I Arrived At Wizard World While Cultivating Immortality Chapter 997: Repulsed, and Homeward

Jie Ming looked at the surviving fragments of Breathing Soil in the distance and could not help clicking his tongue in wonder:

“Looks like this stuff absorbs energy a good deal better than I expected.”

Jie Ming felt he might have somewhat underestimated the high-end materials of the cultivation world.

Dixon said nothing. He only felt that the remark sounded more than a little grating.

That had been a ninth-level behemoth’s attack!

To wear an attack like that down to nothing and still leave behind several chunks of matter the size of stars was enough to make many an eighth-level wizard question their whole life!

If not for Leap Power, an ordinary eighth-level wizard facing a ninth-level creature would be one slap away from finished!

Just then, an earsplitting mental roar came from far away.

The black lizard behemoth had only meant to glance over and erase the little thing that was wrecking its nest.

But what followed was completely beyond its understanding: that puny insect was not dead?!

And the attack it had launched in passing had actually been blocked by some inexplicable lump of earth-yellow matter.

In its excessive shock, the black lizard behemoth put its thinking organ to use for the first time in ages, and plain bewilderment surfaced in its eyes.

Why?

Why had that glare just now failed to stare the insect dead?

It instinctively wanted to attack again, but at that very moment, an intense sense of danger bore down on it from the side.

“Only now you remember to look at me?” Peyton’s voice came from the void.

This eighth-level wizard was not about to pass up an opportunity like this.

The instant the black lizard behemoth’s attention shifted, a flaw appeared in its once-airtight rhythm of attack and defense.

Peyton finished constructing his next round of attack almost immediately. Leap Power ran at full capacity, drawing vast amounts of external elements into the Heat Death Law.

Layer after layer of white arrays unfolded in succession around the behemoth, then turned into dense beams of light that blasted toward its body.

“Roar!!!”

The black lizard behemoth let out an agonized howl, its colossal body pitching violently backward.

Dark-red blood gushed from its wounds, and before it could even spread, it was swiftly eroded into nothingness by Peyton’s Heat Death Law.

Having seized the upper hand with one blow, Peyton showed no intention of stopping.

He knew very well that one of the most dreaded abilities of a ninth-level creature was “thought becomes reality.”

As long as they could concentrate their will, they could directly interfere with reality and turn certain ideas into results.

Even grievous injuries could be rapidly healed under that power.

So he had to keep all of his opponent’s thinking focused on how to deal with his attacks, leaving it no time to think about healing its own injuries.

“Heat Death!”

Peyton spread both hands outward, and the white arrays contracted rapidly, turning into ring after ring of tightly interlaced light.

As the law ran, the flow of energy around the behemoth steadily decayed.

Every time it tried to muster its strength for a counterattack, new attacks would fall from a different direction, forcing it to deal with the crisis in front of it first.

Peyton’s attacks were so dense there was no gap between them, and each round targeted the weak points exposed after the behemoth’s defense, neither rushing to settle the fight in one blow nor giving it any chance to catch its breath.

Seeing this, the ninth-level behemoth on the other side, the one shaped like a water snake, could no longer hold back.

It had been fighting Alvis, but when it saw the black lizard behemoth forced onto the back foot, it immediately let out a furious roar.

It took one of Alvis’s law attacks head-on, and heedless of its own injuries, invoked “thought becomes reality” directly.

An intangible force crossed the vast distance in an instant.

The wounds on the black lizard behemoth’s body abruptly stilled, its steadily collapsing energy structure stabilized again, and its damaged flesh and blood recovered at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Clearly the water snake behemoth had used its own “thought becomes reality” to treat the lizard behemoth’s injuries.

However, the water snake behemoth paid a price for it as well.

The moment it split off a large share of its attention to invoke “thought becomes reality,” the defensive structure it had been using to ward off Alvis’s attacks sprang a hole.

Several beams of light immediately pierced into its body, tearing open its scaled armor and drawing bellow after bellow of pain.

“You finally got distracted!”

Alvis raised a hand, and dozens of array structures around him lit up at once, interlacing into a colossal attack matrix.

Leap Power drove external elements to pour in madly, the matrix expanded several times over in an instant, and dense attacks fell like a downpour.

The water snake behemoth tried to open up distance, but Alvis sealed off its escape routes one after another, and it could only block as it took on heavier and heavier injuries.

Another ninth-level behemoth came in to support from the flank, but Meridian seized on its opening too and left it gravely wounded.

