closed his eyes, paying no attention to Ye Feng, whose muscles were trembling, nor to the other warriors nearby who were also affected. Ye Feng felt as if he was carrying some heavy load, needing to use all his strength to barely hold on. Several times, he even felt on the verge of collapsing, but he quickly pushed past his body’s limits and held on. An hour passed, and the usually noisy center of the battlefield was now completely silent. Hearing Ye Feng’s breathing gradually calm down, the man slowly opened his eyes. “It seems this isn’t your limit yet. Not bad. I’m even a bit reluctant to kill you now!” Although he said this, the man still smiled and stepped forward. Though it seemed like just a small step, it made Ye Feng’s legs tremble. The heavy pressure was almost suffocating; Ye Feng even felt as if the air around him had been compressed into a solid by that overwhelming aura.

He was well aware that the pressure on his body had exceeded what he could normally bear. He could even feel his leg bones on the verge of breaking.
“Hold on! I must not fall in front of this guy!” Ye Feng told himself, sweat streaming down his body and dripping onto the ground. A streak of blood appeared at the corner of his mouth from biting his teeth too hard.
“Hold on…” Ye Feng repeated to himself over and over.
Under such pressure, his consciousness began to blur.
A voice in his mind said, “Give up. If you give up, you won’t have to suffer like this…”
“No, I absolutely cannot give up!”
At that moment, a barely perceptible sensation arose, and Ye Feng felt as if something was growing within his body.
His previously blurred consciousness cleared again, but the pain in his body didn’t lessen at all; in fact, it intensified as his awareness sharpened.
“Not bad. It’s already been the time it takes to drink a cup of tea,” Ye Feng heard a voice coming from not far away. Yet at that moment, the voice seemed somewhat distant.
“If you can hold on for an hour, then congratulations—I’ll take another step forward and double your suffering,” the voice said, sounding somewhat proud.
Although his consciousness was blurred, Ye Feng could tell, just by hearing the other person’s voice, what kind of expression that guy must be wearing. Unfortunately, he couldn’t confirm it, as he barely had the strength to blink, let alone lift his head.
“It seems my body is undergoing a transformation…” Though he couldn’t introspect at the moment, Ye Feng could feel the subtle energy gathering slowly and then being released, spreading throughout his body in no time. He immediately felt a sense of relief, as if he had taken a hot spring bath, with every cell in his body becoming renewed.
After that sensation, he noticed that the pressure on his body seemed to have lessened slightly, and it wasn’t as unbearable as before.
Soon, another hour passed.
“I didn’t expect you to be able to hold on,” the man said with an even wider smile. “But it seems you’ve reached your limit…”
Ye Feng thought to himself, “Oh no. I barely made it through this challenge; it’s far beyond what I can bear. The next challenge will probably break me.”

“After these tests, I suddenly changed my mind.” The man stopped moving forward and even retracted his imposing aura. “Kid, I realize you truly have potential. How about you become my disciple?”
Ye Feng felt a wave of relief, but also exhaustion. He was stunned by the other man’s proposal.
“Hmph.” Suddenly, a cold snort came from the sky. The man standing not far in front of him was sent flying backward as if struck by something heavy.
“Who is this person? How terrifying!!!” Ye Feng looked up at the sky…