Chapter 603 - 514: [Fabrication]
Chapter 603: Chapter 514: [Fabrication]
The sky was filled with dark-gray barrages, like an inexhaustible rain of Death, relentlessly scouring the airspace where Jeming was.
Each time the barrages poured down in concentrated volleys, at least one layer of the Ruins Armor field shattered with a sound like fragile glass exploding.
Yet in this moment, Jeming, for once, felt a rare trace of relief.
Relief that he had, out of boredom, studied those two "payment" technologies in advance.
Among them, although the "Multi-layer Barrier Nesting Optimization Algorithm" hadn’t helped him expand his combat system, in this extremely passive defensive battle it was now playing an unexpectedly crucial role.
Thanks to the optimization of the algorithm, he was able to almost simultaneously trigger multiple Ruins Armor Witchcraft Artifacts.
By using the algorithm’s built-in "conflict resolution" and "Energy circulation bridging" modules, these hastily formed defensive fields of the same type could, within time units measured in milliseconds, barely maintain an unstable "multi-layer superposition" state.
This was far from a perfect multi-layer defense.
The Energy circulation was not smooth enough, the stacked defensive effects suffered obvious attenuation and interference, the overall structure was extremely fragile, and the consumption of Jeming’s mental Calculation Power was enormous.
If not for his Lifebound Magical Treasure, the Five Elements Rainbow Transformation Mirror, greatly amplifying his mental stability and computational efficiency, this kind of operation would have been impossible to maintain in high-speed combat.
But right now, this "imperfect" stacking had become his lifeline.
It could, layer by layer, consume the Black Robed Wizard’s ceaseless barrage torrent of Law-breaking rounds.
With every wave of concentrated attacks, the outermost Ruins Armor shattered on cue, but the inner layers still provided buffering, buying Jeming a tiny time window to trigger a new layer of defense.
He was like a dancer on the tip of a blade, pushing Void Step to the extreme, his figure making all kinds of inconceivably evasive maneuvers through the gaps in the dense barrage, while continuously controlling the Floating Cannons to return fire and probe.
Dark-golden Fire Divine Light shot toward the Black Robed Wizard from different angles and in different modes—sometimes for pinpoint kills, sometimes scattered, sometimes in brief sustained beams.
Jeming no longer sought to end it in a single blow, but instead frantically collected data through attack feedback.
"As expected... it’s not truly reacting at light speed." A glint of realization flashed in Jeming’s eyes.
After dozens of probing shots from different positions and in different modes, he gradually figured out the rules behind the opponent’s bizarre "defense."
Any attack that directly targeted the Black Robed Wizard’s body would, just as it was about to hit, trigger a kind of "automatic response."
This response wasn’t the Black Robed Wizard’s subjective "reaction," but more like a passive "phenomenon" based on some pre-set rule.
Its external manifestation was: the Black Robed Wizard’s body or limbs would always adopt just the right posture to "meet" or "block" the attack trajectory at the perfect moment; then the attack would vanish as if crashing into nothingness.
"It’s not that he’s boosting his own reaction speed; it’s more like... the ’time’ between the attack and himself is being distorted?" Jeming analyzed rapidly in his heart. "No, it’s also possible he’s changing the ’correlation’ between them, forcing the attack, in the instant it’s ’about to hit,’ to sync with the ’already completed defensive action’ as the result. Is it a time-type Law, or a fate-type Law?"
But he immediately ruled out the possibility of it being a time-type or fate-type Law.
If the opponent truly mastered profound control over time or fate, the battle would never have turned into this kind of "mutual offense" situation.
What’s more, in terms of defense against attacks, the opponent clearly wasn’t doing something like Elemental Purification or dispelling; it was more like directly erasing the attack.
Furthermore, the opponent’s offensive methods were obviously the manifestation of another Law.
Defense and offense were displaying characteristics of three different Law Level traits altogether.
Could the opponent be studying multiple Laws at the same time?
Or... was it some kind of special Law?
The Wizard Civilization was as vast as a sea of stars, with tens of thousands of obscure Laws recorded.
Combining all the details he’d observed so far, Jeming began to rapidly filter and compare them in his memory library.
The "synchronization" of the defense felt like pre-setting a result of "the attack is inevitably intercepted."
The "means" of the defense felt like directly "erasing the existence of the attack."
The "Law-breaking" in the offense felt like forcibly defining the state that "the defense is inevitably pierced."
Among these, Laws capable of erasing attacks were the least in number, and could even be called rare—only a few tens of thousands had been discovered across the entire Wizard Civilization.
Jeming rapidly ran through the related Law effects in his mind, constantly comparing them against the current situation.
Suddenly, Jeming’s eyes lit up!
"It’s very likely... this one!"
Although he still couldn’t be one hundred percent certain, this hypothesis was enough to explain the vast majority of the bizarre phenomena before him!
Just as he was about to run further tests to verify whether his guess was correct...
An abrupt change occurred!
In the very instant Jeming’s mind rippled slightly with excitement at his new discovery, the Black Robed Wizard—who had been as steady as a rock, mainly using barrages for suppression and attrition—moved!
Taking advantage of the visual cover provided by the barrage, the Black Robed Wizard vanished from his original position without any warning!
