novelraw Chapter 518: Adaptation
Chapter 518: Adaptation
After another fierce exchange, Jie Ming paid the price of his newly grown left arm turning into flying ash once more, barely blasting himself several thousand meters away.
His breathing had yet to steady when Spiritual Qi surged madly within his body, attempting to replenish the losses and push forward that difficult bodily evolution.
Yet the black-robed wizard’s relentless pursuit, which left almost no room to breathe, did not arrive immediately.
Jie Ming let out a brief sigh of relief and looked up.
Hundreds of meters away, the black-robed wizard’s figure hovered quietly. His hood was slightly raised, and his dark-red eyes seemed to gaze toward some intangible point in the void. His brows furrowed imperceptibly.
He maintained the posture of pursuit, yet had forcibly stopped, as if blocked by an invisible wall.
“Hm?” A low murmur of doubt escaped his lips.
Just now, when he had prepared to “skip” the intermediate process of pursuit as before and directly appear beside Jie Ming to launch the next strike, he had sensed an unprecedented feeling of resistance.
It did not come from Jie Ming’s own defenses, but from… the environment.
He clearly perceived that the “budget” he could use within this attack cycle had been prematurely exhausted right after completing the previous strike!
This was wrong!
According to his precise control over his own law and the increasingly deep “modeling” of Jie Ming’s defensive system, after breaking through one layer of the opponent’s defense and smashing an arm, there should theoretically still have been enough “budget” left to support at least one short-range “process skip” pursuit or one medium-intensity defense.
But in reality, the budget had bottomed out.
The black-robed wizard’s powerful spiritual power instantly spread out like an invisible spiderweb, meticulously scanning every trace of energy flow in the surroundings. Then he found the cause.
In the void environment originally filled with inert elemental dust, weak energy turbulence, and the remnants of both sides’ battle, an unfamiliar, uniquely natured energy had quietly mixed in at some point.
This energy was formless and immaterial, yet seemed to be everywhere. It gently permeated the battlefield area, faintly blending with conventional elemental energy while maintaining a certain independent quality.
It did not possess strong offensive or disruptive properties and was even difficult to directly capture with conventional detection methods.
Yet it undeniably existed.
Like a drop of alcohol falling into clear water—while it did not cause any obvious change to the overall environment, it had quietly altered certain microscopic properties of the entire “solution.”
It was precisely the presence of this unknown energy that had increased the “complexity” and “uncertainty” of the environment.
For the [Imaginary] Law, precisely “defining” a “result” involving energy interaction and spatial positioning in such an environment required additional “environmental variable calibration” and “logical autonomy correction,” invisibly consuming far more “budget” than in a “pure” environment!
Seeing the opponent suddenly begin observing the surrounding environment, Jie Ming inwardly relaxed. He knew his arrangement had taken effect.
Seizing this precious opportunity, he fully activated his cultivation technique to recover while continuing to guide his body toward evolution in the direction of resisting the erosion of the [Imaginary] Law.
“I really didn’t expect,” the black-robed wizard withdrew his probing spiritual power, his gaze returning to Jie Ming. His voice carried a peculiar tone through the hood. “A little guy as astonishingly talented and resourceful as you… would actually choose the Imaginary Law?”
Through the [Imaginary] Law’s high sensitivity to the environment, he seemed to have probed and reached a “reasonable” conclusion—that this energy was a temporary “creation” or “definition” of “Imaginary Element” produced by the opponent using some ability related to fictional laws.
Jie Ming was slightly stunned upon hearing this.
But he immediately realized this was an excellent chance to stall for time!
The opponent seemed to have developed a talkative mood due to the rarity of a “fellow practitioner.” This suited Jie Ming perfectly.
While silently accelerating the circulation of Spiritual Qi within his body and sensing the subtle strengthening occurring in the bone density and muscle fibers of his newly grown arms, he responded in a slightly hoarse voice:
“Where, it is Your Excellency’s mastery of the [Imaginary] Law that truly surprises me… After all, this path of laws that breaks through the boundary between theory and reality is the very ‘foundation’ upon which the fictional laws I research exist.”
