Chapter 249: Black Giants and the Trouble of Being Lost

In this boundless, misty plane devoid of gravity’s pull, Jie Ming soared forward with his five Black Giants, clumsily wielding their temporary flight artifacts.

This newly discovered plane was an uncarved jade, ripe for the taking.

Utterly defenseless, it was like a slab of succulent meat ready for slaughter!

It was the perfect ground for wizards to harvest rare materials, capture prime slaves, and amass biological resources.

Yet, the other wizards’ plundering was so

ruthlessly efficient

it scraped the land bare, as if shaving three feet off the earth.

Jie Ming, slow to act initially, found himself left with nothing but scraps.

So, he abandoned the overexploited area, flying farther out to an untouched region to execute his grand scavenging plan.

He wasn’t alone in this thought—many experienced wizards had the same idea.

Soon, the wizards scattered in their assigned directions, spreading like a net across the plane.

And their method proved effective!

Flying in one direction for over half a month, Jie Ming reaped bountiful rewards.

He captured numerous gravity-defying creatures with unique traits, each brimming with research potential.

During his flight, Jie Ming’s eyes flickered.

He looked toward a distant point.

Just moments ago, his

Five Aggregates Rainbow Mirror

relayed information via its “Scouting Eye,” detecting a massive group of drifting aerial creatures hundreds of kilometers away.

He promptly changed course, leading his Black Giants toward them.

Soon, he spotted a cluster of massive white “clouds” blending seamlessly with the surroundings.

These “clouds” were strikingly uniform, as if a lazy creator had copy-pasted them from an animation.

Each bore an identical faint halo and followed similar drifting paths.

The clouds huddled together, intertwining until they formed a colossal mass of mist, indistinguishable from a giant cloud from afar.

But closer inspection revealed the mass was

solid

!

Occasionally, a “cloud” extended misty wings—formed purely of wind elements—from its sides, gently flapping to propel the entire mass forward.

These weren’t true clouds but a colony of “cloud beasts” resembling them!

Jie Ming’s eyes

lit up

!

Though each plane’s rules differed, some fundamental truths were universal.

These “cloud beasts,” mimicking clouds and clustering together, were likely low on the food chain, preyed upon by others.

While hunting high-rank creatures typically yielded more valuable materials, these low-tier beings had their uses for Jie Ming.

…Especially for his Black Giants.

“Go! Feeding time!”

Through his soul link, Jie Ming issued a command to the Black Giants.

Receiving the order, they erupted with immense energy, charging like five wild, unleashed beasts toward the “clouds”!

In a straight-line assault, the Black Giants were blisteringly fast, plunging into the cloud beast colony in a blink.

Their massive, iron-black torsos split vertically from head to abdomen, revealing a

blazing-hot internal cavity

like molten metal.

Most terrifyingly, the edges of the split were lined with jagged, obsidian-and-tempered-steel teeth!

This vertical maw was the Black Giants’ modified mouth!

What followed wasn’t an ambush—it was a

feast

!

“

ROAR!

”

With a primal bellow, the Black Giants stormed the cloud beasts, ravenously devouring the

panicked, scattering “clouds”

!

Their movements were simple yet brutal.

Their massive forms spun like high-speed meat grinders, crashing into the colony.

Too lazy to attack, they let their chest-and-abdomen maws snap open and shut!

Each bite carried a

frigid chill

and ferocious tearing force!

Smaller cloud beasts didn’t even have time to wail before being sucked into the maws by powerful forces.

The

scorching cavities

and razor-sharp teeth shredded and devoured them instantly!

Larger cloud beasts, thrown into

chaos and terror

, tried to counterattack with collisions and bites.

But their resistance was laughably weak against the Black Giants!

The Giants’ maws relentlessly crushed and consumed, their surface black liquid flames surging more intensely!

Each swallow drew faint cyan wind-element energy into their bodies, swiftly absorbed by their unique digestive systems.

To speed up feeding, the Giants’ massive hands grabbed nearby cloud beasts, stuffing them into their maws.

Jie Ming, floating nearby, casually captured a few fleeing “clouds” as biological samples.

After sealing them, he stored them in his internal space.

Watching the five Black Giants, Jie Ming’s expression was

odd

.

Seeing black humanoid figures “plucking” clouds from the cotton-like colony inevitably evoked images of an automated agricultural harvester.

“Ahem… not the time for that.”

Shaking his head, Jie Ming focused on observing the Black Giants.

He could clearly sense their energy rising with each swallow.

Especially the four second-rank Giants—their previously stalled growth was accelerating again!

