As an outstanding meat shield, Wang Zhen didn’t believe there were many attacks that could make him shudder. Moreover, this was a competition for Foundation Establishment cultivators. Wang Zhen hadn’t treated it seriously to begin with, and even in his dreams, he would never have thought that a Foundation Establishment high school student could explode with such terrifying power – this wasn’t something a Foundation Establishment cultivator was capable of.

　　Wang Zhen saw a puppet charge jerkily at him at full speed. It was made of fine steel and was pretty big at two meters tall. It had a thick and broad build, like a roly-poly toy. It charged forward with the clunky sound of gear wheels turning, while the steel wings on its back cut through the air with the sound of a cat running its claws down a blackboard.

　　 Every puppet master had their own exclusive puppet. Gao Tianming’s puppet was called “Ripper.” When it attacked, it cut through the air with the sort of smile you would see on a doll in a horror flick, and it lunged at Wang Zhen with its steel teeth bared to swallow him up.

　　 Wang Zhen wasn’t intimidated by this sort of attack. As one of the most outstanding tank fighters in the Domain of the Gods, he chose to meet it head-on! He wanted to uncover the secret of this puppet, which had been enhanced by some mysterious power.

　　 However, when Wang Zhen’s fist collided with Ripper’s teeth, a black shadow suddenly emerged, and Wang Zhen felt a powerful suction!

　　 In the next second, darkness descended!

　　 When he came back to his senses, the scene in front of him was no longer of Nine Dragon Mountain, but of a land of shadows and wilderness. Not a sound could be heard, and there was only a repulsive feeling which lingered on his body; it was an aura which reeked of blood and clogged up his five senses, and he felt like his body was bound and sinking in blood.

　　 Was he in Ripper’s stomach?

　　 No…

　　Wang Zhen didn’t think it was as simple as that. He was sure he was in an alien world which was similar to a small world. It was utterly impossible for a Foundation Establishment cultivator to possess this sort of power.

　　 Furthermore, this world was far too dark.

　　 Most of the small worlds which cultivators built were based on the laws of Heavenly Dao. Before his powers were restricted, Wang Zhen also possessed a small world of his own. A small world could contain mountains and rivers, forests and deserts, and even living creatures. To use the closest comparison, Wang Zhen felt that a true small world was something like those house-building games. After you were done setting up the laws of the world, you could decorate your house, plant some flowers, or raise a pet.

　　 But the alien world in front his eyes was unimaginably dark.

　　 Wang Zhen abruptly recalled something that Wang Ling had mentioned before.

　　 Shadow image space?

　　 Could this be the shadow image space created due to Ling Zhenren’s sister’s influence?

　　 He knew that Wang Ling had put in a massive amount of effort to dispose of those frozen dumplings which had scattered in their distribution outside. Wang Zhen thought that the matter had been resolved, and didn’t expect to run into the problem here.

　　 Wang Zhen was now certain that he had been sucked into the shadow image space. To break out of it, he had to find and defeat the heart demon so that the space would collapse from the inside.

　　 Just as he was about to act, Wang Zhen suddenly felt a stab of pain, and his entire body turned into wood as he became a wooden figure!

　　 Right after that, long, fine gossamer strings dropped from the sky and attached themselves to his body! Wang Zhen discovered that he could no longer control his own body as he completely turned into a marionette! Driven by this mysterious power, Wang Zhen started moving toward a palace step by step.

　　It was the only palace in this shadow image world.

　　 Wang Zhen was astonished to find that there were other people here who had turned into puppets like him. Many of them were students participating in the competition this time, and they were all hanging from strings and moving according to the will of this world. Some force pulled Wang Zhen toward a resource area.

　　 Completely out of his control, he picked up some bricks from a pile on the ground and started to move toward a wall that had yet to be constructed.

　　 A puppet in front of Wang Zhen fell, and the bricks it was holding were smashed on the ground.

　　 “Don’t disobey my will!”

　　 Gao Tianming’s faint voice resounded in the space.

　　 An invisible whip lashed out at the puppet that had slipped, and bits of wood which reeked strongly of blood broke off of the puppet’s body.

　　 Realization dawned on Wang Zhen at that moment.

　　 This palace was a sweatshop for those who had been forcibly turned into puppets.

　　“Is this the power of Shadow Dao?” Wang Zhen was shocked.

　　 Shadow image, shadow image world, and the power unique to each shadow image world…

　　Wang Zhen knew he was probably trapped.

　　 He now had to think of a way to let everyone know of the place he was trapped in.

　　 …

　　Following the plan that he had initially discussed with Wang Zhen, Nan Yixiu was about to cut the strings of those “kite puppets” to stop Gao Tianming fishing for resources.

　　 But Nan Yixiu’s expression suddenly hardened. “Something’s wrong! Classmate Wang Zhen’s aura suddenly disappeared!”

　　 All of Nan Yixiu’s hair stood on end.

　　 There were three possible reasons that a person’s aura would suddenly disappear from the map.

　　 One: Wang Zhen was deliberately hiding his aura.

　　 This was unlikely to be the case. Based on the plan they had settled on, Wang Zhen was going out as a meat shield to taunt the other side – he wanted them to sense his aura.

　　 Two: He had fallen into a mysterious space…

　　It might be spatial magic, or a place that was like a small world.

　　 But the question was… how could an Almighty capable of opening a small world possibly show up at a Foundation Establishment competition?

　　 The third one and final possibility was the one Nan Yixiu didn’t want to believe in the most: Death…

　　…

　　On the other side in No. 60 High’s camp, Liu Qingyi felt a little uneasy after she sensed that Wang Zhen’s aura seemed to have vanished from the map of Nine Dragon Mountain. However, she couldn’t rule out the possibility that Wang Zhen was hiding his aura for the mission.

　　 Was it possible that this idiot could even make a mistake in a Foundation Establishment competition?

　　 Liu Qingyi was a little worried.

　　 She didn’t like Wang Zhen and had even wished countless times for the damn guy to just die! But both of them had part of their powers sealed away as punishment by Heavenly Dao, and trapped on earth, they had been living under someone else’s roof together.

　　 She realized that Wang Zhen wasn’t actually as annoying as she had thought.

　　 1…

　　At the same time, Wang Ling’s expression gradually hardened.

　　 If he wasn’t mistaken –

　　 That had indeed been the aura of Shadow Dao just now.

　　 He had already completely destroyed all those frozen dumplings, but there were actually leftovers?

　　 Wang Ling frowned slightly.

　　 He had reason to believe that Wang Zhen’s aura disappearing had to do with the aura of Shadow Dao.

　　“Let’s go take a look…”

　　 Wang Ling sighed inwardly.

　　 He had always been the sort of person who hated inconveniences.

　　 When all was said and done, however, it was his little sister who had caused this disaster.

　　It was a brother’s duty to clean up his little sister’s mess.