Chapter 701 - 596: War Machines and Encounter
Chapter 701: Chapter 596: War Machines and Encounter
There was no change between day and night in the banquet hall; the flowing star map on the dome always kept the same brightness, and Elves and mechanical creatures moved tirelessly through the crowd.
But based on the biological clock in his body, Jeming confirmed that from the start of the banquet until now, a full three days had passed.
For three days, the Wizards drank, chatted, and exchanged academic ideas.
Some found old friends they hadn’t seen for many years, some made acquaintances with peers from other forces, and some even closed a few deals.
Everyone’s face was filled with gentle smiles, and the atmosphere was as warm and lively as a real gathering.
Jeming and Viola had also become a lot more honest.
The places where Clark had beaten them were still not completely deflated; the two, with bruised and swollen faces, moved through the crowd, tasting those astonishingly effective delicacies.
At some moment on the third day, four beams of light and shadow appeared in the sky at the same time.
It was Felix and the other three Artificial Intelligences.
They appeared in the center of the banquet hall without any warning, just that abruptly.
The music in the banquet hall came to an abrupt halt, and all the Elves and mechanical creatures stopped at the same time, turning into points of light and dispersing.
The long tables covering the plaza, the delicate tableware, the food exuding tempting fragrance, all vanished without a trace in the same instant.
The resplendent golden dome faded away, revealing a grayish-white sky.
"Detected that the other side is ready." Felix and the other three Artificial Intelligences’ voices remained calm, as if stating some insignificant little matter. "About to enter the battlefield."
Thus, the atmosphere of the entire space changed abruptly.
The Wizards who had just been drinking freely with raised cups now had all traces of relaxation and leisure wiped from their faces.
Some put away their wine glasses and switched to their Magic Staffs; some let their ceremonial robes dissolve into light, revealing the Combat Robes already worn underneath; others rolled their shoulders and joints, which crackled sharply.
The Wizards began to move in silence according to their own Levels.
The Sixth Level Wizards began assembling in pre-assigned teams, while the Seventh Level Wizards rose into midair, their gazes sharp like hawks.
Even those Eighth Level Wizards descended one after another from high above, dispersing into their respective teams as leaders of each combat squad.
From a warm, bustling banquet to a battlefield filled with killing intent, the Wizards took no more than a few seconds.
When the banquet hall began to change, Jeming and Viola had already started looking for Clark’s figure.
They hadn’t searched long when someone suddenly patted Jeming on the shoulder.
He turned his head to see Castillo, who had somehow walked up beside him without him noticing.
She had already changed out of that red ceremonial robe, replaced by a set of dark red Combat Robes covered in densely packed Rune patterns.
Her aura had changed as well; she was no longer the hearty, laughing woman seen at the banquet before, but a Seventh Level Wizard radiating savage ferocity.
"Your mentor is over there." She jerked her chin in a certain direction. "Stick close to him later, don’t run around."
Castillo glanced at Clark again, the corner of her mouth lifting slightly. "Take care of yourself."
Clark nodded expressionlessly. "You too."
Jeming and Viola immediately straightened up and smiled.
"Goodbye, Teacher’s Wife."
"Teacher’s Wife, you’re too polite!"
Right now the two of them still had bruised noses and swollen faces; when they smiled you could even see gaps where a few teeth had fallen out.
Castillo smiled at the two, then her expression smoothed back into calm. She turned and strode toward the area of the Deep Red Royal Court.
Their formation there had already assembled, a uniform sea of deep red Magic Robes radiating a dense stench of blood.
Castillo walked to the very front of the formation, exchanged a few quiet words with several Seventh Level Wizards, then merged into that red ocean.
Clark walked over to Jeming and Viola.
He had already changed into his Combat Robes, and the expression on his face had returned to its usual indifference.
The rough bracelet on his wrist was still firmly worn there.
"Let’s go," he said.
As he lifted his leg he paused, glanced over the two’s state, and sighed. "I’ve troubled you two this time. You don’t have to maintain this state anymore."
Hearing this, Jeming and Viola immediately grinned.
Jeming wiped a hand across his own face; the bruised and swollen look instantly vanished, and even the missing teeth grew back in an instant.
Viola did the same beside him, then the two followed Professor Clark and quickly merged into the nearby formation.
As the Wizards of the four great forces separated, the ground began to shake.
The four Ship Planes slowly pulled apart, and the temporary connecting corridors between them broke off and vanished one after another.
But this separation was different from before; as each Ship Plane pulled away, its form began undergoing violent changes.
The Metal platform under Jeming’s feet folded and reassembled, even expanding rapidly as countless new structures rose from beneath the ground.
Rune Towers, Energy nodes, defensive barriers, offensive Arrays...
The entire Ship Plane was like a Giant Beast waking up; every "muscle" swelling, every "bone" being reinforced.
When the transformation stopped, Jeming looked down at the colossal thing beneath his feet and couldn’t help but suck in a sharp breath.
