I Arrived At Wizard World While Cultivating Immortality Chapter 655: Assassination

Midnight.

The oil lamp in the old bookstore's second story had long since been extinguished.

Jie Ming lay on his bed, eyes shut, fingers resting lightly upon his abdomen. His breathing was as placid as undisturbed water.

Anyone who chanced upon this scene would merely perceive a young man asleep, lost in innocent dreams within a chamber brimming with ancient texts.

Abruptly, the bookstore's walls vibrated subtly, and a presence sliced through the air.

The approaching entity, guided by an ethereal thread connecting it to Jie Ming, silently breached the premises.

In that instant, every nook and cranny of the bookstore seemed to welcome its intrusion.

The worn gap beneath the doorframe, the minuscule crack barely two millimeters wide where the wooden floor met the wall, the shadowy recess between a drawer and its desktop…

All those minute spaces, typically overlooked by ordinary folk, appeared to awaken, quivering faintly as if quietly beckoning their own kind.

Then, the Rift Dweller emerged from the fissure between the wall and the floor.

Its physical manifestation resembled a projection—exceedingly thin and spectral. Viewed from the side, it was virtually nothing more than a nearly imperceptible line. Its surface was adorned with intricate patterns, akin to countless magnified fingerprints.

Having slipped from the crevice, the Rift Dweller's form glided onto the bed from the footboard.

The progression was painstakingly slow, much like a dark vine inching its way out of a stone fissure.

Its body spread upwards along the fabric of the bedsheet. What ordinary eyes perceived as fine and smooth texture became vast rivers in its perception.

Following the direction of these 'rivers,' it crept past Jie Ming's ankle, ascended his calf, and finally enveloped the area above his torso. Then, it began to press down upon the slumbering figure.

It was a force of extreme slowness, yet it carried an suffocating sense of inevitability.

An eerily potent power it was. The quilt remained undisturbed, the clothes unwrinkled, yet the crushing pressure was undeniably real. It felt as though something was attempting to flatten Jie Ming's body, reducing his three-dimensional existence to two.

The intent was to render him as slender and flat as itself—thin enough to be tucked away in a wall corner or the narrow space behind a wardrobe.

This was its unique method of assassination.

Emerging from a crevice, it sought to return its victim to one.

It would compress its quarry inch by agonizing inch until the target lost all semblance of thickness, becoming a mere paper-thin, human-shaped cutout, subsequently to be concealed in an unnoticed corner.

The Rift Dweller's relentless compression targeted Jie Ming's chest, directly above his heart.

For any ordinary individual, the sternum would have already yielded with a brittle crack under such unbearable force, the chest cavity compressed to a mere wafer's thinness. Yet, Jie Ming's skin did not recede even a millimeter, remaining as steadfast as meticulously forged alloy.

The Rift Dweller's form began to quiver infinitesimally.

It altered its strategy, transitioning from an all-encompassing pressure to a concentrated piercing at a single point.

Screech!!!

A harsh, metallic scraping sound erupted suddenly into the tranquil night, sharp and grating, as if steel were being dragged across steel.

Still, Jie Ming's body remained utterly unscathed.

The applied force simply slid off his form, much like an attempt to dent a block of cast iron with a fingertip, resulting only in futile noise.

But this outcome was only to be expected. After all, this was a Void Refinement body.

It was the true form Jie Ming had meticulously forged with countless rare materials. At this moment, it effortlessly absorbed this rule-defying force, dissolving it into nothingness.

The bed swayed gently.

Jie Ming opened his eyes.

His gaze was so calm it bordered on lethargic, like a naturalist who had discovered an an unknown insect in their own garden, tilting their head to examine it with detached interest.

“Oh,” his voice held a serenity that betrayed no surprise, “so it’s something like this.”

From the exact moment this 'Strange' had entered the ten-meter radius surrounding the bookstore, he had sensed its presence.

Indeed, the bookstore had undergone Jie Ming's meticulous alterations during this period—layered seals and interwoven perception arrays. Not even a bacterium attempting to slip through a door crack could escape his notice, let alone a Strange radiating intense, heterogeneous energy fluctuations.

He had been fully aware the moment it began its approach along their established connection.

However, he had refrained from implementing additional defenses. He simply remained still, patiently awaiting its arrival.

Naturally, this was not due to any oversight.

It was a conscious decision, driven by his desire to observe it clearly.

Upon witnessing this outcome, the Rift Dweller's form froze.

The flat, black membrane solidified abruptly less than a centimeter above Jie Ming's chest, like a sheet of black paper suspended in mid-air. It was attempting to comprehend, desperately analyzing with its sensory system, so profoundly alien to human perception: why had this prey not been crushed?

Now that Jie Ming had awakened, he observed that the Rift Dweller's own intelligence was insufficient for pondering more complex questions.

Jie Ming paid no mind to the Strange's apparent disregard for him.

A silent light ignited deep within his pupils, and the golden illumination on his forehead began to brighten as well.

His All-Purpose Eye was now operating at its maximum capacity.

The Fate Subsystem synchronized its activation, working in tandem with the eye.

Numerous streams of information converged, overlapped, and were cross-verified within Jie Ming's consciousness.

Every minute detail of the entity became extraordinarily clear in his vision.

Through his dedicated research on The Strange during this period, the All-Purpose Eye had successfully “updated” various specialized detection “modules” specifically tailored for these beings, simplifying Jie Ming’s ability to detect them.

