novelraw Chapter 468: Entering the Field and Being Shot Down
Chapter 468: Entering the Field and Being Shot Down
The surging elemental energy dyed the entire sky into a chaotic, magnificent ocean of color.
Jie Ming joined the ranks of those unleashing spells.
His right hand traced a circle in front of his chest; his fingertips trailed faint light. Under the control of his mental power, elemental forces condensed in the air into a complex three-dimensional structure, then collapsed inward, transforming into a gossamer-thin transparent armor that clung to his skin.
Return to Ruins Armor—hand-cast version.
Immediately after, his left hand flicked in rapid succession. Seven pre-inscribed rune crystals flew from his sleeve, exploding in midair into seven layers of different shield types, nesting one inside another beyond the Return to Ruins Armor.
Finally, he chanted several short syllables under his breath, applying three enhancement spells to himself: “Thought Acceleration,” “Dynamic Vision Reinforcement,” and “Pain Suppression.”
The entire sequence took him only two seconds.
Around him, the other wizards had likewise completed their preparations almost simultaneously.
Looking out across the plain, it had become a galaxy composed of millions of moving points of light—each one a fully armed war wizard.
At that moment… High in the sky, space subtly distorted.
Two figures materialized out of thin air.
To the left stood a human male who appeared to be in his forties. His features were plain and unremarkable, his gaze gentle. He wore a simple linen robe and leaned on a wooden staff that looked as though it had been casually broken from a tree.
Yet the moment he appeared, the elemental tides across the entire ship-plane fell silent, as though paying homage to some higher existence.
Wizard Noren.
The founder of Noren Workshop. An eighth-ring grand wizard.
To the right was a young-looking man with silver hair and crimson eyes. He wore mechanical-style battle armor studded with countless gears and conduits; three slowly rotating metal rings hovered behind him.
For an instant, Jie Ming almost failed to recognize Wizard Anton Buchanan.
After all, this was neither the child nor the elderly form he had once seen—this was Anton in the prime of his manhood.
The two stood suspended in the air. They released no pressure, yet naturally became the absolute center of the entire scene.
Wizard Noren lifted his head, gazing toward an empty point in the void.
Nothing was visible there, but every wizard present understood—he was sensing the precise moment stipulated by the Star Ring Federation.
Three seconds.
Two seconds.
One second.
He withdrew his gaze. His right hand casually swept toward the distant spatial rift.
His voice was not loud, yet it reached every wizard present with clear, steady clarity, as though whispered directly beside their ears:
“Advance.”
No pre-battle speech. No rousing slogans. Only those two simplest words.
But it was enough.
“Jie jie jie jie jie jie… This old man will open the way for you all!” Anton Buchanan slammed his fists together. Terrifying power whipped up scorching gales in the high sky.
Wizard Noren and Anton Buchanan moved first.
The figures of the two eighth-ring grand wizards faded where they stood. In the next instant, they appeared at the edge of the spatial rift, stepped through, and vanished into the black chaotic energy currents.
Eighth-ring wizards, clearing the path for the legion.
Immediately behind them came the first wave of combat-oriented wizards.
Hundreds of thousands of points of light rose simultaneously—like a meteor shower in reverse—trailing multicolored afterimages as they shot toward the rift.
They were the vanguard combat sequence: wizards specialized in frontal breakthroughs, group engagements, and law clashes.
Their mission was to establish the frontline position in the shortest possible time, withstand the enemy’s opening salvo, and buy space for the follow-up forces to deploy.
Jie Ming silently watched the first legion disappear into the rift and began counting down in his mind.
Thirty seconds later, the second wave—long-range strike and support sequence—took to the air.
Another thirty seconds, and the third wave—control and disruption sequence—followed.
Then it was their turn.
“Follow.”
Clark’s voice sounded.
He took a step forward. Space folded automatically beneath his feet, carrying him smoothly forward in flight.
Viola followed close behind, her dark-purple figure tracing an elegant arc through the air.
Jie Ming drew a deep breath and activated the levitation runes built into his wizard robe.
His body slowly lifted off the ground, then accelerated.
Around him, the other wizards rose in unison, forming a vast formation as they flew toward the rift that spanned the horizon.
Wind howled past his ears; the ground below receded at high speed.
The rift rapidly enlarged in his field of vision.
The chaotic energy streams flowing along its edges were clearly visible—law-wounds torn open by brute force in the spatial structure. Every flash of light represented the instantaneous trembling of billions of spatial strings.
Jie Ming could feel every wizard artifact on his body beginning to heat up slightly.
They were adapting to the environmental shift, adjusting output power, preparing to meet the possible high-intensity impacts that could arrive in an instant.
Finally, they reached the edge of the rift.
Without hesitation, Jie Ming plunged straight in.
Instant weightlessness struck.
His vision filled with twisted black.
A piercing spatial friction noise screamed in his ears—like billions of glass shards scraping simultaneously.
His body felt stretched, compressed, spun—this was the normal sensation of passing through an unstable spatial passage.
The duration was brief.
Roughly 0.3 seconds later, light appeared ahead.
Jie Ming burst through.
His feet once again felt gravity. His vision cleared. The noise in his ears faded.
He immediately looked around.
Desolation.
Utter, extreme desolation.
That was Jie Ming’s first impression.
The ground was an almost perfectly flat gray-white, as though it had been repeatedly crushed countless times by some colossal grinder.
No undulations. No hills. No valleys. Not even a single protruding stone.
The surface material resembled some kind of slag mixture—hard, dry, utterly devoid of life.
The sky was a oppressive lead-gray. No clouds. No sun. Only a uniform, dim diffuse skylight.
The elemental concentration in the air was pitifully low—barely enough to sustain even the most basic flame.
This was the “ultra-large abandoned plane” provided by the Star Ring Federation.
A patchwork stitched together from dozens of resource-exhausted plane fragments. Every inch of soil had been stripped of organic matter, mineral elements, and free energy—absolute dead ground where even microorganisms could not survive.
Intelligence flashed through Jie Ming’s mind even as his body instinctively adjusted its posture in preparation for landing.
At that exact instant—
The detection arrays on his chest, abdomen, and back simultaneously shrieked with sharp warning buzzes!
No time to think.
The already-active defensive spells reacted faster than conscious thought.
The Return to Ruins Armor automatically surged to maximum power. The seven nested shields contracted inward, attempting to form the densest possible defensive layer.
But the intensity and effect of the attack far exceeded expectations.
The seven layers of shields Jie Ming had released earlier provided no protection whatsoever. Only the Return to Ruins Armor managed any resistance.
The moment it made contact with the invisible assault, the Return to Ruins Armor flared violently.
That transparent armor—capable of nullifying fifth-ring energy attacks and withstanding sustained sixth-ring bombardment—held for only 0.01 seconds.
Then, like a soap bubble, it shattered.
Jie Ming felt an enormous crisis crush in from all directions at once. The cold touch of death pressed against his skin.
Then, the invisible barrier that had always surrounded his body suddenly blazed with light, forcibly blocking the unknown attack.
But because of this sudden strike, the surrounding elemental environment was thrown into complete chaos by the high-intensity aftershock. He lost control of the levitation runes. His body tumbled and spun uncontrollably.
The world spun wildly in his vision.
The last thing he saw was the gray-white dead ground rushing up at terrifying speed.
Then…
BOOM!!!