Chapter 436

After the Star-Caster Artelius finished issuing those two orders, he did not pay attention to the excited wizards.

He just raised his hand casually, the movement understated as if brushing away dust from his sleeves.

The next instant, Jie Ming only felt a dull but exceptionally stable vibration coming from under his feet.

It was not the destructive shaking of an earthquake, but like some huge creation being awakened from sleep, a uniform lifting feeling produced when it detached from the ground as a whole.

He subconsciously lowered his head, then raised his head fiercely, looking around.

The field of vision is rising!

It is not that he is flying personally, but the entire wizard camp is rising from the ground!

This huge complex, comparable to a modern giant city, full of high towers, factories, laboratories, residential areas, and layers of defense fortifications, flew up so lightly.

Huge shadows covered the scorched earth below, and at the bottom of the camp, complex anti-gravity rune arrays and space stabilization magic arrays lit up simultaneously, emitting soft light as vast as the ocean, holding up this city of steel to rise steadily.

Gale roared at the edge of the camp, rolling up dust in the sky, but there was no shaking inside the camp due to the shielding of the powerful energy field.

Artelius stood on a high platform in the center of the camp, his gray robe motionless in the wind brought by the camp itself, his gaze cast calmly into the distance.

Immediately, the entire floating wizard camp began to accelerate slowly under the guidance of this Tier 8 wizard's will.

Like a flying shuttle held up by an invisible giant hand, it began to fly toward the destination steadily and swiftly.

Mountains and rivers flew past below, and its flight posture was so stable and its speed so fast that Jie Ming felt dizzy.

On the periphery of the temple area, a few Sickle-Skulls, panicked and running blindly because their leaders were "petrified" and the army collapsed, were instinctively fleeing toward this ancient building complex that seemed to have some special significance in the depths of their civilization's memory.

They stumbled into the broken gate of the temple, their compound eyes scanning the interior in a panic.

However, the scene that entered their perception made them freeze suddenly, and even their pheromones transmitted intense confusion and horror.

Inside the temple, it was completely different from the appearance covered with twisted symbols in their memory!

The walls were smooth, embedded with precise and orderly energy lines.

The air was dry and clean, filled with a non-natural constant energy field.

And what made their core nerves most confused was the central altar of the temple, which should have been empty in their memory.

On it, a huge metal sphere with a diameter of several meters was suspended!

Stable gold and silver energy flows flowed inside the vertical energy wires on the surface of the sphere, emitting a low and rhythmic humming sound.

A majesty and sense of "source" that could not be understood but made their souls tremble instinctively radiated from the sphere.

This... what is this?

How did the temple become like this?!

Just as these few Sickle-Skulls were shocked by the scene before them and stood still, the light in their compound eyes flickering chaotically, and they subconsciously wanted to get closer to try to understand this scene that subverted their cognition...

They suddenly found that they couldn't move at all.

Like flying insects suddenly hitting invisible solidified resin, they couldn't even make the slightest tremor of their antennae.

Thinking was still operating, but all external interaction and body control were forcibly stripped away.

They maintained the posture and expression of the previous moment, as if they had become specimens in amber, solidified in mid-air.

A moment later, the shadow descended.

The huge wizard camp, under Artelius's precise control, constantly changed its form like clever building blocks.

The core buildings of the camp scattered one after another, clearing a range sufficient to wrap the temple.

The energy tentacles and physical base extending from the bottom of the camp cleverly avoided the temple itself, and in a way of perfect embedding, wrapped the entire temple area into the core central area of the camp.

The temple, which was originally independent in the wilderness, instantly became the "heart" of this camp.

Artelius's figure, along with Jie Ming and all the logistics core wizards who had been looking forward to it, appeared at the entrance of the temple guarded by the camp like a shadow shift.

The Star-Caster glanced at the few Sickle-Skulls solidified in mid-air like weird statues casually, as if he had only seen a few grains of dust that were in the way.

He waved his hand, space rippled, and those few Sickle-Skulls disappeared silently, obviously collected into a private space dedicated to storing "samples."

And the gaze of others fell on the huge mechanical sphere in the center of the temple.

No order or encouragement was needed.

The moment all logistics wizards saw the sphere, their breathing became rapid, and their eyes shone like discovering a peerless treasure!

Every energy pattern flowing on the sphere, every law fluctuation emitted, was a knowledge puzzle full of fatal temptation to them!

"This is the core control unit of the time paradox generator..."

"Quick! Record the basic energy spectrum!"

"Pay attention to its information interface mode, it may be completely different from our rune system!"

"Don't be impatient... perform non-invasive scanning first!"

They were like a swarm of bees smelling nectar, but maintaining the final restraint and order of researchers, they rushed forward one after another.

Taking out various most precise detection instruments, recording runes, and analysis crystals they carried with them... they began to perform cautious preliminary detection and research on the metal sphere with various means from various angles.

