I Arrived At Wizard World While Cultivating Immortality

Chapter 648: Monster and Escape

Jie Ming had already confirmed that the person behind the scenes knew the Association very well.

The other party should also understand clearly that if things dragged on too long and the Association’s reinforcements arrived, the situation would be settled.

Therefore, the opponent’s follow-up move should appear soon.

As if hearing Jie Ming’s thoughts, the originally calm sea surface suddenly exploded.

A massive force erupted from underwater, carrying tens of thousands of tons of seawater and violently spraying toward the surface.

A grayish-white wall of water surged into the sky within the thick fog. The splashing droplets refracted brief arcs of light under the illumination lamps before smashing heavily onto the embankment with dull booms.

A gigantic figure burst out from the water curtain.

Its trajectory formed a parabola, flying from the sea surface almost directly to the wall of the abandoned factory without landing.

The five-to-six-meter-tall body traced a heavy arc through the night sky, then slammed into the southern wall of the factory ruins like a cannonball. Boom!!!

Bricks shattered and rebar twisted. The already riddled wall collapsed instantly under the tremendous impact. Smoke and dust mixed with water mist, spreading in all directions.

The figure charged straight through the collapsing wall and into the interior of the factory building, suddenly intruding into the battlefield where Harding, Dirk, and the Shadow Thief were fighting. The entire abandoned industrial zone fell silent in an instant.

Everyone’s attention was drawn to that thing.

Whether from the Spirit Medium Association or the black-robed figures, all subconsciously looked in that direction.

Then they saw the creature’s appearance, and their pupils contracted simultaneously.

It was a monster.

A body five to six meters tall that, at first glance, resembled a gigantic shark with a human torso.

But closer inspection revealed it was a twisted, forcibly fused existence of human and shark.

Its torso had a humanoid shape—with shoulders, a chest, and sturdy limbs—but the proportions were entirely wrong.

The shoulders were exaggeratedly broad, the chest as thick as a wall, and the arms more than twice the length of a normal human’s, hanging down almost to the ground. At the center of its head was a massive shark head with grayish-white skin and a crescent-shaped mouth filled with inward-hooked teeth.

Its eyes were pure black, without sclera, like two glass beads pressed into the sockets.

On the right side of the shark head, pressed tightly against the gill area, was another face.

A human face—twisted and melted like a wax sculpture.

Its features were blurred, but one could sense that face staring at the world with a gaze of pure madness.

Its skin was gray-blue, covered in fine scales. From the gaps between the scales seeped a viscous, faintly glowing fluid. Fins protruded from its back, but instead of a single normal shark fin, there were over a dozen of varying sizes arranged chaotically, as if randomly stabbed into place.

It was no exaggeration to say that merely looking at this thing was enough to cause discomfort.

“What the hell is this thing…” Dirk’s voice came from inside the factory, carrying unconcealable shock.

He had seen many strange entities, but never anything like this.

Although Spirit Medium claimed to fuse with strange entities, most relied on sealing arrays. The line between them and the entities was not completely distinct, but they would never fuse too deeply.

Because deep fusion almost always led to being assimilated by the entity and death!

The Spirit Medium Association had far too many such cases. Those who overused the power of strange entities and caused deep fusion would eventually turn into mindless, selfless monsters that instinctively attacked everything around them.

But this thing in front of them was different.

After charging into the factory, it did not wildly attack like those out-of-control fusion entities.

Its shark head turned slightly, and its pure black eyes swept across the entire factory, quickly assessing the basic situation of the battlefield.

Although its aura carried madness, its actions still maintained a certain degree of reason and intelligence!

After observing the situation, the monster charged straight toward the sealing array node in the southeast corner of the factory.

Its speed was astonishing. Despite looking like a shark, its movement on land was terrifyingly fast.

Its massive strength stomped the ground, generating terrifying propulsion. The sound of its feet crushing broken bricks echoed throughout the factory.

