Chapter 390: Invasion and Evolution

On a desolate plain that had been plowed over and over by the fires of war, leaving only scorched earth and scattered stubborn stones,

deep inside a cave entrance half-concealed by several weathered boulders, inconspicuous to the point of being easily overlooked, space rippled faintly. Jie Ming and Anya’s figures gradually solidified from illusion into reality.

The cave was dimly lit. The air was thick with dust and the faint, barely perceptible residual scent of light-element energy.

Jie Ming’s gaze swept across the rock walls before finally settling on a massive basalt boulder at the bottom of the cave—one that stood out jarringly from its surroundings, too perfectly rectangular.

“This is the place?” Anya asked in a hushed voice. Her perception extended like invisible tendrils, cautiously probing every inch of the surrounding space.

Jie Ming glanced at the faint holographic map projected from his wrist terminal, cross-referencing it with the precise coordinates and energy signature sent by Wizard Starfall, then nodded.

“No mistake. The coordinates match perfectly, and the abnormal energy convergence below points right here. Beneath this boulder should be the entrance—a hidden fissure leading to their ‘secret fortifications.’”

Neither spoke further. Both immediately deployed their detection methods.

Jie Ming’s spiritual force flowed like liquid mercury, seeping into the boulder’s microscopic structure. Anya, meanwhile, sensed through the microorganisms clinging to the cave walls and the faint currents of air, using her affinity for life.

Soon, their perceptions pierced through layers of solid rock and “saw” the deliberately concealed, winding fissure sloping deep underground.

From the depths of that fissure came a rhythmic, colossal pulse of energy—like the heartbeat of a slumbering leviathan.

“These light clusters… their intelligence awakened only recently, yet their survival instincts—or rather, their cunning—are already maxed out.” Jie Ming withdrew his perception, a trace of amusement in his voice. “To do something big, they know to hide deep underground and use thick rock to mask energy fluctuations and light leakage. That’s a complete betrayal of their ‘radiance’ nature.”

Anya stared at the boulder. “How do we get down? Blast straight through?”

“No.” Jie Ming shook his head. “Lord Starfall wants detailed data from close-range observation of their entire ‘plan’ in action. Alerting them now would defeat the purpose. We infiltrate quietly, stay hidden, and only reveal ourselves at the moment they’re most triumphant, certain of success. Until then, we observe in absolute silence.”

“Understood.” Anya nodded, then looked at him. “In that case, we’ll need an extremely stealthy method of entry.”

“Exactly. But the passage behind this is far too narrow—even a normal person couldn’t squeeze through…” At this point, Jie Ming looked slightly embarrassed.

Truth be told, he had no shortage of ordinary concealment or energy-cloaking techniques, but for a situation like this, he genuinely lacked an elegant solution.

On typical planar battlefields, Jie Ming was part of the main assault force; he rarely needed such subtle arts.

He could transform into light with the Five Aggregates Rainbow Mirror and slip right down, but the disturbance would be far too great.

“In a case like this, I’d normally rely on alchemy…”

“Your alchemy reshapes terrain too violently,” Anya cut in. “It would almost certainly trigger whatever alert mechanisms they’ve set along the way. Let me handle it.”

Jie Ming yielded without protest. “Alright. What’s your method?”

Anya didn’t answer with words. She simply raised one slender wrist and beckoned lightly.

From within her cascading hair, several strands of shadow thinner than silk—nearly impossible to catch with the naked eye—drifted out, writhing like living creatures as they coiled around her fingertips.

Jie Ming could clearly sense that these were nature spirits too, albeit rare ones tied to shadow.

The next instant, the shadows swelled and spread, forming a soft, lightless black veil that enveloped both her and Jie Ming.

He did not resist, allowing the cool sensation to settle against his skin.

The feeling of being wrapped in shadow was peculiar.

Looking outward, his vision was like peering through an ultra-thin sheet of smoked glass: light dimmed, colors desaturated, yet outlines remained perfectly sharp.

His own body felt unchanged—breathing, heartbeat, energy circulation all normal. Even casting perception sorcery was barely hindered.

