novelraw Chapter 636: Night and First Contact
Chapter 636: Night and First Contact
Chapter 636: Night and First Contact
On the other side of the rift lay a wilderness swallowed by night.
The distant horizon showed no traces of human activity—only endless wilds, sparse shrubs, and dry grass rustling in the wind.
The sky held neither stars nor moon, only pure, thick darkness.
Jie Ming stood upon the wilderness and raised his hand, condensing an energy orb in his palm.
The orb emitted a soft white glow, illuminating dozens of meters around him.
The instant the orb lit up, he sensed something shrinking back from the darkness.
It felt like lighting a lamp in a dark room, causing the faint rustling noises hiding in the shadows to suddenly fall silent. “So this is the Strange of the Night,” Jie Ming murmured, gazing curiously at the surrounding darkness.
He did not attempt to use spiritual power to track or probe the depths of the darkness.
Austin was right—this Strange did not need to be handled; simply “not being touched by it” was enough. His gaze swept the area, searching for traces of the other eight wizards.
Not far away, several moving points of light were visible.
Those were light sources kindled by the other wizards, scattered in different directions. It seemed each person was advancing toward whatever interested them. Jie Ming chose a direction without any light points and stepped into the darkness.
The night wind on the wilderness carried a dry, cold earthy scent, surging in from all sides.
Jie Ming held the energy orb and advanced slowly through the darkness.
He showed no urgency. After arriving in a new plane, overly rash actions were unwise.
It was better to gather a certain level of intelligence first… exactly as he was doing now.
Jie Ming deliberately kept the orb’s brightness at the minimum, just enough to illuminate three steps ahead and no more. He wanted to test exactly how sensitive the “Night” was.
The moment the brightness decreased, the feeling arrived.
It was as if something cold and wet had pressed against the back of his neck, or as if countless eyes were staring at him from the darkness, each gaze carrying an indescribable hunger.
Merely being “watched” was enough to stir nausea in one’s heart.
“Ordinary creatures staying in this environment for long would probably suffer mental collapse before too long…”
Jie Ming did not turn around. He calmly raised the orb’s brightness by one notch.
Those gazes instantly retracted, like octopus tentacles scalded on the fingertips.
The surroundings became empty and quiet once more, leaving only the rustling of wind through dry grass.
He tried again.
Lower the brightness—the peering sensation returned immediately.
Raise the brightness—the peering sensation vanished.
“The threshold is about here.” Jie Ming stabilized the orb at an intermediate brightness.
This level completely eliminated the feeling of being watched without shining like a lighthouse that would draw the attention of half the wilderness. He silently recorded the parameter and continued forward.
He had no plans to test further for the time being.
Austin had already explained clearly: the Night was connected to the entire plane. Excessive resistance would cause irreversible damage.
It was like entering a wildlife reserve—even if scratched by a monkey, one could not level the mountain with missiles.
Rules had to be followed: use tranquilizer guns to capture, cages to contain, not flip the table.
Jie Ming strongly approved of this approach.
A plane capable of continuously producing Stranges was far more valuable than one violently crushed into nothing.
He was a researcher, not a destroyer.
“Still… the most troublesome part of this Night isn’t having to keep oneself in a lit state at all times.”
Jie Ming looked up at the empty wilderness around him and couldn’t help frowning.
Maintaining constant illumination in the night did make one an easy target for enemies.
But since everyone faced the same situation, this wasn’t a major issue.
The bigger problem was that, at least during the night, he could not casually use spiritual power for wide-area reconnaissance. As Jie Ming walked, he compressed his spiritual perception range to within ten meters of his body.
After all, the “Night” itself was the Strange.
He was unsure what would happen if spiritual power swept across the night, nor did he intend to test it.
However, judging from the two Stranges he had encountered so far, soul energy easily influenced them.
Austin’s warning had been clear: do not cause damage to this plane.
Whether spiritual power detection would trigger a stress response from the Night was unknown.
If it provoked a reaction and clashed with his own spiritual power’s automatic resistance, the entire plane could very well be injured.
In this uncertain situation, the safest choice was to forgo spiritual power perception entirely.
“To be safe, I’ll abandon all detection methods related to spiritual power. Various actively diffusing wide-area reconnaissance spells will also be temporarily disabled to avoid excessive damage to the plane’s environment.”
Although it was a shame to give up the most convenient reconnaissance methods, for a wizard it was of little consequence.
Besides active diffusion reconnaissance, there were plenty of self-enhancement detection methods available.
For Jie Ming, it was even simpler: he would simply use his own five senses.
