Translator: AnubisTL
They had indeed developed social systems, but they had never managed to break free from the underlying framework of laws represented by the Fungal Lord.
However, because the Fungal Lord lacked intelligence, its existence was merely "the environment" to them, not yet a concept of "husbandry" or "enslavement."
Wizard Noren looked out over the scarred and devastated plane, his voice tinged with a rare sense of lament: "A lifeform like the Fungal Lord is a rarity even in the Endless Void."
"Unfortunately," Noren continued, "it lacks intelligence. It cannot actively wield this power to take that step beyond the Law. In a sense, it has stumbled onto a path that seems vast but is actually a dead end. Yet, conversely, if it weren't so ignorant—if it hadn't simply followed its instincts to merge with the Law—it probably never would have achieved this peculiar state of symbiosis with the plane's Law."
Dixon suppressed the turmoil in his heart and asked, "Master Noren, what should we do next? Do we just need to completely discard these spoils of war and cleanse ourselves of the remaining pollution?"
Wizard Noren nodded slightly. "The pollution remaining on you is very faint. Just cleanse it away."
As he spoke, he casually flicked his sleeve toward the entire Wizard Army.
Jieming blinked.
In that instant, he felt a gentle yet vast power wash over his body and soul like a refreshing breeze, leaving behind an indescribable sense of "cleanliness."
The sensation was so faint it was as if nothing had happened at all.
Yet the heavy oppression and faint unease that had been weighing on his heart suddenly vanished like morning mist dispelled by sunlight, leaving him feeling completely refreshed.
After confirming that everyone was free from the threat of conceptual pollution, Wizard Noren's gentle expression gradually vanished, replaced by the cold, ruthless decisiveness of a high-rank wizard.
He looked at Dixon and issued his final orders:
"The 'Fungal Lord' concept spawned by this Triangular Plane Cluster is far more dangerous than our initial assessment. Its form of existence and potential for development pose a significant threat to our wizard civilization."
"Order: Abandon all material and non-material gains from this war. Activate the 'Purification Protocol.' Conduct an indiscriminate, thorough physical destruction of the Giant Spirit Realm, the remnants of the Mental Realm, and all Colony Planes and demiplanes recorded, conquered, or potentially tainted by the laws of the Triangular Plane Cluster!"
"Ensure that the 'survival of the fittest' concept represented by the 'Fungal Lord,' along with any possible basis for its regeneration, is completely and permanently erased from these coordinates!"
Dixon, Obolos, and Merist, who was connected via the soul link, all felt a chill run through them.
The "Purification Protocol" meant no longer considering any resource recovery, no longer preserving any samples. The sole mission was to ensure the target's complete annihilation—from matter to energy, from reality to the information layer!
Yet they didn't hesitate for a moment, immediately accepting the order with solemnity: "Understood, Master Noren!"
Fifty years passed in a flash.
Fifty years was not particularly long for a cross-planar expedition.
Yet, when Jieming stepped out of the teleportation formation leading to the Elosia Plane, his face bore an almost exhausted weariness.
These fifty years had not been consumed by the passion of exploration and conquest, but drowned in a cold, repetitive, and endless "cleanup" operation.
Ever since Wizard Noren issued the "Purification Protocol," the nature of the war had completely changed.
The remaining Triangular Plane Cluster was swiftly annihilated under the thunderous roar of the ship-plane's main cannon and the grand power of seventh-tier wizards.
The Giant Spirit Realm, the Mental Realm, and the Propagation Realm—where the Fungal Lord's true body resided—along with everything remaining within them, were completely erased from the material plane and turned into nothingness.
The Colony Planes controlled by the Giant Spirit Realm and the Star Mind Realm were also cleared one by one—which essentially meant finding the enemy's planar coordinates, jumping over, and then blasting them to smithereens, turning the entire plane into ashes.
The real trouble began with the civilization to which the two captured golden baboons belonged.
According to Wizard Noren's judgment, since Kog and Hilla had deep contact with that civilization (fulfilling the contract), then that civilization and all the worlds within its sphere of influence could have been tainted by the Fungal Lord's presence.
