Chapter 427: Reincarnation Plane

Translator: AnubisTL

In the Core Laboratory of the Purgatory Sulfur Plane, Jieming stared at the third military dispatch displayed on his magic net terminal, his brow furrowed.

He didn’t start with the mission overview or the planar data. Instead, his gaze instinctively dropped to the casualty statistics at the bottom of the screen.

It was a habit he’d cultivated.

Before truly understanding the enemy, seeing the price his own side had to pay was often the quickest way to judge the “nature” of a battle.

Then, his movements froze.

Current Casualties: 0

Zero.

A glaring zero.

Jieming stared at the number for three seconds, feeling a sudden throb in his temples.

Having survived countless high-difficulty planar wars, he had grown nearly numb to battlefields with staggering casualty rates. In the Wizard World, war was never a game; it wasn’t unusual for the death toll to be followed by several zeros.

But “zero casualties”?

That was far more terrifying than a ninety percent casualty rate.

“This is bad…” Jieming muttered under his breath, his fingers tapping unconsciously on the obsidian tabletop.

Based on his experience in the “Justice” Plane and other cases he’d heard about, any Plane in the Wizard War that reported “zero casualties” or “extremely low losses” shared a single common trait:

The enemy simply couldn’t be dealt with through conventional means.

The wizards either couldn’t defeat them, couldn’t kill them, or found that victory was utterly pointless. The worst-case scenario, like in the Justice Plane, was when they wouldn’t even give you a chance to fight…

Jieming took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down.

Zero casualties usually meant one of two things.

First, their own side was so overwhelmingly powerful that the enemy was too weak to cause even a single casualty. But in such a case, the Military Department would never deploy an “Elite Combat Unit” for reinforcement—they’d just send a few regular legions to steamroll the place. Why waste resources?

That left only the second possibility.

“The enemy… is one of those ‘gimmick monsters,'” Jieming muttered, rubbing his temples as unpleasant memories resurfaced.

He steadied his breathing before returning his gaze to the beginning of the information and reading it carefully.

Plane Name: Tentatively Codenamed [ Reincarnation Plane ] Plane Level: Large-scale Civilization Type: Insectoid higher intelligent beings Primary Hostile Target: Scythe-Skull Race (tentative name)

A three-dimensional image was attached below.

It was a creature about three meters tall, its entire body covered in dark purple chitinous armor. Its head was a sharp triangle, with compound eyes occupying two-thirds of its face. Its mouthparts consisted of four serrated, hinged mandibles. Its overall silhouette indeed resembled a mantis.

However, its torso was more of a flat oval, similar to a cockroach’s. Six thick, powerful arthropod limbs supported it, and two pairs of translucent wing membranes were folded on its back.

Detailed physiological and anatomical data scrolled beside the image:

Base Individual Combat Power: Stable first-tier transcendent. Social Structure: Highly centralized hive mind; individuals possess independent intelligence but obey the collective will. Technological Level: Synchronized development of biotechnology and basic energy application; has mastered cross-plane detection technology. Special Talent: The carapace possesses adaptive elemental resistance, rapidly generating a corresponding resistance layer after being attacked.

Jieming scanned the report quickly, a flicker of doubt crossing his mind.

On paper, this wasn’t some outrageous monster.

The combat power of a first-tier transcendent individual was simply no match for a formal wizard.

He continued reading the combat power comparison:

“Enemy High-End Combatants: Five eighth-tier creatures, over one hundred seventh-tier creatures, countless sixth-tier and below. Total estimated forces exceed one trillion.”

“Our Deployed Forces: One eighth-tier Great Wizard (‘Starforger’ Artorius), three seventh-tier wizards, approximately 1.2 million formal wizards of sixth-tier and below, and a Cannon Fodder Legion of 300 million.”

A textbook deployment.

A single eighth-tier Great Wizard leading the charge was enough to suppress all the enemy’s high-end combatants. Three seventh-tier wizards would handle the mid-tier threats, while over a million formal wizards would deal with the transcendent insect sea.

Despite the staggering numerical disadvantage, the wizards held the upper hand in terms of sheer combat power.

According to the standard script, this should have been a textbook Planar Conquest War: the eighth-tier wizard would strike to eliminate the enemy leaders, while simultaneously preventing them from triggering the plane origin for a self-destruct.

Seventh-tier wizards would tear through the defenses, while the formal wizard legions commanded the Cannon Fodder Legions to advance steadily. The main body of the civilization would be collapsed within three to five years at most, leaving only the long process of cleanup and resource extraction.

But since the Military Department had sent a request for reinforcements…

Jieming’s finger slid down to the most critical section.

“Battlefield Anomaly Report (Excerpt)”

“First Contact Engagement: Excellency Artorius personally intervened, killing five eighth-tier Scythe-Skull leaders within three seconds. The enemy’s command system collapsed, and our forces advanced fully. Four hours and twelve minutes later, the enemy civilization’s main defense line collapsed, with remaining resistance forces below three percent.”

“Moment of Anomaly: When the enemy civilization was on the brink of extinction (remaining individuals below one thousandth of the total population), a planar-level space-time fluctuation was detected. In the next instant, all participating personnel (except for Excellency Artorius) were returned to the starting point of the invasion. Memory checks indicate that no one below level 8 retained memories of this timeline.”

“Supplementary Confirmation: All fallen wizards were fully resurrected, consumed supplies were restored to their original state, and fallen enemy units were likewise resurrected. Preliminary determination: ‘Civilization-Level Time Reversal’ phenomenon.”

