novelraw Chapter 497: Pursuit
Chapter 497: Pursuit
This time, Jie Ming pushed Light-Form Escape to an unprecedented duration.
The rainbow streak pierced the sky, crossing vast wastelands, rocky mountains, parched ancient riverbeds, and bizarre landscapes rising like the skeletons of colossal beasts.
Only when his spiritual power was nearly exhausted and stabbing pains of depletion throbbed through his soul did he finally allow the light to fade, his form reconverging on an unfamiliar plain.
“Huff… ha…”
He dropped to one knee, hand braced against the ash-white ground, chest heaving violently. Each breath burned like fire.
This burst of light-flight had covered more than twenty million kilometers.
Sustained long-distance Light-Form Escape—even with his current physique and the adaptive evolution of his body-forging method—had pushed him to the very edge of endurance.
Yet when he raised his head, an irrepressible grin spread across Jie Ming’s face.
“Two sixth-rings… even if they don’t die, they’re crippled for the rest of this war.”
That wisp of Mortal Dust Qi had been his entire accumulation over hundreds of years. Its sheer density, laden with the thick, tangled desires and delusions of mortal existence, was enough to plunge a seventh-ring wizard of unsteady mind into a brief “Mortal Dust Tribulation,” drowning their consciousness in the endless delusions of all living beings.
Used against two sixth-rings lacking specialized defenses, the effect was devastating.
He quickly drew several high-grade recovery potions and downed them in one gulp.
As the medicinal power dissolved, both Body-Forging Method and Qi Refinement Method activated simultaneously, rapidly converting the potion, the thin ambient elemental energy, and even his body’s stored vital essence into nourishment for his spiritual sea and flesh.
The tide of exhaustion receded like water.
“Time to plan the return route,” Jie Ming muttered while regulating his breathing, thinking calmly. “Though I dealt with two, that last one might still pursue… I have to prepare for the worst.”
If that Tower of Annihilation sixth-ring truly had a way to track him again, continuing to maneuver in unfamiliar enemy territory would be unwise.
The best option was to return to the Noren Workshop defensive line. Though the distance was immense, with Light-Form Escape’s speed and his recovery ability, he could adopt a relay pattern: long-distance light-flight, brief recovery, then light-flight again.
As long as each segment was far enough and recovery intervals short enough, even if the enemy could track him, intercepting midway would be nearly impossible.
After all, Light-Form Escape traveled at genuine light speed.
Just as he recovered to about seventy or eighty percent and prepared to take out his terminal to confirm relative coordinates with the camp…
A powerful, unmistakable spatial fluctuation struck—like a boulder crashing into a still lake—erupting from the distance!
The source was only a few thousand kilometers away!
Jie Ming jerked his head up, pupils contracting sharply.
Such violent, completely undisguised spatial ripples were clearly not natural—they were the signature of high-grade spatial sorcery activating!
What made his heart sink even further was that, the instant the fluctuation subsided, a familiar, bone-chilling energy aura stabbed into his perception like a needle…
It was that Tower of Annihilation wizard!
He had caught up!
Using spatial teleportation, he had crossed more than twenty million kilometers in one leap, closing to such a dangerously close range!
“How is he this fast?!” Thoughts raced through Jie Ming’s mind as he instantly deduced several possibilities. The most logical one made his expression turn extremely grim.
“He discovered… the flaw in Light-Form Escape.”
The light-flight of the Five Aggregates Rainbow Mirror was unrivaled in speed among peers, yet it carried an inherent weakness: it could only travel in a straight line.
This was dictated by the fundamental physical nature of light itself—even transformed through cultivation methods, it could not violate this basic law.
Under most circumstances, the flaw was irrelevant.
The sheer distance advantage of light speed covered everything.
Unfortunately, his opponent was an experienced, sharp-minded sixth-ring wizard. Having witnessed one complete escape sequence, he had already devised a countermeasure.
He had extrapolated Jie Ming’s flight trajectory and used ultra-long-range spatial teleportation to jump directly to a point along the projected line—cutting him off!
Even if the first attempt missed, a few short jumps would eventually locate him.
“…This is bad!”
The moment Jie Ming understood, that cold aura in the distance paused briefly—then abruptly changed direction.
Clearly, the enemy had detected him too!
Without the slightest hesitation, Jie Ming clenched his right hand in the air. The spell model in his spiritual sea trembled under the massive strain of his mental power!
“Spatial… Stabilization!”
Hum!!!
Centered on him, a spherical region a hundred kilometers in diameter had its spatial structure forcibly “locked” in an instant!
Layer upon layer of invisible force fields wove into a net, as though the entire zone had been cast into transparent crystal.
Any attempt at spatial leaping, phase shifting, or high-intensity spatial disturbance within this area would face enormous resistance and backlash.
Almost the instant Spatial Stabilization took shape, more than a hundred kilometers away, the sky tore open like ripped canvas. A gray-white figure was squeezed forcibly out of the void.
It was precisely that Tower of Annihilation sixth-ring wizard!
In his left hand he held a struggling pitch-black shadow hound. Though somewhat surprised by Jie Ming’s reaction speed, his right hand was already extended forward in a grasping posture the moment he emerged.
Gray-white mist roiled violently in his palm—clearly he had prepared to attack the instant the teleport finished.
But Jie Ming reacted even faster.
In the brief moment before the enemy’s form fully stabilized, rainbow light erupted from Jie Ming once more!
“You won’t escape!”
The Tower of Annihilation wizard barked coldly. His outstretched right hand clenched violently!
A sound like shattering glass rang out as a vast swath of space ahead suddenly collapsed inward—as though an invisible giant hand sought to crush that entire region, rainbow light and all!
But he was still half a beat too slow.
The collapsing space only caught the fading tail of the rainbow streak.
The brilliant stream of light burst free like a bird escaping its cage, continuing onward along its original straight path with unstoppable momentum, vanishing instantly at the edge of the sky.
The gray-white figure flickered and appeared at Jie Ming’s former position in the blink of an eye.
He hovered in midair, lowering his gaze to his slightly trembling right palm.
A few lingering flecks of iridescent light dust still clung there, as though mocking his failure.
“Straight line… as expected,” he murmured from beneath the shadow of his hood, where two scarlet gleams flickered. “Speed is light speed, but direction is fixed… next time, you won’t get away.”
He released his left hand. The shadow hound dropped to the ground, nostrils flaring as it swiftly locked onto the direction the rainbow light had fled, letting out a low, eager whimper.
The wizard wasted no more time. Lifting the hound, he began constructing another ultra-long-range spatial teleportation spell. After dozens of seconds, his form blurred once more.
Roughly fifteen hundred kilometers away, space rippled open again. The gray-white figure reappeared in the high sky.
He tossed the shadow hound forward. After a brief sniff in midair, it indicated a different direction this time.
“Oh? Deliberately shortening the flight distance and changing course midway? Futile struggle!”
The wizard’s expression remained impassive. He lifted the hound again and launched another spatial teleport.
This time, however, he intentionally shortened the teleport distance considerably—and reduced the casting time even further.
Once, twice, three times…
Like a seasoned hunter, he closed in on his prey with efficient short-range successive teleports.
This tracking method demanded extreme control over mental power and spatial elements, and the consumption was enormous.
But he paid it no mind.
The threat posed by that fifth-ring wizard had already exceeded normal bounds.
At any cost, he had to erase him completely before he could reunite with the main Noren Workshop forces.
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