Chapter 581: Chapter 497: Fight with One’s Back to the River
As the rainbow light converged once more, Jeming’s figure reassembled, but his condition had become utterly wretched.
His robe remained undamaged, yet his exposed skin was covered with fine blood marks from the excessive activation of Spiritual Power.
His breathing was as heavy as an old bellows, and every intake of breath came with a burning pain in the lungs.
His Dantian was nearly depleted, and his Spiritual Power had dimmed under the continuous high-intensity consumption.
He landed on a cracked, grey-black land, looking around, only to find desolation and deathly silence.
In the distance, the horizon twisted with sparse heat waves, and the sky remained an oppressive leaden grey.
"One day..." Jeming muttered hoarsely to himself, clenching his teeth in frustration.
The deadly pursuit between him and the Sixth Level Wizard from the Tower of Annihilation had lasted an entire standard day.
The situation was not only not improving, but it was turning sharply for the worse, becoming increasingly suffocating.
To counter the fatal flaw of "Light Transformation can only fly in a straight line," Jeming had already changed his strategy.
He no longer pursued maximal distance straight-line blasting, but instead opted for intermittent "short-distance turns."
After flying a segment with Light Transformation, he’d forcibly terminate it, then choose a new direction and once again flee with Light Transformation.
Sometimes he would fly for mere seconds, other times slightly longer, trying to disrupt his flight pattern so the opponent couldn’t easily predict his landing spot.
This method initially had some effect but ultimately treated only the symptoms and not the cause.
The disparity in strength between the two was evident.
Every turn Jeming made, every termination and restart of Light Transformation required time and caused energy fluctuations.
This also meant that each time Jeming could use to gain movement got progressively shorter.
Light speed is fixed, and the length of movement time is proportional to movement distance.
When Jeming’s movement distance fell below a certain limit, ultra-long-distance Teleportation was replaced by Space Jump.
And with the Sixth Level Wizard’s mastery of space technology, short-distance Space Jump was almost as natural as breathing.
This change resulted in the distance between them rapidly closing.
And as the distance narrowed, the safe time window for Jeming’s every Light Transformation got shorter.
A shorter time meant the actual distance he could escape with each attempt shrank drastically.
Thus, a vicious cycle formed.
The strategic space between Jeming and the wizard was being squeezed and engulfed like sinking into quicksand.
Finally, with the end of this Light Transformation, feeling the near-depleted exhaustion from within, Jeming silently stopped.
He didn’t immediately flee again but quickly took out several of the highest-grade recovery Magic Potions and downed them all.
The potion’s power flowed like sweet springs into the cracked land, nourishing the nearly empty Spiritual Sea and weary flesh.
Through constant adaptation and evolution with the Body Refining Technique, Jeming’s recovery power and potion absorption have also strengthened, enough for him to barely restart the Five Elements Rainbow Transformation Mirror.
But he didn’t leave, instead exhaling a breath of foul, bloody air, his gaze becoming sharp and resolute.
"I can’t keep fleeing."
If this continues, his condition will only deteriorate, eventually being easily crushed when he’s exhausted.
Rather than being hunted pitifully to death, it’d be better to turn and reveal his fangs while he still has strength!
Fight with one’s back against the wall!
But time was too short.
The opponent’s tracking speed was beyond imagination, leaving no time to lay complex composite killing arrays as before.
The only thing Jeming could do was arm himself to the teeth.
He closed his eyes, his consciousness sinking into his Inner Grotto Heaven.
The next moment, several peculiar metal components were summoned forth, floating behind him.
These metal columns were about two meters long, diamond-shaped, narrowing at the front and widening at the back, their surfaces flowing with a subdued metallic sheen, etched with extremely intricate three-dimensional energy conduits, Runes, and micro Teleportation Arrays.
Arranged in a precise formation on either side of Jeming’s spine, their tips slightly outward, they looked like a pair of cold and menacing metallic wings draped on the gray-robed wizard.
This was the combat system: [Floating Cannon], which Jeming had once created to match the Profound Gang Red Dust Barrier’s Spiritual nature and later shelved due to technical route adjustments, now reactivated.
Fire Extinction Divine Light, this type of reformed Magic, with its unique Energy Structure and driving logic, is difficult to be stably borne and continuously triggered by conventional Talisman Witchcraft.
This rendered the earlier "Great Light Appearance" tactic, reliant on massive amounts of Talisman Witchcraft for saturation bombing, ineffective for these reformed Magic systems.
The core of "Great Light Appearance" was to use the Spiritual nature of the Five Elements Rainbow Transformation Mirror to automatically coordinate thousands of Talisman Witchcraft for a covering barrage.
But what the reformed Magic combat system needed was precise "barrels" and an efficient "ammunition supply system."
These diamond-shaped metal columns were the "barrels."
They were hollow within, their core a delicate chain Teleportation chamber.
Each Floating Cannon’s "ammunition" was those special witchcraft artifacts, thumb-sized, sealed with a round of Fire Extinction Divine Light.
Once the front-end artifact is triggered, it will be instantly teleported back to the Inner Grotto Heaven for recharging via the muzzle’s micro array.
Meanwhile, the rear Teleportation Array synchronously pushes the replenished backup "ammunition" from the Inner Grotto Heaven to the firing position.
The hovering, moving, and array transformations of the Floating Cannon are autonomously controlled by the Spiritual essence split off from the Five Elements Rainbow Transformation Mirror, like extended arms.
However, the ammunition scheduling in the Inner Grotto Heaven, firing timing, target aiming, and spell control require Jeming’s concentrated effort for personal oversight.