And so the three behemoths were forced onto the defensive.

Whichever behemoth tried to rescue an ally would be gravely wounded by its own opponent, and the injuries passed around among the three of them.

If the fight went on like this, the situation would only get worse.

The three ninth-level behemoths soon realized as much.

The black lizard behemoth was the first to let out a low growl, forcibly shoving through Peyton’s attacks to open up some distance.

The water snake behemoth likewise whipped up a vast tide of blue-black energy to cover its companions’ retreat.

They no longer tried to counterattack, but released attacks in rotation to force the wizards to shift position, then used their colossal bodies to cover one another’s withdrawal.

Peyton and the others were unwilling to let it go, but they could only gradually rein in their offensive.

On a battlefield, ninth-level creatures really were very hard to kill.

If they pursued too deep and the three behemoths suddenly turned to counterattack together, even they might not be able to get away unscathed.

What was more, mutual support between ninth-level creatures was far more troublesome than among ordinary high-level creatures. As long as one of them was willing to pay the price, the other two could seize the chance to slip free.

In the end, the three ninth-level behemoths still retreated into the depths of the void, covering one another as they went.

Peyton hovered in place, gazing in the direction the enemy had vanished, and slowly let out a breath. “A pity.”

“We pushed them that far and still let them get away.” Alvis was somewhat regretful too.

“Nothing for it.” Meridian shook his head. “If there had been just one, we really would have had a chance to cripple it until it couldn’t act. But with three of them supporting each other, it’s very hard to settle things quickly.”

Dixon had arrived nearby as well.

He looked into the distance and shook his head helplessly too.

Even if Dixon had joined the battle, the outcome would not have been much different.

Four eighth-level wizards could put more pressure on them, but it would still be very hard, under those conditions, to beat one of them to death or knock it out completely.

Still, he was not disappointed by it.

That the three ninth-level behemoths had withdrawn of their own accord already showed they had failed to gain any advantage in this clash.

As for the rest of the battlefield, the situation there was not nearly so complicated.

“Since the ninth-level behemoths leading them have run,” Peyton turned to look at the other behemoths near the camp, “then not one of the eighth-level behemoths that are left gets to leave!”

The order went out swiftly through the legion’s command network, and the wizard formations immediately spread out from different directions to begin the hunt.

Having lost the protection of the ninth-level behemoths and the camp, the eighth-level behemoths, however powerful they remained, no longer had any way to turn the tide.

Dixon acted personally as well.

The Fate Law unfolded in the void, countless fine threads winding toward the eighth-level behemoths trying to flee the battlefield and quietly altering the choices the enemy might make in the future.

Some behemoths had been on the very verge of escape, only to make the wrong judgment at the critical moment and charge of their own accord into attack zones that had long since been laid out.

The Fate Law did not condemn them outright.

Dixon simply kept adjusting those subtle possibilities, so that the enemy’s seemingly reasonable choices led step by step toward ever more unfavorable outcomes.

One eighth-level behemoth fought its way through the wizards blocking its path and was on the point of breaking out of the encirclement, when its direction of movement, as if guided by some unseen hand, drifted off by a small angle, and it was intercepted by an assault formation closing in from the flank.

It turned furiously to fight back, and had only just repelled the first wave of enemies when a second formation sealed off its retreat from behind.

By the time it realized something was wrong, the surroundings were already thick with the wizards’ attack arrays.

Scenes like this played out again and again across the battlefield.

Peyton and the other two returned to the main array of the wizard legion as well.

They were in no hurry to rest and recover; they first checked their respective battle records, and only then turned their attention to Jie Ming.

They had seen everything that had just happened with their own eyes.

Jie Ming had used the Breathing Soil to block a casual blow from a ninth-level behemoth. While that did not prove the material could withstand every ninth-level attack, it was enough to make them reassess the value of Breathing Soil Creation.

Peyton looked at Jie Ming and could not help clicking his tongue in wonder:

“I had assumed you refined that enormous lump of stuff just to clear out the camp. I never imagined it could actually be used to block a ninth-level behemoth’s attack as well.”

Jie Ming smiled. “It just happened to suit. With a different method of attack, the result wouldn’t necessarily be the same.”

Peyton did not press further. “That’s plenty. There are precious few means that work against a ninth-level at all. Managing this much is already remarkable.”

Alvis and Meridian nodded along.

They were all eighth-level wizards who had been through countless battles, and naturally they understood the value of Breathing Soil.