This invisible pollution was more terrifying than any physical enemy.
Thus, the expeditionary force's mission list was updated with a series of hair-raising items: thoroughly cleanse all potentially contaminated worlds radiating outward from the Golden Baboon Civilization's core.
The process was "simple."
Wizard Noren personally took action, using his incomprehensible eighth-tier grand power to directly lock onto the civilization's core plane.
He plucked their high-level experts from their nests like baby chicks, forcibly performing soul searches to obtain all the colony plane coordinates, diplomatic relations, trade routes, and even secret exploration records they held.
Then came the destruction.
The planes themselves were directly bombarded by powerful spells or the ship-plane's main cannon until their structures collapsed, turning them into void dust.
However, this "decapitation" and "demolition" model had a loophole.
No one could guarantee that some lucky survivor hadn't happened to colonize an unrecorded fringe plane, or that some vassal civilization hadn't secretly developed a new world without reporting it.
This was where the mission for mid- and low-tier wizards like Jieming came in.
They were tasked with a cosmic-scale "data mining" and "trace-and-eliminate" operation.
The primary mission was divided into two steps.
First: Information Gathering.
Like a swarm of locusts, they swept through the information repositories of every destroyed civilization—be it physical books, energy crystals, psychic networks, or biological genetic memories.
Every single piece of information they could find—concerning the civilization's history, technology, communications, and explorations—was copied and brought back, no matter how trivial.
Second: Sifting through this astronomically vast amount of data to find relevant information and providing it to the three seventh-tier wizards.
And after that, it was all about the killing!
Following the constantly updated list of planar coordinates, they would physically and utterly annihilate every plane, every colony, and even every independent civilization suspected of having deep ties to the target.
The value of resources and knowledge was no longer considered. The sole criterion was: "Does it exist?"
These fifty years had taught Jieming the true meaning of "civilizational chain reaction."
The web of relationships between advanced civilizations was like an infinitely extending grapevine—pulling one vine would drag out an entire cluster. After clearing one cluster, they would discover even more connected below it.
Every destroyed civilization might have had its own vassals, allies, trading partners, or even primitive planes they had just discovered and hadn't yet developed. All of these, if there was even the slightest possibility of indirect pollution, were added to the "Purification" list.
The phrase "exterminating nine generations" seemed too merciful and limited to describe the wizards' actions. The entire expeditionary force was conducting an exponential purge along the web of civilizational ties.
He finally understood why the Star Ring Federation had so decisively launched an annihilation war against the Triangular Plane Cluster. The Fungal Lord's formless, law-based method of contagion was simply too terrifying.
If Wizard Noren hadn't acted in time and taken the most extreme measures, who knew how far this conceptual pollution would have spread? It might have truly become a massive hidden threat, shaking the very foundations of the wizard civilization.
Now, this long and bloody "Purification" finally came to an end.
The last coordinate on the list had been lit up, only to fall back into dead silence under the radiance of spellcraft.
Jieming returned to his laboratory in the Elosia Plane, guided almost entirely by instinct.
The long-absent scent of alchemical potions and metal that permeated the room now brought an indescribable sense of security.
He didn't bother to check the vast knowledge backups from the destroyed civilizations—the meager "spoils" stored in his internal space—nor did he have the energy to organize the heavily damaged Cannon Fodder Legion and rune-imbued magical artifacts.
He walked straight through the laboratory, past the instruments and materials, pushed open his bedroom door, and then, like a puppet with its strings cut, collapsed forward and crashed onto the soft magical mattress.
He didn't even bother to take off his boots, let alone change out of his magic robe.
The moment his head touched the pillow, a mountain-like exhaustion completely drowned his consciousness.
(End of the Chapter)
---------------------------
📖 You are reading [173] Chapters behind.
🔥 Read up to Chapter [507] now, only on 𝕔𝕚𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕣𝕥𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝕞.
📚 Read upto [12,000+] Chapters on Site with [9,900+] Free Chapters!
🚫 Also get FREE lifetime ad-free and join the giveaway by joining our Discord!
---------------------------