Chapter 317
“Can you see what his mouth is saying?” Chen Baiwen countered.
Indeed, as they had traveled, the time shadows were always very vague, merely rough outlines, and many areas couldn’t be displayed clearly.
“This place outside the domain wilds is inherently strange and easily interferes with the shadows. To be able to display a general outline is already quite good,” Chen Baiwen said.
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“So, are we going down now? They split up; could it be a trick?” Yu Hongbo stood at the edge of the ravine, looking down into the abyss with a slight frown.
The fog below was too thick, and it was unclear what kinds of desolate beasts were lurking underneath.
“No, earlier in the canyon, they had also separated; only Xiang Beifei entered the canyon to deal with the desolate beast by himself. Have you forgotten?” Hou Chengwu said.
Zhu Xinjue seemed impatient: “Exactly! He is down there. Since the time shadow indicates he hasn’t come up, then we must follow him down. He might be dealing with some desolate beast. Taking advantage of his distraction is the perfect opportunity for us. The sooner we deal with him, the sooner we can get to our own tasks.”
What he said was reasonable, and the others too wanted to quickly take out Xiang Beifei, then go on to hunt desolate beasts. This matter couldn’t be delayed.
Without any further doubt, Yu Hongbo and the rest began descending the cliff. Among these ten individuals, naturally, there were System Awakeners with flight-related abilities, but they refrained from using them. Although they were all freshmen, they had gone through a period of training and understood very well that unless absolutely necessary, they should not use their ability to fly.
Because flying in mid-air would make them very conspicuous targets for desolate beasts.
“Everyone, be careful and don’t reveal yourselves; we need to ambush that guy,” Zhu Xinjue said in a low voice.
The others understood, their target was Xiang Beifei. If they revealed themselves, it would be easy for Xiang Beifei to escape.
“Follow me, and don’t stray too far.”
Brilliant rays of light shone in He Qiutong’s eyes, and when these lights emerged, they became faint lines that merged into the surrounding colors, subsequently spreading to everyone present.
If you looked closely, you would find that everyone seemed to be twisted by these rays of light, becoming transparent.
[Host: He Qiutong]
[SSR grade, Colorful System]
[Realm: Meridian Opening initial stage]
He Qiutong’s awakened system was very special; usually, just seeing a color would increase her system points.
Almost every color in this world had been defined, meaning wherever she went, she was sure to see colors.
That meant she was growing stronger all the time.
[You see a grass with fifteen colors on it, color points +15, your oppression power +15]
[You see a colorful hawk with nine hundred ninety-six colors, color points +996, your oppression power +996]
[You see Chen Baiwen, he has one hundred and thirty-seven colors, color points +137, your oppression power +137]
A person’s body would display various colors including red spots, black spots, and white spots on the skin, yellows, pale blues, light grays, dark grays… and various colors of clothes, and so on.
He Qiutong’s system classified colors extremely meticulously; even one shade of red would have rose red, true red, coral red, magenta… Different shades that the naked eye couldn’t distinguish would be considered different by the system if the hue was even slightly off.
He Qiutong’s system color library had 16,777,216 kinds of colors!
The more colors a person had, the more they would be oppressed when facing He Qiutong!
Especially in different environments, sometimes they would be illuminated by various lights into a kaleidoscope, and the generated oppression power would be even stronger!
If the opponent wore gaudy clothes, they would inadvertently be severely weakened in their combat against He Qiutong. After their defeat, they might not even understand why they were oppressed by He Qiutong; it’s difficult for an ordinary person to associate their loss with the colors on their body.
The SSR systems are just that straightforward and brutal!
—-
“Your ability is very special,” Yu Hongbo commented thoughtfully as he looked at He Qiutong.
He had seen He Qiutong in action and knew how formidable she was, but he could never pin down what exactly allowed her to defeat other schools’ SSRs. During battle, He Qiutong always seemed stronger than the others.
“Your ability isn’t bad either, I can just turn invisible, don’t overthink it,” He Qiutong replied indifferently.
Yu Hongbo simply smiled noncommittally and didn’t say much else, but he pondered the matter.
He Qiutong’s battles were always straightforward; she nearly always dominated her opponents, yet the specifics of her ability remained elusive to others.
Of course, He Qiutong’s system could also change the color of light around her, allowing those colors to manifest in the way she wanted. Which meant, as long as she could see something, she could change its color.
This ability could help everyone camouflage, enabling someone to turn completely invisible.
When she fought others, she could also make her attacks invisible, making it impossible for her opponents to see the trajectory of her attacks. They might not even know where she was.
——
With He Qiutong around, everyone became invisible as they moved along the cliff, going unnoticed even by the desolate beasts.
The abyss’s cliff was steep and rugged with sharp rocks and thorny bushes in some places, making it difficult to traverse. However, they were, after all, the elite among students, and this kind of terrain was like flat ground to them.
The further they descended, the thicker the fog became. Most mysteriously, as they climbed down, it seemed as though they hadn’t encountered any desolate beasts; not even a single living creature was seen.
Due to the lighting conditions, visibility got worse, but with He Qiutong who could control colors, it didn’t matter if there was light around or not. To her, black was also a color, and she had it under control.
“He is still going down.”
Chen Baiwen’s Time Trace had been showing Xiang Beifei’s movements all this time, and Xiang Beifei had been descending along the cliff without a break, moving at a very fast pace.
However, after about twenty minutes of their descent, they suddenly realized they had reached the bottom of the abyss!
At the bottom of the abyss, there were just some scattered rocks covered with black weeds, and ahead was a path, its destination obscured by the thick fog. The landscape where they stood resembled more of a canyon.
And once Xiang Beifei reached the bottom, he suddenly disappeared.
“What happened? Where is he?” Zhu Xinjue asked urgently.
Chen Baiwen also felt it was strange; his Time Trace had been tracking Xiang Beifei’s team consistently but for some reason, the trace vanished when it reached this location.
“Could he have sensed that we were tracking him?” Yu Hongbo suggested.
“Impossible,” Zhu Xinjue shook his head, “he has no idea about our plan, and we have been following him the whole time without showing ourselves.”
It was Zhu Xinjue who had devised this plan. In his view, protected by his UR-level system, Xiang Beifei definitely couldn’t recognize him. Neither Hou Chengwu nor Chen Baiwen would be foolish enough to leak their strategy.
From the beginning till now, Time Trace had recorded every move of Xiang Beifei’s team, and the five of them didn’t seem to be aware that someone was following them.
“Then what exactly is going on? Why did Xiang Beifei’s shadow just disappear here?”
Hou Chengwu’s expression was dark as well. He hated Xiang Beifei deeply and wished nothing more than his demise. They had thought that by following Xiang Beifei down to the abyss, joining forces with two universities, they would be enough to ambush and kill Xiang Beifei, but now he had suddenly vanished.
“I’ve said before, the wilderness beyond the Marquis Domain is very strange, with all sorts of bizarre forces at play. If you had paid attention in Desolate Beast class, you would know that many desolate beasts’ abilities are not any less formidable than ours,” Chen Baiwen said, with a realistic assessment of his own ability.
“But this is the Marquis Domain, and you are an SSR! Desolate beasts shouldn’t be able to suppress you!” Zhu Xinjue insisted.
At that moment, someone beside them pointed to the front of the abyss and uttered in a low voice, “He’s there!”
Everyone turned to see a very distinct shadow squatting on the cliff as if inspecting something on the ground—it was unmistakably Xiang Beifei!
Xiang Beifei reappeared out of nowhere about ten meters out at the abyss’s bottom, then quickly got up and started walking forward. After just a few steps, he disappeared again.