It was as though the shadow affected only the optical layer, even absorbing and distorting stray spiritual fluctuations to a certain degree.

“No sound. Stay close,” Anya’s voice rang directly in his mind—precise spiritual transmission.

Then Jie Ming felt the ground shift slightly beneath his feet. He and the shadow cocoon drifted forward.

From the outside, the spot where they had stood was now occupied by a writhing mass of deep darkness with blurred edges.

Like a sentient being, the mass perfectly hugged every contour and light–dark boundary of the cave walls, flowing silently toward the boulder blocking the fissure.

When the shadow touched the boulder’s surface, there was no impact. Instead, like water seeping through porous coral, it split into countless finer threads that slipped through the microscopic gaps between boulder and wall—and even through the stone’s own natural fissures.

Under the shadow’s embrace, Jie Ming felt his body undergo an impossibly supple deformation, as if he had become formless liquid.

Yet there was no discomfort or pain—only a strange sensation of weightlessness and flow.

The shadow flowed past the boulder barrier and entered the narrow, descending fissure.

The fissure was less than a finger-width across in places, twisting and jagged, lined with rough protrusions and razor-sharp shards.

But under Anya’s exquisite control, the shadow moved like the most nimble eel, always finding the perfect path as it descended in utter silence.

Surrounding them was absolute darkness and silence—only the faint sound of their breathing and heartbeats within the shadow, and the ever-clearer, thunder-like pulse of energy rising from below.

After descending a considerable distance, the fissure widened slightly, though the oppressive atmosphere remained.

At that moment, Jie Ming—who had maintained peak alertness—suddenly frowned. He reached out and lightly tapped Anya’s shoulder.

She understood instantly. The shadow halted, suspending them in a relatively open “node” within the fissure. She turned to him questioningly.

Jie Ming said nothing, merely raised a finger and cautiously pointed toward an extremely well-hidden lateral crevice in the rock wall above and to the side.

The crevice was tiny, pitch-black, blending almost perfectly with its surroundings.

Anya focused her gaze. At first she noticed nothing unusual, but when she combined her life perception with the faint visual enhancement granted by the shadow and carefully scanned the area, her heart jolted.

Deep inside that crevice crouched a mass of… “darkness.”

It was not ordinary shadow or void, but living, conscious darkness.

Its outline faintly resembled the irregular near-spheres of light-element creatures, yet not a single photon escaped its surface. Instead, it devoured what little ambient light existed, appearing as a pure black deeper than the surrounding rock—an abyss that swallowed the gaze itself.

It remained perfectly still, fused seamlessly with the rock’s natural shadows, like the most patient predator.

“They… learned to hide their light? Even actively turned themselves black?” Anya transmitted her incredulity through the mental link.

This completely overturned the innate dependence of light-element lifeforms on radiance for existence and communication.

While she was still reeling, Jie Ming—still cloaked in shadow—had silently retrieved several small, exquisite detection devices from his dimensional pocket: a micro-energy spectrometer, a spirituality fluctuation capturer, and a material composition probe.

He directed their scanning beams onto the dark creature and began collecting data while simultaneously activating his All-Purpose Eye for a direct scan.

Results soon flooded his mind.

A glint of understanding flashed through Jie Ming’s eyes. Through the mental link he explained to Anya:

“Truly astonishing… it’s only been a few months, and they’ve already evolved hyper-sensitive light-perception organs. Their sensitivity is beyond comprehension—they can probably detect even the faintest photon reflected off a dust mote.”

“By relying on that extreme perception, they can perfectly contain every bit of light they produce, including the glow from metabolic byproducts, and may even convert leaked energy into this ‘light-absorbing coating.’”

Anya instantly grasped the implication. “It’s a sentinel! Stationed on the only path down, using this completely counterintuitive camouflage! Then we…”

“We’ve most likely already been ‘seen,’” Jie Ming confirmed calmly. “Your shadow cloak is exquisite and blends perfectly with ambient darkness, but against perception this specialized, the minute disturbances and absorption differences we create in the background light field probably stand out like ink on white paper. However…”

He glanced at another set of readouts. “The good news is that, to achieve perfect concealment, it has also suppressed its own communication-frequency electromagnetic emissions. Right now it’s nothing more than a pure ‘optical monitor’—it can see, but it cannot transmit alerts in real time.”

