Chapter 362 Annihilating the Descenders

"Did you sense anything?" After resting for a while longer, the mage beside him suddenly broke the silence and said to Shaoke, "A strange magical fluctuation, did you feel it?" As she spoke, the Blue-robed Mage suddenly stood up and frowned as she looked toward the Blue Feather Empire's territory.

Shaoke nodded. He'd actually already sensed that strange fluctuation long ago; it was very similar to spatial magic fluctuations. Now the fluctuation was getting stronger, and Shaoke figured someone was summoning some special otherworldly being. But all this had nothing to do with him, so he just lay there peacefully, doing nothing. As for the Blue-robed Mage, she frowned, took a few steps, and then sat down again.

Shaoke didn't ask why. Then he calmly asked, "After you leave here, will you return to the Bloody Fortress? If you're going back, we can go together."

The Blue-robed Mage quickly refused. She shook her head and said softly, "I'll go back to my hometown and rest there for a while." As she spoke, she frowned and glanced at the place where the strange fluctuation had dissipated, then slowly flew up and headed off into the distance.

After the Female Mage left, Shaoke did not stay. Instead, he used the spatial spell Tear Space and spent half a day to return to the Fallen Capital. There he found Mage Roman and the others again and briefly told them about his adventure.

The female mages didn't stay here long. Soon they went back to the lab to continue their experiments. According to Mage Roman, their experiment had reached a critical stage; soon the costly experiment would succeed. Now they had to focus more on their research there.

After the female mages left, Shaoke took out the thirteen golden horns and began to absorb them into his meditation space using silver light. The numerous memory fragments didn't shock Shaoke; instead, he stored them in his spellbook using a special method, planning to comprehend these memories when he had time later.

Several days passed, and all thirteen golden horns were absorbed into his meditation space. More than a hundred strange runes were all embedded in that three-tiered altar. At this time, Shaoke's meditation space had undergone enormous changes. And this change brought the mage even greater power.

Countless souls were ground into fragments by the altar, accompanied by those magic scripts flying into the air. All these soul fragments fell onto the magical plants and slowly merged into them. After obtaining these soul fragments, the magical plants retracted their magic power and mental energy much faster. The more soul fragments fell onto the plants, the faster they grew. When a plant died of old age, a larger soul fragment flew out from the plant's corpse and once again merged into the altar.

And the altar ground it again, then sent it out. Thus the cycle repeated, everything appearing so illusory.

A greater number of soul fragments, under Shaoke's active control, were integrated into the stars formed by magic scripts according to the techniques of the Ancient Spellcasters. Some soul fragments also actively merged into the magic scripts on the altar, making them much clearer. However, the characters on the golden horns absorbed the most soul fragments. As large amounts of soul fragments were absorbed, those magic scripts and sentences, under the mage's control, slowly transformed into a strange array.

A massive array composed of countless magic scripts completely enveloped the altar. With the appearance of this massive array, the mage found his mental energy growing stronger. This strength allowed him to gain more insights into the outside world. Now, if he fully spread his mental energy into the world, often after a few magic hours, he could perceive some spellcasting fragments of the Ancient Spellcasters. If he extended the time, the probability of perceiving ancient spellcaster fragments would increase significantly.

Of course, this was only because the altar in his meditation space had just absorbed the golden horns and wasn't yet familiar with those memory fragments. Shaoke believed that after he absorbed those memories, his insights into the distant past would be much stronger. But for now, this was just his guess.

In the days that followed, the mage stayed in this massive mage tower, browsing through those ancient books, hoping to find some ways to advance to the Ninth Rank. But this task was extremely lengthy; it took him about fifty years, and he had only deciphered and memorized about half of the vast number of books. And that was with Shaoke devoting almost all his energy to deciphering these books.

Although he did not obtain methods to advance to the Ninth Rank from these books, Shaoke still learned a lot of spell knowledge over these fifty years. Among other things, he once again improved his method of making spellbooks through the knowledge in these ancient books. He planned to begin making his new spellbook after deciphering all the books. Of course, this would still require a long period of preparation.

One day, while Shaoke was suspended in the air, releasing all his mental energy to perceive the fragment images of ancient spellcasters, the crystal ball in his bosom suddenly trembled. "Xueye, I want to see you." When Shaoke activated this communication crystal ball, Mage Roman's image's first words were these. "Can you?" Mage Roman added again.

Shaoke nodded. Mage Roman's face was very grim now, her eyes red, clearly having cried. Seeing Shaoke agree, Mage Roman forced an ugly smile, then closed the communication and waited in her room for Shaoke.