The temple was instantly filled with low instrument humming, fast data reporting sounds, and irrepressible excited whispers.

However, in this suddenly heated research atmosphere, Jie Ming seemed a bit troubled.

He did not immediately join the research ranks of his colleagues, but walked silently to Artelius's side.

The Star-Caster did not seem surprised by his arrival, his gaze still falling peacefully on those fanatical researchers, but his mouth asked softly: "What's wrong? You seem to have some trouble."

Jie Ming pondered for a moment, organizing his language: "My lord, I... before I was forced into that time branch, I had briefly contacted the information storage area inside this sphere. I saw some... records of the reasons why this plane civilization manufactured this 'weapon'."

He raised his head and looked at Artelius's side face, which was as deep as the starry sky: "According to those residual information, this plane once detected that in an extremely distant area, there were other civilizations powerful beyond imagination. It was that civilization... or rather, the battle aftermath it erupted, spanning an immeasurable distance, almost destroyed the Sickle-Skull predecessor civilization that was just preparing to step out of the plane, and directly prompted them to embark on the path of manufacturing this 'time paradox generator' for self-preservation."

His tone carried a trace of solemnity and excitement: "If that information is true, it means that in the deep space of our Star-Ring Federation territory, there may exist unknown civilizations with extremely high energy levels and great threats..."

He didn't finish his words, but his thoughts were obvious.

A ripple could give birth to a civilization that transformed itself into a time-space fortress, so what kind of terror would the main master be?

This level of power is likely a Tier 9 existence, for the sake of insurance, it is best to find the Star-Ring Federation to request support.

Artelius listened, neither showing surprise nor solemnity.

He even blinked, the movement appearing too human for a Tier 8 wizard.

The Star-Caster was silent for a moment, as if performing high-speed mental arithmetic and memory retrieval.

Then, he turned his head and looked at Jie Ming, a somewhat subtle smile appearing on his face.

"So you were worried about this." His voice was gentle, but it made Jie Ming startled, "Don't worry."

"Hmm?" Jie Ming didn't understand.

"According to the clues you provided... the approximate time point of the disaster, as well as the approximate direction and energy characteristics of the shock wave transmitted over, were inversely calculated and compared..." Artelius spoke easily, as if telling an old interesting story, "If I didn't calculate wrong, that 'disaster aftermath' that made this poor insect civilization almost perish and scared them into locking themselves up..."

He paused, his smile deepening slightly:

"Its source, in all likelihood, was about 102,000 standard wizard years ago, a medium-scale encounter battle that erupted when an expeditionary force led by a Tier 9 wizard of our Star-Ring Federation was sweeping a malignant proliferative civilization called the 'Void Sinister Race'..."

"The main battlefield of that battle was indeed extremely far from this plane, and it can only be said that they were unlucky to have a trace of power leak over and cause such an effect."

Jie Ming was completely stunned, his mouth slightly open, and for a while he didn't know what to say.

Countless thoughts flashed through his mind.

That "unknown terrifying enemy" that made the Sickle-Skull civilization terrified and regarded as a world-destroying disaster, and did not hesitate to "sublimate" collectively to guard against...

That "cosmic-level disaster" that gave birth to this complex and tragic time-space weapon before his eyes...

Its source was actually the wizard civilization itself?

Was it a spark splashed over when their own big shots were fighting?

This...

He subconsciously turned his head and looked at the center of the temple.

There, a group of logistics wizards were surrounding the metal sphere, their expressions focused and fanatical.

The instruments in their hands flickered with various lights, and they were trying to analyze, understand, and finally control this "relic" forged by another civilization in extreme fear.

And the source of that fear was themselves.

A kind of indescribable sense of destiny, intertwined with absurdity, realization, and deep sighing, slowly washed over Jie Ming's heart.

A civilization imprisoned itself because of the aftermath of a wizard's battle, creating a time cage.

Countless years later, the wizard arrived, broke the cage, harvested this "weapon" that condensed all the fear and struggle of that civilization, and began to study it with great interest.

The gears of fate, at this moment, bit into a ring that left people speechless.

"So," Artelius's voice pulled Jie Ming's thoughts back, he patted Jie Ming on the shoulder, his tone returning to his usual peace and depth.

"Focus on the present, Wizard Jie Ming. Our journey is the endless void, and we will always encounter various accidents and leave various... traces along the way. What is important is what we can learn and take away from these traces."

He looked at the mechanical sphere, his eyes shining with the light of pure thirst for knowledge:

"For example, how to better understand time, manufacture our own 'paradox generator,' or... look for the next civilization that was scared by us and stimulated its potential."

Jie Ming was silent for a moment, took a deep breath, and suppressed the complex emotions.

He looked at the sphere again, and his eyes became firm and focused.

Destiny or coincidence, it doesn't matter.

The path of a wizard is always to look forward, moving toward the unknown and knowledge.

(End of chapter)