Translator: AnubisTL
As the disorientation faded, the solid feel of the ground returned beneath Jieming's feet.
He steadied himself and quickly scanned his surroundings.
The light was dim, and the air was dry, carrying the faint, cool scent of ancient stone.
Towering pillars supported a vaulted dome, and the walls were covered in... Wait?
His gaze sharpened, and memories flooded back like a tidal wave.
He had seen this place before!
In the recording crystal's images from the Second Reincarnation, this was the very temple where an eighth-tier Scythe-Skull Race chief had lain in ambush!
It was here that he had been forced to use the Light Transformation Escape Technique of the Five Aggregates Rainbow Transformation Mirror to narrowly escape.
The memory of that ambush instantly sent Jieming's alertness to its absolute limit.
Spiritual power and mental energy surged through his body as he simultaneously activated a detection spell and expanded his divine sense, searching for any potential enemies.
Yet, the expected ambush never materialized. The temple remained utterly silent.
Something is wrong.
He forced himself to calm down and observed more closely.
The overall structure was indeed similar; the crude, non-human architectural style was identical.
But the details... were completely different.
According to the information from the recording crystal, the walls of that temple in the Second Reincarnation were covered in indecipherable, twisted, and grotesque symbols, exuding a sense of primitive savagery.
But here, those "symbols" had become precise, complex energy conduits flowing with a faint blue light.
These conduits were embedded into the stone walls with the regularity of integrated circuits, radiating a cold sense of order.
More importantly, the temple's central altar—which had been completely empty in his memories—now held a building-sized energy sphere suspended in the air, steadily emitting a soft blue glow.
The sphere rotated silently, guarded by the surrounding altars. Though no powerful energy leaked from it, it felt like the "heart" of the entire space.
"This isn't the same temple," Jieming concluded immediately.
Without hesitation, he activated the Universal Eye.
In an instant, a torrent of information about his surroundings flooded his consciousness: material composition, energy spectra, spatial curvature, residual law fluctuations, and more.
Jieming used the Five Aggregates Rainbow Transformation Mirror to process this chaotic data at high speed, while he himself quickly filtered out the noise and compared the processed results with his baseline data...
A few seconds later, Jieming's expression shifted.
From the data, the problem wasn't with the temple itself, but with... the entire world!
Anomalous energy inertia, a subtle systemic drift in fundamental physical constants, and a spacetime structure that felt unnaturally "encapsulated"...
All these data points converged on a single conclusion: this was no longer the Reincarnation Plane he knew!
Fortunately, thanks to Starforger Artorius's earlier warning, Jieming had been cramming knowledge on time-based stealth methods. While this knowledge wasn't enough to grant him a deeper understanding of the Laws of Time, it had given him a conceptual grasp of certain scenarios.
After synthesizing all the data, a possibility surfaced.
"Is this... a gap between... another timeline?" Jieming muttered, the information he'd recently learned flooding his mind.
The Phase Space he had deployed functioned by creating a dependent Dimensional Space adjacent to a stable Main Space, allowing him to hide within the resulting phase space formed between the two.
Time-based abilities possessed similar stealth methods, even sharing a remarkably similar principle—except they operated on "time" rather than "space."
By temporarily creating or anchoring a miniature parallel "timeline tributary" outside the mainstream timeline, a user could "project" or "transfer" their existence into this tributary world. Since this temporary branch "did not exist" on the mainstream timeline, the hidden individual would seem to have completely vanished from its perspective.
No wonder... no wonder the Wizard Legion conducted fifteen rounds of research and scoured every inch of the ground without finding a single clue, Jieming realized with a sudden clarity. Because the so-called "behind-the-scenes existence" wasn't "there" at all. It was hiding in a "mezzanine" woven from timelines, a place that belonged only to itself.
The nature of timeline tributaries also meant that an extremely minute perturbation of parameters during their creation could generate an almost infinite number of branching variants.
It was just like a phase shift: even a nanometer's deviation in precise coordinates could lead to an entirely different phase space.
Pinpointing the enemy's true "lair" among the countless layers of timelines was as difficult as finding a specific grain of sand in the universe.
"So this is... No, wait!" Jieming surveyed the eerie "temple." "This isn't its core. It's just a 'temporary cage' or 'processing room' it randomly chose to trap or deal with me in, isn't it?"
Then why go to such lengths? Why seize the opportunity during the camp's chaos and the fluctuations in the space-time shield to drag him into this timeline gap?
Was the goal simply to trap him here until he died?
Or was there some other scheme?
Jieming suppressed his doubts and began to explore the area.
He first conducted a quick sweep of the world and soon confirmed two key pieces of information.
