Clark turned his gaze toward Dionysius Spencer dozens of kiloters away.
“How did the contest over fate turn out?”
Dionysius Spencer hovered high above, the silver-blue starry robe on his body showing subtle disturbances across the once-slowly circulating constellation points of light.
At the edges of the monitoring light screen before him, data streams occasionally broke off abruptly, twisted, or jumped into erroneous symbols without warning.
Hearing Clark’s question, this fate-specialized wizard showed a wry smile.
He made a helpless “shrug” gesture.
At the sa ti, a detailed stream of ntal information ca through the connection:
“We had already seized the ‘high ground.’”
Dionysius’s consciousness carried clear exhaustion and unwillingness.
“This ti, the Noren workshops mobilized all one hundred and seventy seventh-ring wizards specialized in fate, cooperating with three large-scale fate-anchoring arrays. Three hours before the battle even began, we started weaving an ‘advantageous future.’ According to calculations, it should have raised our overall victory probability by at least thirty-seven percent.”
Clark remained silent, waiting for the rest.
“But the other side… those lunatics from the Chaos Secret Cult and the Tower of Annihilation.” Revulsion seeped through Dionysius’s emotional fluctuations. “They never intended to compete with us for control of the fate lines. Once they realized they couldn’t win the contest, they imdiately activated a large-scale fate pollution ritual.”
“Pollution?” Clark’s consciousness paused slightly.
“Yes, pollution. Using the majority of the souls of at least three seventh-ring wizards as fuel, they forcibly injected ‘chaos,’ ‘disorder,’ and ‘anti-logic’ toxins into the river of fate in this region. Right now, every fate line in this abandoned plane has turned into a tangled, chaotic ss.”
Dionysius sighed.
“Destruction is always easier than construction. They can’t use the power of fate themselves anymore, but neither can we. Now, every spell involving fate divination, future simulation, or causal interference has been rendered completely ineffective. Even the simplest ‘luck enhancent’ and ‘misfortune curse’ have beco extrely unstable—they might take effect, might backfire, or might randomly apply to any target on the battlefield.”
Clark closed his eyes.
As a wizard who also walked the path of fate laws, he could clearly “feel” that the river once composed of countless flowing possibilities had indeed beco a seething, maliciously shrieking mass of chaos.
He opened his eyes again and nodded.
“Fine.” Clark’s ntal fluctuation returned to calm. “At least neither side gained an advantage.”
When high-end combat power was roughly equal, completely removing the difficult-to-control factor of fate from the board actually returned the war to a more “pure” level in so ways.
Who had deeper reserves of spells.
Who executed tactics more efficiently.
Who possessed greater willpower.
And… who could seize that fleeting, razor-thin opportunity amid the chaos.
The mont this thought finished—
BOOM!!!
A deafening tremor accompanied by spatial quaking rolled in from the distance.
It was the soul-shaking “roar” produced when mass and energy were violently twisted.
From an extrely remote direction, at the edge of the lead-gray sky, four indescribably terrifying fluctuations surged forward like a tsunami.
Every wizard below sixth-ring—whether mid-incantation, in flight, or just having landed to begin building defenses—suddenly felt their bodies sink heavily!
As though an invisible giant hand were pressing down on their spines.
Thud, thud, thud…
A continuous chorus of knees hitting the ground rang out.
Tens of thousands of fourth- and fifth-ring wizards turned deathly pale, their knees smashing uncontrollably into the earth, hands barely managing to brace against the ground.
They clenched their teeth, trying to resist the pressure, but their bodies instinctively scread “submit!”
It was an absolute disparity at the level of life itself.
Third-ring wizards fared even worse—many collapsed flat on the ground, breathing with difficulty, pupils dilated, consciousness trembling on the verge of collapse.
Even so newly advanced sixth-ring wizards couldn’t help bending at the waist, cold sweat beading on their foreheads.
Jie Ming’s body swayed. Though he barely avoided kneeling, the pressure still forced his head down.
He felt as though a mountain had been placed on his back.
Not physical weight, but sothing far more fundantal.
It was the “will” contained within those four fluctuations—the natural radiation produced when eighth-ring wizards leaked their mastery over world laws.
An ordinary fifth-ring wizard would likely already be kneeling on the ground like those around him.
But on Jie Ming’s body surface, beneath the skin, the dense runes of the Body Forging thod automatically glowed with faint light.
The adaptive capability of the Body Forging thod began to take effect.
Muscle fibers completed seventeen adaptive adjustnts within a thousandth of a second; bone density temporarily increased by ten percent; blood circulation switched to a high-pressure resistant mode.
Like a deep-sea fish gradually acclimating to water pressure, his body was rapidly analyzing the “frequency” and “nature” of the pressure and generating corresponding resistance.
One second.
Two seconds.
On the third second, Jie Ming slowly—inch by inch—straightened his body.
He raised his head and looked toward the source of the fluctuations. Deep in his pupils reflected the distant sky where a collision imperceptible to mortals was unfolding.
