I Arrived At Wizard World While Cultivating Immortality

Chapter 420: Anomaly

After verifying part of the hypothesis, Jie Ming and the other two quickly left the forward outpost.

On the way to the next location, their mental link remained active with constant information exchange.

“The Sickle-Skull that were fully stored and then immediately vanished upon retrieval, and those old instruments that likewise disappeared, clearly triggered the paradox in different ways,” Vivian analyzed calmly. “The instruments were stored in the fourth loop, used in the fifth, and only erased after the sixth loop’s time reversal began. But those Sickle-Skull—from our verification just now—had their existence deleted from the timeline right from the beginning of this loop.”

Roland continued: “The difference likely lies in two aspects. First, material origin: the instruments were manufactured by us wizards using ‘external’ resources from outside this plane, while the Sickle-Skull are entirely native, composed of this plane’s fundamental elements. Second, nature of existence: instruments are non-living, while Sickle-Skull are living beings with souls, memories, and complex causal connections.”

“Even though they’re dead, there may still be other forms of marking…”

“Or both,” Jie Ming said while flying at high speed, rapidly deducing in his mind. “We need controlled variables to verify. Fortunately, we stored plenty of samples last loop.”

In the previous loop, with the assistance of the logistics research team, Jie Ming had collected a large quantity of native plane ores and soil samples.

Those samples were stored whole in the Cave Heaven, with their origins clearly documented.

“So our next destination… is this place.” Jie Ming shared a set of coordinates through the mental link. It was a valley approximately eight hundred kilometers from their current position. Records showed it was rich in a type of highly stable “ash crystal ore,” from which he had collected over fifty tons of raw ore.

Roland and Vivian had no objections. However, not long after they changed course toward the new destination, Vivian’s sharp senses detected something on the horizon ahead—a moving “black cloud.”

“Large-scale legion! Numbers… exceeding a million! Dense energy reactions, five confirmed seventh-tier signatures, over a thousand fourth-tier and above!” She issued a swift warning. “They’re moving in our direction. The enemy has already detected us. It should be an army maneuver.”

“Evade or engage?” Roland looked to Jie Ming for decision.

With their strength, they could handle it, but it might delay them.

Jie Ming quickly reviewed the recorded information.

According to records from previous loops, no such large-scale army movement should have occurred in this region at this time point.

“Something’s wrong.” He frowned. “There’s no corresponding intelligence in the records… Have their overall battlefield awareness and response patterns changed again?”

Given the Sickle-Skull’s adaptive nature, this was not impossible.

“Since they’ve already detected us and complete evasion is impossible, we risk being tracked or prematurely exposing our investigation purpose.” Jie Ming made the call. “Clear them quickly. Lady Vivian and Lord Roland, please restrain all creatures above fifth-tier. Don’t let them interfere with me. The rest—I’ll handle.”

“Understood.” The two sixth-tier wizards responded without hesitation, instantly entering combat stance.

When the black insect tide entered twenty-kilometer range, battle erupted.

Roland struck first. Raising his staff high, five chains of condensed, near-solid gravity crossed space in an instant, precisely wrapping around the five most prominent seventh-tier Sickle-Skull leaders within the tide.

The chains, with their immense binding and traction force, forcibly tore those five raging giants out of the legion formation and dragged them toward a distant flank in high altitude.

At the same time, Vivian targeted the approaching army. Raising her palm, spatial distortion activated—every creature with energy intensity at or above fifth-tier was instantly teleported into the sky.

Immediately after, layer upon layer of defensive and binding barriers unfolded around Roland, forming a temporary “arena” to trap those high-tier enemies.

Before them, a million-strong Sickle-Skull army surged toward the solitary figure hovering in midair like a black flood breaking its banks!

The droning of wings, the rasping of carapaces, the killing intent carried in pheromones that had nearly solidified.

Jie Ming’s expression remained calm. His right hand reached into empty air. The light of Trigram Fire Annihilation Divine Light had already begun to condense in his grasp.

But he did not fire immediately.

With a thought, three openings to the Inner Cave Heaven quietly appeared at his side.

Three identical dark-golden staffs, fully charged, slowly floated out and hovered beside him.

At the tip of each staff, a heart-shaking dark golden radiance simultaneously ignited.

