Chapter 322: Norun Wizard and the Purification Protocol (Two-in-One)

With the last piece of war spoils contaminated with the aura of the triangular plane cluster thrown away, a brief silence appeared on the battlefield.

The Wizard army and the two Tier 7 Wizards stood on the spot, looking at the mountain of harvest before them, their expressions all somewhat dazed and stunned.

The harvest that originally represented victory had now turned into a pile of ominous garbage; this rapid transition from ecstasy to horror was something that even experienced Wizards needed some time to digest.

Only Dixon, confirming in his fate perception that the cloud of bad luck that had been shrouding the entire army and falling rapidly had dissipated, and that the fate line had returned to a stable or even slightly rising positive value, truly breathed a sigh of relief.

He immediately communicated the discovery and inference he had just made to Obolos and Melist, who was far away in the ship plane, through soul connection.

Although he knew the source of the crisis was those war spoils, the specifics, as well as the invisible power that influenced their thinking, remained shrouded in mist.

In the face of the unknown, the safest way was to wait.

Fortunately, the support efficiency of high-tier Wizards was extremely high.

Just a few minutes later, Melist, who had been tensing her nerves and monitoring the overall situation, suddenly heard a gentle and calm inquiry from her side:

"What happened here? To actually use the highest emergency signal."

Melist was shocked; with her Tier 7 Wizard perception, she hadn't noticed at all when the other party had appeared!

She turned her head abruptly, only to see a middle-aged Wizard wearing a simple gray robe, with a scholarly temperament and a gentle face, standing quietly in the control room at some point, looking at her with a trace of inquisitive gaze.

Seeing the face of the visitor, shock exploded in Melist's eyes, which instantly turned into absolute respect.

She bowed and saluted immediately, reporting everything that had happened before—from the awakening of the Bacteria Master, to the bombardment of the ship plane's main gun, to Dixon's fate warning and the order for the entire army to throw away war spoils—in a fast and clear voice.

That scholarly Wizard listened quietly, with not much ripple on his face, just nodding slightly to show he understood.

Subsequently, his figure disappeared silently from the spot as if melting into the light.

The precision instruments in the ship plane that were capable of monitoring spatial jumps and energy disturbances had no reaction at all, as if he had never appeared.

The next moment, above the broken Ju Spirit Realm, space rippled slightly, and the figure of this scholarly Wizard had already appeared out of thin air beside Dixon and Obolos.

"Lord Norun Wizard!" Dixon and Obolos were shocked when they saw him, and immediately restrained their aura, bowing their heads respectfully to salute.

The reverence in their tone was far from what they would show when facing their peers.

Norun Wizard smiled gently and waved his hand: "No need for formalities, I have already roughly understood the situation."

His gaze then cast toward the messy battlefield below, especially those Bacteria Master remains scattered everywhere.

He did not stay in the high sky, but took the initiative to descend to the ground, squatted down, stretched out his slender fingers, and touched a piece of Bacteria Master tissue fragment that was still wriggling slightly.

His movements were gentle and focused, as if listening to these dead objects telling secrets that were not known to others.

In the Wizard army below, when Gao Jie Ming heard Dixon's address to the Wizard who had suddenly appeared, his heart skipped a beat.

"Norun Wizard... Lord?" A shocking thought flashed through his mind.

Being able to make two Tier 7 Wizards so respectful, his level was beyond doubt, inevitably an existence above Tier 7: a Tier 8 Wizard!

And the name "Norun"... 【

Could it be that the person before them was the founder of Plane Nuolun Academy, that legendary Tier 8 Great Wizard, Plane Nuolun himself?!

It wasn't just Gao Jie Ming; the surrounding wizards couldn't help but let out low gasps, their eyes filled with excitement and awe.

After all, the wizards of this expeditionary force were basically recruited from the Junction Point, and the Junction Point itself was created by the three major wizard factions: Plane Nuolun Workshop, the Tower of Silence, and the Chaos Secret Sect.

Therefore, the name of Wizard Plane Nuolun was thunderous among the three major factions of the Junction Point, especially for wizards who came from Plane Nuolun Academy; he was an absolutely legendary existence!

