Chapter 474: Enemy Assault and Response

Jie Ming stared blankly at the sky.

“These… they’re all modified from the same biological base template.”

Jie Ming murmured to himself, his voice filled with unconcealed astonishment.

As a highly skilled alchemist, Jie Ming quickly identified the true nature of the creatures above.

And more than anyone, he understood exactly what this implied.

Different creatures possess different soul structures, energy circuits, and physical limits.

To transform a first-ring slime into a sixth-ring being requires far more than replacing physical materials—it demands reconstructing its fundamental existence from the elemental level. That process is nearly equivalent to creating an entirely new species.

Yet the legion Clark had just displayed numbered over a hundred million, and every individual—from the lowest giant-shield warriors to the highest shadow lords—maintained a distinct “shared origin.”

Like different branches growing from the same great tree.

This meant Clark had mastered a “standardized,” stable, mass-production-capable technological system for creating high-ring modified organisms.

And the upper limit of this system was high enough to reliably produce eighth-ring beings.

“Mentor is only sixth-ring right now…”

Jie Ming felt an almost absurd sense of impact.

His own proudest creation was the black giants, produced by fusing the Five Viscera Sacrifice Divine Art with elemental creature traits.

After a thousand years of cultivation and countless iterations of optimization, even the two strongest leaders had only barely touched the seventh-ring threshold.

As for the black giant priests?

That was purely an incidental “mutation” born from the Incense Fire Divine Dao system—a miracle catalyzed by the faith convergence of billions of black giants, having little to do with his alchemical techniques.

But Mentor Clark…

“Is this the full extent of Mentor’s power?” Jie Ming couldn’t help but sigh inwardly. “I never imagined Mentor was this strong…”

“Strong?”

Viola’s voice came from beside him, laced with amusement.

The senior sister gave Jie Ming a sidelong glance. Her pupils reflected the boundless shadow legion outside the window, yet the corner of her mouth curved into a half-smile that was almost teasing.

“Junior Brother, is your ‘black giant legion’ the entirety of your combat power?”

Jie Ming froze.

In an instant, he understood the implication behind her words.

“Could it be… Mentor’s own personal combat strength…”

“That’s what they say.” Viola withdrew her gaze and looked back outside. “Though I only heard it mentioned in passing by other high-ring wizards. Mentor hasn’t acted publicly in a very long time.”

She paused, then added:

“But the claim is highly credible. After all, the vast majority of wizards—including you yourself—are in a similar situation, aren’t they?”

Jie Ming fell silent.

Indeed.

A wizard’s power originates from knowledge, and knowledge can manifest in countless external forms: alchemical constructs, rune arrays, summoned legions, law mastery, body modification, elemental constructs…

Most wizards choose one or two primary directions and supplement with others.

But very few ever fully expose the complete strength of their “main body.”

Just like Jie Ming himself… what outsiders saw were his talisman-seal artifacts and black giant legion.

Only he knew that the internal heaven refined through Internal Circulation, the immortal physique forged by the Body Forging Method, and the Infernal Sulfur plane that served as the foundation of his Incense Fire Divine Dao were his true trump cards.

So then, for Mentor Clark—who could display a billion-strong shadow legion as “conventional force”—just how terrifying was the strength hidden beneath that black robe?

Jie Ming didn’t dare think too deeply about it.

At that moment…

BZZZZ!!!

A piercing alarm suddenly blared in every corner of the fortress interior.

It was the fortress’s internal alert system—a soul-level “crisis perception” resonance.

Jie Ming and Viola turned simultaneously, looking toward the distant horizon beyond the observation window.

There, at the boundary where the lead-gray sky met the dead-silent earth, flickering points of light began to appear.

At first only a few scattered dots, like distant stars in the night sky.

Then the points rapidly multiplied and densified, merging into a pulsing band of light.

Finally, that band transformed into a torrential meteor shower trailing multicolored afterimages—wizards flying at extreme speed while constantly firing intercepting spells backward.

The Noren workshops’ vanguard legions had returned.

And hot on their heels came an even denser, more frenzied pursuit torrent.

“To positions!”

Viola barked sharply. Her figure turned into a streak of purple light as she rushed toward the control hub on the lower level of the fortress.

Jie Ming didn’t hesitate for a second. The preparatory runes of Great Void Step lit up faintly along his legs.

With one step, his form pulled a faint afterimage through the air as he followed closely behind Viola, charging into the passage leading to the fortress core.

The two raced through the complex metal corridors. Around them, other wizards were also sprinting.

No one spoke—only the urgent sound of footsteps, the hydraulic hiss of metal gates opening and closing, and the increasingly clear roar of energy explosions filtering in from outside the fortress.

Seconds later, Jie Ming burst into a hemispherical control room.

More than thirty wizards had already gathered here, each standing at their respective consoles.

