Chapter 598 - 510: Search
Chapter 598: Chapter 510: Search
The ashen-gray barren plain stretched to the end of sight, and the sky was an eternally unchanging, lifeless leaden gray.
Thin, inert Element dust drifted in the air; occasionally, Energy turbulence swept through the depths of the clouds like soundless lightning, bringing a brief, ghastly pallor of light.
Jeming hovered in midair, his gaze calmly fixed on a figure fleeing in disarray in the distance.
The other was the quickest to react and also the most cunning in this twenty-man hunting squad. The moment Jeming’s first wave of strikes descended, he decisively abandoned his teammates and used some kind of explosive secret art to shoot toward the horizon.
"Your judgment was right. Unfortunately..." Jeming murmured, raising the index finger of his right hand.
At his fingertip, a speck of dark-golden light flared abruptly, solid as a needle.
Yet at the instant it left his fingertip, the light "grew" from a slender light-needle into a gigantic light column over ten meters thick.
The beam precisely engulfed that distant figure at the skyline who was desperately changing direction, trying to use a spatial fold as cover.
The Wizard that was hit burst forth several layers of hastily triggered Shields around his body, but all of them were easily torn apart by that extremely condensed Energy the instant they touched the beam.
His body froze for a moment; the whole person was like a wax statue cast into a furnace, silently vaporizing and dispersing.
Together with the surrounding Shield fragments and the scattered Elements, he turned into a wisp of faint blue smoke slowly rising upward.
"Judging by the average standard of hunting squads, these people were quite strong."
Jeming slowly lowered his hand and descended back to the ground.
The earth beneath his feet had long been unrecognizable, riddled with Energy-corroded craters of varying depths, basins melted into glassy pits by extreme heat, and ferocious ravines torn open by space-rending Witchcraft.
The air still held remnants of irritable Fire Elements, chaotic spatial ripples, and a trace of the cold aftertaste left by Soul annihilation.
Twenty enemy Wizards whose average strength lay between Fourth Level and Fifth Level, including three Peaks of Fifth Level who coordinated smoothly and tried to use combined Witchcraft to pin him down, had been wiped out by him in less than a few breaths, like fallen leaves swept away by an autumn wind.
"Tsk..." A gasp tinged with a clear intake of breath came from the side.
The air rippled like water, and Blake’s pale figure slowly emerged.
His deep violet eyes swept across the devastated battlefield, then glanced at Jeming, who was composed and at ease, with barely any dust on his robe. The corner of his mouth twitched involuntarily a few times.
"I mean... Jeming..." Blake’s tone carried a tangled mix of amazement and relief. "I am now absolutely certain that teaming up with you is the smartest decision I’ve made in recent times."
He pointed at the slowly dissipating Energy remnants. "A twenty-man hunting squad, with at least three elites under the Chaos Secret Sect ’Pain Floggers’ among them... and you took care of them faster than we Soul Element types handle a Low Tier Ghost squad."
Jeming smiled but did not accept the compliment. Instead he asked, "Is this area fully cleaned up? Any residual Spiritual traces of fish that slipped through the net?"
"It’s clean." Blake nodded in affirmation; he had just run a meticulous Soul scan. "Even the faintest Soul Resonance was completely obliterated by your attacks. However..."
He changed tack mid-sentence, his expression turning solemn. "Don’t you think the patrol density in this area... is a bit ridiculously high? The number of ’hunting squads’ and fixed posts we’ve run into over these past three days is more than the total from the previous ten."
"And this squad’s configuration is clearly stronger, more like... an elite guard unit than simple roaming hunters."
Hearing this, Jeming also put away his relaxed look.
He surveyed the bleak gray plain around them, his Spiritual Power spreading out like invisible ripples, carefully sensing the subtle anomalies in the environment.
"It is indeed off. The Energy background is chaotic, but residual ’orderly’ disturbances at certain specific frequencies are much more evident than in the outer regions. And..."
He pointed at several Rune traces underfoot that had been deliberately concealed, yet still stood out clearly under his enhanced Energy Vision. "Not long ago, a large-scale, systematic Defense Array or concealing Barrier was activated and then withdrawn here."
The two exchanged a glance, each seeing the same judgment in the other’s eyes.
"Hit the jackpot?" Blake licked his somewhat dry lips, his voice lowered, laced with a suppressed excitement and tension. "Either we’ve brushed against one of their important temporary command nodes or logistical relay points, or... we’ve stumbled onto one of the ’trump cards’ they’re setting up?"
"It could also be a carefully arranged decoy." Jeming added coolly, dousing Blake’s excitement with a bucket of cold water.
"The workshop side has already run into several such cases—using false Energy signals and high-intensity patrols to lure our elites deep, then ambushing them. We’ve used similar tricks ourselves."
"So, do we take the risk and gamble on it?" Violet light flickered faintly in Blake’s eyes, a sign that his Spiritual Power had entered a state of high concentration.
