Chapter 0870: Ward's Interference

Li Jingtao's move had far exceeded Zhao Jingyu's expectations. Out of the four of them, he had placed the least attention on Li Jingtao all this while. In his eyes, even Li Luo, who had just returned from the outer divine continent, posed a much bigger threat than Li Jingtao.

After all, Li Jingtao's reputation as a mediocre descendent had been too deeply rooted in everyone's hearts.

"Who'd have thought you had the power to even block my Great Tiger Seal?"

Zhao Jingyu looked at him with a face of uncertainty. His eyes were filled with surprise. He had not held back at all in that attack. That hit was bound to send even the famous Banner Leader Deng Fengxian out of action for a while, yet it had been totally blocked by Li Jingtao.

"Who'd have expected the Dragon's Fang Lineage, famed for its offensive abilities, to produce an oddball that specializes in defense now?" he continued.

"There're many more things beyond your expectations! Just scram with your men. We've no time to play with you here." Li Fengyi sneered.

At this moment, a flash of ferocity appeared on Zhao Jingyu's face. "Ask Li Luo to cut off one of his arms and hand it over to me, then I'll leave immediately."

Li Fengyi's eyebrows stood up when she heard his words. Her pretty face turned cold as she shouted, "I'll cut off your dog head instead!"

Following this, she clenched her jade-like hand tightly, and energy swept up like a storm, turning into waves of energy that flew directly towards Zhao Jingyu's face.

"Hmph!"

Zhao Jingyu snorted. He then opened his mouth, and an energy beam shot out, shattering Li Fengyi's attack completely.

Without any change in his facial expression, he stared at the four of them as he said, "You guys have surprised me indeed. But did you think I came here unprepared?"

As soon as Li Luo heard his words, his gaze turned pensive and huge waves of resonant power surged within him. He was on full alert yet again.

Although Li Luo had called him an idiot all this while, he had not underestimated Zhao Jingyu at all. After all, this guy was the second strongest from this generation of the Bloodline of Heavenly Emperor Zhao. Since he had only brought over a similar force and still kept harping on wanting his severed arm, there must have been an ace hidden up his sleeve.

At this moment, Zhao Jingyu revealed a formation flag in his palm. There was light flowing around the flag that seemed to form a series of special runes.

In the next moment, an uncanny sense of pressure was emitted into the air.

Zhao Jingyu shook his palm, then the formation flag flew into the air and landed on the ground not far away.

Swoosh!

A beam of light shot upwards. At the same time, Li Luo and the rest also noticed multiple beams of light shooting high up into the air further away. It was as if their location had been encircled by these beams of light.

"It's a ward. Retreat!" Li Luo shouted with a deep voice as he flew backwards. Although he did not know the effect of this ward yet, it was surely not something beneficial towards them. This must have been why Zhao Jingyu and his group had arrived at the Crimson Fire Mountain Range earlier than them.

Li Fengyi and the others also retreated hastily without any more words.

However, Zhao Jingyu's ward had been set in place long beforehand. He was just placing the final and main flag now. The speed at which the ward was covering the area was much faster than the four had imagined.

Gradually, a faint light curtain flowed across the sky like a river. After a couple dozen breaths, everything within hundreds of meters was completely enshrouded by the light curtain.

At the same moment, the group finally felt the effect of the ward.

The power of Harmony was starting to dissipate at a really fast speed.

Their faces changed immediately.

"My connection with the Crimson Cloud Banner is weakening!" Li Fengyi shouted in surprise.

"This ward is distancing us from our banner members. It'll cause us to be unable to use Harmony," Deng Fengxian said solemnly.

The faces of the four of them were ugly. It was an extremely uneasy feeling to sense the energy leaving them, especially after they had gotten used to it.

"Don't worry. This distancing does not differentiate between friends and foes. Zhao Jingyu and his group will lose the state of Harmony as well," Li Luo reminded the others.

Li Fengyi and the other two looked over to Zhao Jingyu's side and, sure enough, the surging energy was also dissipating on their side.

Evidently, this was a special ward created to counter Harmony. Zhao Jingyu and the group could not avoid its effects either. At this moment, Li Fengyi and the other two secretly heaved sighs of relief. It was great that both sides were affected. At most, they would all be back on the same starting line. What they were truly afraid of was the loss of Harmony on their side whilst Zhao Jingyu was still able to use it. This would lead to a ridiculously huge difference in their power. There was no way they could fight him in that case.

Once Li Luo noticed that he was unable to escape from the ward's interference, he stopped in his tracks and focused his attention on tackling the uncomfortable feeling that tugged at him when the energy from Harmony was drained away. At the same moment, his eyes lit up a little.

At this rate of energy dissipation, his Harmony should be gone soon and he would be back to his individual strength. He would have to rely on his own strength for the remaining battles.

Fortunately, he had already reached the half-completion Glass Fiend Tier. It was a huge power-up for him, and he would not fall behind too much even against a strong Fiend Finisher opponent like Zhao Jingyu.

Li Luo looked into the distance ahead. That was where the members of the four banners were located. Now that the state of Harmony had been extinguished, they were also uneasy without its protection. They were all back to square one as individual Earth Fiend Tier.

It would be fine if this were under normal circumstances. However, they were currently stuck in the depths of the Dark Domain. Even though the air of corruption here was thin, it still left them feeling extremely uneasy.

The sub leaders from the four banners tried their best to suppress the commotion and keep the banner members under control.

In contrast to them, the four divisions from the Bloodline of Heavenly Emperor Zhao were much more composed and calm. Clearly, that had seen this coming.

At this moment, Zhao Jingyu let out a big laugh as he shouted, "What's up? Can't get used to things without Harmony now? I'm helping you so you won't get lost in relying on external strength."

Li Fengyi replied coldly, "You guys can't use Harmony either."

A strange and cold smile emerged on the corner of Zhao Jingyu's mouth as he responded, "Do you really think that I spent so much effort to set up this ward just to even the odds on both sides?"

When Li Luo and the others heard those words, their faces changed slightly. What did Zhao Jingyu mean?

The effect of this ward was to distance people. Zhao Jingyu and his people had also been affected by this. What other tricks did he have up his sleeve?

"My Harmony with the Tiger Division has indeed been affected. I am unable to maintain it."

Zhao Jingyu started to explain at a very slow pace when he saw the looks of suspicion coming from Li Luo and his group. Then he threw his palm into the air, and ten black lights flew out from his sleeves, falling behind him.

Li Luo and the others looked over and found that they were dozens of black puppets that looked like tigers. The puppets were eerily dark and had faint runes glowing on them, absorbing all the worldly natural energy in their surroundings.

"However, I can still increase my strength in other ways. And this method won't be affected by the ward's interference at all."

When Zhao Jingyu's laughter died down, rays of light shot out from the dozens of black tiger puppets. The lights beamed into Zhao Jingyu's body directly. In the next moment, Li Fengyi's face turned extremely ugly as she noticed Zhao Jingyu's resonant power rising at an amazing rate.

A short moment later, the pulses of energy radiating from Zhao Jingyu's body increased from the Fiend Finisher Tier to the Heavenly Pearl Tier. The hearts of Li Fengyi, Deng Fengxian, and Li Jingtao sank when they witnessed this scene. Although his incremental strength was far from what it was in the state of Harmony, it was sufficient to pose a great threat to them in the current situation.

𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

This must have been the ace that Zhao Jingyu had prepared.

While both sides weakened, only his own power was boosted.

Putting both together, the gap in their strength had widened significantly.