First, his detection indicated that the effective range of this world seemed to be only a few tens of thousands of kilometers centered around the temple.
Second, aside from the ruined buildings—all uniformly styled and covered in energy conduits—and the barren earth, the entire Side World was completely empty.
No life, no resources. Only the blue energy sphere floating above the altar remained as the sole anomaly in this dead world.
Jieming returned to the temple and cautiously approached the altar.
His Universal Eye operated at full power, attempting to analyze the structure and properties of the energy sphere.
Just as he was about ten meters from the altar, preparing for a deep scan...
Vrrrrmmm!!!
An indescribable, soul-shuddering Will descended without warning!
This Will had no concrete "appearance"; it was more like a "declaration of existence" acting directly upon the very rules of the world.
It was cold, indifferent, and devoid of all emotion.
Jieming could clearly "feel" this Will sweeping across the Timeline Gap World like a searchlight, conducting several rapid and thorough "scans" centered on the temple.
Each time the scan passed over his body, a primal shiver of survival instinct coursed through him.
Strangely, however, the Will seemed not to "see" him.
It's the mark His Excellency Artorius left behind... Jieming realized instantly.
The mark was not just a beacon; it clearly possessed an extraordinary stealth property, temporarily shielding him from the "world's" perception.
So that's why he wasn't attacked the moment he entered this world, Jieming realized. The behind-the-scenes entity must have detected the change and projected its will here.
But just as he breathed a sigh of relief, the invisible "shield" enveloping him reached its limit and burst silently, like a soap bubble.
The next instant, that vast, frigid will focused its full attention on Jieming!
I've been found!
The hair on Jieming's neck stood on end as his survival instincts kicked in.
Layer upon layer of instant-cast protective magic flared around him: physical defense, energy deflection, and soul protection all activated simultaneously.
At the same time, he pushed his mental processing to its absolute limit, his hands blurring as he traced arcane symbols in the air...
Phase Space, activate!
His figure blurred, about to slip into the safety of a parallel phase space and escape the lock.
But this time, his foolproof trump card failed.
In this world formed from a timeline's tributary, the rules of space seemed to be overwritten by a higher authority.
The phase space portal Jieming had just constructed flickered violently like a candle in the wind, then spontaneously collapsed under the invisible pressure of that vast will.
Forced back from the spatial shift, Jieming let out a muffled groan, his mental power thrown into chaos.
Fortunately, the immense physical resilience granted by his body tempering method had absorbed the brunt of the damage, sparing him from severe injury. But there was no time to dwell on that now...
The will that had locked onto him had already materialized into a tangible attack!
Invisible, distorting forces converged from all directions. The data streaming into Jieming's ever-active Universal Eye allowed him to instantly deduce the nature of the assault: this was a negation and erasure being inflicted directly upon his very "existence"!
The space around Jieming began to lose its "reality." Colors faded, and textures blurred. It was as if he, along with the small patch of space he occupied, was being forcibly erased from the "canvas" of the world!
All the protective magic he had unleashed crumbled like paper before this power. Its light dimmed rapidly, failing to offer the slightest resistance.
Even his body, tempered to such incredible toughness, could find no point of impact to brace against. Instead, a terrifying sensation—the very core of his "self" being stripped away and diluted—transmitted clearly into the depths of his soul.
Irresistible!
Incomprehensible!
This was a crushing defeat in raw power!
Just as Jieming's consciousness began to blur, and he seemed on the verge of completely dissipating into this invisible force of erasure...
A hand materialized abruptly before his eyes.
It appeared ordinary, yet beneath its skin, starlike specks of light flowed faintly. It had appeared without warning, as if it had always been there.
Then, with a casualness akin to brushing away a spiderweb or flicking off dust, the hand made two gentle waving motions against the invisible erasing force surrounding Jieming. The movements were effortless, creating barely a ripple.
But in an instant, Jieming felt the terrifying pressure—the one that had nearly dissolved his very existence—vanish. The faded world around him rapidly restored itself, and the "sense of reality" of space enveloped him once more.
Before the exhaustion of surviving such an ordeal could even wash over him, Jieming whipped his head around.
Beside him, a pitch-black, narrow spatial rift with silver starlight flowing along its edges had silently opened. The rift's interior was not a void like a typical spatial tear, but was filled with twinkling stars, resembling the cosmic night sky.
And the owner of that hand was now stepping calmly out of the rift.
He wore a simple gray robe. His face was serene, his gaze as deep as the starry firmament.
The Starforger, the eighth-tier great wizard, Artorius—his true body... had descended!
(End of the Chapter)
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