Wizard Plane Nuolun inspected it carefully for a moment, then nodded thoughtfully and slowly stood up.

"So that's how it is." He whispered to himself, then looked at the anxious-looking Di Ke Xun, his tone calm, "The cause has already been cleared up. Fortunately, you reacted in time and did not bring these 'war trophies' back to our civilization's territory; otherwise, the consequences would have been unimaginable, and you would likely have been doomed."

Di Ke Xun asked impatiently: "Lord Plane Nuolun, what exactly is going on? Wasn't the Fungus Lord already annihilated by the main cannon led by Mei Li Si Te?"

Wizard Plane Nuolun's gaze swept over the many wizards below who were pricking up their ears, as well as Mei Li Si Te who was "watching" through the link; he did not play coy and revealed the truth in clear and concise language:

"What you destroyed was merely the Fungus Lord's physical aggregation on the material layer, but its 'main body,' or rather its 'essence,' was not fundamentally affected."

"'Main body'?" Di Ke Xun frowned.

"Correct." Wizard Plane Nuolun nodded, "This Fungus Lord is a relatively peculiar living being; it did not develop complex intelligence, but precisely because of this, it embarked on an extremely rare, and one could even say accidentally correct, path of evolution."

"It deeply integrated its own life form with a certain natural law it had comprehended, and embedded this integrated 'main body' into the fundamental law network of these three plane clusters."

"Although it lost the possibility of further advancement because of this, it also achieved an alternative form of immortality in a way that is almost 'conceptual'."

"As long as the 'phenomena' related to the laws it integrated with still exist in these planes, it can continuously regenerate and continue through those laws. It can even spread its own 'existence' to any creature or even plane that has come into contact with these laws or related substances through a method similar to 'information infection,' achieving the expansion of its own existence."

Wizard Plane Nuolun pointed to the Fungus Lord's remains on the ground, as well as the ruins of the Giant Spirit Realm and Mind Realm further away: "Judging from the intelligence you provided and the traces at the scene, what this Fungus Lord integrated with is likely an underlying rule similar to 'survival of the fittest,' or the broader 'natural cycle and evolution'."

"Therefore, if you had brought these war trophies containing its 'concept of existence' back to the wizard civilization, it would be equivalent to actively introducing this 'conceptual pollution' into our homeland."

"Although this level of pollution would soon be detected and cleared by high-tier wizards within the civilization, as the 'carriers' who introduced the pollution, all of you would be judged as 'executors of hostile acts' by the civilization's own defense mechanism for violating the most basic 'Civilization Safety Contract,' and subsequently... collectively erased."

Upon hearing this, Di Ke Xun, Ao Bo Luo Si, and Mei Li Si Te, who heard all this through the link, couldn't help but break out in a cold sweat!

The wizard civilization is indeed generous to its internal members, but it has zero tolerance for any behavior that might endanger the overall safety of the civilization, and the punishments are cruel to the point of brutality!

If they had really brought the pollution back unknowingly, their standing would have instantly changed from heroes to mortal enemies, with absolutely no chance of survival!

"No wonder... just now all of our fates fell into an abyss of negative values..." Di Ke Xun muttered, feeling a lingering fear.

At the same time, he finally solved another doubt from before: "I understand! No wonder when we first arrived at the Giant Spirit Realm, we found that the overall fate line of this plane was low, yet we couldn't find a 'protagonist' gathering the luck... because most of the luck had long been bound by the conceptualized Fungus Lord main body! It is the true, and only, 'Child of Fate' of this triangular plane cluster!"

Gao Jie Ming, huddled among the wizard army, also had a sudden realization at this moment.

He had previously felt that the Giant Spirit Realm and Mind Realm being able to produce Hong Chen Qi meant that their social structure was normal, which was incompatible with an existence like the Fungus Lord that seemed more inclined toward natural ecology.

Now, after hearing Wizard Plane Nuolun's explanation, he understood.

One can understand the civilization led by Ke Ge and Sister Wei Ao as a relatively independent "parasitic civilization" living inside the massive conceptual life form that is the "Fungus Lord."

