novelraw Chapter 407: Targeted
Chapter 407: Targeted
On the battlefield where cannon fire and energy beams intertwined, the command platform area where Jie Ming stood had fallen into an eerie kind of “silence.”
It wasn’t a complete absence of sound.
On the contrary, this zone was filled with the muffled thuds of energy shields taking hits, the deep roars of black giants, and the clicking friction of Sickle-Skull carapaces.
All these noises blended together into a grim background symphony of death.
In Jie Ming’s perception, this area felt as if it had been surgically carved out of the rest of the battlefield.
No matter how fiercely other sectors raged, this one remained locked in a precise fifteen-against-one encirclement.
“Damn it!” Jie Ming gritted his teeth and activated the talisman-sealed artifact on his back once more.
The “Great Radiance Formation,” composed of tens of thousands of talisman seals, unfurled behind him. The circular array spun rapidly, the three metallic discs at its core blazing with light.
In the next instant, tens of thousands of energy projectiles poured forth like a downpour—each one powerful enough to level a small mountain.
But the Sickle-Skull opposite him were already prepared. Among the fifteen figures, three simultaneously raised their forelimbs.
No—those were not limbs, but some kind of precision-engineered metal devices.
Runes flickered across their surfaces as they projected a semi-transparent force field.
The instant the energy projectiles struck the field, they behaved like water droplets sinking into a sponge—rapidly dispersed, absorbed, and neutralized.
Anti-energy absorption disruptors.
And a model specifically tailored to counter the light-projectile attacks released by talisman-sealed wizard artifacts.
“They know exactly what I have.” The realization hit Jie Ming like ice water poured down his spine.
Sure enough, almost the moment his first volley ceased, four of the fifteen Sickle-Skull moved.
Patterns on their carapaces lit up. Four invisible waves instantly enveloped the area.
Spatial lockdown.
They had already deployed one round of spatial interference when they first closed in on him. Now, clearly, they intended to expand that field advantage to its fullest.
This was true “space solidification.” Jie Ming could even feel the “viscosity” of the surrounding space, as if he had sunk into gel.
He barely managed, in the split second before the lockdown fully took hold, to hurl out a Spatial Distortion.
The invisible distortion bloomed in midair. Violent spatial forces tore at everything around it.
Under normal circumstances, this strike would have ripped an ordinary fifth-tier creature to shreds.
Yet the Sickle-Skull directly in its path merely had its black armor slightly deform, emitting a grating metallic screech.
And then… nothing.
Anti-spatial stabilization armor.
Specialized equipment designed specifically to counter spatial-type witchcraft.
“They even have contingencies for this?” The chill in Jie Ming’s heart deepened.
The situation was even worse for the black giants.
Those positioned at the front of the line, trying to come to his aid, were being elegantly divided and surrounded by the remaining Sickle-Skull.
They used time-slow fields to interfere with the black giants’ time acceleration, and energy-siphon fields to weaken the absorption capabilities of the liquid-metal layers.
The sixth-tier black giant commander Molten Mountain roared as he tried to break through, only to be firmly pinned down by two Sickle-Skull.
The equipment on those two was noticeably different.
One wielded a high-frequency vibration blade; each strike left deep gouges in the black giant’s tough exterior. The other continuously emitted strange energy ripples that disrupted Molten Mountain’s innate time manipulation talent.
“Two of them holding down a sixth-tier…” Jie Ming forced himself to calm down.
He transferred control of part of his talisman-sealed artifacts to the Five Aggregates Rainbow Mirror. His hands moved through a series of gestures in rapid succession. One after another, small-scale witchcraft models formed and released in the blink of an eye: fireballs, ice spears, lightning chains, acid sprays… all basic spells, yet combined in cunning and unpredictable ways.
Yet even under this barrage, the Sickle-Skull responded with perfect precision. They didn’t even bother tanking the hits—instead, they evaded with the smallest possible movements while always maintaining the integrity of the encirclement.
It felt like… playing chess against himself, where the opponent knew every possible move he could make.
“In the last loop, what exactly did I do to make these things target me so specifically?” Jie Ming wondered frantically even as he fought. “Did I use Trigram Fire Annihilation Divine Light for area clearance? Was the black giants’ self-destruct tactic too eye-catching? Or… did I expose something about the uniqueness of my Inner Cave Heaven?”
He needed a breakthrough.
In that instant, Jie Ming made his decision.
His left hand reached into empty air. A passage to the Inner Cave Heaven opened in his palm.
A dark golden staff was drawn out.
Trigram Fire Annihilation Divine Light staff—charge level: sixty-three percent.
Though it wasn’t fully charged, the moment the staff appeared, all fifteen Sickle-Skull froze in unison.
The three outermost ones immediately raised new devices.
This time there was no obvious visual effect when the devices activated, but Jie Ming keenly sensed that the high-energy particles in the surrounding space had suddenly become “sluggish.”
As if water had turned into syrup.
“Particle stagnation field…” Jie Ming’s pupils contracted.
A defensive measure specifically designed to counter high-energy beam attacks.
Though it could only last for an instant, in theory, if he released Trigram Fire Annihilation Divine Light right now, that beam—which should have traveled at the speed of light—might indeed be delayed.
“They even know about this.” Strangely, Jie Ming felt a sense of certainty.
