"Ah! Stay away! Don’t eat me!"

A student cowering in a corner suddenly clutched his head and screamed.

His eyes rolled back in his head as his nails clawed bloody streaks across his face. His spiritual defenses had clearly collapsed, plunging him into a deep illusion.

Then came a second, then a third...

Panic, like a contagious virus, spread through the crowd at extreme speed.

"We’re all going to die! We’re all going to die here!"

"This isn’t a trial! It’s a slaughter!"

Some began to spout nonsense, while others slashed their weapons at empty air.

Zhang Hao, drenched in sweat, roared in a hoarse voice:

"Quick! Light all the Calming Incense!

Everyone with Spiritual Type defensive items, form an outer circle!

Protect the injured and those with weak Spiritual Power in the center!"

Lei Qianjun could no longer afford to conserve Energy; the battered "Mad Ape" exoskeleton on his body vented steam once again.

He stood guard at the very front of the crowd like a Gate God, trying to use his Qi Blood Power to disperse the sinister, cold aura.

But it had little effect.

Physical defenses were useless against this kind of spiritual erosion.

At the control console, Zhou Qi’s fingers flew across the keyboard so fast they were practically smoking.

"It’s no good! We can’t hold on!"

Zhou Qi shot his head up, looking at a figure seated on the table.

"Han Feng! Those Spirit Bodies have gone crazy!

They’re frantically attacking the nodes! The Shield’s Energy consumption rate is five times what it was before!"

"At this rate, even with that pile of ore you brought back, we won’t last more than three hours!"

As soon as he said that, the already tense crowd completely erupted.

The sliver of hope that had just appeared with Han Feng’s return was instantly dashed.

Han Feng sat on the edge of the control console, his expression calm as he watched the chaotic mess of a crowd below.

With his Middle Level [Heart Clarity and Nature Seeing] and a Spiritual Strength that had long since surpassed two thousand points, this level of contamination was nothing more than a gentle breeze to him.

"What’s there to panic about?"

Han Feng’s voice wasn’t loud, but it drilled clearly into everyone’s ears.

"If we run out of Energy, worst-case scenario, I’ll just go out and restock."

He pointed to the still-glowing mountain of ore. "There’s plenty of Spirit Ore. Next door, we have G-12 Island, and if that’s not enough, there’s G-07 Island."

"As long as there’s still ore in this Secret Realm, this Shield won’t fall."

If anyone else had said that, they would have been torn to shreds.

But coming from Han Feng, the effect was immediate.

After all, everyone had seen with their own eyes how this badass had hauled back a mountain of Spirit Ore.

The commotion in the crowd died down a little.

Though Han Feng spoke casually, his gaze gradually grew cold.

He stood up and activated [Spiritual Vision].

The world before him instantly transformed into a line drawing of black and white.

And above, on the hazy gray dome, countless twisted Energy Bodies were clinging to the blue Shield.

They weren’t just ramming into it.

They were "feeding."

Han Feng’s eyes narrowed slightly.

He noticed that every time a Spirit Body tore off a piece of Energy from the Shield and devoured it, its body would expand.

Moreover, these sated Spirit Bodies became extremely agitated.

They began to tear at each other, the large devouring the small.

After several Tier One Spirit Bodies devoured one another, they actually fused in a matter of seconds, becoming an Aggregation Monster with an aura approaching Tier Two.

’This isn’t normal.’

Spirit Bodies from the gray period were vicious, but most were mindless things that acted on instinct.

They would never show such a clear trend of "evolution."

Han Feng focused his mind.

His Perception Domain instantly expanded to a hundred-meter radius, sweeping over the entire Shield structure like radar.

Soon, within the energy spectrum of the Shield’s flow, he detected a trace of a highly discordant impurity.

It was a dark red, flocculent energy mixed in with the pure Spiritual Qi released by the Spirit Crystals. As the Array operated, it was continuously transported to the Shield’s surface.

This was the very thing that was driving the Spirit Bodies outside into a complete frenzy.

Furthermore, this energy was vibrating at a strange frequency, as if it were emitting some kind of signal.

’Interesting.’

A cold smirk touched the corner of Han Feng’s lips.

He directly activated [All Things Identification].

A stream of light blue data flowed across his retina.

[Target]: Refined excrement of a High-dimensional Creature mixed with the gas from "Soul-Attracting Incense."

[Attribute]: Extreme Inducement to Feed.

[Description]: This is the metabolic byproduct of a certain High-dimensional Creature after feeding. To Spirit Body-type creatures, it is an irresistible delicacy that catalyzes them to devour and fuse with one another, accelerating their transformation into higher-dimensional life forms.

’Excrement?’

Han Feng raised an eyebrow.

’Someone’s spiked the Shield’s energy cycle.’

Han Feng didn’t alert anyone. His Divine Sense instantly spread out, tracing the dark red energy back to its source.

The energy flow traveled through the cables beneath the control console, but instead of heading toward the normal power core, it took a turn and entered a backup maintenance tunnel behind the main hall.

That tunnel was normally locked. Only the Engineers who’d been there at the stronghold’s inception knew about it.

"Wang Meng, watch this. Don’t let anyone touch the control console."

Leaving those words behind, Han Feng’s figure flickered and vanished on the spot.

When he reappeared, he was already kicking open the dust-covered maintenance door.

Before him was a passage leading underground.

He followed the tunnel for about fifty meters and came to an underground cavity only about ten square meters in size.

The air was thick with a nauseating, coppery-sweet smell.

In the center of the cavity stood a simple altar.

The altar was only half a meter high, constructed from several bones carved with twisted Runes.