They did indeed develop a social system, but they never managed to break away from the underlying law framework represented by the Fungus Lord.

However, because it lacked intelligence, the Fungus Lord's existence was merely equivalent to "environment" for them, not yet reaching the concept of "farming" or "enslavement."

Wizard Plane Nuolun looked at the devastated plane, his tone carrying a trace of rare emotion: "An existence form like the Fungus Lord is a rare find, even in the endless void."

"It is a pity that it lacks intelligence and cannot actively harness this power to take that step beyond the laws; it can be considered to have walked into a dead end that looks broad but is actually closed. But conversely, if it weren't for its ignorance, purely following instinct to integrate with the laws, it probably wouldn't have been able to reach this peculiar state of symbiosis with plane laws."

Di Ke Xun suppressed the waves in his heart and asked: "Lord Plane Nuolun, how should we handle this next? Is it enough to just thoroughly discard these war trophies and clear the residue from our bodies?"

Wizard Plane Nuolun nodded slightly: "The residual pollution on you is very weak; just clean it off."

As he spoke, he seemingly casually flicked his sleeve toward the entire wizard army.

Gao Jie Ming blinked.

In that instant, he felt as if a gentle and vast power swept through his body inside and out like a breeze, and both his soul and flesh felt an indescribable "sense of cleanliness."

But that feeling was extremely faint, as if nothing had happened at all.

However, the heavy oppression and vague unease that had been lingering in his heart suddenly disappeared without a trace, as if driven away by sunlight, and his whole person felt relaxed.

After Wizard Plane Nuolun confirmed that everyone had shaken off the hidden danger of conceptual pollution, the gentleness on his face gradually faded, replaced by a decisiveness belonging to a high-tier wizard, calm to the point of being cold.

He looked at Di Ke Xun and issued the final order:

"The 'Fungus Lord' concept bred by this triangular plane cluster has a potential danger that far exceeds the initial assessment. Its form of existence and development potential constitute a threat to the wizard civilization to a certain extent."

"Order: Abandon all material and non-material gains obtained in this war. Initiate the 'Purification Protocol' to conduct indiscriminate and thorough physical destruction of the Giant Spirit Realm, Mind Realm remains, and all colonial planes, semi-planes that have been recorded, conquered, or may have been infected by its laws by the triangular plane cluster!"

"Ensure that the 'survival of the fittest' concept represented by the 'Fungus Lord,' along with any possible basis for its regeneration, is completely and permanently erased from these coordinates!"

Di Ke Xun, Ao Bo Luo Si, and Mei Li Si Te, who was in the link, felt a chill in their hearts simultaneously.

"Purification Protocol" meant no longer considering any resource recovery, no longer keeping any samples; the only task was to ensure the target's complete annihilation from matter to energy, from reality to the information layer!

But they had no hesitation and immediately accepted the order solemnly: "Understood! Lord Plane Nuolun!"

Time flew by, and fifty years passed in a flash.

Fifty years of time cannot be considered particularly long for a cross-plane expedition.

But when Gao Jie Ming stepped out of the teleportation array leading to the Plane Plane Nuolun, his face carried a fatigue bordering on exhaustion.

These fifty years were not spent in the passion of exploration and conquest, but drowned in a cold, repetitive, and endless "cleanup" job.

Since Wizard Plane Nuolun issued the "Purification Protocol," the nature of the war had completely changed.

The remaining triangular plane clusters were rapidly extinguished under the roar of the ship plane's main cannons and the great power of the Tier 7 wizards.

The Giant Spirit Realm, Mind Realm, and the Propagation Realm where the Fungus Lord's main body resided, along with everything remaining inside them, were completely erased from the material layer and turned into nothingness.

And the colonial planes controlled by the Giant Spirit Realm and Mind Realm were also cleared one by one—which was actually just finding the other party's existence coordinates, jumping over, and then blasting them to smithereens with a cannon, directly blowing the entire plane into fly ash.

The real trouble began with the civilization to which those two captured golden baboons belonged.