“Though that’s not actually the case,” Jie Ming silently added in his heart.
The black-robed wizard had truly never encountered a wizard who researched the path of fictional laws.
Considering the relationship between the [Imaginary] Law and fictional laws, he was genuinely stirred with a trace of interest: “Under normal circumstances, the special environmental field created by ‘Imaginary Element’ is only effective against third- and fourth-ring wizards. Above the fifth ring, one can easily become immune to the environmental influence and interference it causes. For you to think of using the characteristics of ‘Imaginary Element’ to increase environmental variables, interfere with the [Imaginary] Law’s judgment baseline, and consume my budget… This on-the-spot adaptability and understanding of laws is quite good.”
There was even a hint of a senior’s appreciation for a promising junior in his tone?
Yet behind this appreciation lay an even colder and firmer killing intent.
“Thank you for the praise…” Jie Ming responded humbly while remaining inwardly vigilant.
Several floating cannons had finally managed to activate quietly, adjusting to their optimal firing state.
Just as Jie Ming had anticipated, the moment his voice fell, the black-robed wizard’s voice came through:
“Precisely because of that, I cannot let you live even more!”
The black-robed wizard’s voice suddenly turned icy, his killing intent sharp as an ice pick!
At the same time, the result of “he stands at Jie Ming’s side” manifested directly without any warning!
That palm carrying the aura of death slammed fiercely toward Jie Ming’s head!
The conversation just now had also been his strategy to paralyze the opponent while secretly completing a rapid analysis and “modeling” of the Spiritual Qi environment Jie Ming had released!
But Jie Ming had never relaxed his vigilance in the first place!
The instant the opponent’s figure “flashed” into existence, the muzzles of several floating cannons hovering behind him erupted with dark golden light zero point zero one seconds ahead of time—not aimed at the black-robed wizard, but detonating at zero distance right between Jie Ming and the black-robed wizard!
Boom!!!
Terrifying light and heat exploded violently!
The dark golden Trigram Fire Annihilation Divine Light turned into a destructive tide, completely submerging the narrow space between the two!
The Return to Ruins Armor on Jie Ming’s body blazed with golden light, steadily absorbing the explosive shock from his own weapon.
The black-robed wizard’s descending palm was forced to pause slightly the instant it touched the destructive flames.
The [Imaginary] Law triggered passively, forcibly consuming budget to protect him from injury by this sudden point-blank self-detonation.
Sizzle!
Despite the protection of the [Imaginary] Law, the black-robed wizard’s palm still pierced through the explosion’s core and landed solidly on Jie Ming’s hastily raised right arm that was blocking.
The right arm instantly collapsed and scattered!
Yet Jie Ming also used the explosive impact and the buffer from sacrificing his arm to violently retreat once more!
The black-robed wizard’s expression was ice-cold. Just as he was about to pursue, several other floating cannons behind Jie Ming had already opened fire in advance again!
Another round of Trigram Fire Divine Light shot over in a concentrated barrage!
The black-robed wizard was forced to stop once more, mobilizing what little “budget” remained to “erase” the attacks. His figure was briefly stalled. Fine beads of cold sweat appeared on Jie Ming’s forehead as warning bells rang wildly in his heart.
“Something’s wrong… This is way too wrong!”
That palm just now had broken through the Return to Ruins Armor and shattered his arm with terrifying smoothness!
This meant that during the brief conversation and observation earlier, the opponent had already summarized the previous data and found the “optimal model” for breaking the Return to Ruins Armor in its current state!
Fortunately, he had prepared in advance and used the close-range detonation of the pre-fired floating cannons to buy reaction time.
But the initiative still remained firmly in the opponent’s hands.
The [Imaginary] Law’s characteristic of directly presenting attack results was simply too shameless. Once the opponent closed in, Jie Ming barely had time to manipulate the floating cannons or cast any other complex techniques.
