Chapter 1966: Light of Annihilation

Continuing to examine the rift in the sky, Xia Duo discovered that the rift's form varied depending on the angle of observation; sometimes it appeared thin and long like a ribbon, while at other times it leaned closer to a circle.

As long as the angle of observation differed, no matter how many times he tried, Xia Duo never discovered an identical rift form, but as long as the angle was fixed, the form remained the same regardless of distance.

Such a discovery sparked an extremely intense interest in this rift for Xia Duo, and at the same time, he became more convinced that this might truly be related to the Ether Interlayer.

If one could find a way to enter the Ether Interlayer from the Material Plane by studying this rift, perhaps an Ether Interlayer version of the Age of Discovery could be initiated.

Currently, the prerequisite is to first develop a method that allows a Spellcaster to move within the Ether Interlayer.

As of now, Xia Duo can only project his Scrying into the Ether Interlayer, unable to actually enter; in reality, the environment of the Ether Interlayer is completely different from the Material Plane, as only the concepts of space-time and elements exist there, with nothing else.

Xia Duo strongly suspects that a normal human entering the Ether Interlayer without special protection would most likely vanish directly, unable to even preserve their Soul.

Because the Ether Interlayer is essentially part of the Inner Plane, which is the material foundation, while the essence of a Soul should belong to the Outer Planes, whether one can thrive in the Inner Plane is a huge question mark.

In any case, if one dies, there is certainly no way for the soul to return to the Heavenly Realm or return to the Shenguo.

Perhaps the best final outcome would be the "Embrace of Elemental Will" that Xia Duo was once called to, becoming an elemental being.

……

Right now, although Xia Duo cannot directly erase this rift, he can achieve an indirect erasure effect by repairing the Plane itself.

He can do it, so the Seven Towers surely cannot be much worse, or perhaps this is an important sample that the Seven Towers deliberately kept for Ether research?

Thinking about it this way, Xia Duo really feels there is such a possibility.

After all, he is also not certain whether the "Number Nine Experimental Plane" introduced by Bulundesi is the same as the real Number Nine Experimental Plane.

Combined with the other party's previous approach of directly giving the Plane Coordinate, this Plane likely has issues too, but these issues are not in a bad sense; rather, the Seven Towers want to stuff benefits to him.

Perhaps it is for the upcoming Ascension Ritual of Master Eriwen, or perhaps it is simply an attempt to win him over, but regardless, Xia Duo is not prepared to refuse.

He even wants to push his luck.

After the field test of the War Spell is completed, if this Plane rift can still be preserved, he intends to buy this "abandoned" Plane from the Seven Towers for subsequent research.

……

Having finished the preliminary inspection of the 【Crimson Plane】, Xia Duo temporarily closed the Portal; he plans to inspect it once more after all preparations for the field test are complete, ensuring that no unexpected events during the test will affect the test itself.

Next, Xia Duo asked Niya to help produce the Crimson Plane version of the adapter for the 【Mythallar】 device, while he himself finds a way to transfer the 【Mythallar】 from the Iolum Dimensional Bag to his Personal Space.

As for the War Spell, Iolum has already prepared a War Magic Artifact based on it for him; if the field test passes, it can be used immediately upon being installed on the Floating City.

Research and such can come slowly later; the main thing now is the field test. The feasibility should not be a problem; although Iolum did not conduct a field test, he certainly did not do fewer related tests, and it was only brought out after at least confirming its feasibility.

This time, Xia Duo is mainly testing the War Spell's power, effective range, usage distance, and various limits, such as activation intervals and frequency.

Iolum provided a total of three War Spells: one is 【Wide-Area Detection】 or 【Battlefield Control】, one is 【Wide-Area Prohibition】, and the last one is 【Annihilation Light】.

They correspond to the three aspects of acquiring information, restricting mobility, and direct lethality, all of which are the most direct domains involved in war.

War Spells do not essentially exceed conventional Spells; they are merely larger in scope, longer in duration, and most importantly, greater in power.

Among them, 【Wide-Area Detection】 and 【Wide-Area Prohibition】 both originate from conventional Spells Xia Duo was familiar with in the past—Detection Spell and Forbidden Restriction.

As for the inspiration for 【Annihilation Light】, it comes from the Elf War Magic Artifact that Xia Duo brought back from the Projection Plane; Iolum also explicitly stated this in his research notes.

Elves are very gifted in war and slaughter, and a mature War Spell, as a Strategic Weapon, is highly likely to be directly related to the direction of a war.

Borrowing when there is something good is also a matter of course.

As for the War Magic Artifact, this is not entirely borrowing from the Elves, but an inevitable choice; the composition of a War Spell is complex, and it is difficult for a single Spellcaster to fully control it, requiring multiple Spellcasters to control it together.

Or to put it another way, on Earth, there is not just one radar operator in a military unit, but many, and radar also comes in different types!

【Wide-Area Detection】 is the same; it can detect moving targets, Spellcasting targets, Magic Items, and even perform special detection targeting certain keywords or specific situations.

The direction of war changes in an instant, and one person simply cannot handle it.

And 【Wide-Area Prohibition】 not only involves restrictions on teleportation but also the partitioning of the space where the battlefield exists; of course, to use this function, one also needs to prepare in advance a Plane or Semi-plane with a spatial range at least larger than the battlefield.

This also requires human judgment; one person can certainly do it, but it is clearly not as efficient as multiple people cooperating.

As for 【Annihilation Light】, as the name suggests, it can directly annihilate matter; this name was coined by Xia Duo himself, as Iolum did not name any of the three Spells.

Of course, the name 【Annihilation Light】 does not completely correspond to its essence, but Xia Duo feels that calling it annihilation might sound more powerful; in reality, calling it disintegration or dissociation might be more appropriate.

But its Principles are actually still different from Disintegration; Disintegration is a Transmutation Spell, while 【Annihilation Light】 is essentially an extreme Entropy Increase Spell involving negative energy.

Disintegration is generally difficult to disintegrate substances with strong physical properties, such as gold or Adamantine, but these are nothing in the face of Entropy Increase.

Even gold and Adamantine can be annihilated, so ordinary living beings are even less worth mentioning before it; such a high-power area-of-effect Spell naturally requires extremely precise control, otherwise, it is very easy to cause a tragedy.

Situations where one kills more of their own people than the enemy.

Regarding this, the advice Iolum gave is to use it in combination with 【Wide-Area Prohibition】, first partitioning the space, and then releasing Annihilation Light within independent spaces containing only enemies.

Or destroying enemies directly from an ultra-long distance, but this is more suitable for clearing the field, because the effective range of 【Wide-Area Prohibition】 is limited, with a maximum effective radius of only about 100 li.

If there is no 【Wide-Area Prohibition】 cooperation, the Spellcaster can easily discover the precursors of Annihilation Light and then flee.

As for the effective range of 【Annihilation Light】, if one does not consider the Spellcaster's countermeasures, the effective range is directly linked to 【Wide-Area Detection】, which is to say, if one can see it, one can hit it.