Translator: AnubisTL
On a wasteland repeatedly plowed by the fires of war, leaving only scorched earth and scattered boulders.
Inside a completely inconspicuous cave, half-concealed by several weathered giant rocks, space rippled slightly as Jieming and Anya's figures slowly materialized from void to solid.
The light inside the cave was dim, and the air was thick with dust and a faint, low-energy trace of Light-elemental energy.
Jieming's gaze swept across the cave walls, finally settling on a massive piece of basalt at the bottom that looked too regular and out of place in its surroundings.
"Is this the place?" Anya asked in a low voice, her perception extending like invisible tentacles, cautiously probing every inch of the surrounding space.
Jieming glanced down at the faint map projected from the terminal on his wrist, then compared it with the precise coordinates and energy markers sent by Wizard Starfall. He nodded.
"That's right. The coordinates match, and the energy convergence anomaly below also points here. The entrance rift to their 'secret fortification' should be beneath this rock."
The two said no more and simultaneously deployed their reconnaissance methods.
Jieming's mental power, precise as liquid mercury, seeped into the microscopic structure of the giant rock. Meanwhile, Anya conducted her detection by sensing the lifeforms clinging to the cave's microbes and the faint currents of air.
Soon, their combined senses pierced the thick rock layers, "seeing" the narrow, winding crevice deliberately hidden below.
From deep within the crevice, a rhythmic and immense energy pulse faintly emanated, like the heartbeat of a slumbering giant beast.
"These Light-Cluster Elementals... Their awakening was brief, but their instincts—or rather, their survival intelligence—are remarkably well-developed," Jieming remarked, withdrawing his senses with a hint of amusement. "They know that to pull off a grand scheme, they must hide underground, using thick rock to mask their energy fluctuations and light leaks. This completely contradicts their very nature as creatures of 'light'."
Anya looked at the giant rock and asked, "How do we get down there? Should we just smash through it?"
"No," Jieming shook his head. "His Excellency Starfall wants detailed data on the entire implementation of their 'plan' from a close-up perspective. Alerting them now would render the mission pointless. We must infiltrate undetected and only reveal ourselves at the moment they are most triumphant, just as they believe they've succeeded. Until then, we stay hidden and observe quietly."
"Understood." Anya nodded, then turned to Jieming. "In that case, we'll need a highly covert method of infiltration."
"Right, but the gap behind this is too narrow. An ordinary person couldn't possibly fit through..." Jieming trailed off, looking a bit awkward.
To be honest, he had no problem with standard shape-concealment or energy-hiding techniques, but for a situation like this, he truly didn't have a good solution.
The main reason was that on a normal planar battlefield, Jieming belonged to the main force, and he'd never needed to use such methods.
He could use the Five Aggregates Rainbow Transformation Mirror's Light Transformation to go down directly, but that would cause too much of a commotion. "In this situation, I can only use alchemy..."
"Your alchemy alters the terrain too dramatically; it would easily trigger any alarms they might have set along the way. Let me do it."
Jieming readily agreed. "Alright, what's your plan?"
Anya didn't answer. She simply raised her slender wrist and made a gentle beckoning gesture.
From amidst her long hair, several strands of black shadow—finer than a hair and almost invisible to the naked eye—quietly drifted out, coiling around her fingertips as if they possessed a life of their own.
Jieming could clearly sense that these were also a type of nature spirit, albeit a rare variety associated with shadows.
The next moment, the shadows expanded and spread rapidly, like a soft, lightless black curtain descending over him and Anya.
Jieming did not resist, letting the cool sensation cling to his skin.
Being enveloped by the shadows was a strange feeling.
From the inside, his vision seemed to be separated from the world by a layer of extremely thin black glass. The light grew dim and colors lost their saturation, yet the outlines of his surroundings remained sharp.
His own senses, however, were almost completely unchanged. His breathing, heartbeat, and the flow of energy were all normal, and even his ability to cast sensory wizardry was not noticeably hindered.
It was as if the shadow operated only on an optical level, perhaps even absorbing and distorting stray mental fluctuations to some extent.
"Don't make a sound. Stay close to me," Anya's voice echoed directly in his mind—a form of precise mental communication.
Immediately after, Jieming felt a slight movement beneath his feet as he and the "shadow" enveloping them began to glide forward.
From the outside, the spot where they had stood was now a roiling, blur-edged mass of deep shadow.
As if guided by a mind of its own, the shadow precisely hugged the contours and light-dark boundaries of the cave walls, silently "flowing" toward the boulder blocking the crevice.
When the shadow touched the boulder's surface, it didn't collide. Instead, like water meeting a porous reef, it instantly split into countless finer threads, seeping through the gaps between the boulder and the cave wall, and into the rock's own natural micro-fissures.
Jieming felt his body, enveloped by the shadow, undergo an incredibly supple deformation, as if he had become a liquid without a fixed shape.
Yet this transformation brought no discomfort or pain, only a strange sensation of weightlessness and fluidity.
The shadow "flowed" past the boulder barrier and entered the narrow crevice descending below.
The fissure was less than a finger's width, winding and jagged, filled with rough rock ridges and sharp debris.
But under Anya's masterful control, the shadow moved like the most agile of fish, always finding the optimal path as it silently slipped downward.
Absolute darkness and silence enveloped them, broken only by the faint sound of their breathing and heartbeats within the shadow, and the energy pulse from below, growing clearer and stronger like muffled thunder.
After descending a considerable distance, the fissure widened slightly, but the oppressive atmosphere remained.
Suddenly, Jieming, who had been on high alert, frowned and tapped Anya's shoulder.
Anya immediately understood. She brought the shadow to a halt, suspending it in a relatively spacious "node" within the fissure, and looked at Jieming in confusion.
Jieming said nothing. He simply raised a finger, pointing cautiously to an extremely concealed horizontal crack in the fissure's rock wall above them.
The crack was incredibly narrow and pitch-black inside, blending almost perfectly with its surroundings.
Anya focused her gaze. At first, she saw nothing unusual. But when she combined her life perception with the faint visual enhancement provided by the shadow and carefully scanned the area, her heart leaped.
(End of the Chapter)
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