According to Wizard Plane Nuolun's judgment, since Ke Ge and Sister Wei Ao had deep contact with that civilization (fulfilling the contract), then that civilization and all worlds within its radiation range might have been infected by the Fungus Lord's existence.

This invisible pollution was more terrifying than any physical enemy.

Thus, a series of hair-raising items were added to the expeditionary force's task list: thoroughly clean up all worlds that might have been polluted, radiating outward with the golden baboon civilization as the core.

The process was very "simple."

Wizard Plane Nuolun took action personally, relying on his incomprehensible Tier 8 great power to directly lock onto the core plane of that civilization.

He plucked its high-tier powerhouses from their lair like catching chicks, forcibly searched their souls, and obtained all the colonial plane coordinates, diplomatic relations, trade routes, and even secret exploration records they possessed.

Afterward, it was destruction.

The plane itself was directly bombarded by powerful wizardry or the ship plane's main cannons until its structure disintegrated and turned into void dust.

However, this "decapitation" plus "demolition" mode had loopholes.

No one could guarantee whether some lucky survivor happened to be colonizing some unrecorded peripheral plane, or if some subsidiary civilization had secretly developed a new world without reporting it.

Thus, the tasks for mid-to-low-tier wizards like Gao Jie Ming came.

They were like conducting a "data mining" and "source tracing" hunt on a cosmic scale.

The main task was divided into two steps.

First, collect information.

Like locusts passing through, they swept through the information databases of every destroyed civilization—whether physical books, energy crystals, mental networks, or biological genetic memories.

They copied and brought back every piece of information they could find regarding this civilization's history, technology, communication, and exploration, without missing a single detail.

Second, find useful related information among this astronomical amount of information and provide it to the three Tier 7 wizards.

And then the next thing was kill, kill, kill!

According to the constantly updated coordinate list, every plane, every colony, and even every independent civilization suspected of having deep ties to it on the list was physically and thoroughly cleared.

No longer considering resource and knowledge value, the only standard was "does it exist."

The experience of these fifty years made Gao Jie Ming deeply understand what "chain destruction of civilization" meant.

The network of relationships between advanced civilizations is like an infinitely extending grapevine; pull one, and you can bring out a whole string.

After clearing this string, they would find that it was connected to even more strings below it.

Every destroyed civilization might have its own vassals, allies, trade partners, and even primitive planes that had just been discovered by them and not yet developed.

All of these, as long as there was a trace of the possibility of indirect pollution, would be added to the "Purification" list.

The term "guilt by association" seemed too merciful and limited to describe the wizards' actions.

The entire expeditionary force was conducting an exponential cleanup along the civilization's relationship network.

He also finally personally realized why the Star Ring Alliance would so decisively launch an annihilation war against the triangular plane cluster.

The Fungus Lord's invisible and intangible characteristic of relying on laws to transmit was simply too terrifying.

If it weren't for Wizard Plane Nuolun's timely insight and adoption of the most extreme countermeasures.

In time, heaven knows to what extent this conceptual pollution would have spread; perhaps it really would have become a huge hidden danger shaking the foundation of the wizard civilization.

Now, this long and bloody "purification" finally came to an end.

The last coordinate on the list was lit up, and then returned to deathly silence in the light of wizardry.

Gao Jie Ming returned to his laboratory in the Plane Plane Nuolun almost by instinct.

The long-lost environment filled with the faint scent of alchemical potions and metal brought an indescribable sense of security at this moment.

He didn't go to check the massive, complex knowledge backups from various destroyed civilizations stored in his internal space, which could barely be considered "gains," nor did he have the heart to organize the cannon fodder legions and talisman wizard tools that had suffered significant losses.

He walked straight through the laboratory filled with various instruments and materials, pushed open the bedroom door, and then, like a puppet with cut strings, fell straight forward, crashing heavily onto the soft spell mattress.

He was too lazy to even take off his boots, and couldn't be bothered to change his wizard robe.

Almost the moment his head touched the pillow, the mountain-heavy fatigue completely drowned out all his consciousness.

(Just this chapter for today; it's mainly because I thought about it and felt there was nothing worth writing about the "cleanup" afterward, so just mentioning it is enough.)

(End of chapter)