There was no Space Jump ripple, no afterimage of high-speed movement, not even any heralding surge of Energy fluctuations.
It was as if the "fact" that he was "standing a hundred li away" had been directly erased in a certain instant, and the new "fact" that he was "appearing three feet beside Jeming" had been forcibly written into reality!
When Jeming, relying on the danger sense of his Body Refining Technique and his combat instincts, turned his head in horror, those eyes burning with dark-red charcoal fire were already right before him!
A hand covered in a black leather glove, its knuckles clearly defined, was pressing toward his chest with a motion that seemed slow yet was actually fast!
Fast!
Indescribably fast!
It wasn’t physical speed, but a subversive kind of "speed" that came from completely omitting the process of "from non‑existence to existence," "from far to near"!
His pupils shrank abruptly to needlepoint!
His heart almost stopped beating!
Yet in this life‑or‑death instant, extreme terror instead birthed an extreme clarity.
The opponent’s utterly unreasonable "flash" into melee range, and that attack posture with no flourish at all, going straight for the kill—far from making Jeming panic, instead slotted in like the final puzzle piece, instantly locking seamlessly into that shocking conjecture in his heart!
In a spark of lightning, that palm had already touched Jeming’s body surface.
The outer layers of Ruins Armor sustained by multiple Barrier algorithms popped like soap bubbles and vanished in an instant.
Seeing that utterly wrong palm about to press down solidly...
A fierce glint flashed in Jeming’s eyes!
He did not choose futile evasion or defense; instead he made a move that even made the Black Robed Wizard’s dark‑red eyes flicker slightly!
In that split second he poured his entire strength into his right arm, not retreating but advancing, and smashed a punch straight at that incoming palm!
Strangely enough, the moment his fist swung out, that palm which should have been unimaginably fast actually "slowed" down!
A trace of delight flashed through Jeming’s eyes; he knew he’d guessed right!
The opponent’s attack could be this fast precisely because it directly defined the result of "must touch my body"!
And as his fist swung out, the Ruins Armor‑triggering Witchcraft Artifact that had long been primed inside Jeming’s body was activated at the same time!
In the blink of an eye, fist and palm met.
Whoosh...
No earth‑shaking impact boom, no explosive roar of Energy clashing.
Jeming’s fist, the instant it touched the Black Robed Wizard’s palm, automatically "dispersed."
As if his fist were merely a delicate phantom made of smoke, casually scattered by a single slap.
And this bizarre dissipation rapidly spread up along his wrist.
It looked as though with that one palm, the Black Robed Wizard was easily "slapping apart" a human figure condensed from smoke, starting at the point of contact!
There was no ripple in the eyes beneath the Black Robed Wizard’s hood, because this was the result that should have been taken for granted.
But in the next moment, the dark‑red flames in his eyes flickered imperceptibly.
Because that unstoppable "dissipation" suddenly halted when it spread to the junction between Jeming’s arm and shoulder!
A slightly dim Ruins Armor field surfaced at the final moment, like the sturdiest embankment, stubbornly holding back the corrosion of "dissipation"!
Crack!
This layer of Ruins Armor shattered in response, but it had indeed blocked the corrosion for Jeming.
"Ugh—ah!"
Jeming let out a muffled groan of Pain, and borrowing the faint counterforce of the clash and the recoil from the Ruins Armor’s shattering, his long‑primed Void Step erupted at full power!
His body seemed yanked by an invisible giant force, turning into a twisted afterimage, retreating wildly backward in a ragged, scrambling posture!
Only when he had retreated to a relatively "safe" distance did Jeming finally steady himself.
His face was ashen, cold sweat streaming down his forehead.
His right shoulder was an empty void, the break a mess of torn Flesh, but powerful Life Energy was already beginning to surge.
The severed blood vessels and muscles twisted and extended like living things, rapidly constructing the rudiments of bone, wrapping it in newborn Flesh.
Very soon, an all‑new arm, slightly pale, grew out at a speed visible to the naked eye!
He stared fixedly at the Black Robed Wizard in the distance, who had not immediately pursued and seemed to be appraising him as well; the searing Pain from the severed arm and the itch of regenerating tissue tangled together.
But all of that was nothing compared to the surging, almost certain line of reasoning in his mind.
The "inevitable interception" of defense.
The "structural disintegration" of attack.
The "factual jump" of movement.
And that terrifying effect just now, where at the moment of contact, a portion of his body’s "existence" was directly "dispersed"...
All these traits pointed with absolute clarity to that exceedingly rare and eerie Law.
It was not simple Energy manipulation, not a distortion of spacetime, but something more fundamental, a power that acted upon the levels of "reality" and "concept."
Jeming flexed his newly grown right hand, clenching it hard into a fist.
His focus, however, was not on it at all, but on the Black Robed Wizard, eyes burning as he spoke in a hoarse voice that carried the certainty of having seen through the truth:
"What a terrifying power. What you’re using should be the beginning of the Fictional Law, the Law...[Fabrication]. Did I guess right?"
The Black Robed Wizard stood silently where he was, the dark‑red glow beneath his hood flickering slightly, for the first time revealing a hint of true regard.