This was the Star Ring Federation’s signature weapon of war, called the "Quantum Entanglement Flagship."
The entire Ship Plane had already transformed into a gigantic ring with a diameter of over ten million kilometers, its surface densely packed with countless Rune nodes, each one radiating a ghostly blue glow.
Those lights flickered at a certain specific frequency, resonating with one another to form an Energy network that covered the whole ring.
At the center of the ring, a mass of twisted quantum cloud was slowly rotating—that was the core of this flagship, an ultimate engine capable of wiping clean a light-year-sized region in an instant.
In the other three directions, three more colossal monstrosities were baring their fangs as well.
The Deep Red Royal Court’s "Perfect Ecological Nest" was unfolding in interwoven layers, a gigantic structure made of intertwined Flesh and Metal, its surface covered in countless writhing organs and tissues.
It was breathing. With every breath it exhaled massive quantities of red mist; that mist condensed in midair into all kinds of twisted shapes, then was drawn back into the Nest again.
Inside the Nest, innumerable incubation pods were in operation, filled with various modified combat organisms soaking in fluid. They slept, ready to be awakened at any moment.
The Void Architecture Institute’s "Folded Palace" looked like a building that violated every physical law.
Its structure was in constant flux, presenting a different geometric form every second.
Cubes, spheres, polyhedra, hypercubes...all forms existed simultaneously, and vanished simultaneously.
Its surface was covered in silver-white Runes, each Rune flashing at the speed of light.
The Anti-Entropy Alliance’s "Torrent Star Ring" resembled a river composed of innumerable silver-white particles, slowly flowing through the Void.
Those particles were nano-scale combat units, each possessing an independent consciousness and combat capability.
They could assemble into any form, infiltrate any defense, devour any substance and replicate themselves.
When they converged, they became a torrent capable of drowning everything.
These four war machines were the ultimate creations of the four Wizard Influences.
Jeming stood on the edge of the quantum-entanglement flagship, gazing at those three equally immense silhouettes in the distance, a hard-to-describe feeling surging up in his chest.
This...was the power of the Wizard Civilization.
The space before the flagship began to twist.
Countless Runes lit up simultaneously, and that quantum cloud spun madly, releasing enough Energy to tear open the barriers of a Plane.
A massive rift slowly opened in the Void, and beyond the rift lay a strange starfield in the endless Chaotic Void.
As the spatial rift opened, Jeming saw the scene on the other side.
Then he couldn’t help but suck in a sharp breath.
Coming straight toward them was a "warship" pieced together from shattered Plane fragments.
Those fragments were of all sizes and shapes, as if some brutal force had smashed them together by sheer violence.
In the gaps between the fragments, one could see countless shriveled corpses and wailing Souls—they were the fuel of this warship, being slowly consumed.
The warship’s surface was covered in crude Runes, each one emitting an ominous dark-red glow.
The structure of those Runes was extremely primitive, yet each contained astonishing Energy.
They were the masterpieces of countless Wizards, and also the graveyards of countless Lives.
And on those warships, just the same, stood innumerable Wizards.
The instant Jeming saw them clearly, a strong sense of dissonance rose in his heart.
On his side, the Wizards were dressed in splendid attire, their bearing cold and rational, filled with the composure of a High-level civilization.
But the Wizards on the other side...regardless of Level, their faces were withered, as though all their Life Energy had been squeezed dry.
Their bodies showed all kinds of grotesque deformities: some had extra arms, some had faces covered in split-open eyes, some had bodies twisted into irregular shapes.
Their Magic Robes also came in all forms; quite a few even looked like living creatures in motion.
Yet what Jeming cared about most were the Emotions revealed in their eyes.
In those eyes there was no reason, no composure—only extreme madness and greed.
They looked at the Wizards on this side the way starving wolves looked at fresh meat, the way drowning men grasped driftwood.
That near-primitive gaze sent a chill crawling down Jeming’s spine.
He suddenly felt that if the Wizards on his side were closer to the "Arcanists" or "Mages" he had read about in novels in his previous life, then the Wizards of that other world were the ones who truly fit the name "Wizard."
Eerie, insane, and willing to use any means.
After the shock, Jeming quickly began assessing the enemy’s strength.
The other side had quite a number of Sixth Level Wizards, but each had been modified to an extremely radical degree; some could hardly maintain a human form in their normal state.
Yet the sense of threat they exuded was far lower than that of the Sixth Level Wizards around him.
Like a knife that looked frightening, but whose edge had already gone dull.
There were also some Seventh Level Wizards, but far fewer than on this side.
As for the Eighth Level Wizards...
Jeming narrowed his eyes, probed carefully for a long time, and finally confirmed a fact: the number of Eighth Level Wizards on the other side was extremely scarce.
It seemed to be exactly as Dean Avery Knight had said.
Without Ninth Level Wizards to balance powers and set the rules, the Wizard Civilization of this Parallel World was far inferior to theirs in every respect.
(Something came up tomorrow; taking a day off in advance.)