“Contact battles two through seventeen: We attempted various tactics, including slow attrition, rapid occupation of the core region after decapitation strikes, and inciting internal strife. We have confirmed that the time reversal is triggered when the Scythe-Skull civilization’s main body is on the brink of extinction—specifically, when the remaining population falls below one-thousandth of its original size. After each reversal, the enemy’s tactics have shown marked evolution, and they have already developed specific anti-wizard combat methods.”

“Current hypothesis: This time reversal ability is a ‘near-death protection mechanism’ of the Scythe-Skull civilization, which likely awakens randomly among the survivors once the trigger conditions are met. No cost for using the ability has been discovered (or perhaps the cost is also reset by the time reversal).”

“Core issue: The ability’s range is limited to the interior of this plane. Observers outside the plane are unaffected, but all existences within—including matter, energy, and memory—are reset. Excellency Artorius retained his memories due to his eighth-tier ‘Law Solidification’ trait, but he was unable to prevent the phenomenon from occurring.”

“Reinforcement requirements: We need wizards with experience in space-time mechanism research or those capable of ‘cross-timeline interference’ to help break this civilization’s time loop or capture the individual possessing the time reversal ability.”

Jieming turned off the light screen and leaned back into his chair.

The only sounds remaining in the laboratory were the low hum of the elemental pool and the faint, unconscious tapping of his fingers against the desk.

“Time reversal… a civilization-level protection mechanism…” he murmured, his mind racing through the relevant records in the Great Dao Library Pavilion.

The cultivation world had similar methods—”Sect Reboot Grand Formations” left behind by certain ancient great powers. When a dao lineage neared extinction, these formations would forcibly reverse time, usually at the cost of consuming the origin of a world or sacrificing billions of sentient beings.

But those were “one-time use” and came with a catastrophic price.

An ability like the one the Scythe-Skull Race possessed, which seemed to loop infinitely without any visible cost…

“Either the price is so hidden that even an eighth-tier wizard cannot detect it, or…” Jieming’s gaze sharpened, “this isn’t ‘their’ ability at all.”

Another possibility occurred to him.

Certain over-specified ancient relics, a slumbering spatio-temporal conceptual entity, or even the “self-preservation will” born from the plane itself—treating the Scythe-Skull civilization as “immune cells” that activated a reset program upon detecting a “pathogen” (the wizard invasion).

If the latter were true, the problem would be far more severe.

You wouldn’t be fighting a civilization, but the fundamental rules of a plane.

And from the current evidence, the latter seemed highly probable.

The scope of this time reversal was simply too limited, confined to a single plane.

Though the plane itself was considered a large-scale one, it was still insignificant compared to the entire Endless Chaotic Void.

“And the most troublesome part is…” Jieming pinched the bridge of his nose. “What wizards want isn’t destruction, but conquest and plunder.”

If the goal were merely to annihilate the Scythe-Skull Race, there were plenty of ways to do so. Even a single seventh-tier wizard could destroy the entire plane from the outside.

But such an action would be completely pointless.

The wizard civilization waged war across endless planes for resources, knowledge, and new understandings of the laws. A plane capable of infinite time reversal was, in itself, a colossal treasure. If they could crack its mechanism—or even better, exploit it—its value would far exceed a hundred ordinary planes.

“That’s why the Military Department is being so cautious, and why there have been zero casualties,” Jieming rubbed his temples. “It’s not that there haven’t been casualties, but rather that before we crack this ability, any losses—on either side—are utterly meaningless.”

He reopened the light screen, brought up the detailed data on the Reincarnation Plane, and began analyzing it point by point.

From the records of the seventeen cycles so far, the Scythe-Skull Race’s rate of evolution was incredibly fast.

In the first circulation, they didn’t even understand the basic structure of wizardry and were crushed by Artorius with ease.

But by the seventeenth, they had developed “anti-mana field” technology capable of briefly disrupting a seventh-tier wizard’s spellcasting, as well as specialized resistant variants tailored against elemental wizardry.

“They’re learning,” Jieming muttered, his eyes fixed on the data. “They’ve retained a portion of their ‘experience’ from each circulation. It could be transmitted via pheromones, or perhaps that individual who awakened the time ability is guiding them from the shadows.”

If that’s the case, the longer we drag this out, the harder the enemy will be to defeat.

Yet, the key to breaking the time loop is precisely what requires enough ‘experimental samples’…

A classic paradox.

Jieming closed his eyes, sinking his divine sense into his consciousness to inventory his trump cards.

Qi refining techniques, body tempering methods, rune-imbued magical artifacts, the Black Giant…

But against time reversal…

The only thing that might be effective was his internal grotto-heaven. After all, it was another plane and would likely remain unaffected.

But…

“It’s of little use,” Jieming sighed.

After much thought, he realized his options were severely limited.

Breaking the time loop?

That was a problem that Artorius, an eighth-tier great wizard, had failed to solve after studying it for dozens of cycles. As a fourth-tier wizard, even with the knowledge from the Great Dao Library Pavilion, Jeming knew he couldn’t possibly make a breakthrough in such a short time.

Change tactics?

The Military Department must have already tried all the conventional methods. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have issued this “Special Talent Recruitment” order.

That left only one choice.

“Without knowing if my internal grotto-heaven will work, I should focus on maximizing my combat power. In any case, getting stronger is never a mistake.”

(End of the Chapter)