The Black Giants’ predecessors, the Lava Giants, had an extraordinary digestive system, unlike typical elemental beings.

They could digest flesh to fuel energy, hasten growth, and even boost their promotion odds!

Jie Ming hadn’t abandoned this trait in the Black Giants.

In fact, it became even more critical in their design!

If the “heat absorption” and “energy conversion” techniques were the Black Giants’ energy-law “skeleton,” their enhanced Lava Giant digestive system—Jie Ming’s “energy absorption and conversion system”—was their energy-cycle “core”!

To maximize this, Jie Ming had sourced a cultivation technique from the

Great Dao Book Pavilion

—the

Five Organs Sacrificial Divine Art

, which strengthened through consumption.

Using his experience adapting body-refining techniques, he localized it, applying it to the Black Giants’ digestive system.

This elevated their consumption efficiency to new heights.

Then, a sudden change!

As the Black Giants feasted, some cloud beasts, unable to escape, chose the ultimate defiance in their

fear and rage

—self-destruction!

Though their explosions lacked fiery light, the pure wind elements detonated, creating violent shockwaves.

A group detonation amplified the effect!

Instantly, a visible white shockwave spread rapidly in all directions!

The surging blast scattered everything nearby, crushing and twisting cloud beast remains and natural energy clusters into smaller fragments, hurled by the raging shockwave.

Fragile cloud beasts shattered instantly, vanishing without a trace!

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Caught off guard, the lower-tier second-rank Black Giants had no time to react, blasted away by the shockwave!

Amid

piercing wails

, the four Giants tumbled through the mist, carried far by the blast.

Jie Ming felt the sharp shockwave hit. Frowning, he raised an energy shield to block the residual airflow.

The third-rank Black Giant, the strongest, was unaffected.

It even absorbed some of the shockwave’s energy, slightly boosting its strength!

But the sudden attack

enraged

it.

“

ROAR!!

”

With a furious bellow, it unleashed volcanic flames, streaking like a meteor with terrifying momentum into the fleeing “clouds,” slaughtering wildly!

Even while killing, it tore and devoured its prey.

Only when the “clouds” scattered too far to catch did it stop.

Jie Ming checked the blasted Giants’ conditions.

As elemental beings, the cloud beasts’ explosions hadn’t caused serious harm.

But they lost significant mass and energy, their auras weakened.

Except for the third-rank Giant, the others’ earlier feeding was essentially wasted effort.

Not entirely fruitless, though.

Under Jie Ming’s gaze, the weakened Giants’ auras began to drop.

Their internal energy was rapidly depleting.

But correspondingly, clear cyan patterns emerged on their bodies.

Though these patterns soon merged into their black flame surfaces, Jie Ming knew their effects persisted.

He recognized these patterns—the energy traces of the cultivation

Body-Refining Technique

in action!

Indeed!

Jie Ming had even adapted his powerful cultivation-based

Body-Refining Technique

into the Black Giants!

This had drawbacks.

First, as elemental beings, the Giants couldn’t fully benefit from flesh-based body-refining enhancements.

Their elemental bodies had limited improvement in certain aspects.

Second, it drastically increased the energy cost of creating Black Giants!

And their subsequent growth consumed terrifying amounts of energy!

Each Black Giant was an energy abyss!

But the benefits justified the cost—integrating the

Body-Refining Technique

gave the Giants “adaptive evolution” traits!

They gained resistance to attacks they survived, reducing damage from similar attacks in the future!

Moreover, this “adaptive evolution” simplified their growth.

Elemental beings typically had fixed potential at birth.

But the

Body-Refining Technique

broke this limit.

Theoretically, a Black Giant, surviving long enough and consuming enough energy, could reach sixth-rank.

“Not bad.”

Jie Ming nodded, ready to continue flying.

But glancing at the featureless white mist, he frowned.

He pulled out his terminal, struggling to locate the “ship-plane” as a reference.

Using their relative positions, he determined his next direction.

This was the plane’s biggest hassle.

With no gravity, directional navigation was nearly impossible.

Everything floated, with no fixed up, down, left, or right.

Besides forward, backward, left, and right, one had to constantly discern the maddening up-and-down dimensions.

“I haven’t flown too far, so I can still use the terminal to locate the ship-plane,” Jie Ming mused, feeling the challenge.

“But if I go beyond the terminal’s signal range, I could easily get lost in this disorienting mist.”

“Still… the camp should be working on a solution, right?”

As he pondered, his terminal beeped.

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Reading the message, Jie Ming gave a

knowing smile

.

As expected, the camp had issued a “mandatory mission”!