Layer by layer, the All-Purpose Eye meticulously dissected the Rift Dweller’s internal structure: the pathways through which energy flowed, the arrangement of its central components, and the nodes that connected it to the external world… every aspect became utterly transparent to his sight.

After mere moments, a comprehensive profile of this particular Strange materialized in his mind.

It existed within the overlooked crevices of the world—tucked between walls and cabinets, nestled in doorframes and floors, inhabiting all the minuscule gaps that people typically ignore.

It lurked throughout the day, only seeping out into visibility in the deepest hours of the night.

Its modus operandi involved compression, rendering its targets infinitely thin before stuffing them into cracks, concealing them within hidden interlayers, thereby causing people to simply vanish into the folds of existence.

“…How fascinating,”

Jie Ming mused softly to himself.

The quality of this creature's energy bore a striking resemblance to that of the Shadow Thief.

While not precisely identical, they possessed a certain fundamental resonance at their core.

If one were to attempt a description, both energies seemed to originate from the shadowy, unnoticed corners of human perception.

Both parasitized spaces that went “unseen,” drawing sustenance from human indifference and underlying fear.

A thought, swift as lightning, flashed through Jie Ming's mind.

Perhaps they were twin-born.

These two Stranges might have been born as a pair.

They could share the same origin, or perhaps some unknown power had bound them together from the very moment of their creation.

The Shadow Thief was designed for the act of “biting.”

Its role was to steal life force, completely exhausting its prey.

The Rift Dweller, conversely, was responsible for “containment.”

Its function was to compress prey that had already lost their shadows, squeezing them into the world’s crevices and thoroughly obliterating any sign of their existence.

The Shadow Thief would absorb their life force and soul, while the Rift Dweller took care of disposing of their physical forms.

However, Jie Ming had already managed to capture the Shadow Thief.

Consequently, the Rift Dweller had embarked on a search for its counterpart.

There was undoubtedly some form of inherent connection between these two Stranges. Even with the Shadow Thief sealed within a rune-inscribed metal box, that link would not have vanished entirely.

Guided by this invisible tether, the Rift Dweller had eventually found its way to the old bookstore, then to this very bedroom, and ultimately, to him.

It then attempted the drastic action of pressing him into the thinness of a sheet of paper.

Jie Ming regarded the creature for a moment, and an idea began to form.

“You have an affinity for crevices, don’t you?” he inquired, sitting up from the bed. His tone was remarkably casual, as if conversing with an old acquaintance. “You’ve brought this upon yourself.”

His voice was soft, almost a murmur to himself.

Despite its limited intellect, the Rift Dweller's primal instincts compelled it to react.

Its form began to retreat with considerable speed, attempting to escape back through the wall crevice from which it had emerged.

Jie Ming, however, offered it no such opportunity.

His right hand extended from beneath the quilt, palm facing upwards, fingers spread wide.

With a surge of spiritual power, he invoked a wizard spell: Spatial Stabilization.

This was one of the few specialized spatial-type wizard spells he had managed to master.

Within the wizarding world, this spell was typically employed to reinforce space, maintain stability in an area, and prevent unauthorized teleportation.

Yet, Jie Ming implemented certain modifications for this particular application. He conjured two stabilized spatial zones in immediate proximity, effectively constructing a “crevice” directly above his palm.

A fissure, scaled down to nanoscopic width, silently materialized above his open hand.

This gap was so infinitesimally small that it was imperceptible to the naked eye—countless times narrower than even the finest strand of hair.

However, the Rift Dweller possessed the ability to perceive the crevice's presence.

As a Strange that thrived by exploiting “crevices,” its sensitivity to all forms of gaps far exceeded that of any conventional living being.

Its body convulsed violently, as if struck by an electric shock, and it darted towards the foot of the bed at a speed several times greater than its approach.

Having finalized his preparations, Jie Ming nonchalantly extended his hand towards the Strange.

His movements were deliberately unhurried, possessing an almost leisurely pace, yet his trajectory meticulously eliminated any conceivable escape route for the Rift Dweller.

His hand acted much like one would swat away an insect that had inconveniently flown into a room; with a simple, casual wave, he expertly guided the Rift Dweller back towards the waiting spatial crevice.

Even as the Rift Dweller desperately tried to evade, Jie Ming’s fingertips brushed against its flattened edge with effortless ease.

The Strange emitted a peculiar sound, reminiscent of crumpled paper, as it attempted to slip through his grasp.

But Jie Ming’s entire palm had already converged, securing it tightly. With an almost brutal yet fluid motion, he forcefully compressed its form into the waiting spatial crevice.

With a portion of the Strange creature's form consigned to the spatial anomaly, Jie Ming withdrew his grasp.

However, the Rift Dweller remained ensnared. As its form brushed against the tear in reality, its extremities were drawn inward, seemingly consumed by the rift.

Jie Ming channeled his spiritual power, forcefully propelling the entirety of its being deeper into the chasm. Subsequently, intricate designs of a binding formation unfurled from his fingertips, akin to swiftly encroaching foliage, instantly encasing the spatial rupture.

A sharp *snap* echoed.

With a precise flick of his fingers, Jie Ming produced a slender plate from his inner cave-heaven. He carefully positioned it over the location where the spatial rift had manifested.

Emblazoned upon the plate's surface, the formation's intricate patterns blazed momentarily with a subtle luminescence before subsiding.

Examining the thin plate within his palm, Jie Ming gave a satisfied nod after a gentle pat.

The Rift Dweller was now immured.