But they were equally clear that the means Jie Ming had just displayed must involve his personal research results.

So they did not rashly ask about the specific construction of the spell.

Peyton merely pointed at the fragments of Breathing Soil in the distance that were still slowly contracting.

“So then, what’s left of this stuff, do you need us to help dispose of it? This material has already drawn attention. If the enemy collected it, or if someone tried to work out the related techniques from it, it might cause some trouble.”

Jie Ming looked where he was pointing.

Those several fragments of matter derived from the Breathing Soil were still floating in the void.

After the attack just now, their structure had changed to some extent; some regions were exceptionally solid, while others showed obvious gaps.

Their vast mass was causing them to contract gradually inward under their own gravity.

Jie Ming observed for a moment, then shook his head:

“No need. The special properties of these materials come mainly from the refining process and from their nature before they absorbed the energy. Even if someone took what’s left here to study, they wouldn’t necessarily get anything of value out of it.”

Although Breathing Soil was a material of very high level, if it was merely put to ordinary use, what it ultimately produced was nothing but the most ordinary earth.

At those words, the looks in the eyes of the surrounding wizards visibly changed.

They knew, of course, that Jie Ming was unlikely to lie about something like this.

The problem was that the thing had just demonstrated before their very eyes how to block a ninth-level behemoth’s attack.

What was more, Jie Ming had said they would not necessarily get results, not that it was absolutely impossible.

As long as there was the slightest chance, it was worth a try.

To a wizard, the unknown held attraction enough all on its own.

And Jie Ming’s words were as good as lifting the ban.

One wizard, passing through the area, raised a hand without any change of expression and used a spatial spell to collect a small piece of debris.

Another wizard, pretending to be checking the residual energy on the battlefield, quietly took away a portion of the earth-yellow matter.

Still others began studying the fragments’ trajectories of motion, trying to find the best positions for recovering them.

Watching their movements, Jie Ming could not help smiling and shaking his head.

But he did not stop them either.

After all, this stuff was just earth. Even if someone studied it closely, it would have no effect on him.

Since some people were willing to spend the time collecting it, he might as well let them.

Who knew, perhaps someone really would discover something interesting in it.

The wizard civilization had only developed to its present state thanks to the ceaseless exploration of the unknown by countless researchers.

Even if the overwhelming majority of attempts came to nothing in the end, there would always be someone who discovered a new law in some inconspicuous detail.

Jie Ming himself was a beneficiary of that.

So he did not stop the other wizards from trying their hand at research.

“Since matters here are settled, it’s about time we headed back.”

Jie Ming put away the last few data light screens and turned to Peyton. “The data collected this time is already sufficient, and staying here any longer wouldn’t yield much. As for how to deal with these behemoths from here on, I leave that to you.”

Peyton nodded. “I’ll have the legion go on clearing out the remaining enemies. The follow-up data will be sorted and handed to you all together.”

“I’ve troubled you all again this time.”

“Wizard Jie Ming, you’re far too polite.”

Peyton waved a hand. “Felix arranged for us to cooperate with you in the first place, and besides, we’re counting on you to use this data to upgrade Leap Power another step once you get back.”

“I’ll do my best.” Jie Ming nodded with a smile.

For now, what he most needed to do was organize the material accumulated over the course of this war.

The haul from this expedition was already more than ample.

Once he was back in the laboratory, he would have plenty to do.

A moment later, Jie Ming found Jack.

He was sorting through battle records with several wizards, and when he saw Jie Ming coming, he stopped what he was doing at once.

“Mentor.”

“Get ready to head back,” Jie Ming said. “Sort out your materials properly, and don’t leave out any key data.”

“Understood.”

Jack quickly put away his light screens and followed Jie Ming.

Before leaving, Jie Ming said his farewells to Peyton, Alvis and Meridian in turn.

They exchanged contact methods and agreed to meet again when the chance arose, and then each returned to their legions to continue handling the follow-up affairs on the battlefield.

Jie Ming took one more look into the distance.

The behemoth camp that had once been built from countless plane fragments now had a vast empty stretch cleared out of it.

The remaining eighth-level behemoths were still putting up a desperate resistance, but they could no longer restore their earlier defensive posture.

Jie Ming drew back his gaze.

This war would go on for a long time yet.

But for him, at least, the purpose of this trip had been achieved.

“Let’s go.”

Dixon led Jie Ming and Jack toward the ship-plane’s teleportation area.