Chapter 274

The subsequent merit evaluation had no suspense; Jie Ming was recognized as the first merit for his outstanding contributions in discovering and stabilizing the spatial gate node, containing the gods at a critical moment, and transmitting key coordinates.

Although the three Tier 4 Wizards were somewhat envious of the generous rewards, considering that they had each harvested a living Tier 5 "native god" as research material, they also tacitly remained silent and did not raise objections.

The amount of military merit points rewarded for the first merit was enough to make someone of Jie Ming's status feel quite good.

More importantly, Tier 7 Wizard Dionysius Spencer made the decision himself, promising that Jie Ming could share a copy of all knowledge collected in the Sacred Continent from then on!

For a wizard pursuing knowledge, the value of this was immeasurable.

Jie Ming was very satisfied with this.

The next fifty years were the standardized plane conquest process of the wizard civilization.

Resistance?

After losing the top-level gods, faith collapsing, and facing the endless strange means of the wizards, the remaining Holy Servant forces dissolved rapidly like snow under the sun.

The wizards swept across the entire Sacred Continent with a crushing momentum.

The only thing that made some wizards keen on exploration feel regret was that the spatial gate connecting the Sacred Continent to the outside world seemed to have shown some signs of instability because it was forcibly opened and maintained by Dionysius Spencer at the beginning, and it was temporarily impossible to locate the coordinates of the other four foreign worlds that the Holy Servants claimed to have conquered.

This potential expansion path was temporarily blocked.

Fifty years later, Jie Ming completed a mission to clear out the remaining resistance forces and returned to the wizard sub-camp established at the original capital of the four great empires of the Sacred Continent.

Looking at the endless stream of Holy Servant slaves bound by rune shackles being transported to various research sites or planes, there was not much joy on his face, but a trace of contemplation.

In all fairness, the resources of the Sacred Continent could be considered rich, but—it didn't seem worth such a big move by a Tier 7 Wizard.

Even counting the native gods, it wasn't worth acting; after all, the gods here only called themselves gods, rather than having the genuine "ability" of gods.

Moreover, through these fifty years of observation, Jie Ming clearly felt that Dionysius Spencer always maintained a near-indifferent attitude toward the Sacred Continent itself.

It was as if conquering this place was just a necessary process, not the ultimate goal.

He couldn't help but recall fifty years ago, when the spatial gate was about to open, Dionysius Spencer's meaningful words: "——? Your true 'main course' is about to begin."

Could it be that neither the relatively resource-poor "airspace plane" nor this "Sacred Continent" had ever been regarded as the true target by that Tier 7 Wizard?

Could they not even count as appetizers for Wizard Dionysius Spencer?

But this speculation led to a bigger doubt: if neither of these two worlds was the target, what was the true purpose of Dionysius Spencer spending so much effort?

Since the spatial gate stabilized, this commander-in-chief seemed to have no other eye-catching actions, which in itself was unreasonable.

Jie Ming shook his head, suppressing this overly bold speculation.

He knew that as the commander-in-chief of the expeditionary force, all of Dionysius Spencer's actions must conform to the highest interests of the wizard civilization, which was an iron law brought by the contract.

Under this premise, the planning of a Tier 7 Wizard was far from something he, a Tier 2 Wizard, was qualified to question and explore.

This curiosity could ultimately only be a personal reverie.

"Perhaps, this high-tier Fate-system wizard has long been silently waiting for something with the help of other people's fate lines—" Jie Ming thought so.

His gaze swept over the colleagues in the camp who were excited because of the rich harvest and were discussing the next exploration target, and a sense of indescribable alienation and boredom suddenly surged in his heart.

He did not take on any new missions, but stood up alone, flying aimlessly over the conquered land.

For the first time, he examined this world trampled by the wizard's iron hoofs as an "observer" rather than a "conqueror." However, the scene that came into view could not be called scenery at all.

Fifty years of extreme looting made this plane present a state of pathological exhaustion.

Dionysius Spencer did not impose any restrictions, so the greedy nature of the wizards was displayed to the fullest.

If "scraping three feet of ground" in the airspace plane was an exaggerated description, then here, it was a true portrayal.

Soil rich in organic matter was shoveled away in large swaths to cultivate biochemical beasts.

Mountains were decomposed as a whole to extract minerals and energy crystals.

Rivers and lakes dried up, and water elements were extracted—

The whole world seemed to have been gnawed until only a hollow skeleton remained.

The mist in front of him gradually became thicker, and Jie Ming realized that in his aimless flight, he had unknowingly arrived near that huge spatial gate.

Since the spatial gate had been open for a long time, the milky white mist unique to the airspace plane, containing weak energy factors, began to permeate the Sacred Continent continuously.

Now, more than half of the Sacred Continent was shrouded in this hazy mist.

Pausing for a moment, Jie Ming had a thought and passed through the stably operating spatial gate, returning to the airspace plane after a long absence.

Compared to the "bustle" of the Sacred Continent, the airspace plane at this time seemed much colder.

The vast majority of wizards had transferred to new battlefields with more concentrated resources, and only sporadic research sites and puppets responsible for basic maintenance were still operating.

The permeating mist remained, but the streams of light that used to shuttle back and forth were gone.

Jie Ming floated aimlessly in the empty space without gravity, his thoughts empty.

Just at this moment, a huge shadow slowly passed over him, blocking the sky and sun.

It was a giant beast with a shape similar to a whale, more than a hundred meters long, floating leisurely in the zero-gravity environment.

It kept its huge mouth open, looking somewhat fierce.

However, when Jie Ming saw it, his tense nerves relaxed instead.

He recognized this creature, which wizards jokingly called the "Airspace Giant Fish."

According to research by some wizard scholars, the ecological niche of this giant beast is extremely special—their evolutionary direction focuses on "tasting bad" and "being tough."

Thick-skinned and fleshy, massive in size, but the meat is not only devoid of nutrition, but also contains substances that the vast majority of creatures—including the non-picky black giants—dislike.

At the same time, they possess extremely strong regenerative abilities; as long as they are not swallowed by more than 40% of their body at once, they can slowly recover.

They are filter-feeding creatures, just swimming in the mist with their mouths open like this, devouring the tiny plankton and energy particles that are invisible to the naked eye. He woke up suddenly, his pupils shrinking sharply: "Wrong!"