This requires simultaneous maintenance of high-intensity spiritual power output, precise energy control, and fine understanding of the material circulation within the inner grotto heaven, a great burden.
If not driven to desperation, Jeming would not easily employ this system, which is not yet fully mature.
A dozen floating cannons slightly adjust their angles as if they are alive, runes on their metal surfaces lighting up one by one, ready to be activated.
Just shortly after Jeming completes his battle preparations...
Thousands of meters in front of him in the high sky, the space is suddenly torn open by an invisible hand!
Gray-white mist first pours out, immediately followed by the silhouette of a Tower of Annihilation wizard cloaked in mist, abruptly emerging like a god of death stepping from the abyss!
Without any wasted words, the moment the figure solidifies, a fierce gleam flashes in Jeming’s eyes, and the metal wings behind him suddenly bloom with dazzling dark golden rays!
"Fire!"
Boom boom boom!!!
A dozen dark golden beams, compressed to the extreme and only as thick as a bucket, burst out from the tip of each floating cannon!
Under Jeming’s control, these beams slightly adjust their trajectories upon shooting out, attacking from different angles at the enemy who has just completed teleportation and whose form has not completely stabilized!
Each beam contains energy refined to the utmost; wherever they pass, space is scorched with long-lasting ripple marks, and the thin air is entirely ionized, emitting piercing crackling explosions.
Almost at the same time Jeming launches his attack, two scarlet gleams under the hood of the Tower of Annihilation wizard suddenly blaze brightly!
He hadn’t even stabilized his complete form, merely raising his mist-wrapped right arm and pressing it towards Jeming’s position in thin air.
Under the immense spiritual power of the Sixth Level Wizard, a flood of elements is directly mobilized.
Rumble!!!
Above Jeming, the sky over a range of hundreds of kilometers suddenly darkens!
Dark gray clouds churn, and under the influence of a terrifying force, the space itself collapses and twists inward!
Ultimately, a giant hand composed entirely of chaotic space folds and boiling gray-white mist emerges as if the punishment of a god, crashing towards Jeming!
Even before the hand lands, the terrifying pressure causes the earth below to crack inch by inch, countless gray-white rock crystals ground to dust by invisible force fields, swirling into the air!
The next moment, both sides’ attacks almost simultaneously hit their targets!
Jeming’s dozen Fire Extinction Divine Light beams fiercely strike the gray-white mist surrounding the Tower of Annihilation wizard.
The anticipated explosion does not occur.
The highly refined destructive energy, upon touching the mist, is absorbed like cattle entering the sea, rapidly neutralized by the swirling light and dark energy within the mist.
The mist churns violently, darkening slightly, but the wizard’s figure within remains unmoved, scarlet eyes locked coldly on Jeming through the slightly thinned mist.
And that enormous hand that seemed capable of crushing mountains solidly slams into Jeming’s location!
Buzz...
There’s no earth-shattering loud noise, only a buzzing sound so deep it makes the soul tremble, as if the entire world is being squeezed.
At the point where the hand lands, space is thoroughly twisted into a chaotic muddle.
Light and darkness, creation and destruction... countless opposing elements and laws are forcibly crushed together, continuously colliding, annihilating, regenerating, then annihilating again in a confined space!
Each micro-annihilation releases terrifying energy, yet is confined within the range of the hand’s power, forming a constantly raging explosion.
When the gray-white giant hand slowly dissipates, there’s left a massive hand-shaped crater over a hundred kilometers in diameter and several thousand meters deep.
The crater walls are as smooth as a mirror, possessing a glassy texture of high-temperature melting rapidly cooled, with unstable annihilation energy remnants at the bottom, emitting sizzling corrosive sounds.
At the very center of the crater, a seemingly thin gray-robed figure slowly stands upright.
It’s Jeming.
Around him, the Ruins Armor flickers with micro-light at an unprecedented frequency, its transparent surface covered with dense spider-web-like cracks, seemingly ready to shatter at any moment.
His face is as pale as paper, with a trace of bright red blood at the corner of his mouth.
"One strike... consumed over 60% of the reserves?" Jeming feels the status feedback from the Ruins Armor, his pupils involuntarily contracting slightly.
That seemingly simple hand actually contained unimaginably precise energy manipulation.
Not a mindless brute force strike, but ongoing collision annihilation by countless tiny opposing elements.
These annihilation impacts are like billions of the tiniest files, simultaneously wearing down his defenses from all directions.
The Ruins Armor theoretically absorbs thousands of basic Sixth Level Sorcery attacks, yet it is nearly half filled in an instant.
This means, given the displayed attack intensity, his Ruins Armor can withstand at most one more equivalent attack, then it will completely overload and collapse!
Meanwhile, the Tower of Annihilation wizard, far from the attack range, also experiences violent fluctuations in the mist surrounding him.
The two scarlet gleams fix intensely on the figure in the crater, albeit battered, still standing tall.
Within them surges not just pure killing intent and coldness, but mixed with surprise, disbelief, and even a hint of... dread.
"Actually... withstood it?"
A low, hoarse voice emanates for the first time from the depths of the mist, noticeably unstable.
Just now, that hand seemingly casual, actually employed deep understanding of the ’annihilation’ law, its might enough to severely injure or even kill an ordinary Sixth Level Initial Tier Wizard!
Yet this Fifth Level Wizard not only defended against it, but didn’t even lose his combat capability on the spot!
This guy... really merely Fifth Level?
The gray-white mist churns violently, the scarlet gleams within glowing ever brighter, locked firmly on the figure within the crater.
Killing intent boiled to the peak.
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