Chapter 390

On a wasteland that had been repeatedly plowed by the flames of war, leaving only scorched soil and scattered stubborn rocks.

Inside a cave that was completely inconspicuous and half-hidden by a few weathered giant rocks, space fluctuated slightly, and the figures of Jie Ming and Anya slowly turned from virtual to real.

The light in the cave was dim, and the air was filled with dust and a trace of residual energy aura belonging to light elements, but the energy level was extremely faint.

Jie Ming's gaze swept over the cave wall and finally landed on a giant basalt rock at the bottom of the cave that was out of place with the surrounding environment and appeared too regular.

"Is it here?" Anya asked in a low voice, her perception like invisible tentacles, cautiously probing every inch of space around them.

Jie Ming looked down at the faint map projected by the terminal on his wrist, compared it with the precise coordinates and energy markers sent by Wizard Star Fall, and nodded:

"That's right, the coordinates match, and the energy convergence anomaly below also points here. Under this rock, there should be the entrance crack leading to their 'secret works'."

The two stopped talking and simultaneously used detection methods.

Jie Ming's spiritual power was like precise mercury, seeping into the microscopic structure of the giant rock, while Anya probed through life sensing attached to microorganisms and weak air currents in the cave.

Soon, the two's perception penetrated the thick rock layer and "saw" the narrow, long crack winding downward that had been deliberately hidden below.

Deep in the crack, a regular and massive energy pulsation faintly came, like the heartbeat of a sleeping giant beast.

"These light clusters... although the time for intelligence awakening is short, their instinct or survival wisdom is quite fully leveled." Jie Ming withdrew his perception, his tone carrying a trace of playfulness, "Knowing that to do a big thing, one must hide underground and use thick rocks to cover up energy fluctuations and light leakage. This can be considered a complete violation of their 'radiance' nature."

Anya looked at the giant rock and asked, "How do we go down? Punch through it directly?"

"No," Jie Ming shook his head, "Wizard Star Fall wants detailed data on the entire process of their 'plan' implementation at close range. Alerting the enemy would lose the meaning. We must sneak in and reappear when they are most complacent and think they are about to succeed. Before that, hide as much as possible and observe quietly."

"Understood." Anya nodded, and then she looked at Jie Ming, "In that case, we need a very covert infiltration method."

"That's right, but the crack behind this is too narrow, ordinary people can't pass through at all..." Speaking of this, Jie Ming was a bit embarrassed.

To be honest, he had no problem with ordinary body concealment or energy concealment methods, but in this kind of situation, he really didn't have a very good method.

Mainly because on the normal plane battlefield, Jie Ming belonged to the main force part, and didn't need similar methods.

Using the Five Elements Transformation Rainbow Mirror to turn into light could go down directly, but the movement was too big: "In this situation, I can only use alchemy..."

"Your alchemy changes the terrain with too much movement, which is easy to trigger the alert mechanisms they might have buried along the way. Let me do it."

Jie Ming followed the advice: "Okay, what method do you have?"

Anya didn't answer, just raised her slender wrist and beckoned gently.

I saw that among her long hair, a few strands of black shadows thinner than hair and almost impossible to capture with the naked eye floated out quietly, winding around her fingertips as if they had life.

Jie Ming could clearly feel that these should also be a kind of nature spirit, but they were relatively rare shadow-related spirits.

The next moment, these shadows expanded and spread rapidly, like a soft and lightless black curtain, covering Jie Ming and herself.

Jie Ming did not resist, letting the cold touch fit his skin.

The feeling of being wrapped in shadows was very strange.

Looking outward from the inside, the field of vision was like being separated by a very thin layer of black glass, the light became dim, the color saturation decreased, but the outline of the scenery remained clear.

And his own feeling almost didn't change, breathing, heartbeat, energy flow were all as usual, and even the casting of perception witchcraft was not significantly hindered.

It seemed that this shadow only acted on the optical level, and could even absorb and distort scattered mental fluctuations to a certain extent.

"Don't make a sound, follow me closely." Anya's voice rang directly in his mind, which was a kind of fine mental communication.

Immediately, Jie Ming felt a slight movement under his feet, and his whole person floated forward with this "shadow" that wrapped them.

