The rune conduit successfully blocked the relentless attacks of the grudge entities, yet Feng Yuan’s actions seemed to have infuriated them, as these grudge entities started madly attacking the rune conduit.

"This is really troublesome. What exactly is commanding this thing?"

Feng Yuan frowned slightly, a bit annoyed, as he waved his hand, and nine shields flew out of the rune conduit towards the gathering grudge entities. These entities’ attacks would greatly reduce the duration of the rune conduit. Although Feng Yuan didn’t care much, he was curious about what could be controlling these grudge entities.

"Tamur, are you okay?"

Seeing the grudge entities turn on each other, Veronia asked worriedly, noting that the increasing number of slime-like grudge entities around them caused significant trouble as they moved forward.

Unexpectedly, Tamur summoned a large number of grudge entities in an instant. As soon as these identical grudge entities came into contact with the opposing entities, they began to merge. Following that, something happened that Veronia and the others found incomprehensible.

Those grudge entities actually began fighting amongst themselves. Initially, it could be assumed to be due to Tamur’s control, but as the chaos spread, it clearly went beyond Tamur’s capability.

"No."

Tamur, still stingy with words, stared inexplicably into the dark depths as Agunas flicked its tail and said skeptically,

"How on earth did you do that? This doesn’t seem normal."

"I... can project them," Tamur explained calmly, or rather, it wasn’t entirely clear to him either what was happening. It was just that his intuition told him he could project clones of these grudge entities.

As for the subsequent internal strife, it was unexpected to him. Or to say, Tamur didn’t know this change would occur in the beginning either.

"Projection? Related to authority?"

Agunas queried in confusion, but sadly, even Tamur didn’t have an answer.

"Keep maintaining this; let’s move faster."

Thanks to the attacks of the Netherworld Wind, the frequency of attacks on the rune conduit by the grudge entities reduced significantly, as the special effect of the Netherworld Wind prevented them from attacking within its range.

However, the rune conduit was too long, and even combined efforts of the White Wolf Deity and Xiao Ji’s Netherworld Wind couldn’t fully cover it, let alone the fact that the White Wolf Deity lacked the strength to maintain so many ultimate moves.

"These grudge entities seem off."

In Different Time, Qiu Hanmo first noticed a problem and soon observed the strange reactions of the grudge entities.

Once enveloped by the Netherworld Wind, the grudge entities began retreating, but instead of merely retreating, it seemed they were attacking the grudge entities behind them.

Internal conflict? Why?

This bizarre scene gradually drew others’ attention, though Feng Yuan, focusing on maintaining the rune conduit, had failed to notice this anomaly.

"These grudge entities seem controlled by something. However, can our attacks break their control?"

Najia looked at Feng Yuan, who was leading the charge, and remarked. Hearing it, Feng Yuan stopped in his tracks and turned to look around, realizing it was indeed as Najia said.

"It’s not just our attacks that can break their control; they seem capable of freeing themselves, which is why they are collectively besieged and eliminated," Qiu Hanmo in Different Time said slowly, having just noticed a detail—that the grudge entities hit by the Netherworld Wind would retreat from its range, only to be swiftly torn apart by the other grudge entities behind them.

However, due to the large range of the Netherworld Wind, many grudge entities were not eliminated immediately, and indeed the ones affected influenced nearby grudge entities.

Reflecting on the previous battles, Qiu Hanmo in Different Time suspected these changes might be related to the ultimate moves’ attributes.

He pondered and then asked Feng Yuan to open a gap in the conduit to test a hypothesis.

Seeing this, Feng Yuan and the White Wolf Deity directly lifted the rune conduit, which had been initially employed to bypass combat en route to their destination.

But now, with another method to deal with the grudge entities, Feng Yuan didn’t mind slowing down slightly, feeling these things were quite strange.

Qiu Hanmo in Different Time’s beast taming had much richer attributes than that of Hanmo, allowing him to command his beasts to use both death series and ghost series ultimate moves.

When these two types of ultimate moves slammed into the ranks of the grudge entities, the effect was akin to that of the Netherworld Wind.

After some trials, the group finally confirmed that mysterious series, death series, and ghost series ultimate moves could all incite internal strife among them or otherwise free the controlled grudge entities from control.

Nevertheless, Feng Yuan was puzzled regarding the principle behind this; even though specialized ultimate moves for breaking control exist, he wondered how offensive ultimate moves could disrupt control, as it’s not akin to being in a sleep state.

If it were a sleep state, why are only ultimate moves of specific attributes effective?

Wait a moment...

Suddenly realizing something, Feng Yuan stared at the grudge entities for a while. If he recalled correctly, the commonality among these three attributes seemed to be a restraining effect on a certain special resistance.

Could it be...

He turned his gaze to the White Wolf Deity, which was still in a synched, enhanced state with the Dark Ancient Book. Its tail lashed out, scattering the azure flames burning on it, and the White Wolf Deity let out a resounding roar as it took a step forward.

Soul Intimidation, a death series control-type ultimate move, has a chance to cause non-elemental beings to become stunned, while ghost series spirit beasts are certainly stunned.

Of course, the reason the White Wolf Deity used this ultimate move wasn’t for control but because of its attribute and range.

Due to the weak impact of Soul Intimidation and the absence of lethality, its effective range was huge. If things were as he suspected, then Soul Intimidation should suffice.

As the White Wolf Deity let out a roar, the surrounding grudge entities seemed to awaken from a nightmare, pausing in confusion. After a while, these grudge entities retreated like a tide. No, rather than retreating, they appeared to be attacking the grudge entities outside the range of Soul Intimidation.

"What in the world is happening?"

Qi Chen found himself completely unable to understand. What did Feng Yuan and the White Wolf Deity do to make the grudge entities suddenly retreat on their own?

"So it was like this, possessing special spiritual body resistance, only affected by specific attribute damage. Could it be they were controlled by a dream realm?"

Qiu Hanmo had already guessed the truth—the grudge entities were controlled by special dream-like means. Their prior attacks failed to awaken the grudge entities due to their peculiar nature.

Spiritual body resistance could immunize most attribute attacks, but this immunity isn’t limitless. The inherent strength of these grudge entity bodies wasn’t high. Their previous attacks breached the immune damage threshold, eradicating the opponents entirely, leaving no room for awakening in the conventional sense.

What the White Wolf Deity had done was disrupt the dream realm using an ultimate move.

Even though Soul Intimidation has no offensive effect, its intimidating influence is real, simultaneously undermining the dream realm’s foundation.

"Controlling via a dream realm suggests the entity behind isn’t as strong as imagined," Qiu Hanmo in Different Time remarked. If it were more powerful, there wouldn’t be a need for such unstable methods. Despite the White Wolf Deity’s intervention, the upper limit of the Soul Intimidation ultimate move remains fixed: even a Divine Beast couldn’t drastically exceed that limit.

The end result was that a single Soul Intimidation largely broke their control, implying the presence behind lacked sufficient strength to forcibly dominate the grudge entities.

He was confident that if the White Wolf Deity were in control, the grudge entities wouldn’t stand a chance of breaking free.

Of course, it might be related to a larger control range, but from Qiu Hanmo’s personal viewpoint, it wouldn’t considerably strengthen it anyway.

"Probably, since a single Soul Intimidation could dispel it, it’s clearly not very powerful. Still, that doesn’t matter much—at least the obstacles have been removed."

Shrugging his shoulders, Feng Yuan was indifferent, as strength held no concern for him. No matter what, that entity wouldn’t be stronger than Feng Yuan. Now that the grudge entities blocking their path had dispersed, it actually made their journey easier.