Pulling the timeline back a bit.
Outside the planar barrier, Jie Ming and Viola floated side by side above that pale blue light curtain.
From the outer void, the entire continent was tightly wrapped by the planar barrier. The light patterns on the barrier's surface slowly circulated, coating the edges of their robes with a cold sheen.
Viola still maintained the posture of her five fingers spread open.
Gray-white Law of Agony tendrils extended from beneath her feet, gently resting on the barrier's surface but not continuing to penetrate.
Her light green eyes narrowed slightly, and a hint of a knowing smile curled at the corner of her mouth, as if she were looking at a dessert that she had originally thought ordinary but turned out to be surprisingly exquisite.
Jie Ming followed the vision she provided and looked down.
Having discovered their traces, through the barrier, he could faintly see the metal warships hastily ascending from the continent's surface, and the octopus-faced warriors scattering like startled insects.
He had never seen this race before, but the formation of those warships, the style of their energy coatings, and the tactical rhythm of their ascent—clearly coordinated—all indicated that this was by no means a native civilization that a small plane could have developed on its own.
“No wonder the senior sister said it was an unexpected pleasure.” Jie Ming withdrew his gaze and looked at Viola. “This plane has already been occupied by someone else. Those octopus-faced fellows don’t look weak.”
“When I did the remote detection earlier, there were no such traces.” Viola’s tone contained a rare hint of delight. “Neither those metal warships nor those octopus-faced fellows were in the detection data at the time.”
She paused, a thoughtful glint flashing in her silver-gray eyes.
“It’s most likely caused by the time turbulence in the Endless Chaotic Void. The position of this plane itself might be stuck on a void belt with unstable time flow. When I detected it, the time nodes didn’t match, so I found nothing.”
Jie Ming nodded lightly.
In the Endless Chaotic Void, time and space were the most unreliable things.
Once an elemental turbulence erupted, planar coordinates, time flow, and spatial structure could all shift.
One moment it could be a newborn plane, and the next it might have drifted for tens of billions of years in the turbulence.
It was not unusual for reconnaissance results to deviate from the actual situation.
Otherwise, wizards wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of creating cannon fodder units or even training specialized combat wizards for vanguard operations.
Her gaze soon fell on a faint insignia on the hulls of those warships.
The main body of the insignia was a group of stars surrounding a luminous point, arranged in a radial pattern, as if pulled together by the central light.
Just one look, and the smile in Viola’s eyes faded a few degrees, replaced by a trace of coldness.
“Looks like we’re in luck. The opponent is not an ordinary multi-planar civilization, but the Multiracial Alliance.”
Hearing that term, Jie Ming’s pupils contracted slightly.
The Multiracial Alliance, along with the Sentience Calamity and the Reflection Dimension, were the three main enemies of wizard civilization.
He had fought the beings from the Reflection Dimension head-on and knew how troublesome those things were.
As for the Multiracial Alliance, he had actually encountered them before—that dragon, which was quite a pain to fight.
He hadn’t expected to run into them again today while helping his senior sister take an “ordinary plane.”
“Since it’s the Multiracial Alliance…” He frowned. “Why does it look like they’re enslaving those plant people?”
From Viola’s Law of Agony perception earlier, those plant people were clearly not working voluntarily but were being forced to harvest some kind of life energy. According to the introduction to the Multiracial Alliance, they were supposed to be a group that zealously collected all civilizations.
“The Multiracial Alliance is just a collective term. They just like to collect civilizations; they’re not some Justice League.”
Viola’s tone carried a hint of mild mockery.
“Survival of the fittest is the universal rule in the Endless Chaotic Void. Whether you’re the Multiracial Alliance or not, the underlying logic is the same. Those octopus-faced fellows are probably a small race within the Alliance, sent to a remote plane like this to gather resources. For them, enslaving the local aboriginals is perfectly normal.”
After saying that, she turned her gaze from the warship fleet back to Jie Ming, and the smile on her lips deepened. “And it looks like they’re not weak.”
Her tone was light, as if evaluating whether a dish was suitable for cooking.
“We can give it a try. If we’re lucky enough to capture a few alive and extract the coordinates of their civilization’s headquarters, we’ll hit the jackpot. The base coordinates of the Multiracial Alliance are very valuable to eighth-level wizards—whether for sale or for trading favors, it’s quite worthwhile.” Viola’s tone then shifted, still airy, but she stated the cruelty of the latter half very naturally:
“If we’re unlucky and can’t clear them out in a short time, we’ll retreat quickly. After all, those guys might have reinforcements. If we drag it out too long, the two of us might end up here.”
