Chapter 442: Research and Combat
Translator: AnubisTL
The crimson glare of the alarm still pulsed over the camp, but the atmosphere inside the Research Center had completely shifted.
After the initial shock wore off, Jieming and the logistics wizards of his team exchanged glances, seeing the same glint in each other’s eyes.
It was… excitement!
“A general assault? An all-out attack?” Allison, who specialized in pheromone decryption, licked her lips as her fingers flew across the rune terminal. “Perfect! We were just complaining about the lack of multi-dimensional behavioral data on high-tier living specimens! A collective action on this scale… the load patterns of the pheromone network, the command hierarchy’s response under extreme pressure, and the coordination mechanisms between eighth-tier individuals… it’s all priceless data!”
“And the energy flow!” another wizard, focused on the Scythe-Skull Race’s joint spellcasting array, excitedly pulled up a monitoring interface. “Trillions of individuals channeling transcendent power simultaneously—even if most are low-tier, the resulting elemental tides and law disturbances will be absolutely worth recording! We might even be able to reverse-engineer their deeper binding methods with planar energy!”
Jieming found himself in complete agreement with his colleagues.
Their research had indeed hit a bottleneck recently.
An eighth-tier sample is precious, but within the research sequence, it is merely a single, highly valuable “special” specimen.
To truly unravel the secrets of a civilization—especially its relationship with a phenomenon as grand as time reversal—studying a single unique individual is of little use. The only exception would be if the time reversal itself were caused by such an individual.
However, current research suggests the likelihood of a single Scythe-Skull individual causing the time reversal is extremely low.
Therefore, this ultimate assault, a gamble for their civilization’s survival, is the best observation window.
“Back up all ongoing research data! Seal all half-finished analysis reports! Complete this within three minutes!” Jieming, acting as the special technical advisor, took command of the scene without hesitation. “All portable monitoring instruments, energy scanning arrays, pheromone capture terminals, law fluctuation recorders… bring them all! We’re going to the frontline!”
There was no hesitation, no questioning.
Everyone present was a wizard with an innate, bone-deep pursuit of knowledge.
Almost the instant Jieming finished speaking, the laboratory erupted with the dense sounds of runes activating and machinery whirring into life.
Data streams were swiftly compressed and sealed into crystals. Exquisite observation instruments unlocked from their fixed bases, lifted into the air by the wizards’ levitation spells.
Jieming’s mental power swept across his own console, instantly backing up several preliminary analysis reports on the residual time law of the eighth-tier sample’s carapace. The crystals were then stored within the “Emergency Archive Zone” specifically carved out in his internal grotto-heaven.
Afterward, he and the other wizards, levitating with dozens of instruments of all sizes, rushed out of the laboratory and headed straight beyond the camp.
Arriving at the front line and ascending to the designated observation area above the main formation of the wizard legion, Jieming’s breath caught in his throat, shocked by the sight before him, despite his mental preparation.
The Reincarnation Plane was structured with a round sky and a square earth, offering an extremely wide field of vision.
At this moment, on the distant horizon as far as the eye could see, a “line” was slowly rising.
It was not a line.
It was a wall.
A Great Black Wall composed of countless writhing black dots, stretching up to the clouds and extending infinitely to the left and right—a colossal wall made purely of piled-up living beings.
It advanced slowly but irresistibly, devouring every gap between the earth and the sky.
The scale of trillions, at this moment, materialized into the most direct visual impact—it was completely a moving landmass, a living natural disaster.
The low hum created by the vibration of insect wings could already be faintly heard even from a thousand kilometers away; it was a frequency capable of causing the earth to resonate.
A faint, elusive scent began to permeate the air—the smell of a hundred million chitinous carapaces grinding together, mixed with a specific pheromone.
Yet, this suffocating pressure lasted only a moment.
Jieming’s gaze quickly returned to its usual calm.
His mental power, synchronized with the newly deployed ultra-long-range energy scanner, rapidly analyzed the black ocean.
“Confirming target numbers… compiling energy reaction strength statistics…” he muttered, his fingers swiftly tracing runes on the recording crystal. “The vast majority are first- and second-tier life reactions. Those third-tier and above account for less than 0.3%… The structure is loose, lacking efficient, coordinated energy links… It’s just a simple pile of numbers.”
Fear stems from the unknown. Once the unknown is dismantled by data, all that remains is its research value.
Commander Frost clearly shared their sentiment.
Around the observation area, the wizard legion had already fallen into a battle-ready formation.
“Execute ‘Observation Protocol—Three,'” Frost’s calm voice transmitted through the mental command network. “All unlocked targeted strike methods are authorized. Each research team, record the data you want.”
The order was given.
The war—or rather, a super-large-scale live experiment—had begun.
The first to strike were not the wizards themselves, but the Cannon Fodder Legion—biochemically modified troops specifically engineered to exploit the Scythe-Skull Race’s physiological weaknesses and carapace vulnerabilities.