“Stop it!”

Harding’s voice rang out as the storm chased after the enemy.

But it was already too late.

The monster smashed through the capture team member trying to block it with sheer terrifying force. Its arm, thick as a utility pole and covered in gray-blue scales, swung violently and slammed into the rune stone slab in the southeast corner.

The stone slab shattered. The runes flickered a few times before extinguishing.

A gap appeared in the sealing array’s light ring. The Shadow Thief, previously compressed in the center, immediately sensed the change. Its dark shadow membrane began wriggling toward the gap.

Harding had no choice but to concentrate his power and press it back.

Dirk had no time to think. He raised his hand and shot black threads toward the monster.

The power of the Shadow Serpent surged from his palm. The threads split into several strands in mid-air, wrapping toward the monster’s limbs and torso.

The monster’s shark head turned toward Dirk. Its pure black eyes stared at him for a moment.

Then its left arm rose, palm opening. A layer of dark red light appeared in its palm.

The light condensed into a sphere, then exploded, transforming into a dark red shockwave that directly shattered Dirk’s Shadow Serpent threads. Seeing this, both Harding and Dirk’s eyelids twitched—because the Shadow Serpent threads had been “shattered.”

The Shadow Serpent’s threads were not physical but energy-based restraints. Ordinary physical attacks could not touch them at all.

Yet the dark red light from the monster’s palm could directly act on the energy level, disintegrating the threads’ structure.

They had no time to ponder this now.

Harding subconsciously drew more power back to guard himself.

The Shadow Thief on the other side seized the opportunity to gather strength, attempting to break through Harding’s storm blockade and escape through the gap in the sealing array.

Jie Ming stood atop the loading tower, overlooking the battle inside the factory.

There was no doubt—the shark monster was protecting the Shadow Thief.

The first thing it did upon entering was destroy the sealing array node, opening an escape route for the Shadow Thief.

After sensing a certain aura from the monster, the Shadow Thief did not attack it either. Instead, it proactively contracted its dark shadow membrane, bringing the monster into its “safe range.”

“Oh?” Jie Ming felt somewhat surprised.

His gaze fell on the monster. The All-Purpose Eye glowed faintly deep within his pupils.

His vision penetrated the monster’s skin, muscles, and bones, reaching straight to its core—the source of power forcibly fusing human and strange entity. Then, Jie Ming’s eyes lit up.

“Interesting…”

During this period, he had been studying the Spirit Medium Association’s sealing techniques.

The complete strange entity he had auctioned, the various sealing materials bought from black market intermediaries, and the intelligence on the Association’s sealing arrays collected from his daytime spiritual power scans…

All of this had gradually allowed him to master the core techniques of this plane.

The technology displayed on this monster contained parts that did not belong to this plane.

Jie Ming could clearly distinguish them.

The “texture” of that dark red light, the oscillation method at the energy level, and even the arrangement logic of the core structure within the monster all carried traces very familiar to him.

Wizard technology.

It was absolutely not the Spirit Medium’ techniques of this world, but the biological modification technology of the wizard world.

Clearly, the creator—or rather, the modifier—of this monster possessed knowledge from the wizard world.

Jie Ming’s gaze grew deeper.

It seemed the person—or force—behind this monster had connections with a certain wizard.

No matter which case, it meant the current situation was far more complicated than he had initially thought.

The battle inside the factory continued.

One node of the sealing array had been destroyed, but the other three nodes were still operating.

Harding quickly made a judgment. If the Shadow Thief escaped through this gap, it would be much harder to capture it again.

He could not let it leave.

But there was no doubt that the monster, which had just destroyed the sealing node and was now turning its attention toward them, would not let him achieve his goal so easily.

“Dirk, how long can you hold on?” Harding’s voice remained clear amid the chaotic battlefield.

“Thirty seconds,” Dirk answered through gritted teeth.

As he spoke, Dirk began releasing his strange entity.

