"It seems you're the one who altered my teleportation coordinates."
Jie Ming's voice was calm but carried a note of certainty.
"And you told me before that most Black Wizards were just desperados stuck at Level 5..."
He swept his gaze across the surroundings, the corners of his mouth lifting slightly.
"It appears that was just information you deliberately leaked."
As the True Illusion Void-Breaking Eye swept over, the information of everyone present was laid bare.
Among the dozen or so Black Wizards, more than half had already stepped into Level 6.
This ratio was astonishingly high.
But upon second thought, Jie Ming understood the reason.
These people had originally taken the path of Black Wizards precisely because their talent was limited, unable to rely on their own wisdom to break through to Level 6.
But robbery itself was a form of resource accumulation.
Not enough once? Then do it ten times.
Not enough after ten times? Then do it a hundred times.
Rob a few more times, and even the most mediocre person could use vast resources to forcibly stack their way to a Level 6 Wizard.
However, once they set foot on this path, there was no turning back.
Retreat was utterly impossible. The moment they tried to withdraw, their former partners would turn into enemies and attack them.
Given the combat level of these civilian Level 6 Wizards, facing a siege from a group of Level 5 Wizards, they had no chance of survival.
Rather than being silenced after withdrawal, it was better to remain in the darkness.
Thus, they gathered in greater numbers.
Over time, the proportion of Level 6 Wizards grew higher and higher.
And the overall increase in combat power further fueled their greed, so their prey gradually shifted from Level 5 to newly promoted Level 6 Wizards who hadn't yet established a foothold.
For example... himself.
"What an interesting ecological structure" Jie Ming remarked with satisfaction.
On the other side, the hearts of the Black Wizards sank bit by bit.
Among Wizards, there was an almost universally accepted iron rule.
When in battle, if they encountered knowledge they completely failed to understand...
Don't hesitate, flee immediately!
Because that meant the other party's level of knowledge far surpassed their own.
A dozen or so Black Wizards almost simultaneously took half a step back.
They wanted to retreat.
But just then, Jie Ming had already exposed the innkeeper's identity.
The innkeeper's body abruptly stiffened. Beneath the black mist, the middle-aged face that had always worn a gentle smile now turned thoroughly gloomy. The retreating thought that had just arisen lasted only an instant before being completely replaced by a more resolute expression: a determination to kill Jie Ming. The others around also realized something; their eyes swiftly moved back and forth between the innkeeper and Jie Ming.
Then, everyone's expressions changed. An icy murderous intent permeated the air.
As Wizards, even if their intellect wasn't enough to advance to Level 6, none present were truly stupid.
One among them had been exposed.
If Jie Ming left here alive and reported the innkeeper's identity to the Star Ring Federation Military...
Following this thread, the entire organization would be uprooted.
No one doubted whether the Federation Military had that capability.
Even if they killed the innkeeper now to silence him, it would be meaningless.
With the abilities of high-rank Wizards, given even a corpse... no! Not even a corpse was necessary; just by having a causal connection, they could trace and hunt down all of them!
And no one thought they could escape the grasp of the Military!
So if Jie Ming returned alive, none of them would escape.
In that case...
The only way was to ensure that the one who knew everything stayed here forever.
The sticky killing intent even seemed to quiet the air.
The next moment.
Boom!
Without any communication, a dozen Black Wizards struck almost simultaneously.
Energy barriers rose first.
Dozens of layers of barriers nested within each other, instantly isolating the area around Jie Ming, sealing his movements as much as possible.
Then, the outer barrier began to contract.
The entire space closed like an iron cage, locking all escape routes once again.
Only then did the true killing blows descended.
Dozens of blazing white energy beams tore through the void, interspersed with spatial shear that spanned heaven and earth. From another direction, the disintegration force field spread layer by layer. All attacks connected seamlessly, with no gaps.
Binding, control, blockade, eradication!
The entire process was as practiced as if repeated a thousand times.
Jie Ming stood quietly in place facing this onslaught. Only when all attacks were about to land did he "slowly" raise his right hand.
A torrent of attacks struck his body first.
Hum...
An invisible ripple spread across his skin—the steady-state energy field of the Return to Ruins Armor.
Those attacks, capable of piercing a Level 6 Wizard's defense, vanished like mud into the sea, instantly absorbed by the steady-state field. The combined assault of over a dozen Level 6 Black Wizards poured relentlessly onto one point, yet only caused a barely perceptible ripple on the Return to Ruins Armor. Then, everything returned to calm.
Jie Ming's right hand had already been raised, index finger extended.
At his fingertip, a faint dark-gold light quietly lit up.
Before the surrounding Black Wizards could recover from their shock, the dark-gold Trigram Fire Annihilation Divine Light pierced through heaven and earth!
Zzzzz!!
A straight beam of dark-gold light tore through the sky. Jie Ming gently twisted his wrist, and the beam turned into an infinitely extending divine sword, sweeping across the entire battlefield.
