Chapter 435: Messages from Himself

Translator: AnubisTL

Jieming sat cross-legged on the base of a collapsed rune turret, his eyes closed, his consciousness fully immersed within his internal grotto-heaven.

Time was running out.

The next battle could be triggered at any moment. With the enemy holding such a massive information advantage, it would be another desperate struggle.

The metal tag marked “2” lay quietly on the ground.

It was clear that during the first round, he hadn’t been sure if his internal grotto-heaven would be affected, so he had simply left a tag as a precaution. By the second round, he had realized it was safe and had begun deliberately gathering intelligence.

Jieming’s attention was drawn to the pile of recording crystals beside him.

He needed to review this information as quickly as possible.

Because the enemy’s next assault… could arrive at any moment.

And this time, he had to stay one step ahead.

“So, this information is the key.”

Jieming looked at the pile of crystals behind the tag marked “2.”

A rough count revealed at least thirty pieces, each emitting a faint spiritual fluctuation—his own soul imprints, serving as both identity verification and the key to access.

He picked up the nearest crystal and sent his divine sense into it.

Images began to flow.

What he saw was not a visual scene, but a “memory playback” poured directly into his consciousness:

Underground.

A dark, damp, and intricately tangled network of nest tunnels.

Jieming—or rather, his past self—was leading a twenty-man wizard squad on a rapid advance.

The surrounding walls were swarming with low-level Scythe-Skull Race creatures. They surged forward like a tide, but the squad easily cleared them away.

Suddenly, the ground trembled.

The tremors came not from above, but from deep below.

The nest floor cracked open, and searing streams of energy erupted from the fissures.

Immediately after, figures “rose” from the cracks, appearing in three-dimensional space as if floating up from water.

These figures were starkly different from ordinary Scythe-Skull Race creatures: their carapaces were a dark gold, their markings more complex, their bodies a size larger, and their auras… all above the fourth tier.

“Praetorian Insects,” his past self muttered grimly. “Damn it, this is a trap. Their main force isn’t on the frontline at all…”

He swapped to another crystal.

Another memory fragment: On the edge of a battlefield, Jieming was using some form of detection wizardry to scan the earth veins.

The instrument’s screen was densely packed with light dots representing the Scythe-Skull Race, like a star-filled sky.

“Their movement patterns are strange. At this stage, they seem to be constantly attempting guerrilla tactics,” another wizard’s voice came from beside him.

Jieming’s “past self” nodded. “Strange. If the condition for the reincarnation to trigger is that the total number of the swarm drops below a certain threshold, or the death toll exceeds a specific percentage, they should be fighting us harder—at least to gather more intelligence.”

“…Unless the reincarnation comes at a cost for them too.”

“Or… they’re afraid of something else.”

Jieming opened his eyes, quickly set this crystal aside, and picked up the next one.

This crystal recorded the discovery of a suspected “Reincarnation Device.”

In the memory, Jieming had used intelligence from previous loops to pinpoint an underground energy anomaly.

The detection results showed that the concentration of Time Law fluctuations there was abnormally high, clearly an artificial construct.

The squad decided to launch a surprise attack.

Then… they fell into a trap.

It wasn’t a device, but a meticulously designed “Decoy Node.”

As the squad ventured deeper, the node detonated, releasing not an explosion, but some kind of space-time turbulence.

Three wizards were instantly torn to shreds by the chaotic time flow—their “existence time” was randomly scrambled, parts of their bodies aging into dust while others regressed into embryonic cells.

He had barely survived, relying on the Adaptive Evolution of his body tempering method, but the time flow in his right arm had never fully recovered.

In his memory, he could feel that arm speeding up and slowing down, like an unstable pendulum.

“So the location of the Reincarnation Device is still unknown,” Jieming muttered.

He continued browsing.

The next few crystals contained mostly tactical details: the characteristics of various Scythe-Skull Race variants, terrain information for specific areas, the combat sequences of their own wizards and the enemy’s responses…

Until he picked up the third-to-last crystal.

The moment he read it, Jieming’s breath hitched.

This memory… was a near-death experience.

In the vision, his squad was exploring an abandoned Scythe-Skull structure. Its architecture was bizarre, resembling some kind of temple, its walls covered in indecipherable runes.

Suddenly, without warning, an eighth-tier Scythe-Skull Race member descended. The creature simply “appeared” inside the building, as if it had been hiding there all along.

Its terrifying pressure instantly rendered all wizards below the fourth tier combat-incapable. The fifth-tier wizards could barely stand.

“Iron Wall,” the squad’s only sixth-tier wizard, roared as he threw himself to the front. Heavy law-patterns lit up across his body as he spread his hands to form a tortoise-shell-shaped energy shield.

Then, the eighth-tier Scythe-Skull Race member simply raised a front limb and tapped it lightly.

The shield shattered.

A transparent hole appeared in Iron Wall’s chest, allowing him to look down and see the view behind his own back.

But he didn’t die immediately. Instead, he used his final strength to detonate his entire energy reserve. The shockwave from his self-destruction briefly disrupted the eighth-tier being’s lock-on, granting the others a window of less than a second to escape.

The version of himself in the memory had activated the “Five Aggregates Rainbow Transformation Mirror” without a moment’s hesitation.

Light Transformation.

His body dissolved into countless light particles, escaping outward at the speed of light.

But the instant Light Transformation activated, dozens of energy fields suddenly flared up around the building’s perimeter.

These energy fields precisely sealed off Jieming’s escape route after his transformation.

The fields possessed various attributes: some interfered with energy flow, others distorted the spatial structure, and some were specifically designed to counter high-speed targets…

The stream of light that Jieming had become barely managed to squeeze through the pincer attack of the force fields. Yet, he could feel that the ambushing Scythe-Skull Race had visibly “frozen” for a split second.

The final thought from the memory transmitted clearly:

“It seems I used Light Transformation here in the previous cycle. They saw it before… but they didn’t understand.”

Jieming snapped his eyes open, his back already drenched in cold sweat.

He looked down at his right hand.

It was intact now, but in that memory, this arm had nearly collapsed out of its light-form state while forcing its way through the interference field, leaving behind permanent Law damage.

Then, he saw the “text message” attached to the final crystal.

“…The Scythe-Skull Race’s underground nest is a trap. They use a large number of low-level individuals to draw fire. The true main force is the ‘Praetorian Insects’ teleported directly from the earth veins, with levels generally above the fourth tier…”

“…The trigger condition for time reversal is most likely the population size of the Scythe-Skull Race. But strangely, the Scythe-Skull Race also seems to be avoiding this threshold from being exceeded…”

“…A high concentration of Time Law fluctuations was detected at the regional underground energy source, suspected to be an artificial construct. It was previously suspected to be the swarm civilization’s ‘Reincarnation Device,’ but it was later discovered to be a trap…”

“Do not use the Light Transformation ability of the Five Aggregates Rainbow Transformation Mirror to escape. Although I used this ability to escape at the end of this round, the opponent clearly reacted. However, they failed because they did not understand the specific nature of Light Transformation. If it is used again in the next round, it is very likely to fall into the trap…”

“I have already exposed the characteristic of having very strong physical strength, but the opponent should not be sure of the specific strength. Find a way to let my future self in the reincarnation after the next one know this.”

Looking at this information, Jieming remained silent for a long time.

(End of the Chapter)