His face started turning pale, veins bulging on his forehead. The Shadow Serpent’s power surged within his body like a venomous snake trying to break free from its cage. His control over the entity was incomplete; even releasing just a portion of its power was already pushing his limits.

“Then do your best to hold back this monster. I’ll see if I can seal the Shadow Thief during that time,” Harding said.

He took a deep breath and loosened the second layer of suppression on the Storm Eye.

Previously, he had only released part of the Storm Eye’s power—enough to suppress the Shadow Thief without causing too much damage to the surroundings. But now, with this powerful monster breaking in, a gap appearing in the sealing array, and the Shadow Thief trying to escape, he had no choice.

The Storm Eye’s power poured out at this moment.

The storm inside the factory instantly escalated.

The previous gale and heavy rain seemed like nothing more than a breeze compared to now.

The dark clouds were no longer “condensing inside the factory” but rather “the factory was filled with dark clouds.”

Thick black clouds surged from Harding’s body, filling every corner of the space in the blink of an eye.

Thunder became continuous. The unending booms were like ten thousand drums pounding simultaneously beside one’s ears.

Raindrops transformed into hailstones.

Fist-sized hailstones poured down from the dark clouds, smashing onto the ground, machinery, and walls, producing deafening, dense sounds. The shark monster, which had been charging over to attack, immediately assumed a defensive posture without hesitation.

It crossed its arms in front of itself. Dark red light formed a shield over its body, resisting the impact of the hail and gale.

Taking advantage of the time Harding bought, Dirk finally released his strange entity.

He knew he could not last long, so this strike had to be with full power.

The Shadow Serpent’s power boiled within his body, then surged simultaneously from both palms, transforming into two pitch-black, arm-thick serpent-shaped energy bodies. The two black snakes crossed paths in the air, mouths open, biting toward the shark monster.

“Huh?”

Jie Ming, from the tower, sensed the power of this strike and slightly raised an eyebrow.

The power fluctuation of this attack had already surpassed the upper limit of the Hazard level.

There was no doubt that the strange entity sealed within Dirk had surpassed the Hazard level.

He had not expected that the seemingly young and inexperienced Dirk had sealed an entity of this level inside him.

Disaster level.

It already surpassed the intensity of the Strange Graffiti. Up until now, aside from the “Night”, Jie Ming had not actually encountered any strange entities exceeding Hazard level. It seemed that because the seal release was incomplete, Dirk’s Shadow Serpent had not displayed any special abilities.

But even pure power intensity alone was overwhelmingly dominant on the current battlefield.

The biting force, penetration power, and energy-level destructive power of those two black snakes far exceeded the upper limit of Hazard level.

“Unfortunately, this power is too strong. The kid can’t control it at his current stage,” Jie Ming could not help but shake his head.

Dirk’s control over this power was indeed incomplete.

Jie Ming could clearly see that the two black snakes’ trajectories were unstable during flight, and energy was constantly dissipating.

This showed that even without enemy interference, Dirk himself could not maintain their form for long.

If he could fully control the Shadow Serpent’s power, the might of this strike could increase by at least another thirty percent.

But even so, it was enough.

The two black snakes bit the shark monster simultaneously.

One bit its right arm, the other its left rib area.

The dark red shield cracked under the serpent fangs’ piercing force, then shattered.

The black snakes’ venomous fangs sank deeply into the monster’s scales and muscles. Dark energy poured into the monster’s body through the wounds.

The shark monster’s body stiffened violently.

Its shark head opened its mouth, letting out a roar filled with pain and rage.

At the same time, the twisted human face also opened its mouth, emitting a completely different, shrill sound like a baby’s cry. The two voices mixed together, forming a scalp-numbing sonic wave.

Everyone in the factory ruins who heard the sound felt a sharp pain in their heads, as if struck by a sledgehammer.

Dirk, as the primary target, was affected the most.

