The rank 4 deceivers didn’t understand what had just happened and didn’t know what to do about it. They didn’t know if they should go forward to assist and they were not sure they could do anything helpful in a fight against someone who killed one of them in a single move even though the person was invisible, so they stood frozen in shock.
They stood there in shock looking at the rank 4 cultivator who was able to survive a blow from a rank 5 cultivator. But the rank 5 cultivator knew what he wanted and that he wasn’t willing to let Loki go.
The rank 5 deceiver said, "What power! What a big fish! Are you really a rank 4 cultivator?"
The deceiver was really curious about his cultivation, but Loki wasn’t in the mood to satisfy their curiosity. His goal was to escape, so he didn’t answer the question.
He had only survived the blow with the fake hammer earlier by offsetting most of the damage with energy. He had let the forcefield on his armor consume as much energy as it needed to dampen the blow, while his metal body had done the rest of the job in keeping him intact.
With these two things working together, he was able to survive that blow. But the whole experience was unpleasant, and he definitely didn’t want to go through it again.
Even if he was willing to withstand another blow like that, he doubted he had the energy to do so. So he sought above all else to create a healthy distance between him and the rank 5 deceiver.
As he ran away, he said to himself, "As long as I can get away, I will answer one or two questions."
But the rank 5 deceiver had other plans. The deceiver wasn’t willing to wait for him to become talkative on his terms. So they used Bewildering Darkness Metac and the Sea of Darkness Metac.
These two Metacs caused a cloud of darkness to erupt around him. The cloud of darkness was very fast, so it caught up to Loki quickly and covered him, together with the space around them.
Because of this, Loki’s entire world became a world of darkness. The true purpose of this cloud of darkness wasn’t to rob him of his vision, though. Its true purpose was to confuse him, so it was actually a mental attack.
The cloud used a mental attack to confuse all of his senses and perception, so he wouldn’t know up from down or left from right. This way, not only would he not be able to escape from the cloud of darkness, but he also wouldn’t be able to do anything to defend himself from the rank 5 deceiver lurking in the darkness.
The power of the cloud of darkness was 5(Dao Status) × 5(Dark Mist Core Metac)× (5(Mind) + 90 Energy Well)) × (5(Bewildering Darkness) + 5(Sea of Darkness) + 5(Dark Amplification)) × (500% Overdrive + 90% Energy Nexus), which is 210,187 units.
In response, Loki defended with his Shifting Armor, the Dual Cultivation Pathway, and the Mind Hunter Pathway to create a power of 4(Dao Status) × (4(Telekinesis Metac) + 4(Reversal) + 4(Mind Freeze))× (5(Body) + 5(Life Ability) + 5(Mind) + 5(Mind) + 450% Energy Well) × (5(Body Lever) + 5(Living Armament) + 5(Energy Amplifier) +5(Force Lever) + 5(Lightning Engine) + 5(Mind Shield)) × (300% Overdrive + 450% Energy Nexus), which is 264,600.
With this kind of power, he was able to resist the confusion of the cloud of darkness and continue to escape. The only problem was that he was still trapped in darkness, but he knew that as long as he continued to move in a straight line, he would escape.
The rank 5 deceiver saw that Loki was still capable of moving in a straight line, so they knew that their move didn’t work. Since it didn’t work, they made another move using the Ropes of Darkness Metac, which converted the dark energy in the cloud of darkness into ropes.
The ropes were mostly concentrated around Loki. They lunged for him after they were created and worked to bind him.
The ropes coiled around his neck, waist, legs, arms, head, and even his fingers. They grabbed hold of anything they could touch in their bid to keep him from escaping.
His ropes were as strong as the first attack of the rank 5 deceiver, so they were not stronger than what he could handle. But that was only individually.
Individually, he would struggle a little bit, but he would still break a rope. But when more than 50 of them appeared and were binding him, there was very little anyone would be able to do to get out of this.
Fortunately, he had the Space Tear Metac and could attach its power to any part of his body and even to the surface of the Shifting Armor, so he could use this as an invisible knife to cut off the rope holding him back.
However, he couldn’t cover his entire body with the power of the Space Tear Metac at the same time, so he couldn’t cut off all of the ropes at once. This delayed him and let the deceiver make their next move.
The deceiver used the Energy Solidification Metac next, which turned the cloud of darkness into stone. This essentially trapped Loki in stone.
The stone wasn’t strong enough to immobilize him completely, but it had put him in a choke hold, so to speak. He could still move by struggling, but his speed had effectively been slowed to a crawl.
The only good news was that the solidified cloud of darkness had also blocked the deceiver. But the deceiver used Shadow Walk Metac, which liquified the stone around them.
Not only did the stone liquify for the deceiver, but the liquid darkness was also pushing the deceiver forward. This made it so that the deceiver could move and could move faster than moving in the air.