Under the reinforcement of his Void Refinement perfect true body, Jie Ming’s five senses already surpassed the effects of many sixth-ring wizards casting enhancement spells.
And beyond the five senses, there were other methods.
Jie Ming stopped, closed his eyes for a moment.
A faint golden light lit up on his forehead.
Fate Subsystem, activate.
The golden light flickered gently on his forehead, as if an invisible sense had been opened.
The scene before Jie Ming transformed.
Countless thread-like lines of light appeared across the wilderness ground—some bright, some dim.
Some stretched straight into the distance; others tangled and knotted at certain points, forming one “knot” after another.
Those were fate lines.
Each “knot” represented a convergence point of destinies, usually indicating human settlements, occurring events, or some form of anomaly.
He did not manipulate these fate lines.
In a plane where Strange and laws were deeply entangled, actively pulling the causality network was like flying a kite in a thunderstorm—likely to invite unnecessary trouble.
He did not know what level those “unnecessary troubles” might be, nor how deeply they were tied to this world. Until he understood, the wisest course was not to provoke them.
Mere “observation” to gather information for himself, however, posed no issue.
Jie Ming’s gaze swept across the “knots,” seeking those that met two conditions: high entanglement with the Strange and relatively few people involved.
He needed intelligence.
Language, writing, social structure, Strange distribution… all of these had to be obtained from the locals.
He quickly locked onto a direction.
Northeast, roughly two hundred kilometers away, lay a relatively inconspicuous fate line “knot.”
The density of light threads there was far lower than the surroundings, and the color was darker.
Moreover, the texture of those lines showed an unnatural twist, as if forcibly wrenched together by some external force.
Jie Ming opened his eyes; the golden light on his forehead faded.
He adjusted his direction and advanced northeast.
He still did not fly, merely walking on foot.
Flying would generate energy fluctuations that might be sensed by the Night or captured by other existences in this plane. Until he obtained intelligence related to this plane, caution was paramount.
“Hah!! This feeling is truly nostalgic.”
Jie Ming suddenly couldn’t help laughing.
Having joined the elite combat unit, it had been a long time since he last experienced this kind of cautious probing and intelligence gathering upon entering a new plane.
“The last time I was this careful was probably during the graduation trial with Victor and Amy… Unknowingly, nearly two thousand years have passed…” The wilderness beneath his feet receded “slowly” into the darkness, accompanied only by a sigh drifting away on the wind.
Jie Ming’s pace appeared unhurried, yet each step covered a hundred meters—a passive bodily reinforcement from his true body.
No energy output was required; it was purely a display of physical quality.
After walking for roughly half an hour, the terrain ahead began to change.
The flat wilderness gave way to undulations, with low hills sketching blurry outlines against the horizon.
Between the hills, faint regular geometric shapes were visible—clearly artificial structures.
Jie Ming slowed his steps and lowered the orb’s brightness a little further.
The buildings drew closer.
With his eyesight, Jie Ming could see clearly that it was an abandoned settlement.
Most of the stone walls had collapsed, and the wooden roofs had long since rotted away, leaving only tilted beams creaking in the night wind.
Narrow alleys ran between the buildings, filled with rubble and dry branches.
Yet deep within the settlement, a few relatively intact structures leaked faint orange-red light through cracks in their stone walls.
Bonfire light.
Someone was inside.
Jie Ming made no effort to hide and walked straight toward the firelight.
His steps were light, but in the night’s silence, the sound of rubble shifting beneath his feet remained clearly audible.
The white light orb beside him revealed his position unmistakably.
Jie Ming entered a narrow alley flanked by half-collapsed stone walls.
The firelight was less than fifty meters ahead. Through a broken stone window, he could see several figures moving.
Then came a crisp sound.
Something flew out from the darkness at a speed ordinary people could not possibly react to.
Jie Ming raised his right hand, spread his index and middle fingers, and gently pinched in front of him.
A copper bullet was “plucked” from the air. Its surface still carried residual heat from the gun chamber and emitted a faint smell of gunpowder. Jie Ming glanced at the bullet, then at the direction it had come from.
Behind a stone window beside the firelight, a figure held a slender metal tube, its muzzle still smoking.
A gun.
Jie Ming’s eyes brightened slightly.
Judging from the bullet’s caliber, muzzle velocity, and material, this plane’s technological civilization level was roughly equivalent to the world he had come from before transmigrating.
Interesting.
Jie Ming casually tossed the bullet to the ground and continued forward.
The gunman behind the stone window was clearly stunned.