He held on without collapsing, but the strange entity power he controlled had already begun to lose control.

The shark monster’s right arm swung violently, flinging the black snake biting its arm away.

The black snake tumbled several times in the air, smashed into a wall, and dissipated into energy fragments.

The other black snake was still biting its rib area. The monster grabbed the serpent’s body directly with its left hand’s claws, tightened its five fingers, and crushed the black snake. Dirk’s body shook violently. His face turned from pale to ashen.

Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. His legs went weak, nearly causing him to kneel.

Having already suffered severe mental damage from the earlier shriek, and now having the power he controlled shattered, the Shadow Serpent’s energy rampaged and backlashed within his body. His veins bulged under his skin like black earthworms wriggling beneath the surface.

“Pull it back!” Harding’s voice carried an unquestionable command.

At the same time, he had no choice but to withdraw the power targeting the Shadow Thief and erect a violent wind barrier in front of himself and Dirk, blocking the counterattacking shark monster.

Gritting his teeth, Dirk desperately pressed the Shadow Serpent’s power back into his body.

The black lines bulging from his veins slowly receded. His face went from ashen to deathly pale, but at least it did not worsen further. He collapsed into a sitting position on the ground, gasping heavily. Sweat mixed with rainwater streamed down his face.

But the monster’s task was already complete.

The gap in the array was now large enough. Earlier, Harding’s attention had been diverted, allowing the Shadow Thief to seize the chance and break free from his blockade. The dark shadow membrane flowed out through the gap like a pool of ink rapidly spreading across the concrete ground. In the blink of an eye, it vanished into the darkness outside the factory.

The shark monster did not linger.

It turned and fled without hesitation, even taking a direct hit from Harding’s storm.

Harding’s hail and gale smashed into its body, leaving countless fine cracks on its scales. Dark red liquid seeped from the cracks, dripping onto the ground with sizzling corrosive sounds.

But it turned around, bracing its still-intact left arm against the ground.

Like a true beast, it charged toward the wall it had smashed through on all fours.

It ran extremely fast.

The five-to-six-meter-tall body created an intense sense of oppression while running. The ground shook beneath its footsteps, and broken stones flew everywhere. The capture team members could not stop it at all.

It charged out through the large hole in the wall, into the night, and toward the sea.

Harding’s foot moved, wanting to pursue, but he subconsciously turned his head back.

Dirk was sitting collapsed on the ground, his body trembling slightly. The Shadow Serpent’s backlash had not fully subsided yet; faint black patterns could still be seen moving beneath his skin.

He needed someone to help stabilize his power, otherwise those patterns could erupt again at any moment and tear his body apart from within.

Harding stopped.

He glanced at Dirk, then at the direction where the monster had disappeared into the night, and then at the direction where the Shadow Thief had escaped. Without hesitation, he turned around, squatted in front of Dirk, and pressed his palm against Dirk’s chest.

The Storm Eye’s power transformed into a stable energy flow, slowly pouring into Dirk’s body to help him suppress the Shadow Serpent’s backlash.

“Don’t speak,” Harding said in a low voice. “Steady your core. I’ll help you retract the power.”

Dirk closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, and felt Harding’s power moving through his body.

That power smoothed out the rampaging energy of the Shadow Serpent strand by strand, pressing it back into the sealing core one by one.

This process required time.

During this time, the Shadow Thief had already fled far away.

The shark monster had also disappeared into the thick fog over the sea.

Harding’s face showed no expression, but deep in his eyes was something heavy.

It was not anger or frustration, but a more complex emotion mixed with unwillingness and vigilance.

They had prepared for so long and arranged so much, yet in the end they still let the strange entity be rescued.

Someone was manipulating everything from behind the scenes.

Someone was waiting at sea to receive the monster.

Someone understood the Association’s operational patterns, knew they would choose this battlefield, knew the node positions of their sealing array, and knew they had made no defensive arrangements on the ocean side.