“My guess is its duty is to lurk and record, then leave its post to report only after shift change or once intruders have penetrated deeper.”

“What do we do now?” Anya asked, a trace of killing intent threading through her mental fluctuations.

To think she had been careless enough to be spotted—even if only optically—by a mere third-ring creature irritated her.

“Eliminate it, of course,” Jie Ming replied without hesitation. “Since we’ve been discovered, removing this lookout is the optimal choice regardless of whether it can raise the alarm immediately. Keep it quiet. The fact that it’s hiding this deep and has sealed its own comms suggests it’s operating in isolation during its shift, or that information relay is delayed.”

“If we silently take it out, even if the ones below later notice the sentinel has gone dark, they’ll only grow paranoid and confused—unable to figure out what happened. That tension might actually accelerate their plans, which aligns perfectly with Lord Starfall’s observation goals.”

Anya nodded, her gaze locking onto the patch of darkness hidden deep in the crevice.

She said no more. She simply raised her hand in that direction, fingers slightly curled as if grasping something intangible.

Instantly Jie Ming felt an eerie, profound attractive force radiate from Anya.

It was not a violent energy strike, but a far more insidious pull that reached straight for the core of life itself.

The next moment, he “saw” the life-flame and spiritual radiance that had been stably circulating within the disguised light-element sentinel suddenly freeze—as though encountering an irresistible black hole.

Then, uncontrollably, those brilliant streams of essence tore free from body and soul alike, surging toward Anya’s waiting palm in a torrent of light invisible to the naked eye yet blinding to spiritual perception.

The third-ring light-element creature did not even manage a single reaction. Not a whisper of energy or spiritual fluctuation escaped it. In a heartbeat, the foundation of its existence—its very life force—was completely stripped away.

Its black shell rapidly dulled, shriveled, and crumbled into ordinary elemental dust, silently dispersing into the darkness of the fissure.

The condensed sphere of harvested life essence that gathered in Anya’s palm circled once around her fingertips like a playful firefly before soundlessly melting into her body, as though it had never existed.

The entire process was swift, silent, and utterly lethal.

Jie Ming’s pupils contracted slightly, a chill running through his heart.

He understood the principle perfectly: drawing on her extreme affinity and dominion over life force, Anya had developed this unique predatory technique.

In the instant it activated, her “attractive force” upon life essence surpassed the target’s own “retention force,” forcibly severing the bonds between life, body, and soul to achieve instantaneous, unavoidable death.

The technique’s potency was terrifying.

That light-element creature had been third-ring, the same level as Anya, yet before this move it had been utterly powerless—even dying without ever realizing what happened.

Jie Ming rapidly assessed in his mind: were it not for his practice of the Body Forging Art, which unified body and soul into tempered steel and granted him microscopic control over his own vitality, an unprepared strike like this would have gravely injured or outright killed him.

Against an attack that directly assaulted the essence of life, unless one possessed an unusual life form, exceptionally strong soul defenses, or pre-prepared law-level countermeasures, anyone below sixth-ring would find survival nearly impossible.

“So this… is the caliber of a tenth-grade prodigy?” Jie Ming glanced at Anya’s serene, exquisite profile, a trace of awe flickering deep in his eyes.

Even now, when many of their peers had begun to reveal their brilliance, the profound understanding and terrifying application of life force Anya displayed still sent shivers down the spine.

Perhaps only those capable of killing far above their level truly deserved to be called geniuses.

Anya seemed entirely unconcerned that she had just casually erased a being of her own rank. She lowered her hand, looked at Jie Ming, and transmitted calmly, “Obstacle removed. Shall we continue downward?”

Jie Ming gathered his thoughts and nodded. “Yes. Stay sharp—there may be even more unexpected ‘surprises’ waiting below.”