Chapter 185: Misuǒ

【Wing Glide】 temporary skill activated, instantly slowing the fall.

Li Cheng donned a powered exoskeleton midair, activated the rocket pack, and stabilized his form about twenty meters above ground.

Shh—

A metal arrow sliced through the sky, streaking toward his back; Li Cheng twisted his body, swung his rusted cleaver in a diagonal upward slash, deflecting the arrowhead, then thrust his left hand forward and seized the shaft.

The arrow, driven by invisible force, thrashed violently like a runaway horse.

Li Cheng's left hand, aided by the exoskeleton's mechanical arm, gripped the shaft firmly, while his right hand swung the blade with full force.

Clang!

The sharp arrowhead was cleanly sheared off; the invisible force vanished.

Li Cheng landed slowly amid tall grass, turned his head—and saw the rocket pack on his exoskeleton had been hit during the attack; its casing was cracked, exposing flickering electrical circuits inside, and fuel had leaked across the ground.

Flying was out of the question; other functions still worked, though barely.

"Your arrow."

Li Cheng handed the broken arrow to Zhao Zijing, who quickly took it and picked up the detached arrowhead, stowing both into her backpack inventory.

At their feet lay the mission battery; they were deep within the grassland, surrounded by green stalks four to five meters tall, the damp soil covered in a layer of humus, with small insects crawling among them.

Based on his knowledge of entomology, these insects did not belong to any Earth species.

"Everyone alright?"

Li Cheng called out loudly; during the collective crash, Zhao Zijing had used telekinesis to support those unable to fly—no one should have died from the fall.

Midnight Howl, not far from where they landed, replied: "Fine."

From six o'clock beyond sight came Mendoza's cough: "I'm okay."

The dense green leaves of the elephant grass around them acted like sound insulation; everyone's voices sounded muffled.

"Walking Grass, use 【Grass Pledge】!"

From the six o'clock direction came Chi Hong Che Shou's voice, followed by a weak Pidgey cry and the sound of a Poké Ball retracting a Pokémon.

【Grass Pledge】 is a Grass-type move of Pokémon, restoring a portion of HP to Pokémon on the ground.

It sounded like Chi Hong Che Shou had urgently healed Pidgey, then hastily recalled it into the Poké Ball to prevent further injury.

"Phew." Chi Hong Che Shou exhaled, suppressing his anger: "Zhao Zijing! Explain yourself!"

Unlike trainers who treated Pokémon as tools, Chi Hong Che Shou, raised on cartoons and every generation of games, truly regarded Pokémon as companions and friends.

"Sorry your Pokémon was hurt—I guarantee compensation through the GOC after this is over."

As an elite of the Teshiju Sect assigned to the Global Supernatural Alliance, Zhao Zijing excelled in social finesse; she immediately admitted fault to calm her teammate's agitation.

Turning her head, she lowered her voice to Li Cheng, right beside her: "That wasn't me—it was another psionic, same power system as mine but far stronger, suppressing my will and seizing control of the arrow mid-flight."

Another psionic?

Li Cheng raised an eyebrow; the arena was vast, and the odds of randomly encountering another unknown player were lower than winning the lottery.

"Everyone stay put. I'll come to you."

His mind raced, but his expression remained calm as he called out, then pulled a drone from his backpack inventory.

This drone was a standard-issue Prometheus Corp model—not as advanced as Zhao Zijing's custom high-end version, but it still had basic night vision and infrared sensing.

The drone lifted off—and vanished the instant it cleared the tops of the tall grass.

"Huh?"

Zhao Zijing, nearby, witnessed this firsthand.

She immediately launched her remaining drones—but all vanished the moment they rose above the grass tops, and could not be recovered.

Those drones hovering just at the grass tops displayed a strange trait—their upper halves were phasing out, while their lower halves remained solid.

If you ascended further, you vanished entirely.

If you descended, you returned safely to the ground, and the phasing upper halves restored to normal.

Midnight Howl approached, saw this, and exclaimed in shock: "A spatial barrier?!"

"More than just a spatial barrier."

Li Cheng shook his head; he tried activating 【Familiar Swap】 to teleport himself to the origami crane he'd left on the highway—but nothing happened.

His spiritual energy didn't drop.

Worse still, even the system-issued 【Emergency Escape Card】—capable of returning him to reality under any circumstance—could not be used.

"Misuǒ,"

Zhao Zijing drew a deep breath, utterly stunned: "Only a legendary-grade Misuǒ could achieve this."

Misuǒ, in the narrow sense, is a concept from the D&D universe: powerful wards built from magical energy to guard cities or sacred sites.

In the broader sense of the Arena, Misuǒ refers to any massive ward, array, or prohibition.

Such creations require extraordinarily precise and complex magical (or spiritual, arcane, or sorcerous) craftsmanship.

Even the most rudimentary Misuǒ demands at least several Lv25 casters working in unison to weave.

"Blocks long-range communication, prohibits spatial teleportation, forbids exit from the Arena, and even auto-repairs the terrain."

Zhao Zijing murmured, using telekinesis to snap a large cone-shaped patch of elephant grass before her.

The grass ahead fell in unison, revealing an open space.

But when her telekinesis withdrew, the broken stalks on the ground rose back up, reversing time itself to return to their original positions.

The tall grass swayed in the wind, showing no trace of damage.

"What the hell?"

Midnight Howl's scalp prickled: "Where's everyone else? We have to get out of here!"

"We can't leave," Zhao Zijing said with a helpless smile.

The mysterious yields to the more supreme mysterious.

This vast mist lock's mystery far exceeds the level of this player.

Midnight Howl didn't understand Zhao Zijing's words and shouted on her own: "Racer, Mendoza, where are you? Let's hurry and regroup—we need to go."

"I'm here!"

Mendoza's voice came from right beside her. Midnight Howl reached through the tall grass toward the sound and called out: "Where are you? Don't move—I'll come find you."

"I haven't moved."

Mendoza's voice suddenly sounded ten meters behind Midnight Howl.

Zhao Zijing's expression turned bitter as she added another property to the mist lock: "Spatial distortion."

The more properties stacked, the stronger the mist lock proved to be.

"Cannot leave, cannot cross the line; any damage done to the surrounding terrain heals instantly."

Li Cheng looked around and nodded. "I get it. This is the Green Green Prairie."

(End of Chapter)