Jie Ming waited patiently for a few more moments before slowly opening his eyes. A flash of cold light passed through them.
Maintaining his phase space state, he silently âglidedâ directly above the massive rock, positioning himself within armâs reach of the seated figure below.
Thenâhe struck with full force!
The âpeeledâ state of phase space was deliberately released. Jie Mingâs figure burst forth like someone leaping suddenly from underwater, instantly materializing in the main plane!
The moment phase space separated, the violently suppressed spatial shearing force produced by the intersection of the two spatial layers did not dissipate. Instead, with his powerful mental strength, he forcibly guided and concentrated it along the edge of his palm!
ăSpatial Slashă!
A faint yet terrifying jet-black fissureâas if capable of severing the very baseline of the worldâfollowed the downward sweep of Jie Mingâs hand, descending soundlessly toward the figure below, who had only just awakened due to the violent spatial disturbance!
Although the soul-type wizard had been on high alert after sensing the earlier anomaly, his attention had clearly been focused on the possibility of another soul-type wizard. He never expected an attack to arrive in such an utterly unpredictable mannerâripping straight through space from practically point-blank range above his head!
Even more crucially, he had never imagined he would actually be discovered!
The seated figure shuddered violently. In an instant, at least seven layers of differently colored, differently natured shields and barriers erupted around himâsome deflecting perception, some neutralizing energy, some attempting to harden space itself to stall the incoming strike.
But the cutting power of Spatial Slash stemmed from the very misalignment and tearing of spatial structure itself. It âskippedâ most conventional confrontations between energy and matter defenses.
Ssssh!!!
Like a hot knife slicing through congealed fat.
The jet-black fissure treated those shields as though they did not exist, passing through in a flash.
Shock and utter disbelief froze on the soul-type wizardâs face.
His bodyâalong with the soul structure inside itâwas silently bisected vertically down the center by that spatial fissure.
The cut was mirror-smooth. Not even a drop of blood had time to spray before the chaotic spatial forces at the fissureâs edge annihilated it completely.
However, the final death counterattack of a fifth-ring soul wizard could never be underestimated!
In the very last instant before his consciousness was utterly extinguished, from within his bisected soul structure surged an invisible, terrifying mental shockwaveâcondensed from his lifetime of mental power and resentment of death. Like a dam bursting, it erupted toward Jie Ming, who stood mere inches away, carrying piercing soul shrieks, chaotic memory fragments, and vicious cursesâall unleashed without reservation!
Though Jie Ming had prepared in advance, this near-materialized mental assault still produced a tangible physical effect.
The terrifying impact caused his body to unavoidably freeze for a split second.
And in that single moment of stagnationâŠ
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!!!
Dozens of figures that had long been lying in ambushâconcealed within the surrounding rock pillars, the sandy ground, and even midairâsuddenly revealed themselves from every direction.
After the initial shock, they unleashed a saturation bombardment toward Jie Mingâs position!
More than twenty fifth-ring wizards attacked simultaneously. The dazzling multicolored radiance of witchcraft instantly drowned and detonated the tiny patch of space where Jie Ming stood!
Rocks vaporized. Sand fused into glass. Space itself shuddered violently, kicking up energy smoke and dust that blotted out the sky.
Clearly, Black had been right.
This soul-type wizard did indeed have teammatesâand they had already been lurking nearby, waiting only for him to expose the enemyâs trace before launching a lethal coordinated strike!
Yet before the smoke even began to clear,
a calm voice cut clearly through the lingering echoes of the explosions and the howling of chaotic energy flows:
âThatâs it?â
The faces of the other fifth-ring wizards on the scene changed dramatically. They were just about to reactâbut it was already too late.
Dark-golden light erupted like sunlight tearing through black clouds, bursting forth from the churning smoke and dust!
The twelve Trigram Fire floating cannons behind Jie Ming, long since readied, opened fire.
Twelve beams fired in an unbroken chain. Rather than dissipating immediately after release, the dark-golden beams transformed into twelve swords of pure annihilative energy!
âAAAAAHHH!!!â
Wherever the beams swept, screams erupted instantly.
A Chaos Secret Cult wizard who had just emerged from behind a rock pillar, preparing to unleash a second round of witchcraft, was sliced clean in half at the waist by a single beamâhis upper body vaporizing on the spot.
Another wizard from the Tower of Annihilation, who had just raised an ice-frost shield, was âcarvedâ through along with his barrier. The shield shattered, and his entire body disintegrated into a mixture of ice crystals and dustâŠ
Jie Mingâs figure slowly emerged from the center of the gradually dissipating smoke.
He stood enveloped in the immovable domain of the Return to Ruins Armor. The earlier saturation attackâmore than capable of easily slaying fifth-ring wizardsâcaused only faint ripples across the armorâs field, without so much as damaging a corner of his robe.
His gaze remained calm. His mental power spread like an invisible net, precisely controlling the twelve floating cannons.
The cannon muzzles followed the guidance of his will like the pointers of the Grim Reaper, sweeping and strafing without pause.
Endless Trigram Fire Annihilation Divine Light plowed through every coordinate point where the previous attacks had originated, as well as every surrounding area that could possibly conceal an enemy, leaving nothing but dark-golden streams of utter destruction in their wake!
Screams rose and fell in quick succession, only to be swiftly silenced.
The exposed ambushers tried to flee, defend, counterattackâbut under the relentless, terrifyingly powerful barrage of Trigram Fire beams, every form of resistance appeared feeble and futile.
In merely a few breathsâ time, more than half of the ambushers had been reduced to ashes.
The remaining enemies were completely broken by this mobile natural disaster of firepower. Panic-stricken, they scattered in all directions, desperate to escape this zone of death.
Jie Ming had no intention of letting them get away.
The floating cannonsâ muzzles pursued the fleeing figures as though endowed with life. Dark-golden beams clung to them like maggots on bone, poised to deliver the final harvest.
But at that momentâŠ
A heavy, vast, suffocating wave of terrifying pressure descended abruptly from somewhere across the Gobi like a tangible mountain!
The immense pressure crashed down like an ocean suddenly falling from the sky, instantly enveloping the entire area!
Space itself seemed to thicken. The fleeing wizards, both enemy and (momentarily) himself, staggered as their movements slowed.
The swirling smoke and chaotic energy flows rapidly settled and calmed under this force.
Jie Mingâs heart sank. He ordered the floating cannons to temporarily cease fire. His cold gaze turned toward the direction from which the pressure originated.
On the distant horizon, a figure was approaching through the air.
Though the movement appeared slow, it was in truth terrifyingly fast.
The newcomer was tall and broad-shouldered, clad in the signature dark-silver-trimmed black robe of the Tower of Annihilation.
His face was hidden in the shadow of his hood. Only a pair of eyesâburning like twin dark-red coalsâlocked firmly onto Jie Ming from an immense distance.
As if confirming Jie Mingâs identity, the newcomer no longer bothered to conceal it: the majestic, surging power unique to a sixth-ring wizard rolled forth like a tidal wave.
The true powerful enemy had arrived.