Translator: AnubisTL
The post-battle merit evaluation was a foregone conclusion. Jieming was recognized for his outstanding contributions: first discovering and stabilizing the space gate node, restraining the divine being at a critical moment, and transmitting crucial coordinates. He was awarded the primary credit for the victory.
The three fourth-tier wizards, while envious of the substantial rewards, tacitly remained silent. They had each secured a living fifth-tier "indigenous god" as research material, a prize they considered equally valuable.
The primary credit reward granted Jieming an immense number of military merit points, enough to impress even someone with his already considerable wealth.
More importantly, seventh-tier wizard Dionysius Spencer personally promised that Jieming would receive a share of all knowledge gathered from the Holy Continent going forward.
For a wizard driven by the pursuit of knowledge, this promise was of immeasurable value.
Jieming was thoroughly satisfied with the outcome.
The next fifty years followed the wizard civilization's standardized plane conquest protocol.
Resistance?
With their supreme divine beings gone, their faith shattered, and facing the wizards' endless array of arcane methods, the remaining holy servant forces melted away like snow under the sun.
The wizards swept across the Holy Continent with overwhelming force.
The only regret for some wizards eager to explore was that the space gate connecting the Holy Continent to realms beyond had shown signs of instability. This was likely due to Dionysius Spencer's forceful opening and maintenance of the gate, making it temporarily impossible to pinpoint the coordinates of the four otherworlds the holy servants claimed to have conquered.
This potential path for expansion was temporarily blocked.
Fifty years later, Jieming returned to the wizard sub-camp established in the capitals of the Holy Continent's former Four Great Empires after completing a mission to eradicate the remaining resistance forces.
As he watched the endless stream of holy servant slaves, bound by rune-inscribed shackles, being transported to various research sites and planes, his face showed little joy, instead revealing a hint of contemplation.
Objectively speaking, the Holy Continent possessed abundant resources, but... it hardly seemed worth the effort of a seventh-tier wizard to wage such a large-scale war.
Even the indigenous god weren't worth the trouble. After all, these deities merely claimed to be gods, lacking genuine divine power.
Moreover, through fifty years of observation, Jieming had clearly sensed that Dionysius Spencer maintained an almost indifferent attitude toward the Holy Continent itself.
It was as if conquering this land was merely a necessary step in a larger process, rather than the ultimate goal.
He couldn't help but recall Dionysius Spencer's cryptic words from fifty years ago, just as the space gate was about to open: "...Your true 'feast' is about to begin."
Could it be that neither the resource-poor Void Domain Plane nor this Holy Continent had ever been the seventh-tier wizard's true target?
Were they... perhaps not even appetizers for Dionysius Spencer?
But this speculation led to an even greater mystery: if neither world was the goal... then what was Dionysius Spencer's true purpose, for which he had expended such immense heart power?
Since the space gate stabilized, the commander-in-chief had made no further noteworthy moves, which in itself defied logic.
Jieming shook his head, suppressing this overly bold conjecture.
He knew that as commander-in-chief of the expeditionary force, all of Dionysius Spencer's actions had to align with the highest interests of the wizard civilization—an ironclad rule enforced by the contract.
Given this premise, a second-tier wizard like himself had no right to question or investigate the plans of a seventh-tier wizard.
This curiosity, in the end, could only remain a personal musing.
Perhaps this high-rank wizard of the fate system has already been silently waiting for something, using the threads of others' destinies... Jieming mused.
His gaze swept over his colleagues in the camp, who were excitedly discussing their next exploration targets, buoyed by their abundant harvests. A sudden, inexplicable sense of detachment and... boredom washed over him.
Instead of accepting a new mission, he rose alone and flew aimlessly over the conquered lands.
For the first time, he truly observed this world as a "watcher" rather than a "conqueror," examining the land trampled by the iron hooves of wizards.
Yet the scenes that met his eyes were hardly picturesque.
Fifty years of relentless exploitation had left this plane in a state of morbid depletion.
Without any restrictions imposed by Dionysius Spencer, the wizards' inherent greed had run rampant.
If the phrase "scraping the earth three feet deep" had previously been an exaggeration in the Void Domain Plane, here it was a stark reality.
Rich organic soil had been systematically stripped away to cultivate bioweapons.
Entire mountain ranges had been dismantled to extract minerals and energy crystals.
Rivers and lakes had been drained dry, their water elements completely siphoned away...
The entire world seemed to have been gnawed down to its hollow skeleton.
As the mist thickened around him, Jieming realized he had unconsciously drifted near the massive space gate during his aimless flight.
Since the space gate had been continuously open, the milky-white mist, unique to the Void Domain Plane and containing faint energy factors, had been steadily seeping into the Holy Continent.
Now, most of the Holy Continent was shrouded in this hazy mist.
After pausing for a moment, Jieming's thoughts shifted, and he passed through the stably operating space gate, returning to the Void Domain Plane for the first time in ages.
Compared to the "bustling" Holy Continent, the Void Domain Plane now felt desolate.
Most wizards had relocated to new battlefields with more concentrated resources, leaving only scattered research stations and puppets maintaining basic operations.
The pervasive mist remained, but the ceaseless streams of light that once crisscrossed the void were gone.
Jieming floated freely in the weightless expanse, his mind drifting into emptiness.
Suddenly, a colossal shadow swept slowly overhead, blotting out the sky.
It was a massive beast resembling a whale, over a hundred meters long, drifting leisurely in the zero-gravity environment.
Its massive maw remained agape, giving it a somewhat menacing appearance.
Yet when Jieming saw it, his taut nerves unexpectedly relaxed.
He recognized this creature, which wizards jokingly referred to as the "void giant fish."
According to research by wizard scholars, these colossal beasts occupied an extremely peculiar ecological niche—their evolutionary path had prioritized being both unpalatable and remarkably resilient.
Thick-skinned and massive, their flesh was not only devoid of nutritional value but also contained a substance that repelled nearly all creatures, including the notoriously indiscriminate Black Giants.
Simultaneously, they possessed extraordinary regenerative abilities. As long as no more than 40% of their bodies was devoured in a single attack, they could slowly recover.
These filter-feeding creatures simply drifted through the mist with their mouths wide open, consuming the microscopic plankton and energy particles that permeated the air...
He suddenly jolted awake, his pupils constricting sharply. "That's wrong!"
(End of the Chapter)
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