"We’re already here." Jeming was concise. "Even if it’s bait, we need to confirm what kind of bait it is and how hard the hook is. If it’s real... then the intel value is enough to justify the risk."
Their opinions aligned quickly.
But knowing that something was amiss ahead, neither of them charged forward rashly. Instead, they once again clarified their division of roles and contingency plans.
"Same old rules—I’ll scout, you hold the line." Blake said, his figure already turning transparent, blurring. "Keep the Spiritual Link clear. Once I mark ’Danger’ or ’Anomaly’, you prioritize judging whether to intervene. If I mark ’Retreat’... then it’s each man relying on his own skills."
He finished with a half-joking remark as his figure fully blended into the environment, slipping into Stealth toward the front.
Jeming nodded, offering no objection.
He stayed where he was, seemingly picking a relatively flat rock to sit on at random, but in fact his Spiritual Power was highly focused, silently sensing through the Soul Link the direction and condition of Blake as he gradually moved farther away.
At the same time, the Energy pool in his Inner Grotto Heaven slowly circulated, replenishing the various Witchcraft Artifact Energy he had just expended, ensuring he could burst out with his strongest combat power at any moment.
Ever since they switched cooperation modes, this setup with Blake acting as the "Ghost Scout" and Jeming as the "mobile fortress and finisher" had been extremely efficient.
Just as Jeming had expected, Blake, as a Soul System Wizard, even at only Fourth Level, still had a scouting range and Perception Ability far superior to his own.
When the two worked together, Blake could always discover the enemy first and assess the threat.
Meanwhile Jeming’s straightforward, brute-force breakthrough capability ensured that in most encounters they could resolve things quickly and avoid getting dragged into a prolonged fight.
Because of this, the way they cooperated had also changed.
At the beginning, the two had agreed to spread out a certain distance and advance side by side, searching ahead, but as Jeming and Blake gradually discovered each other’s strengths, things evolved into their current arrangement:
Blake carried out reconnaissance in front, while Jeming followed within a set distance behind him.
After Blake discovered an enemy, he would pass all relevant intel to Jeming, who would then decide whether to attack or retreat.
However, up to now, Jeming had yet to encounter a situation that required him to choose "retreat."
In most cases the enemy was already gone before they even had a chance to force him to go all out.
The waiting time was not long.
After roughly estimating the distance between the two of them, Jeming also rose and moved in the direction Blake had gone.
After flying quickly like this, one in front and one behind, for about half an hour, Jeming felt the Magic Network Terminal in his space bag give a faint tremor.
He took it out and checked; it was a message from Blake’s encrypted channel.
The contents were very brief, just two words, yet they instantly put Jeming on high alert:
[Ahead, anomaly.]
There was none of the usual detailed description of enemy numbers, Level, type, or Energy readings—just that vague word, "anomaly."
This did not match Blake’s usual style.
Had something gone wrong?
Or had he discovered something that couldn’t be measured by conventional standards?
Jeming immediately replied: [Received. Coordinates? Status?]
Blake’s response took a few seconds to come through, still just as concise: [Coordinates shared. I’m fine, in hiding. Recommend concealing yourself and observing from range—do not step in directly.]
The coordinates came in, about five hundred kilometers from Jeming’s current position—not far for a Fifth Level Wizard.
Jeming didn’t hesitate in the slightest and immediately acted according to Blake’s warning.
He first halted all Energy probing and Spiritual Power extension in that direction to avoid alerting whatever was there.
Then his figure vanished from the rock like a ghostly mirage.
[Phase Space] activated.
He then drew on the Spiritual nature of the Five Elements Rainbow Transformation Mirror to cast Space Stabilization, masking the spatial fluctuations produced when Phase Space activated.
After confirming he was as well hidden as possible, Jeming slowly advanced toward the coordinates Blake had provided.
The coordinates marked an area of even harsher desolation, a Gobi desert filled with massive, weathered stone pillars.
Maintaining his Phase Space state, Jeming silently reached the edge.
Almost the instant he stepped into range of this area, a faint yet oddly familiar sense of discomfort, like a strand of icy spider silk, brushed lightly across the surface of his consciousness.
Jeming was very familiar with this sensation, because a few days earlier he had experienced the same thing from Blake—it was precisely that discomfort of his sense of existence being obscured.
"So that’s how it is..." Jeming’s heart tightened.
The "anomaly" Blake had mentioned was exactly this "being watched" and "existence contamination" feeling that only those with exceptionally sharp Soul perception, or those like him whose Body Refining Technique had evolved a special environmental adaptability, could vaguely detect.
This meant that a Soul Element Wizard specializing in high-level Stealth and interference was lurking nearby, and one whose mastery was extremely high.
He instantly understood the reason for Blake’s caution—and also the reason he had been called in.
To deal with such an opponent who blended into the environment like a Ghost, and who very likely was at a higher Level than Blake, a "rule-defying" existence like himself might be more effective than pure Soul scouting.