Translator: AnubisTL
"The only explanation is..." Jieming's pupils suddenly contracted.
"Another entity has interfered with the time stop, breaking it! This entity is likely the true enemy in this war!"
Before Jieming could fully process this revelation, even as most wizards were barely regaining their mobility, a new command echoed through the magic net terminals, resonating in every wizard's mind:
"Everyone, consume the time-freezing potions and evacuate the Flamefrost Plane immediately! Hurry!"
The decisive voice, transmitted directly through the magic net terminals, was both familiar and foreign to the assembled wizards.
It was the voice of Augustine, the sixth-tier wizard serving as the supreme commander of this campaign!
"Hurry! Hurry!"
"Evacuate! Evacuate!"
Every wizard who had recovered their faculties acted without hesitation, executing the mission directives with unwavering resolve.
Jieming showed no hesitation either.
Though his body still felt weakened from the terrifying aftershocks of the earlier attack, and his depleted mental power had yet to fully recover, he immediately uncorked a bottle of time-freezing potion, its contents glowing with an eerie blue light, and gulped it down.
Jieming had long heard of the potion's effects: it could drastically disrupt or even nullify temporal anomalies in the surrounding area for a short time—in essence, it could resist the time stop outside the node.
After the devastating impact they had just endured, the wizards had no time to worry about their battered conditions.
They frantically gulped down the precious potion, then broke through the temporal stability anchor's defenses within the node and surged toward the sky—toward the rapidly healing spatial rift that served as the passage to the ship plane.
Jieming followed closely behind the crowd, feeling the intensified planar rejection forces now that the time stop had been lifted. The sensation was like countless needles piercing his skin.
Almost as soon as he took flight, a bone-chilling shudder swept through his body, making the hairs on his skin stand on end!
This was a sensation far more direct than mere planar rejection!
Jieming felt as if the planar rejection had merged with the imminent threat of death, creating a terrifying hybrid sensation.
It felt as if the very laws of space were rejecting him, with lethal intent lurking in every direction, threatening to annihilate him instantly!
This sudden, overwhelming danger nearly drove Jieming to instinctively activate his Light Transformation divine ability again, desperately clinging to a sliver of hope for survival.
Fortunately, his mental fortitude proved formidable. He forcibly suppressed the primal fear that threatened to overwhelm him.
After all, the spatial rift was now within arm's reach. Crossing this gap would bring him to the ship plane!
Guided by instinct and aided by the potion, he gritted his teeth and charged at full speed toward the slowly closing rift in the sky!
Pop...
The moment he pierced through the spatial rift, he felt a sudden lightness wash over him.
Immediately afterward, a sense of otherworldly safety washed over him, causing his body to go limp.
But when Jieming turned back to look at the scene behind him, his heart leaped into his throat.
He now realized that not only the wizards but also the mighty lava giants and snow monsters, each led by their respective kings, were rapidly flying toward the ship plane!
Their target, it seemed, was also this "ark" floating in the void.
Despite the enemies still flying toward the ship plane without making any hostile moves, the wizards remained remarkably restrained.
After all, based on the earlier events, these monsters now seemed to be allied with them.
Although they couldn't understand why the creatures were following them, since Augustine hadn't intervened, the other wizards refrained from launching a preemptive attack.
Jieming, however, was still shaken by the bizarre distortions that had followed the lifting of the time stop, and the brief but chilling sense of imminent danger that had made his hair stand on end.
Especially after seeing the swarm of monsters fleeing alongside the wizards, he instinctively turned his gaze toward the Flamefrost Plane, just like the others.
By now, the time stop that had enveloped the entire region had been completely shattered.
In Jieming's mind, the final enemy was about to make its grand entrance.
And indeed, his prediction proved correct—though the enemy's true form was far more unexpected than he could have imagined!
As all the wizards, including Jieming himself, stared down at the vast territory that should have been the Flamefrost Plane...
...a terrifying transformation began to unfold across the Flamefrost Plane, a change that sent shivers down their spines!
It all started with the earth, torn asunder by the earlier attacks.
The crisscrossing black fissures that had once marked the boundary between the Blazing Sun Realm and the Frostdark Realm now began to writhe and expand!
No longer mere cracks, they pulsed like living veins, silently forming a colossal, gaping maw!
From within this monstrous mouth spewed endless torrents of molten magma.
Immediately afterward, the atmospheres of the Blazing Sun Realm and the Frostdark Realm began to churn violently!
No longer simple gases, they coalesced, swirled, and ultimately formed two colossal, vortex-like clouds of vibrant color!
One, a crimson cloud symbolizing heat and energy, corresponded to the Blazing Sun Realm. The other, an azure cloud representing cold and time, embodied the Frostdark Realm.
These two colossal clouds rotated slowly in the sky, resembling two enormous, shimmering eyes when viewed from afar!
Soon, the entire Flamefrost Plane completed its terrifying transformation. It was no longer a mere plane, but a colossal, living entity with a horrifying visage!
On either side loomed the two massive, rotating "eyes."
Between those two colossal eyes, a vertical, blood-red fissure like a gaping maw slowly opened, spewing forth an endless torrent of molten magma that threatened to devour everything in its path!
But that wasn't all.
This gargantuan monstrosity, formed from the magma maw and twin eyes, completed its transformation and unleashed a soul fluctuation so immense it swept across the entire ship plane!
Though the soul fluctuation carried no discernible information, the raw emotion it contained declared its awakening, its existence, and its... fury!
Before this, the wizards had only speculated whether the plane's master could manipulate the entire plane for combat.
But the terrifying implications of this soul fluctuation shattered any lingering hope in their hearts!
What a colossal soul! What terrifying emotions! What an awe-inspiring spectacle!
Under the impact of that soul fluctuation, every wizard on the ship plane, including Jieming, stared in stunned disbelief, forced to accept the truth:
The Flamefrost Plane was alive!
(End of the Chapter)
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