novelraw Chapter 492: Setting Out Once More
Chapter 492: Setting Out Once More
Several days later.
Jie Ming stood on the launch platform at the top of Fortress No. 7, inspecting his equipment one last time to confirm he was fully prepared.
On the distant horizon, the familiar dark-red and ash-gray tide surged forth once again.
The harassment force from the Chaos Secret Cult and the Tower of Annihilation had arrived right on schedule to “punch in.”
This mixed legion of roughly thirty thousand halted about two hundred kilometers from the defensive line. The vanguard wizards began channeling elements and directing their cannon-fodder units, preparing—as always—to unleash a single round of long-range sorcery before withdrawing.
But this time, things were different.
The instant their mental fluctuations reached peak instability…
Hum!
Across the entire wasteland, space rippled violently like a lake struck by a colossal stone!
Tens of thousands of figures “emerged” from what had moments before been empty air! They had lain in wait here long ago, concealed within a massive group cloaking barrier that blended them perfectly with the environment. Now the disguise was dropped, and their fangs were bared!
The legion Noren Workshop had prepared for the counterstrike revealed itself!
Combat erupted in an instant!
The thunder of colliding energies, the shrieking of torn shields, the roaring charge of cannon-fodder units—all sounds fused into a symphony of annihilation, sweeping across hundreds of kilometers in a heartbeat!
Jie Ming stood at the platform’s edge, gazing down at the battlefield that had abruptly turned into a meat grinder. His expression remained calm.
“It’s begun.”
Viola’s voice came from beside him.
She had changed into form-fitting dark-purple combat attire. A row of slender potion vials hung at her waist, and she gripped a pitch-black staff topped with a crystalline finial.
“Be careful,” Jie Ming said, turning his head.
“I’m the strong one here,” Viola replied, the corner of her mouth curving upward. “You’re the one who needs to watch out.”
After a brief farewell, Viola turned and headed to the other side of the platform—where nine wizards already waited. It was her “Blood Raven” hunting squad.
The squad members all exuded sharp, honed auras, and faint energy resonances linked them, showing they had already synchronized and trained together beforehand.
Jie Ming withdrew his gaze. His hands formed a seal before his chest.
Great Void Step activated.
His form faded like ink dissolving in water, completely blending into the surroundings until even his presence vanished without trace.
Silently, he leaped from the platform and threaded through the edges of the chaotic battlefield like an incorporeal specter, speeding toward the vast wasteland beyond the defensive line.
In truth, he was far from the only one.
As far as the eye could see, under cover of the erupting main battle, countless figures—some concealed, some moving at blinding speed—were fanning outward from every direction along the defensive line.
How many among those departing wizards were genuine scouts, and how many were decoys meant to draw fire? No one knew.
But clearly the coalition had anticipated this move.
Many figures had barely left the outermost range of the defensive line’s attacks when they were intercepted.
Thus, against the rumbling backdrop of the main battlefield, the vast region outside the defensive line began erupting one after another with scattered points of combat fluctuation.
Each burst represented a small-scale—but quite possibly even more perilous—life-or-death struggle.
Maintaining Great Void Step’s concealment, Jie Ming flew outward at high speed.
As he moved, he continuously released Spatial Stabilization.
This was a lingering habit born from the crystal wizard’s earlier assassination attempt.
On the other side, almost every Noren Workshop wizard—and even many from the coalition side—were doing something similar: either casting spatial locks to prevent enemy instant escapes, or laying down spatial stabilization fields to disrupt potential pursuit.
For the moment, within tens of thousands of kilometers, the space was saturated with all manner of conflicting, overlapping, and interfering spatial sorceries.
For an ordinary wizard to attempt precise spatial leaps in this region would likely be an exercise in despair.
When Jie Ming had flown roughly eight hundred kilometers outward, violent energy fluctuations suddenly erupted from his front-right.
Four figures were rushing rapidly in his direction—or more precisely, three figures were fleeing desperately while one pursued relentlessly behind them.
The three fleeing wore the signature deep-crimson robes of the Chaos Secret Cult. Clear wounds marked their bodies, and as they escaped they repeatedly turned to unleash intercepting sorcery.