A silver tide of modified hounds charged forth, their maws spewing “Crystallization Disintegration Waves” designed to trigger specific elemental resonance within the Scythe-Skull carapaces. Their claws pulsed with a specialized vibration frequency.
When struck, the Scythe-Skulls’ once-impenetrable shells would instantly embrittle and crack from the inside out, like weathering stone.
Following them was a barrage of gene bombs deployed by countless flying units.
These bombs detonated mid-air, releasing a nano-cloud that overloaded the Scythe-Skulls’ pheromone receptors.
Instantly, vast swaths of the black insect tide descended into chaos. The creatures collided with one another, blindly attacking their own kind.
Then came the wizards’ own spells—targeted wizardry, refined through countless iterations.
The “Frequency Pollution Field” unfurled, distorting all pheromone signals within its range and paralyzing the insect tide’s command structure.
“Compound Eye Overload Flashes” erupted across the enemy ranks, the blinding light leaving swathes of the Scythe-Skull Race blind and disoriented.
A “Group Acid Resistance Reversal Curse” took hold silently, causing the very acid the Scythe-Skulls spat to begin corroding their own carapaces…
A trillion-strong army?
Faced with a deathly feast tailored specifically for them, they were merely data points waiting to be harvested.
The Great Black Wall began to crumble the moment it touched the silver tide of energy.
The blackness vanished in vast swathes, as if erased by an invisible rubber.
Shattered carapaces, splattering ichor, and dissipating energy formed a black avalanche, yet its forward momentum was brutally halted, then reversed.
Jieming and all the logistics wizards had long since ceased to marvel at the battle’s outcome. Their entire focus was now concentrated on the various monitoring instruments before them.
Energy fluctuation charts scrolled rapidly, recording the subtle resonance between the planar fundamental laws and the energy ripples released by the deaths of one trillion individuals.
The pheromone capture terminals flashed crimson, desperately trying to seize chemical signals representing despair, chaos, final commands, and even collapse from the battlefield’s violent energy turbulence.
The macro-law scanning array remained locked onto the battlefield’s center, specifically the positions of the three eighth-tier Scythe-Skull Race chiefs, monitoring for any spacetime disturbances that might defy conventional norms.
“Elemental tide readings are abnormal! In the (734, 291) coordinate region, the elemental deposition rate is 17% faster than the model’s prediction!”
“A high-intensity, highly compressed ‘Termination Command’ broadcast has appeared on the pheromone network’s core frequency! Attempting to decrypt!”
“Attention! The energy signatures of the eighth-tier targets are fluctuating in unison! Suspected activation of some kind of joint mechanism!”
On the observation platform, alerts and reports from the wizards rose and fell in a tense but orderly cadence.
Everyone was wound tight, eyes glued to their screens, their mental power operating or recording at breakneck speed.
Jieming’s mission was to collect the recording crystals from the key data nodes.
He darted between the instruments, swiftly retrieving each crystal as a set of critical data was fully captured and sealed, then stowing it within his internal grotto-heaven.
Inside, a new mountain of crystals, labeled “Fourth Round—General Offensive Observation,” was rapidly growing.
Time flew by amidst the slaughter and data collection.
Finally, the wizard responsible for monitoring the overall biological population issued a frantic alarm: “Warning! The number of surviving Scythe-Skull Race on the battlefield has dropped to the preset ‘Reincarnation Trigger Warning Line’! The probability of time reversal is skyrocketing! Repeat, skyrocketing!”
Far from causing panic, this announcement only intensified the fervor on the observation platform.
“All instruments, switch to maximum sampling frequency! Ignore the wear and tear!”
“Focus on the eighth-tier targets! Record the energy release patterns and law interactions of their final moments!”
“Pheromone network! Capture the global signal structure at the very last moment before collapse!”
The wizards roared, pushing their instruments to their absolute limits, even at the cost of permanently damaging the equipment.
They were desperate to squeeze every last drop of valuable data before the “experiment” was forcibly reset.
Jieming’s speed in retrieving the crystals reached a fever pitch, his body blurring into a phantom. His internal grotto-heaven operated at full capacity, ensuring every crystal containing precious data was safely stored within.
Then, it happened…
The tug from the world’s very foundation descended without warning.
The fibers of time and space were plucked by an invisible hand, and all creation began to slide back toward the origin.
It’s here! Jieming’s mind screamed.
In the final instant before his consciousness was forcibly stripped away and his vision began to blur and distort, his reaction reached its absolute peak.
His mental power exploded outward, sweeping across the entire observation platform, as the entrance to his internal grotto-heaven expanded to its limit.
Suck it in!
Every still-functioning monitoring instrument, every uncollected recording crystal, and even the crystal tablets being inscribed by the wizards beside him…
Everything on the platform related to the research, every entity that might carry information from this round, was forcibly drawn into his internal grotto-heaven in that lightning-fast moment!
Buzz…
The world plunged into pure white, followed by a void of absolute darkness.
The Fifth Reincarnation had begun.
(End of the Chapter)