“Anyway, even if we withdraw now, just the intelligence of their existence alone can sell for a good price.”
Jie Ming silently calculated in his mind and felt it was worth a try.
Whether they won or lost, this trip seemed like a sure gain.
Provided they first confirmed the enemy’s strength and whether it was worth the risk.
Viola tilted her head and pointed her chin towards the planar barrier.
“So… you charge to the front and open the planar barrier.”
As she said this, the curve of her lips lifted a bit more, and a clear glint of cunning flashed in her eyes.
“Huh? Me?”
Jie Ming narrowed his eyes.
He had known his senior sister for centuries, and whenever she had something tricky up her sleeve, she made that exact expression.
But Jie Ming was still willing to trust her judgment.
He knew his senior sister’s temperament; making that expression at most meant she would make him suffer a bit, not delay the main task.
So he didn’t say much, just honestly flew forward.
The next moment, dark golden light surged out from within him.
His thousand-meter true body suddenly unfolded in the void. The dark golden giant with a tiger’s back and bear’s waist shrugged its shoulders, its two faces simultaneously opening three eyes, the dark golden pupils cold in the void.
Then, his second Dharma Aspect condensed behind him.
A five-hundred-kilometer-tall golden phantom slowly rose from the void, its outline more solid than when he had faced Suyuan, as if it were a giant deity truly stepping out from ancient myths.
The Dharma Aspect raised its hands, fingers spread wide, firmly clamping onto the surface of the planar barrier, then suddenly pressed down!
Creak… Boom!!!
The sky seemed to be forcibly torn apart by this terrifying force.
The pale blue planar barrier let out a sharp wail under the palms of the Dharma Aspect. The light patterns on the barrier’s surface flickered and struggled madly, then gradually dented inward. The entire spatial structure of the plane instinctively resisted this external violent pressure, as if the whole continent was issuing a silent protest.
Crack!
Accompanied by a crisp breaking sound that resounded through the soul, a crack split open on the blue planar barrier.
The muscles of the Dharma Aspect’s arms bulged high, and dark golden light seeped into the depths of the barrier through the finger gaps, layer by layer dismantling the force nodes inside the barrier. The crack rapidly extended from the finger contact points to both sides. In a few breaths, the crack had expanded to the size of an entire continent.
The sky seemed to have been torn open into a vicious wound, stretching from one end of the horizon to the other. Massive blue-white spatial arcs sprayed from the edges of the wound, illuminating half of the continent below with blinding light.
Jie Ming’s true body flew out from the Dharma Aspect’s chest and descended along the torn crack.
His hands gripped both sides of the crack, continuing to pry the barrier open, and his entire upper body slowly leaned into the plane.
That handsome face emerged from the torn sky. The vertical eye on his brow calmly swept across the dense fleet of warships below, the dark golden pupil reflecting the countless flashing lights of ship cannons.
The planar barrier struggled desperately, constantly squeezing inward, trying to push the intruder out.
But the light patterns that surged onto his Return to Ruins Armor couldn’t even raise a ripple.
Meanwhile, inside the command cabin of the flagship Iron Curtain, all the tentacles of the octopus people stiffened at the same moment.
On the screens before them, the head protruding from the crack was larger than the entire flagship.
The dark golden vertical pupil slowly swept across their fleet formation, a gaze utterly devoid of emotion, as cold as looking at a row of specimen jars on a shelf.
The octopus commander came to his senses first.
His tentacles trembled a few more times than his companions’, then he slammed onto the console, letting out a heavy thud.
“Attack!”
“All units! Tactical Pattern Three!”
The order was given, and the cannons of ten thousand warships lit up at the same instant.
Energy beams, particle cannons, high-energy lasers—the octopus fleet threw all the firepower they could muster, all aimed at the enormous head protruding from the crack.
Countless attack trajectories wove into a stream of light hundreds of kilometers in diameter in the sky.
The blast wave from the periphery of the light stream even blew away the surrounding clouds.
The flagship’s main cannon also finished charging at that moment.
A thick, dark red beam mixed into the volley of light, hurtling straight toward the center of the crack.
As it flew, this dark red beam continuously absorbed the energy attacks from allied forces nearby.
But having absorbed a large amount of energy, the beam itself did not change; in fact, it seemed to become even thinner.
The next instant.
Boom!!!
An earth-shattering roar exploded over the entire plane.
Jie Ming, who had just inserted a small part of his body into the planar barrier, was hit head-on by this stream of light that gathered the full firepower of ten thousand warships. His colossal true body was forcibly blasted out from inside the planar barrier!