Translator: AnubisTL
After his conversation with Wizard Artorius, Jieming had been on high alert for potential problems.
But he never expected the enemy to strike so swiftly.
Just one month later, the peaceful routine of research was shattered by an urgent order.
Commander Frost's voice, transmitted via the magic net terminal, echoed throughout the entire army with a rare, grave tone:
[All units, attention! Enter maximum surface and subterranean vigilance immediately. We have detected the Scythe-Skull Race conducting large-scale, high-precision burrowing operations outside the camp's perimeter and in the extremely deep strata below. Their objective appears to be... severing the earth vein and geological connections between our camp's ten-million-kilometer radius and the main continent. Repeat, maximum vigilance!]
The order was accompanied by a set of detection data.
Jieming scanned it quickly, his heart sinking.
The images revealed a vast and complex subterranean network constructed by countless specialized "Burrower" variants of the Scythe-Skull Race, thousands or even tens of thousands of kilometers beneath the camp.
Their objective was not to dig attack tunnels, but to carve out a series of encircling "isolation belts" with the camp at their center.
These isolation trenches were gradually severing the crust's mechanical connections and draining the Earth Vein Energy flowing through the region.
Because they were dug so deep underground, the project remained highly concealed.
Only recently, when the camp's large-scale protective magic array began to fluctuate periodically due to unstable energy supply, did the wizards follow the clues and uncover this shocking conspiracy hidden beneath the earth.
"Trying to 'sever' our foundations physically and energetically?" Jieming frowned deeply.
The tactic seemed clumsy, but considering its depth and scale, it would be truly difficult to halt in the short term.
Unless they unleashed Super-Wizardry powerful enough to trigger a local geological disaster or even damage the plane origin itself, they couldn't disrupt the enemy's project, which was already nearing completion.
But the question was, what was the point of the enemy doing this?
Even if they succeeded in "severing" this area, causing the camp's protective magic array to lose effectiveness and the terrain to change, the impact on the overall war situation would be limited.
The wizards relied not just on fixed fortifications, but more on their own mobile forces and transcendent technology.
The wizards had never feared a head-on field battle.
Unless...
A flash of insight struck Jieming, and his gaze swept across several key nodes on the camp's internal deployment map.
These points were marked as the "Basic Law Anchoring Array" and the "Anti-Spatial Disturbance Generator," the systems responsible for maintaining the camp's overall spatiotemporal stability.
While these facilities couldn't withstand a planar-level time reversal, they were more than enough to block conventional spatial teleportation, time dilation, or localized time loops—ensuring the absolute stability of the camp's internal command and research infrastructure.
"Chaos..." Jieming muttered, a clear intent forming in his mind.
The entity pulling the strings might not be trying to cripple the wizards through the excavation project itself.
What it wanted was the brief moment of "chaos" that would engulf the entire camp—triggered by the sudden geological collapse and the resulting surge of Earth Vein Energy the instant the project was completed!
In such a state of chaos, the camp's precise spatiotemporal defense systems would inevitably experience a momentary fluctuation, an overload, or a brief window of failure.
Though this window might last only a fraction of a second—or even less—it was more than enough for a being capable of manipulating time.
This was the only way it could bypass conventional defenses and seize the perfect moment to launch an "Extra-Conventional Purge" against a specific target.
And who was the target?
There was no doubt.
Jieming remained silent, keeping his deductions to himself and refusing to communicate them through any channel. He didn't even show a hint of extra vigilance. In an environment where he couldn't be sure of the enemy's information-gathering capabilities, any abnormal reaction could tip them off.
He continued his research as usual, participating in tactical discussions.
Time flowed by in a state of superficial calm, masking a surging undercurrent of anticipation.
A day later, the omens began.
First, a faint, continuous tremor rose from beneath his feet, like a giant beast stirring deep within the earth.
In the camp, high-precision monitoring instruments began to show drifting readings, and the concentration of elemental essence in the air fluctuated irregularly.
Frost continuously issued orders, adjusting the output mode of the protective magic array and reinforcing key facilities.
The battle wizards went to full combat readiness, and the Cannon Fodder Legion was deployed to the camp's perimeter, prepared to counter any attacks that might emerge directly from beneath the ground.
The tremors grew stronger, shifting from a continuous dull rumble to intermittent, violent shaking.
Above the camp, the light from the multi-layered energy shields began to flicker erratically, emitting an overloaded hum.
Cracks started to appear on the ground—initially as fine as hairs, they rapidly expanded into horrifyingly deep chasms.
"It's here!" someone shouted over the communication channel.
The next moment...
RUMBLE!!!
A sound of colossal fracturing echoed, as if the entire tectonic plate were tearing apart.
Centered on the Wizard Camp, the ground within a thousand-kilometer radius surged upward like the edge of a cake sliced by an invisible giant blade, then collapsed!
Countless bottomless fissures, each over a hundred meters wide, instantly crisscrossed the region like hideous scars.
Earth Vein Energy erupted from the fissures like a dam bursting, spewing scorching magma and toxic gases into the sky!
The camp itself, though reinforced and protected by powerful magic arrays, did not collapse instantly. Yet it swayed violently, a lone boat in a raging storm.
The light of more than one-third of the rune towers went dark. Temporary buildings collapsed in swathes.
Under the dual pressure of structural upheaval and energy surges, the energy shield's flickering reached a critical frequency.
Almost simultaneously, from the countless abyssal fissures, a dense, skin-crawling sound of fluttering wings and scuttling claws erupted!
A black tide—a tide of flesh and bone—surged from every crack!
It was the long-prepared, massive army of the Scythe-Skull Race.
Exploiting the chaos of the earth's tearing, they bypassed the outer defenses that would have cost them dearly to breach. Instead, they erupted directly from the fissures within and along the camp's edges, like a black volcanic eruption, instantly drowning the entire Wizard Camp in a sea of insects!
The battle erupted in a flash!
The wizards' roars, the Scythe-Skull Race's screeches, the booms of energy explosions, and the crashes of collapsing buildings instantly wove together into a deathly rhapsody!
Everything happened in the blink of an eye.
Chaos, noise, energy turbulence, visual obstructions... all reached a fever pitch.
Jieming had already risen during the initial shockwave, a faint protective spiritual light glowing around him as he prepared to take to the air to assess the situation and join the battle.
Just as his feet had barely left the ground by less than half a meter, his body poised to move but not yet in motion, his attention drawn to the enemies swarming from all directions and the horrific state of the camp...
He vanished.
It was as if a figure in a dynamic painting had been gently erased by an artist's eraser.
The nearest wizards were fully occupied fighting the enemies bursting from the ground's fissures, the violent energy explosions and shockwaves masking any subtle anomalies.
No one noticed that one person was missing from the laboratory.
(End of the Chapter)
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