At this distance, he could not see Jie Ming’s face clearly. He only knew that his shot had caused the bullet to vanish without the opponent even dodging. A miss? Bulletproof vest? Or something else?
Regardless, his reaction was fast.
Three more gunshots rang out in succession.
Three bullets flew in a triangular formation—two aimed at Jie Ming’s chest, one at his head.
The shooting accuracy was high, and the shots deliberately sealed off left and right evasion routes.
Jie Ming extended his right hand and drew an arc in front of him.
The three bullets, as if drawn by a magnet, deviated from their trajectories and were “sucked” into his palm, landing neatly in his hand.
He looked down at the three bullets, then toward the gunman.
“Not bad,” he said softly. Though his voice was not loud, it carried far in the night’s silence.
The figure behind the stone window clearly heard him. The silhouette stiffened, and the hand holding the gun trembled slightly.
Jie Ming did not accelerate. He continued forward at the same unhurried pace.
Since the opponent’s weapons posed no threat, he wanted to test this world’s technological level further and see the limits of these firearms.
At the same time, Jie Ming observed the group.
There were four people total: three men and one woman.
They wore rough leather jackets and had dark oil paint on their faces, making their features hard to discern.
Besides guns, they carried daggers and short blades—equipment resembling that of militia or hunters.
The one who had opened fire was the tall man behind the stone window. He had a sturdy build and a tattoo of some animal totem on his right arm.
The gun in his hands was a long-barreled rifle—crude in workmanship but solidly built, with clear signs of wear indicating frequent use.
The moment Jie Ming stepped into the firelight, the four finally saw him clearly: a young man in simple dark robes with refined features, holding a softly glowing white energy orb in his right hand.
His left hand hung naturally at his side, and his steps were as relaxed as if he were strolling in his own backyard.
Whether it was the white light orb or the way he had handled the gunfire earlier, it was obvious that this person was no ordinary foe. The tall man pulled the trigger once more.
This time Jie Ming did not catch the bullet.
He tilted his head slightly. The bullet grazed past his ear and struck the stone wall behind him, sending rubble flying.
“Decent accuracy,” Jie Ming nodded slightly.
He had judged the bullet’s path from the muzzle flash, and the graze matched his prediction perfectly.
This showed the gun’s trajectory was stable and its precision high.
Another shot struck Jie Ming’s shoulder, but the bullet shattered into fragments the instant it touched his robe.
One more shot.
Jie Ming lifted his heel slightly, and the bullet flew past beneath his shoe. The opponent’s mentality was growing unstable.
After four shots, the magazine was empty.
The tall man’s face turned deathly pale in the firelight.
He opened his mouth, wanting to speak, but only a dry swallow emerged from his throat.
The other three had drawn their own firearms during the exchange, but upon seeing the situation, they no longer dared to shoot. Jie Ming stopped less than ten meters away from them.
“Your guns are quite good,” he said.
From the data of those shots, Jie Ming had already drawn his conclusions: this plane’s firearm technology was roughly equivalent to Earth’s, but with two clear differences. First, weapon power was greater. Bullets of the same caliber carried roughly thirty percent more kinetic energy, likely due to propellant load and materials. Second, although recoil was stronger, the shooters handled it without much difficulty, indicating that people in this world possessed good physical constitutions—or perhaps some means of enhancing them.
The four clearly did not understand his words. Their eyes held only fear and confusion.
A language barrier was expected.
Jie Ming’s gaze fell on the only tall, thin man who was not holding a gun.
He could sense a strange energy within this person’s body, carrying a… Strange quality.
It resembled the feeling from the Salty Finger, but weaker and more restrained.
The thin man drew a short blade from his waist. The blade reflected cold light in the fire.
He took a deep breath. The fear on his face was replaced by near-mad resolve.
Then he “exploded.”
A Strange aura surged from his body. The sensation was familiar to Jie Ming—identical to the curse fluctuations emitted by the Salty Finger.
Then, a “snake” drilled out from the tall man’s chest.
It was a creature formed of semi-transparent, slippery material, roughly as thick as an adult’s arm and covered in fine scales that reflected an oily green luster in the firelight.
Its eyes were two dark red points of light. Merely looking at them would instinctively awaken a biological fear of snake-like creatures deep within the heart. Jie Ming deliberately lowered his resistance to carefully experience that fear.
It felt physiological, engraved into biological genes—the fear of being entwined and devoured.
Unfortunately, the experience lasted only an instant.
Even with his resistance deliberately lowered, his body forging method instantly achieved evolutionary immunity to this mental attack. The fear surged like a tide and receded like a tide, leaving no trace behind.
