Chapter 297

The battle paused briefly, and Jie Ming immediately sank his consciousness into his body to check his status.

The 【Great Expansion Sword Art】 array had exhausted over half of its energy reserves, and many talismanic wizarding tools had been consumed, but fortunately, his internal factory could replenish them quickly.

The Black Giant cores were being nurtured within the nest, awaiting reconstruction.

At the same time, the gestation area of the nest was running at full capacity to compensate for the loss of the "Prowlers"...

Overall, his foundation remained intact, though the loss of standard cannon fodder was heavy.

He let out a long breath, only then turning his attention to the comrades—or rather, the survivors—around him.

At this sight, even with Jie Ming's steady temperament, he couldn't help but feel a secret shock.

In the void, the once mighty army of ten thousand wizards now appeared significantly sparse.

The once-dazzling array of magical lights had dimmed, replaced by an oppressive atmosphere.

The cannon fodder units controlled by the wizards—stone golems, crystal cluster creatures, ghost legions, and the like—had suffered heavy losses, their wreckage floating in the void to form desolate graveyards; this was within expectations.

But the loss of the wizards themselves was shocking.

Jie Ming sensed the surroundings and discovered that at least one-tenth of the spiritual fluctuations had vanished!

This meant at least one thousand official wizards had perished in the brutal battle to breach the barrier just now!

This number weighed heavily on Jie Ming's heart.

He had read the Star Fall Alliance's plane war archives and knew well the cruelty of a wizard's first participation in a plane war—a total survival rate of less than five percent; that was the experience piled up by the corpses of countless geniuses.

However, that was usually a statistic for the entire long expedition cycle.

Moreover, after participating in their first plane war, wizards' survival rates increased significantly due to the resources and combat experience gained.

For an expedition of this scale, a complete campaign that might last decades, the total mortality rate was usually controlled at around ten percent.

Yet now, just in the landing battle, just in the single engagement to breach the enemy's outermost defense line, a ten-thousand-strong legion had suffered ten percent casualties!

And this ten-thousand-strong legion Jie Ming was in was merely a detachment of the million-strong expeditionary force; the true main force was currently engaged in fierce combat under the leadership of a Tier 7 wizard.

"A civilization capable of alerting high-tier wizards... it truly lives up to its reputation." Jie Ming felt a chill in his heart.

The difficulty of this expedition far exceeded the ordinary.

It was no wonder they had mobilized such a massive force and issued an order for "total destruction."

"However, 'total destruction' also means that high-tier wizards will no longer be overly concerned with the issue of war loot, and the frequency and intensity of their strikes will increase." Jie Ming analyzed calmly, "As long as the channel through the plane barrier can be stabilized early on, the subsequent battles might actually become... relatively 'easier' because of the direct intervention of high-tier power."

In the chaotic void, high-tier wizards could only spare limited power because they had to maintain the Rule Solidification fields.

Once they managed to invade the interior of the plane, the high-tier wizards would be able to free up their hands, and the combat pressure on the expeditionary force would drop significantly.

He cast his gaze into the distance, toward the massive rift forcibly torn open by the "Star-Splitter" Balzar.

At this moment, Balzar's figure had disappeared from his original position; he had clearly pushed into the interior of the Giant Spirit Realm.

However, judging by the energy fluctuations emanating from within, his situation did not seem optimistic.

Jie Ming focused his vision, peering through the distorted energy turbulence and the yet-to-settle spatial ripples, and could vaguely see Balzar's figure.

After breaking into the Giant Spirit Realm, he had not gone on a killing spree as imagined, but had instead adopted a defensive stance.

Inside the Giant Spirit Realm, without the interference of the chaotic void, the enemy's numerical advantage was brought into full play.

Looking out, it was a "sky-covering" sea of steel!

Warships of various forms, metal behemoths resembling living creatures, and some indescribable giant constructs were surging toward Balzar like a boiling sea of metal.

Energy beams, physical shells, exotic force fields...

All kinds of attacks poured down like a rainstorm upon the position of the Tier 6 wizard.

Even more alarming was that mixed within the dense enemy ranks were several formidable auras no less powerful than Balzar's—those were Tier 6 entities of the Giant Spirit Realm.

And on the distant horizon, a more terrifying, more vast pressure, as if the entire world were resonating with it, was approaching at an astonishing speed!

That was a Tier 7 being!

The top combat power of the Giant Spirit Realm had also been alerted by the commotion caused by the wizards!

And Balzar's situation was extremely awkward.

To prevent the plane barrier's breach from healing rapidly, he had to use his own body as the core to forcibly "wedge" himself into that rift, which was thousands of miles long.

Viewed from a normal perspective, Balzar's humanoid body, while sturdy, was insignificant compared to the rift spanning hundreds of kilometers.

But in Jie Ming's perception, although Balzar's physical body was small, his presence was like a pillar supporting the heavens, as if an invisible giant stood behind him, forcibly propping up the constantly contracting and healing barrier channel.

The problem was that this posture was like being bound by invisible shackles, preventing him from moving flexibly, forcing him to passively endure the frantic attacks from all directions.

With a casual wave, the surge of power could easily wipe out swaths of enemies, clearing a large area.

But the next moment, more enemies would fearlessly rush in to fill the gaps.

Some even resorted to suicide attacks, just to land a hit on him.

"A thousand ants can bite an elephant to death," and these "ants" included entities capable of harming the "elephant."

"What a bunch of annoying things!"

Balzar's protective force field rippled violently; he let out an angry roar, the sound waves shattering the low-tier units that approached, yet he could not hide his passivity and frustration.

He was holding his ground with great difficulty, but he had not retreated a single step, blocking all attacks outside the rift to buy time for the rear.

Just then, another Tier 6 wizard finally finished arranging the Rule Solidification field for their own sector and appeared before the rift in the plane barrier like a teleportation.

The plane barrier was not a thin film, but an intersection layer between the plane's elemental sphere and the chaotic void, potentially extending tens of thousands of kilometers deep, more like a special "elemental atmosphere."

Therefore, tearing the plane barrier was actually opening a temporary channel through this thick "atmosphere."

And this channel was constantly being repaired and healed by the plane itself.

This explained why Balzar was in such a predicament.

In just this short while, the edges of that massive rift, which had spanned a thousand miles, had already begun to blur and were shrinking and narrowing at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Had it not been for Balzar using his own great power to forcibly prop it open, the channel would have closed long ago.

(End of chapter)