At the end of the street, a blue mana glow appeared, and mana fluctuations, as overwhelming as a flood, surged towards us. Although mana fluctuations are not physical energy, if converted to strong winds, it could easily blow humans of the same volume as Little Bowl and me like paper scraps out of the city.

Little Bowl couldn't help but show a suffocating expression, and I immediately shielded her with my body, blocking the wind and rain, intercepting the turbulent wave of mana fluctuations.

The conflict between me and Taoyuan Village Master Meng Zhang has occurred more than once or twice, and his mana fluctuations are all too familiar to me. I didn't expect this enemy to appear before me so quickly. Xuanming once said that Taoyuan Village Master Meng Zhang was presiding over the progress of creating "Paradise" and was temporarily unable to attack, so I thought as long as I didn't actively approach him, I wouldn't have to fight.

Or did I inadvertently intrude into the city center zone, giving him the chance to strike against me? But if he had the ability to be distracted, then even with the restriction of temporarily being unable to leave the city center, he should still be able to launch long-range attacks against any enemies across the city.

In the distance, the blue mana glow coalesced into a distinct shape, but it wasn't Meng Zhang's form; it was the shape of a gigantic hand.

In the palm, a hideous crack opened, revealing a huge and vacant eyeball.

The eyeball instantly locked onto Little Bowl and me, and blue lightning flashed, transforming into thunder as thick as a pillar, streaking towards us.

Without hesitation, I embraced Little Bowl beside me, soaring to an altitude of a thousand meters in an instant. Such terrifying acceleration would be absolutely unbearable for even the strongest body, but thanks to my natural privilege as Great Impermanence, the law of inertia temporarily malfunctioned in Little Bowl, sparing her the cost of high-speed movement.

Below us, our previous position was bombarded by the blue lightning, and endless dust and debris soared skyward. The shockwave instantly ravaged and destroyed the city center area and carried frighteningly high temperatures towards Little Bowl and me. I formed a force field barrier with flames to keep her unharmed.

The real issue is the upcoming engagement, and...

It's clear that what's confronting us isn't Meng Zhang's physical form but an incarnation form I've encountered a long time ago.

It seems Meng Zhang is truly unable to be distracted, resorting to sending such a creation to deal with me. The first encounter was enough for this small incarnation to capture me; the second time, I also had to strain myself fully. In terms of combat power, the Meng Zhang incarnation I remember could hold its own against seasoned Great Unpredictable Level adversaries. Now, trying to use this against me won't be so easy.

Furthermore, from my observation, this incarnation seems to be significantly out of sorts.

"Meng Zhang, are you listening?" I voiced.

The blue glowing giant hand rotated its eyeball and locked onto me again. The feeling this action gave wasn't that it reacted to my words. It felt more like an autonomous device existing to eliminate enemies, without any communicative will in my gaze, only the preset goal of exterminating Little Bowl and me as intruders.

It's merely a clump of power—I made my judgment. There's no will of Meng Zhang, the Great Impermanence, contained within. Lacking a central will, naturally, the mana lacks critical density. Although it possesses the specs of Great Impermanence in terms of power, each move can unleash a thunderous assault surpassing strategic-level nuclear weapons, but it's just a pit large enough to create, fall short in actual combat power compared to me just becoming Great Impermanence.

With opponents only at this level, even while protecting Little Bowl and fighting it, there shouldn't be any issue.

However, I find it hard to believe that the obstacles brought by the扫帚 star power would only remain at this level of child's play. The lion takes down the rabbit with full force; just in case, I don't let my guard down in this battle, pulling out the Ash Weapon and entering Crown Form.

Almost simultaneously, the blue glowing giant hand released destructive lightning towards us again.

Once again, with Little Bowl in tow, I cautiously dodged the path of the attack. The attack just brushed past us, almost hitting us.

The previous strike also had the same hit rate. It's really puzzling; considering the density of the opponent, the depth achievable in the domains of fate and cause and effect is far behind mine. Plus, I have Little Bowl's blessing, though in the Living World the evasion and hit rate enhancement isn't as high as in the Doomsday Chaos Space-Time environment, overall, it should be enough to leave the opponent trailing behind. Yet reality gives such a thrilling result.

It's not the innate high-speed attribute of thunder strikes that makes it hard for me to react; it's the additional bonus the opponent received. Is it because of the current illusory chaotic space-time environment? An environment that's difficult for me to judge is advantageous to the opponent, giving strong home field advantages?