“Tsk, a bit of a pity.”
Thinking this, Jie Ming extended his right hand, fingers spread, and aimed at the “snake.”
The Strange symbiotically linked with the tall man seemed to sense danger. It suddenly shot out from the man’s chest.
It opened its mouth, revealing two rows of inward-hooked fine teeth, and lunged toward Jie Ming’s face.
But Jie Ming’s hand was faster.
His five fingers traced an arc through the air and precisely pinched the snake’s neck.
A slippery sensation transmitted through his fingertips. The snake’s body writhed violently, its scales scraping against his skin with harsh sounds, yet they could not even break the first layer of his epidermis.
Spiritual power converged. Suppression runes lit up and affixed themselves to the snake’s head.
The runes emitted golden light. The technique spread from the formation like an invisible net, enveloping the entire snake.
The snake’s struggles instantly weakened. Its body shrank and collapsed until it was compressed into a thumb-sized dark green bead embedded in the center groove of the runes.
The instant the Strange was sealed, the tall man let out a muffled groan. His eyes rolled back and his body went limp as if drained of all strength, collapsing to the ground. Dark liquid seeped from his nose and mouth. His breathing was rapid and disordered, his pupils dilated and unfocused.
“Soul backlash. It seems your degree of symbiosis with this Strange is quite deep.”
Jie Ming looked at the fallen tall man and tilted his head slightly.
He now had a rough understanding of this plane’s transcendent system.
Setting aside body-enhancement techniques, the mainstream transcendent power here should be “coexistence with the Strange.”
These people sealed Stranges within their bodies or symbiotically merged with them in some way, using the Strange’s power to strengthen themselves and fight enemies. However, the risks of this method were extremely high.
After all, Stranges were not tame livestock. They were dangerous and uncontrollable, capable of backlashing their hosts at any moment.
Moreover, to coexist with them, these people had formed deep symbiotic bonds.
Just now, merely sealing the snake had caused the man severe backlash.
If the Strange actively rampaged or the host lost control in battle, the consequences would likely be even worse.
Jie Ming took out another empty test tube and stored the dark green bead inside. His gaze then swept toward the remaining three.
The three had completely collapsed.
What had they witnessed?
A stranger who caught bullets barehanded, walked up to them without flushed face or hurried breath, then casually pinched the “thing” inside their boss, the object they both revered and feared, into a bead as easily as pinching a bug.
The woman’s lips trembled violently. She finally let out a sharp scream.
She turned and fled. The other two reacted and followed, stumbling deeper into the ruins.
Jie Ming shook his head, raised his hand, and gently clenched his five fingers.
Invisible power surged from the void like a giant palm, gripping the three fleeing people along with the air around them. Their bodies stiffened in mid-air for an instant, then were slowly pulled back as if drawn by invisible ropes, landing before Jie Ming.
The three fell to the ground, bodies shaking, faces deathly pale.
The woman had begun to cry. Large, silent tears rolled down her cheeks.
The two men stared fixedly at Jie Ming, their eyes filled with fear, despair, and a kind of incomprehensible bewilderment.
They began speaking incoherently.
Their speech was rapid and trembling.
Jie Ming could not understand a single word, but even without understanding he knew they were begging for mercy.
The three grew more agitated and more desperate as they spoke.
The woman’s tears increased. The men’s voices grew hoarser. One even began kowtowing; the sound of his forehead striking the ground echoed through the ruins.
Jie Ming squatted down and extended his hand, gently covering the kowtowing man’s forehead.
The man’s body shook violently. Then, under extreme stimulation, he suddenly drew his gun and fired several shots at Jie Ming’s face.
Unfortunately, it was the man who ended up rolling on the ground in agony.
Some of the bullet fragments that shattered against Jie Ming’s face rebounded and struck him.
Jie Ming looked at the man rolling on the ground, blinked innocently, then reached toward another man’s head. Seeing his companion’s fate, this man’s body shuddered, but he no longer dared resist.
His eyes stared fixedly at Jie Ming’s face, the white light of the energy orb reflected in his pupils.
[Soul Search].
Jie Ming’s spiritual power, like fine tentacles, seeped from his palm into the depths of the man’s consciousness.
With his current level of spiritual power manipulation, the effect of Soul Search was far superior to before.
Not only had intelligence acquisition efficiency greatly increased, but damage to the subject had been greatly reduced.
It was like an experienced librarian organizing bookshelves rather than a robber ransacking boxes.
Language, writing, social structure, historical knowledge, Strange knowledge…
Information flooded into Jie Ming’s consciousness like a surging tide.