The intelligence was confirmed: in the previous loop, he had definitely used this staff—and to significant effect.
Otherwise, the enemy would not have prepared such an extremely targeted countermeasure.
But at the same time, this also meant their understanding of him was still limited to the “previous loop” level.
“Then let’s see… what’s different about me in this loop.”
Jie Ming did not activate the staff. Instead, he flipped it and thrust it back behind him.
This action created a brief moment of confusion in the Sickle-Skull formation.
And Jie Ming seized that gap.
He no longer retreated—instead, he stepped forward.
The moment his foot landed, the body forging technique surged to full power, channeling all his strength into his legs.
The ground exploded.
Jie Ming turned into an afterimage, his speed so extreme that he left a sonic boom cloud trailing behind him in the air.
He did not attack any single Sickle-Skull—instead, he crashed directly toward the weakest link in the encirclement.
The Sickle-Skull in that direction reacted extremely quickly, immediately raising its forelimb energy blade.
But in Jie Ming’s eyes… its movements were too slow.
Under the enhancement of his Spirit Transformation realm nascent soul, Jie Ming’s thought speed was several times faster than that of same-tier wizards.
He could see the sequence in which the runes on the energy blade lit up, could see the trajectory of the opponent’s muscle exertion, could see the tiny vulnerabilities in the gaps between its carapace plates.
One punch.
A pure strike delivered by a body forged through countless temperings of the body forging technique—at a speed exceeding dozens of times the speed of sound.
Bang!
A dull impact rang out. The Sickle-Skull’s chest carapace caved in completely. Green bodily fluid sprayed from its mouthparts and the cracks in its armor.
Its body was sent flying backward, smashing through three ruined structures before finally coming to a halt.
The encirclement was broken.
The other Sickle-Skull immediately adjusted, but Jie Ming was faster still.
He moved like a phantom through their formation, each strike landing precisely on carapace joints, energy device interfaces, and weak points.
The body forging technique gave him not only defense, but perfect control over every inch of muscle in his body.
The battle began to tilt decisively.
But just as Jie Ming’s full attention focused forward, a sudden change occurred.
A figure emerged from the shadow of ruins to his side and rear—it seemed to have been there all along, perfectly blended into the background.
Only now, at the precise moment when Jie Ming’s old momentum had ended and new momentum had yet to rise, did it launch its killing strike.
This was a different Sickle-Skull.
Smaller in size, its carapace nearly pure black. Most striking was its single forelimb.
A thick, black-metal spike covered the limb, its surface absorbing all light, reflecting nothing.
The instant the spike thrust forward, the three layers of energy shields around Jie Ming were pierced like paper.
No resistance. No delay.
That spike carried a certain “anti-magic” property, specially designed to dismantle energy defenses.
Anticipation flickered in the compound eyes of all the Sickle-Skull.
Then—
Clang!
The sound of metal striking flesh rang out like the clash of gold and stone.
The black spike stopped at Jie Ming’s chest, tearing through his outer robe, yet could advance no further.
In the stunned gaze of the Sickle-Skull, cracks spread across the spike’s surface. Then with a sharp “crack,” it snapped in two.
Jie Ming slowly turned his head, expressionless, and looked at his would-be assassin.
The Sickle-Skull seemed to want to retreat, but it was already too late.
With a casual wave of his hand, the creature was struck as if by an invisible giant hammer. Its entire body instantly exploded into a mist of blood mixed with metal fragments and carapace shards.
“Anti-magic weapon?” Jie Ming lowered his head to look at his chest. His robe was torn, revealing skin beneath that gleamed with metallic luster—not even a white mark remained. “Effective against pure energy defense witchcraft, perhaps. But against this body I’ve forged through a thousand temperings… it’s still far from enough.”
Yet even as he spoke, there was no trace of relaxation in his heart.
This meant that in the next loop, the enemy would surely prepare even more targeted countermeasures against physical defense.
The battle continued, but the scales had already tipped decisively.
Though the Sickle-Skull held the advantage in intelligence, the wizards’ raw strength still surpassed them.
Once Jie Ming opened a breach, the surrounding wizards also began to finish off their own opponents and move to support.
Under Molten Mountain’s leadership, the black giants finally broke through their restraints, surging forward like a black tide.
A little over ten minutes later, the last Sickle-Skull fell under the combined assault of four wizards.
Jie Ming stood in place, breathing lightly.
He looked around. The battlefield had been largely secured.
Cannon-fodder unit losses were heavy—the ground was covered with the wreckage of biochemical behemoths and alchemical constructs—but wizard casualties themselves were minimal.
In the distance, Lord Frost was directing the cleanup of remaining resistance.
Even this seventh-tier wizard had faced even heavier targeting than Jie Ming, yet he had still crushed all of the enemy’s high-end forces single-handedly.
“Captain Jie Ming.” A voice came from the side.
It was the adjutant, one arm bearing a wound deep enough to show bone. He was repairing it with healing witchcraft. “Casualty report complete. Our battalion lost forty-two percent of cannon-fodder units. Seven wizards lightly wounded. No fatalities.”
“Understood.” Jie Ming nodded, though his gaze drifted toward the horizon.
On the distant skyline, the Sickle-Skull main force was retreating.
Their withdrawal was orderly, without the slightest trace of panic or rout.
This landing battle had been won.
But it was only the beginning.