Looking from the outside, the position where they originally stood had turned into a deep shadow that was constantly wriggling and had blurred edges.

This shadow, as if possessing intelligence, precisely fitted the bumps and light-dark boundaries of the rocks in the cave, and "flowed" silently to the side of the giant rock that blocked the crack.

The shadow touched the surface of the giant rock, but no collision occurred. Instead, like water encountering a porous reef, it quickly differentiated into countless finer threads, seeping in along the tiny cracks between the giant rock and the cave wall, as well as the natural tiny cracks of the rock itself.

Jie Ming could feel his body, under the wrapping of the shadow, also undergoing extremely flexible deformation, as if turning into a liquid without a fixed form.

But this deformation did not bring any discomfort or pain, just a strange feeling of weightlessness and flow.

The shadow "flowed" past the giant rock barrier and entered the narrow crack extending downward.

The crack was less than a finger wide, winding and tortuous, full of rough rock edges and sharp broken stones.

But under Anya's exquisite control, the shadow, like the most dexterous swimming fish, could always find the most suitable path and sneak downward silently.

Around them was absolute darkness and silence, only the subtle breathing and heartbeat of the two people inside the shadow, and the energy pulsation below that was becoming clearer and gradually strengthening like muffled thunder.

After going down a not-short distance, the crack became slightly wider, but the surrounding environment was still oppressive.

Just then, Jie Ming, who had been maintaining high vigilance, suddenly frowned and reached out to pat Anya's shoulder beside him gently.

Anya understood immediately, controlled the shadow to stop, suspended in a relatively spacious "node" shadow in the crack, and at the same time looked at Jie Ming with confusion.

Jie Ming didn't make a sound, just raised his finger and pointed cautiously at an extremely hidden horizontal opening on the rock wall of the crack to the side and above.

That opening was very narrow and small, pitch black inside, almost blending into the surrounding environment.

Anya looked intently, not finding any abnormality at first, but when she combined her own life perception with the weak visual enhancement brought by the shadow and scanned that area carefully, she couldn't help but be startled.

Deep in that crack, there was actually a ball of... "darkness" curled up.

That was not an ordinary shadow or void, but a "darkness" with life and consciousness.

Its outline vaguely presented the irregular quasi-spherical shape of light-cluster elemental creatures, but no light leaked from its whole body. Instead, it completely swallowed the already weak light around it, presenting a pure black that was deeper than the surrounding rock walls and seemed to be able to absorb the line of sight.

It was motionless, like the most patient hunter, perfectly blending with the shadows of the rocks.

"They... actually learned to hide their light? Even actively letting themselves 'turn black'?" Anya transmitted an unbelievable thought through the mental link.

This completely subverted the nature of light elemental creatures relying on light to exist and communicate.

While she was surprised, Jie Ming had already taken out several small and precise detection instruments from his internal space under the wrapping of the shadow—micro-energy spectrum analyzer, spiritual fluctuation catcher, material composition analysis probe.

He manipulated the instruments, focusing the detection beam on that "dark" creature, and began to collect data. At the same time, Jie Ming himself also activated the Eye of All-Use to scan the creature in front of him.

Soon, the results fed back by the instruments appeared in his mind.

A trace of realization flashed in Jie Ming's eyes, and he explained to Anya through the mental link: "It's amazing... it's only been a few months? They actually evolved 'ultra-sensitive light perception organs'. The sensitivity of this thing to light has reached an unbelievable degree, I'm afraid even the extremely weak photons reflected by a speck of dust can be captured."

"It is precisely by relying on this extreme perception that it can perfectly restrain all the light it produces, including the radiance of metabolic by-products, and may even convert part of the overflowing energy into this 'light-absorbing coating'."

Anya immediately realized the key: "It's a sentry! Specifically guarding this must-pass road, using this unconventional concealment method! Then we..."

"Most likely we have already been 'seen'," Jie Ming confirmed Anya's guess, his tone still calm, "Although your shadow camouflage is exquisite and can blend into the environmental shadows, in front of this 'light perception' that is specialized to the extreme, the slight disturbance and absorption difference of our 'shadow' to the background light field is probably as obvious as an ink dot on white paper. However..."