The previous battle with Xuanming was like this too; I'm constantly fighting in unfamiliar environments. Perhaps this is the fate of those who pursue adventure; as long as it's in pursuit of magical unknown adventures, it's destined to challenge unfamiliar environments.

I concentrate with my empty left hand to form a massive fireball, intending to annihilate the blue glowing giant hand with a single blow.

Just then, Little Bowl in my arms had a change of expression. Her voice echoed in my mind: "—Brother Zhuang Cheng, behind!"

Presumably, she didn't have time to use her mouth to warn me, so she used her telepathic ability instead. In fact, her warning was still a step too late. The speed of a Great Impermanence Level battle can easily surpass the reaction speed of a weaker being. Fortunately, even without her warning, I had already sensed the threat from behind in time.

The massive cyan glowing hand was clearly within my line of sight, but the violent mana fluctuations erupted far behind me, out of sight. I perceived a fierce and ruthless lightning attack being launched as a sneak attack toward Little Bowl and me.

With the opponent's hit rate combined with the advantage of a sneak attack, there was no time to evade. I had no choice but to use the Great Fireball in my hand, tossing it behind without looking back. With a speed faster than lightning, the cyan lightning clashed with the orange-red flame, resulting in an explosion that shook the heavens and the earth. My gaze penetrated the radiant blast, spotting the assailant who had launched the sneak attack.

It was another massive cyan glowing hand, and another of Meng Zhang's incarnations had appeared!

Seeing this scene, I immediately had a terrible premonition. Meng Zhang's incarnations appearing multiple times at the same moment? Since the second one has already appeared, can the third be far behind?

Unfortunately, my negative premonition proved true.

The third, fourth, fifth...

In different directions, three more massive mana fluctuations arose. Cyan light burst forth, with a total of five massive cyan glowing hands appearing in the distance, surrounding Little Bowl and me.

The destructive cyan lightning compressed and converged in their palms.

Seeing this, I didn't hesitate to hold Little Bowl tightly and stepped forward, using a Space Transfer to leave this position.

Even if the landing point of the Space Transfer would become random, it didn't matter—I had no desire to face five of Meng Zhang's incarnations with Little Bowl in tow.

Generally speaking, even a Great Impermanence like Meng Zhang would find it impossible to simultaneously summon five incarnations of such strength. Even though their actual combat capability was merely a new Great Impermanence level, the difference between them and an old-school Great Impermanence was only in density; the scale of their mana was not much different.

It was very likely that he used the massive mana stored in "Paradise"... relying on that ridiculous total amount of mana, Meng Zhang had managed to mass-produce his incarnations.

However, even with the resources of "Paradise," it couldn't be possible to endlessly mass-produce Great Impermanence incarnations. Considering that "Paradise" had not truly completed its creation yet, this behavior is akin to extracting the nutrition intended for an unborn fetus for other purposes. Even if he were to do this, only a small amount of resources could be extracted that wouldn't affect the birth of "Paradise." It's unclear how much those five massive cyan glowing hands consumed of that limited resource, but it surely was a costly endeavor.

It appeared that Meng Zhang himself wasn't controlling those five incarnations from behind the scenes. Most likely, they were merely "guards" wandering the city center area, responsible for repelling external invaders.

After the scene change, Little Bowl and I once again arrived on a relatively intact street, surrounded by rising and falling groups of buildings.

This shouldn't have happened. Only the city center area retained such streets and buildings, and just now, this area had been thoroughly destroyed by Meng Zhang's incarnations' lightning strikes. It was almost as if we not only teleported through space but also traversed time, returning to the moment we had first entered the city center area.

What made the alarm bells ring in our hearts even more was that this street looked so familiar, at least eighty to ninety percent similar to the street we had reached previously. Even if there were indeed many such similar streets in the city center, it seemed a bit hard to justify.

Since the scene we teleported to was like this, then...

My bad feeling was once again validated.

The familiar mana fluctuations emerged once more, and a massive cyan glowing hand appeared at the end of the street again, launching a lightning attack at Little Bowl and me.

I took Little Bowl and instantly moved into the air, the city center area once again being obliterated by the descending lightning. Then, four more mana fluctuations appeared around us, turning into four more massive cyan glowing hands, surrounding Little Bowl and me.

Immediately afterward, the sixth and seventh Great Impermanence scale mana fluctuations emerged in different directions.