“Perfect time to test saturation coverage efficiency,” Jie Ming murmured to himself.

His mental power, in coordination with the Five Aggregates Rainbow Mirror, calculated optimal attack parameters at terrifying speed—coverage range, energy density, duration, subsequent environmental impact…

Charging took only an instant.

In the next breath…

Hum!!!

Four dark golden beams of light erupted from Jie Ming himself and the three staffs at his side, like four divine swords swung by celestial beings!

Under his control, the beams instantly expanded the moment they left the staffs—like blooming lotuses!

The dark golden light curtain, with Jie Ming as its origin, swept forward in a fan-shaped wave that blotted out the sky.

Wherever the curtain passed, space groaned under unbearable strain, light twisted, and temperature skyrocketed at physically impossible rates.

Jie Ming precisely controlled the curtain’s range and intensity.

He did not pursue maximum distance, but concentrated the primary destructive power in a forward sector approximately one hundred kilometers wide and ten kilometers deep—precisely where the densest core assault formation of the million-strong Sickle-Skull army was concentrated.

Light’s speed allowed no evasion.

The instant the dark golden curtain touched the vanguard of the black insect tide, time seemed to freeze for a single frame.

Then came the most absolute annihilation.

Whether sturdy carapaces, resilient souls, or boiling energy—before the disintegrating properties of Trigram Fire Annihilation Divine Light, all melted like ice under sunlight.

Any Sickle-Skull that contacted the curtain—regardless of tier—became instantly transparent and indistinct, then decomposed into fundamental energy particles and material dust, without even a wisp of smoke rising.

The curtain advanced. Annihilation followed.

Like an eraser wiping pencil marks, the black tide “evaporated” rapidly beneath the dark golden flames. Five kilometers, ten kilometers… In the blink of an eye, the dark golden curtain swept across the entire designated area before slowly dissipating.

The sky brightened once more, but the earth below had been transformed into a smooth, mirror-like plain of dead glass.

The million-strong Sickle-Skull army—except for the fortunate few restrained by Roland and Vivian—was completely wiped out.

No corpses remained. No bloodstains. Only air distorted by lingering high temperatures and the strange luster of instantly vitrified ground.

“Impressive power.” Jie Ming retracted the three staffs with satisfaction.

Though various signs suggested he had likely unleashed a triple-staff combined attack before, from a subjective standpoint, this felt like his first time doing so.

The effect was unexpectedly excellent—no wonder he had later been placed under such strict surveillance by the Sickle-Skull.

On the other side, this near-miraculous strike caused even Roland—who was engaged in combat with the five seventh-tier Sickle-Skull leaders in the flank high above—and his opponents to pause involuntarily for an instant.

For the first time, something akin to fear flickered in the compound eyes of the Sickle-Skull leaders, while Roland’s evaluation of this “advisor” rose once again to an almost unbelievable level.

Jie Ming breathed lightly. Controlling four wide-area, high-power attacks simultaneously placed considerable strain on both his mental power and spiritual energy reserves.

But he was more concerned with the combat data from this engagement.

“Saturation coverage against dense low-tier legions… near one hundred percent elimination efficiency. Energy utilization rate exceeded expectations by eight percent—likely related to environmental elemental concentration. Decomposition effect residual duration…” He rapidly recorded while gazing at the scorched earth, feeling little emotional fluctuation.

War was simply like this—especially against an enemy that must be exterminated.

The battle in the sky concluded soon after.

Deprived of legion cover and morale support, those high-tier Sickle-Skull could not hold out long against the combined assault of Roland and Vivian, who was now free to join. They fell one after another.

With the battle over, the three did not linger and continued toward the ash crystal ore valley.

Yet Jie Ming felt some unease in his heart.

The frequency and magnitude of the Sickle-Skull’s tactical adjustments were increasing. They were no longer completely reliant on the old “loop trial-and-error” approach but had begun conducting more proactive, risk-taking strategic probes.

Behind this shift—was it because they sensed the lethal threat posed by the wizards’ research? Or had some deeper, hidden will within the loop issued new directives?

Thinking this, he encapsulated the information about this encounter with an unusually large enemy force—including coordinates, approximate troop composition—and stored it in an information crystal.

Then he sent an identical set of information back to the main camp through the Netherweb Terminal.