Chapter 515: [Imaginary]

The sky was filled with endless dark-gray barrages, pouring down like an inexhaustible rain of death, ceaselessly scouring the airspace where Jie Ming stood.

With every concentrated volley of the barrage came the sound of at least one layer of Return to Ruins Armor domain shattering like fragile glass.

Yet at this moment, a rare trace of relief rose in Jie Ming’s heart.

He was glad that, out of boredom, he had once studied those two “remuneration” technologies.

Among them, the 《Multi-Layer Barrier Nesting Optimization Algorithm》, although it had not helped him complete his combat system, now played an unexpectedly crucial role in this extremely passive defensive battle.

Thanks to the algorithm’s optimizations, he was able to trigger multiple Return to Ruins Armor witch tools in near-perfect synchronization.

Through the algorithm’s built-in “conflict resolution” and “energy flow bridging” modules, these hastily formed layers of identical defensive domains could, within mere milliseconds, barely maintain an unstable state of “multi-layered superposition.”

This was far from a perfect multi-layer defense.

The energy circulation was not smooth enough; the superimposed defensive effects suffered obvious attenuation and interference; the overall structure was extremely fragile; and it placed an enormous burden on Jie Ming’s mental computational power.

If not for the Five Aggregates Rainbow Mirror—this natal treasure—that greatly enhanced the stability of his mind and computational efficiency, such an operation would have been impossible to sustain in high-speed combat.

But right now, this “imperfect” superposition had become a lifesaving straw.

It allowed him to consume the black-robed wizard’s relentless rule-breaking barrage in layers.

With every dense wave of attack that came crashing in, the outermost Return to Ruins Armor shattered on impact, yet the inner layers provided a buffer, buying Jie Ming the tiny time window needed to trigger the next layer of defense.

He danced on the edge of a blade—pushing Great Void Step to its absolute limit, weaving through the dense barrage gaps with all manner of unbelievable evasion maneuvers—while continuously controlling the floating cannons to counterattack and probe.

Dark-golden Trigram Fire Divine Light shot toward the black-robed wizard from different angles and in different patterns: pinpoint sniping, scattered bursts, or brief sustained irradiation.

Jie Ming no longer sought a single decisive blow. Instead, he frantically gathered data through the feedback from every attack.

“As expected… he cannot truly react to the speed of light.” A gleam of realization flashed in Jie Ming’s eyes.

After dozens of rounds of probing shots from various directions and in various modes, he gradually unraveled the pattern behind the opponent’s bizarre “defense.”

Any attack aimed directly at the black-robed wizard’s body would, the instant before impact, trigger an “automatic response.”

This response was not a subjective “reaction” from the black-robed wizard, but something far more passive—like a “phenomenon” based on some preset rule.

Its external manifestation was this: the black-robed wizard’s body or limbs would always adopt precisely the right posture to “meet” or “block” the attack’s trajectory, after which the attack would vanish as though plunging into nothingness.

“It’s not an increase in his own reaction speed… it’s more like… he’s distorting the ‘time’ between the attack and himself?” Jie Ming analyzed at lightning speed in his mind. “No… perhaps he’s altering the ‘connection’ between the two sides, forcibly synchronizing the moment of ‘imminent hit’ with the outcome of ‘defense already completed’? Is it a time-based rule, or a fate-based one?”

But he immediately ruled out profound mastery of time or fate.

If the opponent truly excelled in high-level manipulation of time or fate, the battle would never have devolved into this kind of head-on slugfest.

Moreover, in terms of defense, what the opponent displayed was clearly not something like elemental purification or dispersion—it was outright erasure of the attack.

And the opponent’s offensive methods clearly embodied yet another rule.

Defense, attack—three entirely distinct rule-level characteristics.

Could the opponent be simultaneously studying multiple rules?

Or perhaps… it was some special kind of rule?

The wizard civilization was vast as the sea, with tens of thousands of obscure rules recorded.

Combining all the details he had observed, Jie Ming rapidly filtered and cross-referenced within his mental database.

The “inevitable interception” of defense resembled predefining the outcome that “the attack must be blocked.”

The “method” of defense resembled directly “erasing the existence of the attack.”

The “rule-breaking” nature of the attack resembled forcibly imposing the state that “the defense must be pierced.”

Among these, rules capable of erasing attacks were the rarest—scarce enough that the entire wizard civilization had only discovered a few tens of thousands of them.

Jie Ming quickly ran through the relevant rule effects in his mind, constantly comparing them to what he was seeing.

Suddenly, his eyes lit up!

“Very likely… it’s this one!”

Though he could not be one hundred percent certain, this conjecture explained the vast majority of the bizarre phenomena before him!

Just as he prepared to conduct further tests to verify whether his guess was correct…

An abrupt change occurred!

In the very instant Jie Ming’s mind rippled slightly from this new discovery, the black-robed wizard—who until now had stood unshakable, mainly using barrages to suppress and wear him down—moved!

Using the barrage’s visual cover, the black-robed wizard vanished from his original position without the slightest warning!

There was no ripple of spatial jump, no afterimage of high-speed movement, not even a precursor of violent energy fluctuation.