He could distinguish four distinct “flavors” within them—without question, the battle of four eighth-ring wizards.
“They’ve… already clashed.”
Jie Ming murmured to himself, astonishnt flashing through his eyes.
This was the level of eighth-ring.
rely the pressure from the aftermath of their battle was enough to rob more than half the wizards in an army of a million of their ability to act.
If they truly fought at full power inside this plane, the entire patchwork abandoned plane would likely disintegrate from the structural level in just a few minutes.
High in the sky, Dionysius Spencer’s voice rang out across their own camp through an amplification spell:
“Everyone, hold steady!”
At the sa ti, the high-ring wizards who had long been prepared activated the arrays in their hands, releasing forces to calm the mind and forcibly offsetting part of the pressure’s effect.
“Lord Noren and Lord Buchanan are already holding back the enemy’s highest combat power! Proceed according to the original plan—our current mission is to construct a defensive system capable of sustaining prolonged warfare before the enemy army arrives in force!”
“Alchemy branch—responsible for foundation and main structure!”
“Rune branch—responsible for defense array inscription!”
“Elent branch—responsible for energy supply and environntal stabilization!”
“All other personnel—imdiately begin operations according to your pre-war assigned squads!”
The wizards previously suppressed by the pressure forcibly rallied their spirits and began to move.
Clark was the first to act.
He didn’t even chant an incantation. He simply raised his right hand, fingers spread, aiming toward the preliminarily leveled gray-white earth below.
In his palm, the phantom of a complex alchemical array erged.
“Reshape.”
The two words fell.
The earth began to rumble.
The structure of the ground underwent a more fundantal transformation. Molecular bonds in the soil were violently dismantled; different elents were forcibly rearranged.
From the barren soil, only the most basic oxygen and silicon remained. Under the drive of alchemical laws, the two underwent a conversion that violated natural order.
Centered beneath Clark’s feet, the gray-white ground rapidly took on a tallic sheen.
The soil was transforming into steel.
And this steel grew upward like living flesh—rising, extending, differentiating into structures.
Foundation, walls, towers, internal support frawork…
The embryonic form of a square steel fortress with sides exceeding three kiloters rose from the ground in just ten seconds, its height breaking fifty ters.
But this was not enough.
With a wave of his left hand, Clark sent seven tal ingots of varying lusters flying from his sleeve to hover in midair.
“Jie Ming.” His voice remained calm and even. “The ‘composite material reinforcent’ module is your responsibility. Design it to standard ‘sixth-ring sustained bombardnt resistance.’”
“Yes.”
Without any hesitation, Jie Ming rapidly ford seals before his chest. ntal power mixed with elental energy surged forth, transforming into seven differently colored energy tendrils that wrapped around the seven tal ingots.
The tendrils penetrated the tal, beginning microscopic-level modification:
The first ingot received an “energy absorption rune array,” granting it the ability to absorb and disperse impact forces.
The second was embedded with “self-repair catalytic crystal seeds,” allowing slow regeneration after damage.
The third was infused with an “elental resistance deflection field,” providing additional mitigation against energy attacks.
…
In thirty seconds, all seven ingots were processed. Then, with masterful alchemy, Jie Ming “slapped” them into seven critical structural nodes of the steel fortress.
Hum…
The entire fortress emitted a low resonance. The luster flowing across its tal surface grew deeper, heavier.
At this mont, other alchemy wizards also displayed their abilities:
So summoned rivers of lava to pour over the outer walls; once cooled, they ford thick volcanic rock armor.
So drew transparent “diamond threads” from the void, weaving them into an energy diversion net covering the fortress above.
So directly altered localized spatial structures, creating folded interlayer spaces within the walls so the actual thickness far exceeded what the eye could see.
anwhile, rune wizards sward the fortress surface like locusts.
They wielded specialized “inscription pens,” carving at high speed across the tal.
With every stroke, a glowing rune line lit up before quickly sinking and rging into the material.
Defensive runes, anti-invisibility runes, ntal interference runes, energy reflection runes, physical deflection runes, curse resistance runes, spatial stabilization runes…
Millions of runes were inscribed simultaneously, layering upon one another to form a three-dinsional, imnsely complex giant array.
Elental wizards established twelve large-scale elental convergence arrays around the fortress periter, forcibly extracting free energy from this barren plane and channeling it through laid energy conduits into a temporary elental pool at the fortress base.
Three minutes.
In just three minutes, a pitch-black steel stronghold towering a hundred ters high, bristling with ferocious turrets and glowing runes, already stood upon the desolate land.
It crouched like a tal behemoth, silently awaiting the arrival of war.
Clark gave a slight nod, his gaze turning toward the distance.
There, at the edge of the lead-gray sky, the precursory glow of the enemy’s spell arrays beginning to activate had already started to appear.
“The first round of probing is over.”
He said calmly.
“Next… it’s ti for real blades and real guns.”
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