Chapter 583: Chapter 499: Gravely Wounded
Between heaven and earth, finally, absolute silence prevailed.
He won.
With the body of a Fifth Level Wizard, he had reversed fate and slain a Sixth Level Wizard in perfect condition.
Watching that gray-white mist thoroughly annihilated and dispersed, Jeming’s tense mind abruptly snapped.
A violent weakness, like a tsunami, swept through his body; he could no longer stand, his legs gave way, and he collapsed heavily onto the cold, shattered ground.
The world spun before his eyes, the scene in his vision blurred, and in his ears remained only his heavy, broken bellows-like breathing.
Deep within his soul came not just the simple pain, but a more terrifying, more fundamental "sense of loss" and "sense of tearing."
It was as if a large piece of the foundation of his existence had been forcibly torn away, and the remaining part was riddled with cracks, ready to completely collapse at any moment.
Who knows how much time passed, maybe a quarter-hour, or perhaps a longer torment, before Jeming barely gathered a thread of scattered consciousness.
He trembled as he raised his lead-heavy arm, using the last bit of control power over the Inner Grotto Heaven to retrieve several softly glowing crystal potion tubes.
His fingers were trembling so much that he could barely hold the tube; he simply shoved the whole test tube into his mouth, biting it to pieces, swallowing the sticky honey-like liquid and crystal shards down his throat.
This was the highest level mixed magic potion of [Soul Spring] and [Life Essence], specially used for repairing severe soul damage and physical trauma, each worth over a billion in military merits.
One, two, three...
He took out all the high-tier magic potions stored in his Inner Grotto Heaven, capable of healing souls, and consumed them like a cow devouring peony.
The cool and gentle potion force flowed down his throat, bringing not much relief, but instead like a trickle barely injected into a dried and cracking riverbed, instantly being greedily absorbed and consumed by the huge "void" and "cracks."
Only when the last potion’s empty shards slipped from his powerless lips and fell onto the glassy ground with a crisp shatter did Jeming finally feel the soul-deep pain, which nearly crushed his consciousness, slightly ease.
He gasped for breath, his sweat soaking the tattered gray robe, coldly sticking to his skin.
Survivor’s relief didn’t immediately come, replaced by deeper confusion and doubt.
"Why... am I still alive?"
This question not only provoked the Sixth Level Wizard’s desperate query before vanishing, but also deeply rooted itself in Jeming’s own heart.
He was well aware of the attack he had just endured.
That "Hand of Annihilation" had first destroyed his heart and brain.
Of course, such purely physical injuries might not be absolutely fatal to many wizards who have undergone deep body modifications.
More terrifying was that extremely pure annihilation energy, flowing backward along the connection between life and soul, directly acting on the essence of his soul!
Over sixty percent of his soul was completely annihilated at the moment of contact, turning into nothingness.
And the remaining forty percent was shattered into countless tiny, almost disconnected soul fragments.
The experience of having his soul ripped apart, with the core existence erased more than half, was one Jeming never wanted to undergo a second time.
Judging by any common sense, such injuries would be enough to kill a Sixth Level Wizard specialized in survival on the spot, even causing some Seventh Level beings with weaker soul defenses to fall instantly.
Simply put, even Jeming himself didn’t expect to survive after being hit by that strike, instead closing his eyes, waiting to die, expecting the Death Replacement Doll to revive him.
However, the anticipated activation of the Death Replacement Doll, the feeling of rebirth, never came.
On the contrary, in that shattered soul verge of complete dispersal, he "fearfully" discovered that he was still "alive."
Not resurrection, not rebirth.
Just "not dead."
The soul was indeed shattered, over sixty percent was indeed gone, yet his consciousness bizarrely dispersed among those broken soul fragments, like broken mirrors still reflecting the world’s remnants.
Between those fragments, though having lost close connection, there wasn’t a complete severance of the last barely detectable resonance.
Thus, he "lived" within a mass of soul remnants meant to signify death and end, in a state beyond the comprehension of a Fifth Level Wizard.
This was like an ordinary person’s body being completely dismembered, with the head and heart cut into pieces, but life signs stubbornly maintained, even capable of barely thinking.
Absurd, horrific, completely violating the basic laws of conventional life and soul.
This was also the crucial reason Jeming was able to use the Floating Cannon to sneak attack and land a strike on the Sixth Level Wizard—who would guard against a pile of remnants "already dead?"
Regarding later using the spiritual essence as adhesive and scaffold from the Five Elements Rainbow Transformation Mirror to reassemble the fragmented soul pieces, forcibly "pasting" a barely complete soul outline, summoning Body Refining Technique and potion to allow body regeneration...
Comparatively, such actions seemingly resembling resurrection became some "technical" problem, difficult yet not incomprehensible.
The real enigma remained the initial problem: why, after most of the soul being destroyed, did he not directly die?
Why could his consciousness continue within the shattered soul?
He had lived until now, undergone many fierce battles, suffered various grave injuries, but never had the severity reached this level—his soul essence permanently lost over sixty percent!
Even for magic potion capable of instantaneously restoring Sixth Level Wizard’s soul injuries, in facing his fragmented soul, most potion power would be wasted, vanishing into thin air.
Therefore, even after consuming all high-tier soul magic potions stocked, at this moment he could clearly perceive, his soul only recovered less than twenty percent of "quantity."
Roughly forty percent remained as solid, like excavated, "deficiency."
This deficiency not only brought constant, bone-deep pain, but also clouded his thoughts, making them sluggish, blurred, as though shrouded by a thick frosted glass.
Senses dulled, the world seemed to lose much of its color and detail.
At this moment, with the pain slightly subsided, Jeming had the spare strength to start pondering the chilling question.
But honestly, the ability to still think under such circumstances was already quite astonishing... even terrifying.
"Damn... this is worse than dying..." Jeming feebly lay on the ground, his cheek against the cold, rough surface, every breath pulling at the soul’s ache, causing him to involuntarily whisper through clenched teeth, "It would be better to let the Death Replacement Doll simply revive me..."
The term "Death Replacement Doll" flashed like lightning through the darkness, suddenly illuminating his chaotic thoughts.
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