Wherever it passed...
All protective magic techniques were cut in two without exception. Nothing could stop it for even a moment.
"...What?!"
"Ah!"
Accompanied by a few screams, the bodies of a dozen Black Wizards were almost simultaneously severed cleanly at the waist, blood spurting into the air.
Some hastily threw out Level 6 protective magical artifacts.
But those invaluable artifacts lasted only an instant before being utterly pierced through, along with their internal laws, by the Trigram Fire Annihilation Divine Light.
Broken bodies fell heavily, blood flowing along the rocks.
Yet the tenacious vitality of Wizards prevented them from dying.
On both sides of the severed sections, countless tiny flesh tendrils madly writhed, attempting to reconnect the bodies.
But after this strike, the black robes they used to conceal their identities were torn apart, and the concealment effect vanished.
Seeing that disguise was now meaningless, everyone simultaneously tore off their black robes.
Boom!
A short, fat Wizard's body suddenly expanded.
His skin burst open, and dozens of thick tentacles emerged from within. At the end of each tentacle was a gaping maw lined with jagged fangs. On another side, someone's entire body elementized: rolling thunderclouds churned, countless purple lightning bolts converged, forming dozens of bucket-thick lightning pillars that crashed down.
Further away, a burly Wizard let out a deafening roar, his body swelling wildly.
In an instant, he turned into a giant over a hundred meters tall.
The law of Crumbling wrapped around his fists. One punch struck down, shattering space layer by layer.
"Die!!!"
After fully unleashing their combat power, several distinct attacks descended upon Jie Ming from all directions simultaneously.
Facing the Wizards' desperate assault, Jie Ming finally looked up.
"It seems you have nothing new. Then... let's end this!"
Jie Ming slowly extended a finger and gently pressed down toward the void.
Boom!!!
The world suddenly darkened.
An unimaginably massive dark-gold finger slowly descended from the end of the sky.
The third Dharma Aspect, 250,000 kilometers tall, was visible only for an instant.
But one of its fingers had been manifested above this wilderness.
The entire sky was completely covered by that finger.
Majestic! Vast! Incomprehensible!
Every line of the skin seemed woven from countless runes, flowing with a terrifying light of law.
Before it had even truly landed, the mere pressure from its descent had already caused the entire wilderness to collapse.
Rumble...
The ground continued to sink, countless cracks spread wildly, and rock layers crumbled inch by inch.
All the Black Wizards looked up simultaneously, unable to hide the terror in their eyes.
"No!!!"
Some let out desperate roars, others immediately turned to flee, and still more tried to futilely stop the finger's descent like mantises blocking a chariot. The tentacle monster madly flailed dozens of tentacles that had suddenly grown thousands of meters, attempting to hold up the sky.
But before they could get close, all tentacles were crushed into a mist of blood by the invisible weight.
Thunderclouds churned wildly, trying to escape through elementization.
But the entire thundercloud cluster was continuously compressed under the aspect's shadow, growing smaller and smaller.
Finally, only a faint spark of lightning remained.
Pop!
It went out completely.
The giant bellowed and swung its fist toward the sky.
But when its fist was still dozens of kilometers from the aspect, its arms burst apart inch by inch, and then its entire body shattered.
At last, the finger "gently" fell upon the wilderness, producing a dull roar that seemed to shake the entire world. Boom!!!
A terrifying shockwave swept in all directions, and the entire wilderness instantly collapsed.
Rock turned to powder; powder was compressed into crystal; crystal continued to collapse until only a thin crystalline plane remained like a cicada's wing. The outer spatial barrier shook violently, countless runes shattered one after another, and cracks densely covered the entire barrier before it collapsed. After an unknown amount of time, the dust slowly cleared.
The once vast wilderness had completely vanished, replaced by a massive pit hundreds of kilometers deep.
The bottom of the pit was smooth as a mirror, like a single piece of natural crystal.
At the center of the entire pit, only the area beneath Jie Ming's feet remained intact.
And the teleportation array beside him had also been protected by an invisible force.
All runes were still operating stably.
Jie Ming looked around and nodded with satisfaction.
"Not a bad haul."
Although he hadn't arrived at the transfer station as planned, he had traced the thread to uncover the operating model of a Black Wizard organization and casually wiped out one of their strongholds.
Having clarified the "ecological structure" of the Black Wizards and tested their combat power, this journey had not been in vain.
He crouched down to inspect the teleportation array.
The underlying coordinates had indeed been altered, but under his deliberate protection, the array itself had not been damaged.
For Jie Ming, who was proficient in runic systems, such a modification was just a matter of spending a little more time on reverse deduction.
After a moment, as the last rune node was restored to its position, the silver-white spatial light lit up again.
Jie Ming stepped into it, his figure gradually swallowed by the light.
The entire wilderness ruins once again fell into a deathly silence.