“I must keep interfering and not let him easily complete ‘modeling’ and optimal attacks!” Jie Ming thought while frantically retreating and attempting to control the floating cannons to continue shooting and harass.
However, the black-robed wizard, having suffered once, had clearly factored the floating cannons’ attack patterns into his considerations as well.
The subsequent dark golden beams simply shot into empty air, while he himself once again closed the distance in that ghostly “result leap” manner. Jie Ming could only exhaust himself fleeing, relying on the mobility of the Great Void Step and constantly sacrificing arms and black giants to barely hold on.
When necessary, he even used the floating cannon bodies themselves as substitutes, inserting them between fist and palm at critical moments to take the destruction in place of his arms!
After more than a dozen suffocating rounds of exchanges.
The black-robed wizard’s figure once again “froze” like a phantom in front of Jie Ming.
The corner of his mouth beneath the hood seemed to curve upward in an arc of assured victory.
“Finally adapted… All interference variable corrections have been completed.”
“The opponent’s kind of black elemental cannon fodder (black giant priests) should have been exhausted long ago.”
“Those exploding floating cannons were also mostly consumed as substitutes in the earlier battle.”
“Most importantly… the ‘optimal cracking model’ for that domain defense of his capable of resisting one [Imaginary] effect has finally been perfected.” The black-robed wizard’s dark-red eyes locked onto Jie Ming, killing intent condensing like substance.
He could feel that the “budget” required for this strike had been compressed to an extremely low point.
Low enough that he would still have surplus to deal with any possible unexpected counterattack after completing the strike.
“This strike will end it.”
He silently chanted in his heart. His figure once again “vanished” from its original position.
In the next instant, the result of “the palm strikes Jie Ming’s chest” was about to manifest directly.
Jie Ming, however, merely raised his newly regenerated right fist almost instinctively—perhaps even somewhat numbly—as he had done dozens of times before to meet it.
Fist and palm were about to clash once more.
The black-robed wizard had already anticipated the familiar sight of the arm instantly dispersing like smoke and annihilating.
However…
The instant fist and palm made contact!
Boom!!!
The expected silent annihilation did not occur.
Instead, there was a muffled explosion like a peal of thunder!
A visible, violent shockwave mixed with golden rune fragments and dark-red energy ripples erupted with the point of contact as its center, instantly sweeping in all directions!
“What?!” The black-robed wizard’s pupils beneath the hood contracted sharply, massive waves surging in his heart!
His [Imaginary]… had actually failed?!!
No, it could not be called a failure.
Because the instant of contact, a dense, teeth-grinding sound of bones shattering like exploding beans came from within Jie Ming’s right arm!
The muscle fibers of the entire arm twisted madly and snapped one after another!
Countless fine bloody openings exploded across the surface of the skin. Pale golden blood mixed with fine shreds of flesh sprayed outward!
In less than one-hundredth of a second, the entire arm had become mangled and bloodied, bones completely shattered, almost losing its shape!
But…
It did not disperse directly into flying ash as before!
The black-robed wizard confirmed that his [Imaginary] Law had indeed taken effect. The opponent’s arm had collapsed and shattered according to the result he had defined. Yet something was very wrong—because… the final result had deviated.
Clearly this time the minor wizard before him had not abandoned his arm, yet the total collapse result he had defined had only shattered one of the opponent’s arms.
Although the price was heavy and the arm was almost completely crippled, it had truly blocked it!!
The glow of the shockwave gradually dissipated.
The black-robed wizard stared in disbelief at the twisted, deformed, miserably mangled arm that still remained connected to Jie Ming’s shoulder.
And behind that arm, a face that twitched slightly from extreme pain, yet whose corners of the mouth could not help but curl upward in an excited smile mixed with ultimate agony and wild joy.
Jie Ming raised his bloodied, nearly only skin-connected right arm. The intense pain made his voice tremble slightly, yet every word was crystal clear, carrying irrepressible excitement and relief:
“Finally… I’ve adapted…!”