He looked at another set of data on the instrument: "The good news is that for the sake of extreme concealment, this guy seems to have also restrained and blocked the specific frequency electromagnetic radiation it uses for communication. Its current state is more like a pure 'optical monitor', it can only look, but cannot transmit the alarm out in real time."

"I guess its task is to lurk and record, and wait until the shift change or confirm that the intruder has gone deep, then find an opportunity to leave the post and pass the information back."

"Then what should we do now?" Anya asked, a trace of killing intent in her mental fluctuations.

A moment of carelessness, actually being discovered by a Tier 3 little thing, even if it was only at the optical level, made her feel a bit unhappy.

"Of course, solve it." Jie Ming didn't hesitate, "Since we have been discovered, regardless of whether it can report immediately, clearing this eye is the best choice. Keep the movement small. This guy hides so deep and has self-blocked its communication ability, which itself shows that its 'duty period' might be isolated and helpless, or there is a delay in information transmission."

"We kill it silently, even if those guys below find out that the sentry has lost contact later, they will only be suspicious and confused about the situation, and instead might accelerate their actions because of nervousness, which is more in line with Wizard Star Fall's observation needs."

Anya nodded, her gaze locked on the "darkness" hidden deep in the crack.

She didn't say anything more, just raised her palm toward that direction, her five fingers slightly bent, making a gesture of virtual grasping.

Jie Ming immediately felt a strange and powerful force spreading from Anya.

That was not a violent energy impact, but a more profound attraction, pointing directly to the core of life.

The next instant, he "saw" that the light elemental sentry disguised as darkness, the life light flame and spiritual radiance that were originally flowing stably inside it, suddenly stagnated as if encountering an irresistible black hole.

Then it uncontrollably broke away from the shackles of its body and soul, turning into countless light streams that were invisible to the naked eye but dazzling in perception, rushing toward Anya's virtual grasping palm!

That Tier 3 light elemental creature didn't even have time to make any reaction, didn't emit a trace of energy or mental fluctuation, and the basis of its existence—life force—was completely extracted in an instant.

Its black shell quickly dimmed, shriveled, and disintegrated, turning into the most ordinary elemental dust, dissipating silently in the darkness of the crack.

And the concentrated life essence that gathered in Anya's palm flowed lightly around her fingertips, then sank into her body silently, as if it had never appeared.

The whole process was fast, quiet, and fatal.

Jie Ming's pupils shrank, and his heart felt cold.

He understood the principle of this move: Anya, relying on her extreme affinity and control over life force, developed this special predatory witchcraft.

At the moment of launching, her "attraction" to life force was superior to the target's own "holding power" of life force, forcibly severing the connection between life and body and soul, completing an instant-death predation.

The strength of this move could be called terrifying.

The light elemental creature just now was the same Tier 3 as Anya, but it had no power to resist in front of this move, and even died without knowing it.

Jie Ming quickly evaluated in his heart, if it weren't for his own cultivation of the "Body Forging Method," his body and soul being highly unified, his life force being condensed like steel, and his control over himself being subtle, if he encountered this blow without any preparation, he would probably be severely damaged instantly, or even fall.

Facing this kind of attack that directly shakes the essence of life, unless one possesses a special life form, powerful soul protection, or has constructed targeted law defense in advance, otherwise, below Tier 6, it is absolutely difficult to survive.

"Is this... the super genius with Tier 10 talent?" Jie Ming looked at Anya's still calm and exquisite side face, a trace of exclamation flashing deep in his eyes.

Even now, many people of the same level have already emerged, but the profound understanding and terrible application of life power shown by Anya still make people palpitate.

Perhaps, having this kind of means to kill other wizards across levels can be considered the standard configuration of a true genius.

Anya didn't seem to care that she had just killed a peer existence casually. She withdrew her hand and looked at Jie Ming, a calm inquiry coming from the mental link: "Obstacle cleared. Continue downward?"

Jie Ming calmed his mind and nodded: "Well, continue. Be careful, there might be more unexpected 'surprises' waiting for us below."

(End of chapter)