The consoles were arranged in a ring. At the center floated a three-dimensional projection sandbox more than five meters in diameter, displaying real-time battlefield situation within a three-thousand-kilometer radius centered on Fortress No. 7.

At the sandbox’s edge, the blue light points representing the Noren workshops’ vanguard legions were rapidly contracting toward the fortress.

Behind them, the red light points of the Chaos Secret Cult and Tower of Annihilation coalition surged forward like a breached blood-colored flood.

“Lock onto interception zones 1-7 through 1-12!”

At the center of the control room, a white-haired sixth-ring wizard wearing a monocle issued the order in a deep voice.

He was the tactical commander of this fortress, specialized in large-scale battlefield coordination.

“Rune arrays charging—countdown five seconds!”

“Five…”

Jie Ming quickly took his seat at console “No. 7–Alchemy–09.”

On the console surface, dozens of differently colored crystal panels lit up simultaneously, displaying the real-time status of the twelve “super-heavy elemental disintegration cannons” mounted outside the fortress.

Each shot from these weapons consumed energy equivalent to the full mental power of a fifth-ring wizard. Their destructive power could instantly vaporize a sixth-ring creature’s body and inflict severe damage even on seventh-ring existences.

Though they consumed enormous energy to operate, as fixed defensive emplacements they served perfectly as firepower anchors.

“Four…”

Jie Ming pressed both hands onto the console’s induction area. His consciousness sank into the control network.

His vision switched.

He “saw” the scene outside the fortress.

In the sky, the figures at the forefront of the pursuit were nearly a hundred silhouettes radiating seventh-ring fluctuations.

They were the top combat forces of the Chaos Secret Cult and Tower of Annihilation, charging ahead like the tip of an arrowhead, relentlessly biting at the tail of the Noren workshops’ rearguard.

The Chaos Secret Cult wizards were easy to recognize.

Most wore deep-crimson, dark-purple, or pitch-black robes. Their bodies displayed varying degrees of inhuman traits: some had a third eye on their foreheads, some sprouted tentacles from their backs, some had liquid runes flowing across their skin.

Chaos Secret Cult wizards rarely used direct attack spells. Instead, they employed invisible curse ripples, reality-warping illusion fields, soul-piercing shrieks, and all manner of “pollution” that inflicted negative states.

A seventh-ring wizard from Noren workshops tried to turn and counterattack. The thundercloud he had just condensed was struck by three simultaneous curses.

One created a logical paradox within his spell model, causing the thundercloud to self-annihilate.

One twisted his spatial perception, making him misjudge the distance between friend and foe.

The last directly implanted a “self-doubt” seed into his consciousness, causing a momentary lag in his casting.

In that single instant of hesitation, an attack from a Tower of Annihilation wizard arrived.

The attack was plain and unadorned—a beam interwoven with black and white.

But wherever the beam passed, space itself let out an unbearable wail.

Within that beam were fused two completely opposing yet fundamentally related forces, forcibly combined and then channeled toward the most violent conflict and mutual annihilation.

BOOM!!!

The black-white beam struck the hastily raised shield of the Noren wizard.

There was no explosion, no flash of fire.

Only an absolute “void” spread outward from the point of impact. Shield, light, sound, energy—even portions of the spatial structure—were all reduced to the most fundamental disordered particles within that annihilating power.

The Noren wizard grunted. His shield shattered. His left shoulder and half his chest simply vanished.

Yet he didn’t even look back. Instead, he used the force of the impact to accelerate forward, while the flesh at his wound writhed madly, beginning to regenerate.

The wizards of the Tower of Annihilation specialized in researching the conflict and utilization of opposing energies.

Thus their combat style was the complete opposite of the Chaos Secret Cult’s—simple and brutal.

The collision of water and fire producing high-temperature, high-pressure plasma steam explosions.

The annihilation of light and darkness creating absolute void-devouring fields.

The contact of positive matter and antimatter unleashing pure torrents of destructive energy.

Fortunately, the Noren workshops’ rearguard vanguard wizards were all carefully selected elites.

Beyond raw combat power, they excelled in mobility, survivability, and tactical adaptability.

Despite being outnumbered, through exquisite coordination, an endless array of life-saving trump cards, and their familiarity with the pre-placed traps in this region, they forcibly turned the pursuit into a fighting retreat of attrition.

“Two…”

On the sandbox, the blue light points representing the rearguard finally crossed an invisible “boundary line.”

That line was an arc-shaped defensive perimeter extending one hundred and twenty kilometers outward from the foremost Fortress No. 1.

Behind that line lay the Noren workshops’ preliminarily constructed fortress cluster defense zone.

“One…”

The commander’s countdown struck like cold hammer blows against every wizard’s consciousness in the control room.

Jie Ming took a deep breath.

On his console, the twelve icons representing the “super-heavy elemental disintegration cannons” simultaneously shifted from yellow to a piercing scarlet.

Charging complete.

“…Fire!”