I Arrived At Wizard World While Cultivating Immortality

Chapter 406: A Battlefield of Self-Confusion

Attacks of every form wove a net of destruction across the sky.

The acid breath of biochemical behemoths, the energy beams of alchemical constructs, the meteor summons of elemental giants—the cannon-fodder units under the wizards’ command unleashed their first synchronized volley in unison.

The spectacle was breathtaking: millions upon millions of attacks trailing multicolored streaks, like a reverse-flowing meteor shower hurtling toward the black insect tide.

Yet Jie Ming’s heart sank.

In the fleeting 0.3 seconds before the attacks could connect, the black ocean came alive.

Not with a unified movement, but with precise, node-by-node evasion.

Right in front of the sector he faced, tens of thousands of Sickle-Skull suddenly split to both sides in perfect unison—an eerie, hair-raising coordination—leaving patches of empty space amid the black waves.

The wizards’ attacks screamed past, striking nothing but air and barren ground.

Explosions bloomed in the voids: flames, frost, acid corrosion, lightning… every kind of energy shockwave radiated outward.

But in the next instant, the surrounding Sickle-Skull shifted again, revealing the massive individuals behind them—bodies embedded with complex glowing patterns. Those patterns flared to life. The rapidly spreading attack energies visibly weakened, ultimately dissipating into nothing more than scattered elemental storms that merely knocked aside nearby Sickle-Skull.

“They’re absorbing the energy!” A more experienced fifth-ring wizard beside Jie Ming cried out in shock. “Those are the foundational patterns of a joint casting array! They’re using our own power to—”

Before he could finish, the patterns on the giant individuals surged in brightness.

The absorbed energy transformed into visible streams of light that snaked along the ground, rapidly pouring into the carapaces of surrounding Sickle-Skull.

The sheen on those carapaces deepened visibly, while the glow building in their mouthparts climbed sharply.

“All cannon-fodder units, deploy defensive barriers!” Lord Frost’s voice came through the Netherweb. “Prepare to absorb the impact!”

Jie Ming issued the order at almost the same instant.

The black giants raised their hands in unison. Ripples spread across their surface liquid-metal layers as they began constructing energy absorption fields.

But it was too late.

The Sickle-Skull counterattack arrived faster than anticipated.

The energy-charged giant individuals simultaneously raised their mantis-like heads—if such a motion could be called “raising”—and unleashed concentrated energy beams from their mouthparts.

Tens of millions of beams fired in unison, converging in midair into a single all-encompassing net of annihilation that blanketed the entire front line.

The foremost row of cannon-fodder units evaporated instantly.

Biochemical behemoth flesh, alchemical construct metal, elemental giant cores—everything melted like paper before those beams.

In just the first wave, an entire layer of the wizard legion’s cannon-fodder was erased—at least a million units vanished in an instant.

“Damn it!” Some wizards cursed aloud.

“Second volley—dispersed strikes!” Lord Frost’s voice remained calm. “Target the areas around the absorption units. Do not strike them directly!”

The wizards adjusted swiftly.

This time the attacks were no longer concentrated, but scattered like raindrops across the insect tide.

Indeed, some Sickle-Skull were hit. Black carapaces shattered, green bodily fluids sprayed.

But the results were limited.

More terrifying still: just as wizards in another sector prepared their third volley and collectively began chanting their spell models…

From the rear of the Sickle-Skull lines emerged another batch of special individuals.

These were smaller in size, but their heads were disproportionately large, compound eyes flickering with eerie psychic radiance.

At the precise critical moment when the wizards’ spells were about to take shape, these individuals simultaneously unleashed psychic shocks.

Not indiscriminate mental assaults, but pinpoint frequency interference.

Jie Ming felt a razor-sharp psychic wave pierce into his mind, striking exactly at a key node in his spell model construction.

He grunted, forcibly stabilizing his mind, and pointed with the Trigram Fire Annihilation Divine Light staff in his hand…

A dark golden beam shot forth, spreading in midair into a fan-shaped curtain of light that engulfed tens of thousands of Sickle-Skull.

Wherever the curtain passed, carapace, flesh, and bone disintegrated into fundamental particles.

Yet when Jie Ming looked around, his heart grew even colder.

Apart from himself and a handful of wizards with exceptionally strong mental defenses who managed to complete their spells, most casters had been interrupted.

Mental backlash left many faces pale; some even bled from the corners of their mouths.

“They even know our casting rhythm…” Jie Ming murmured.

This was beyond simple prediction.

Only a deep understanding of the wizard tactical system, knowing exactly when wizards would collectively cast, knowing which spell models were most vulnerable during construction, knowing which psychic frequencies could interrupt them, could achieve this level of precision.

It required an enormous amount of combat data.

It required… loop after loop.

The battlefield fell into an eerie stalemate.

Every time the wizards launched an attack, the Sickle-Skull responded with the utmost precision.

Sometimes evasion, sometimes absorption and counterattack, sometimes interference with casting.

The black insect tide advanced slowly but steadily, each step landing squarely on the blind spots of wizard tactics.

Casualties began to tilt.

For every Sickle-Skull killed, the wizard side lost at least two cannon-fodder units.

“Lord Frost!” A sixth-ring wizard shouted through the internal command mental network. “If we keep fighting like this, we’ll be worn down to nothing! Their responses are too precise!”

Two seconds of silence.

Then Lord Frost’s voice resounded across the entire army, carrying a note of grim resolve:

“All units, abandon standard coordinated tactics. I repeat—discard all standard tactical templates. Fight freely in small squads, in whatever way you choose—whether it’s techniques you rarely use or your personal specialties, anything goes!”

The instant the order was given, the atmosphere on the battlefield shifted.

The wizards froze for a heartbeat, then understanding flashed in their eyes.

Yes… since the enemy knew the “standard” version of us so well…

Then we simply stop being standard.

“Black Giant Legion!” Jie Ming issued the command almost simultaneously. “Switch to temporal chaos mode, disperse formation, free hunting! Authorized to use Devour Evolution!”

The thousand black giants let out a collective low roar.

The liquid-metal layers on their bodies began to flow at high speed. The time flow around them became chaotic—some parts accelerating, others decelerating.

Then these dozens-of-meters-tall black figures scattered like specters, no longer maintaining neat formations but surging toward the insect tide along bizarre, unpredictable trajectories.

Other wizards made similar choices.

Some ordered their alchemical constructs to self-destruct and charge. Some allowed their biochemical behemoths to devour each other and evolve grotesque variants. Some deliberately overloaded their elemental giants to create chaotic elemental storms.

In an instant, the battlefield transformed from orderly military-array confrontation into a chaotic, utterly unpredictable melee.

For the first time, hesitation appeared in the Sickle-Skull Clan’s response.

Their precise evasions were no longer perfect. Even with the accumulated experience of countless loops, they could not completely avoid the wildly disordered onslaught.

The frequencies of their psychic interference also began to fail, because the wizards had abandoned collective standard spell models and were now using their own obscure, personal techniques.

One fifth-ring wizard even summoned a swarm of screeching metallic bats—creatures that dealt almost no real damage to the enemy, but whose high-frequency sound waves severely disrupted communication between the Sickle-Skull.

The advance speed of the black insect tide visibly slowed.

“It’s working!” Jie Ming’s eyes brightened.

Under these circumstances…

The vanguard of the black ocean finally collided with the wizard legion’s cannon-fodder units.