Their pursuer was clad in a Noren Workshop gray robe and wielded a longsword wreathed in cyan flames. Each swing of the blade left lingering spatial fractures hanging in the air.
“Three Chaos Secret Cult wizards being hunted by one person?” Jie Ming’s gaze flickered.
He slowed his speed and concealed himself to observe from the side.
As the two sides fought while fleeing, the Noren Workshop wizard’s strength clearly dominated.
His swordsmanship was exquisite and ruthless, always anticipating their escape routes to block them in advance. His energy control was extremely precise—each strike forced the trio to join defenses, sharply reducing their flight speed.
But as an outsider, Jie Ming saw more clearly.
Though the three Chaos Secret Cult wizards appeared disheveled, their escape route was not chaotic at all; it subtly pointed toward a specific direction.
Moreover, the intercepting sorcery they released was mostly meant to buy time rather than genuinely repel their pursuer.
“There’s a trap ahead,” Jie Ming judged instantly.
Either waiting ambush comrades, or a pre-arranged killing array.
Whichever it was, if the three managed to reach their designated position, the pursuing Noren Workshop wizard would very likely fall into grave danger.
In the span of a thought, Jie Ming made his decision.
He quietly altered course, circling to the front-side of the fleeing trio. In his hand appeared more than a dozen floating talisman-seal wizard tools.
Jie Ming had no intention of using Trigram Fire Annihilation Divine Light—the sheer scale and noise of that technique would allow the enemy to evade in advance.
So he chose a more “conventional” approach, one he had not used in quite some time: talisman-seal wizard tools.
Hum…
Before Jie Ming’s chest, more than a dozen embedded talisman-seal wizard tools simultaneously lit with faint glows.
Then…
Whoosh whoosh whoosh whoosh whoosh!!!
Tens of thousands of energy light orbs poured forth from the void in front of him like a breached river of stars!
Each orb was only fist-sized, yet contained highly compressed elemental energy.
Their flight paths interwove into a three-dimensional fire net spanning thousands of meters, precisely sealing off every possible forward route of the three Chaos Secret Cult wizards!
“What?!”
“Ambush!”
“Scatter! Split up and run!”
The lead Chaos Secret Cult wizard roared in shock and fury, attempting to thread through gaps in the barrage.
But Jie Ming’s attack was far too dense.
After all, from the beginning he had never planned to repel them with these light orbs alone. Every single orb’s position had been meticulously calculated, forming layer upon overlapping layer of mutually reinforcing walls of bullets.
The trio even felt like fish caught in a net—freedom seemed tantalizingly close, yet utterly out of reach.
In that brief moment of delay, the Noren Workshop wizard’s sword light arrived like a shadow in pursuit!
“Die!”
A low shout rang out.
The cyan sword light split into three in midair, like three venomous serpents choosing their prey, stabbing with lethal precision toward the backs of the three Chaos Secret Cult wizards.
The trio hurriedly turned and joined defenses. Layer after layer of deep-crimson shields rose.
But the tearing law contained within the sword light was too sharp; the shields were pierced like thin paper, layer by layer.
In the end, three beams of sword light sank into their chests.
Puff! Puff! Puff!
Blood mist exploded.
The three wizards froze in midair. The light in their eyes rapidly dimmed, and then—like puppets with cut strings—they plummeted from the sky.
The Noren Workshop wizard sheathed his sword and stood still. The cyan flames on the blade slowly extinguished.
He turned his head toward the direction where Jie Ming remained concealed and gave a slight nod.
Though he could not see Jie Ming’s figure, the attack trajectory of that earlier wave of talisman-seal wizard tools had been enough for him to determine where the assistance had come from.
Jie Ming did not reveal himself. He merely responded with a faint trace of mental fluctuation.
The two did not even exchange names.
In the current battlefield, cooperation between wizards of the same side was kept as concise as possible—lend a hand, nod in acknowledgment, then each continue their own mission.
The Noren Workshop wizard turned, transforming into a streak of cyan light as he sped away in another direction.
Jie Ming reactivated Great Void Step. His form vanished once more as he continued deeper into the wasteland.
As he flew onward, he glanced back at the three falling corpses.
“Bait cooperating with an ambush… It seems the coalition side has also made preparations.”
His gaze sharpened slightly, and his speed increased another notch.