It was as though the fact that he “stood a hundred li away” had been directly erased in a single instant, while the new fact that he “appeared three chi beside Jie Ming” was forcibly inscribed into reality!

By the time Jie Ming—guided by the danger sense of his body-forging method and his combat instinct—whipped his head around in shock, those eyes burning with dark-red charcoal flames were already right before him!

A palm covered in a black leather glove, knuckles distinctly defined, was descending toward his chest in a deceptively slow yet impossibly swift motion!

Fast!

Indescribably fast!

Not the speed of physics, but the “fastness” born from completely omitting the process of “from non-existence to existence,” “from far to near”!

His pupils shrank to pinpricks!

His heart nearly stopped!

But in this hair’s-breadth between life and death, extreme terror instead gave birth to extreme clarity.

This completely unreasonable “instantaneous appearance” at close range, together with that unadorned, straight-to-vital-point killing posture, did not panic Jie Ming at all. Instead, like the final piece of a puzzle, it snapped perfectly into place with the astonishing conjecture in his mind!

In the spark between thoughts, that palm had already reached Jie Ming’s body surface.

The outermost several layers of Return to Ruins Armor, maintained by the multi-layer barrier algorithm, popped and dissipated like punctured soap bubbles.

Just as that utterly wrong-feeling palm was about to make solid contact…

A ruthless glint flashed in Jie Ming’s eyes!

He did not choose futile evasion or defense. Instead, he did something that caused even the black-robed wizard’s dark-red pupils to flicker slightly!

In that instant, he poured all his strength into his right arm. Instead of retreating, he advanced—swinging a fist straight toward the oncoming palm in a head-on clash!

Strangely, the moment his fist swung out, the opponent’s palm—which should have been unimaginably fast—actually “slowed” down!

A trace of joy flashed in Jie Ming’s eyes. He knew he had guessed correctly!

The opponent’s attack could be so fast precisely because it directly defined the outcome of “must make contact with my body”!

And at the same moment his fist moved, the Return to Ruins Armor activation witch tools already prepared inside his body were simultaneously triggered!

In the blink of an eye, fist and palm collided.

Whoosh…

There was no earth-shaking collision roar, no explosive backlash of clashing energies.

Jie Ming’s fist, the instant it touched the black-robed wizard’s palm, automatically “scattered” apart.

It was as though his fist had been nothing more than a delicate phantom made of smoke, casually swatted apart.

And this bizarre dissipation rapidly spread upward along his wrist.

It looked exactly as if the black-robed wizard’s palm had effortlessly “swatted apart” a humanoid figure condensed from smoke, starting from the point of contact!

The black-robed wizard’s gaze beneath his hood remained utterly calm—because this was, to him, the most natural outcome.

But in the next moment, the dark-red flames in his eyes flickered imperceptibly.

Because that unstoppable “dissipation,” upon reaching the junction between Jie Ming’s arm and shoulder, abruptly stopped!

A somewhat dim layer of Return to Ruins Armor domain emerged at the final moment, standing like the sturdiest dam and firmly blocking the erosion of “dissipation”!

Crack!

This layer of Return to Ruins Armor shattered as well—but it had successfully held back the erosion for Jie Ming.

“Ugh!”

Jie Ming let out a muffled groan of pain. Using the faint counterforce from the clash and the recoil of the shattered Return to Ruins Armor, he unleashed the fully charged Great Void Step!

His body was yanked backward as though pulled by an invisible giant force, turning into a twisted afterimage as he retreated wildly in a disheveled posture!

Only after reaching a relatively “safe” distance did Jie Ming stabilize himself.

His face was deathly pale, cold sweat dripping from his forehead.

His right shoulder was empty; the severed stump was a mangled mess of flesh and blood, yet powerful vitality was already surging.

The torn blood vessels and muscles writhed and extended like living things, rapidly forming the rudimentary shape of bone and wrapping it in fresh flesh.

Soon, a slightly pale new arm grew back at a speed visible to the naked eye!

He stared fixedly at the black-robed wizard in the distance—who had not immediately pursued and seemed to be appraising him as well. The sharp pain from the severed arm mingled with the maddening itch of regenerating tissue.

But none of it compared to the clarity of the near-certain deduction roiling in his mind.

The “inevitable interception” of defense.

The “structural disintegration” of attack.

The “factual leap” of movement.

And that terrifying effect from the moment of contact earlier, which had directly “dissipated” a portion of his body’s “existence”…

All these characteristics pointed unmistakably toward that extremely rare and bizarre rule.

It was not simple energy manipulation, not spatial-temporal distortion, but something far more fundamental—a power acting at the level of “reality” and “concept.”

Jie Ming flexed his newly grown right hand, clenching it hard into a fist.

Yet his attention was not on it at all. His burning gaze fixed on the black-robed wizard, his voice hoarse yet carrying the certainty that comes from seeing through the truth:

“Truly a terrifying power. What you are using… should be the foundational rule of Imaginary—the rule… [Imaginary]. Am I right?”

The black-robed wizard stood silently in place. Beneath his hood, the dark-red pupils flickered slightly—for the first time showing a trace of genuine acknowledgment.