Chapter 408

Jie Ming sat cross-legged on the base of a collapsed runic turret, eyes slightly closed, but his consciousness sank entirely into the internal cave heaven.

Time was pressing.

The next battle could be triggered at any time, and under the premise of a huge gap in enemy and friendly intelligence, it would be another bitter battle.

That metal plate written with "2" lay quietly on the ground.

It could be seen that he wasn't sure if his cave heaven would be affected in the first round, so he just hung a plate just in case.

In the second round, he realized this, so he was consciously collecting intelligence.

Jie Ming's attention was attracted by the pile of recording crystals beside it.

He needed to check this intelligence as soon as possible.

Because the enemy's next round of attacks—might come at any time.

And this time, he must walk in front.

"So, these pieces of information are the key."

Jie Ming looked at the pile of crystals behind the 2nd label.

A rough count showed at least thirty or more, each emitting a faint spiritual fluctuation—that was the soul imprint he left himself, serving as identity verification and a reading key.

He picked up the nearest one and probed his spiritual sense into it.

The image began to flow.

In front of him was not a visual picture, but a "memory playback" poured directly into his consciousness:

Underground.

Dim, humid, intricate nest tunnels.

Jie Ming (or rather, himself in the previous cycle) was leading a 20-person wizard squad to advance rapidly.

The surrounding walls were covered with low-tier Sickle-Skull Tribe individuals, who surged like a tide, but were all easily cleared by the squad.

Suddenly, the ground shook.

Not from above, but from deep underground.

The ground of the nest cracked, and scorching energy streams gushed out from the cracks.

Immediately after, figures "rose" from the cracks—not crawling out, but appearing directly in three-dimensional space as if floating up from the water.

Those figures were vastly different from ordinary Sickle-Skull Tribe individuals: the carapace was dark golden, the patterns were more complex, the body size was a circle larger, and the aura—all were above Tier 4.

"Forbidden Guard Insects." The self in the memory said in a low voice. "Damn it, this is a trap, their main force is not on the front line at all—"

Changed another crystal.

Another memory: at the edge of some battlefield, he was scanning the earth's veins with some kind of detection wizardry.

On the instrument screen, the light points representing the number of Sickle-Skull Tribe individuals were as dense as stars.

"The action pattern of these guys is very strange, at the current stage, it seems they have been trying to guerrilla." Another wizard's voice came from the side.

Jie Ming "himself" nodded: "Strange, if time can return to the departure condition is that the total number of the group drops to a certain threshold, or the number of deaths is higher than a certain proportion, they should all fight hard with us—at least collect some more intelligence."

"—Unless, the loop also has a cost for them."

"Or—what they are afraid of is something else."

Jie Ming opened his eyes, quickly put this crystal aside, and picked up the next one.

The content recorded in this crystal was about the discovery of a suspected "loop device."

In the memory, he locked onto an underground energy anomaly point based on the intelligence of the previous few cycles.

Detection results showed that the concentration of time law fluctuations there was abnormally high, clearly an artificial structure.

The squad decided to launch a surprise attack.

Then—fell into a trap.

That was not a device, but a carefully designed "bait node."

When the squad went deep, the node detonated, releasing not an explosion, but some kind of space-time turbulence.

Three wizards were torn to pieces on the spot—their "existence time" was randomly disrupted, part of their bodies aged into ash, while another part regressed into embryonic cells.

He barely managed to hold on by relying on the adaptive evolution of the Body Tempering Method, but the time flow of his right arm had not yet fully recovered to normal.

In the memory, he could feel that arm speeding up and slowing down, like an unstable pendulum.

"So the location of the loop device is still unknown." Jie Ming muttered.

He continued to browse.

Most of the crystals that followed were about tactical details: the characteristics of various Sickle-Skull Tribe variant units, terrain information of specific areas, the combat process of friendly wizards, and the enemy's response—

Until he picked up the third-to-last crystal.

The moment he read it, Jie Ming's breathing stalled.

This memory—was a near-death experience.

In the picture, the squad he was in was exploring an abandoned Sickle-Skull Tribe building.

The architectural style was peculiar, like some kind of temple, with walls covered in undecipherable symbols.

Suddenly, without any warning, a Tier 8 Sickle-Skull Tribe individual descended.

Not flying from afar, but directly "appearing" inside the building, as if it had been hiding there all along.

The terrifying pressure caused all wizards below Tier 4 to lose combat power on the spot, and Tier 5 wizards barely supported.

The only Tier 6 wizard in the team, "Iron Wall," roared and blocked in front, his whole body lighting up with heavy law patterns, his hands supporting a turtle-shell-shaped energy shield.

Then the Tier 8 Sickle-Skull Tribe individual just raised a forelimb and tapped lightly.

The shield shattered.

A transparent hole appeared in the chest of the Iron Wall wizard, and he could look down to see the scene behind him.

But he didn't die immediately, instead using his last strength to detonate all the energy reserves in his body.

The impact of the self-detonation briefly interfered with the Tier 8 existence's locking, giving others less than a second of escape window.

The self in the memory activated the "Five-Cloud Rainbow Mirror" without hesitation.

Turn into light.

The body decomposed into countless light particles, escaping outward at the speed of light.

But the moment the light transformation was activated, thousands of energy force fields suddenly lit up around the building.

These energy fields precisely blocked the escape route of Jie Ming after he turned into light.

Those force fields had different attributes, some interfering with energy flow, some distorting space structure, some specifically targeted at high-speed moving targets—

The light stream he turned into barely passed through the crossfire of the force fields, but he could feel that the ambushing Sickle-Skull Tribe individuals were clearly "stunned" for an instant.

The last thought in the memory was clearly transmitted: "It seems I also used the light transformation ability here in the previous cycle, they saw it before—but didn't understand it."

Jie Ming opened his eyes fiercely, his back soaked in cold sweat.

He looked down at his right hand.

It was intact now, but in that memory, because he forcibly passed through the interference force field, the light-transformed state almost collapsed, leaving permanent law damage.

Then he saw the "text message" attached to the last crystal.

"—The underground nest of the Sickle-Skull Tribe is a trap. They use a large number of low-tier individuals to attract firepower, the real main force is the 'Forbidden Guard Insects' transmitted directly from the earth's veins, generally above Tier 4—"

"—The trigger condition for time reversal is highly likely the population size of the Sickle-Skull Tribe, but strangely, the Sickle-Skull Tribe also seems to be avoiding this threshold from being exceeded—"

"—High-concentration time law fluctuations detected at the underground energy source of the area, suspected artificial structure. Previously suspected to be the 'loop device' of the insect swarm civilization, but later discovered to be a trap—"

"Do not use the light transformation ability of the Five-Cloud Rainbow Mirror to save your life. Although I ran out using this ability at the end of this cycle, the other side clearly reacted, but didn't understand the specific nature of the light transformation, so it failed. If it is used again in the next cycle, it is highly likely to fall into a trap—"

"I have exposed the characteristic that my physical strength is very strong, but the other side should not be sure of the specific strength, try to let the self in the next cycle know this point."

Looking at this information, Jie Ming was silent for a long time.

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