"Tell me, what's going on?" As soon as Shaoke returned to the room, Mage Roman embraced him and started crying softly. The White-robed Cleric beside her also had red eyes, but her emotions were not as intense as Mage Roman's. Shaoke comforted Mage Roman again and again, until finally the female mage stopped crying.

Mage Roman did not answer Shaoke's question; instead, the Cleric beside her answered. "Xueye, our experiment completely failed." As she said this, the White-robed Cleric helplessly sat on the chair, covering her head with her small white hand, looking very dejected. Over a hundred years of research, failed in an instant, made them feel very helpless. Although the military department and the Bloody Legion people didn't say anything, they, the Alchemists and some Clerics and auxiliary Spellcasters, still felt very helpless.

Hearing that this was the reason, Shaoke felt relieved. Experiments couldn't succeed on the first try, especially since, according to Mage Roman, what they were researching was a magic item from an unknown era. Moreover, this magic item had only fragmentary blueprints. Therefore, Shaoke didn't care about the failure at all, also because he hadn't participated in the experiment.

After a long while, with the help of the Cleric, Mage Roman calmed down. Finally, she took a deep breath and said to Shaoke, "Xueye, after a while we'll restart the experiment, so I won't have much time to accompany you." With that, she sighed, then added, "Lan Wei'er is also joining the experiment this time. I think you can understand." Then she frowned and took out a piece of paper from her ring, on which were a few twisted characters written in high-quality pseudo-dragon blood.

"I don't know these characters," Shaoke shook his head helplessly under Mage Roman's gaze. This script was very strange; looking at it too long made him feel dizzy.

At Shaoke's answer, Mage Roman was not disappointed. She had just wanted to try and see if he knew this script. "These characters are from that fragmentary blueprint. I think our failure is due to these characters." As she said this, she couldn't help sighing.

"Scholars," Shaoke thought for a moment and suddenly answered, "Find some scholars to study them. I think some top scholars would definitely recognize this script." He had conversed with many scholars in the past and learned a lot from them, so at this moment he remembered these scholars.

"We've already looked," the White-robed Cleric beside her gently rubbed her head and said, "Many scholars don't know this script, but some say it's a script of a bizarre race from ancient times. Unfortunately, our empire's books are incomplete, so we don't know this script."

"These characters might be annotations from the original owner of the blueprint from that time. I think they wouldn't be of any help to building that magic item," Shaoke rubbed Mage Roman's head, comforting her. "An experiment on a magic item cannot succeed after just one or two tries. A few more attempts, and I think it will succeed."

Time now had no impression on Shaoke. He spent most of his time in his room deciphering those ancient books. Only during free evenings would he float to an out-of-the-way place, quietly hovering there, perceiving the remaining fragments of ancient spellcasters, even ancient spellcasters from the distant past, hoping to learn more spell knowledge from these images.

One day, while he was hovering above the canyon where he had fought with Mage Roman and others in the past, sensing, a faint aura fluctuation moved rapidly in the distance. From the movement speed and aura intensity, Shaoke quickly determined that it belonged to an Eighth-order Practitioner. The unfamiliar aura fluctuation immediately put the mage on alert. Although he was not a mage of the military department, a foreign practitioner entering Blue Feather Empire's territory still drew his attention. Quickly sending a message to Mage Roman, he then tried to conceal his aura as much as possible and, relying on his strange intuition, slowly followed the other party.

A day and a night passed, and now that Eighth-order Practitioner had reached the Misty Forest. Here, Shaoke had already sensed the auras of a dozen Eighth-order Practitioners. At this moment, the warrior whom Shaoke had been following also sensed him, but said nothing; he just snorted, accelerated, and flew over the treetops. His body still emitted a large amount of aura to detect the situation below.

Shaoke looked around; he had now entered some deeper areas of the Misty Forest. Occasionally, high-level magical beasts roamed the ground, warily watching the dozen or so practitioners in the sky. The powerful auras emitted by these people frightened the beasts, but to defend their territory, they still carefully hid near their lairs.

The crystal ball in his bosom trembled again; it was Mage Roman sending him a message.

"Xueye, this matter is nothing. It's a joint operation of the two empires. Some people sensed an outsider descending in the Misty Forest, so they dispatched them here to hunt the other party." After saying this, Mage Roman talked with Shaoke about some other issues, then closed the communication. This kind of communication consumed the magic power and mental energy stored in the crystal ball, so it wasn't suitable for long conversations.

Upon receiving this news, Shaoke relaxed a lot. At least these people weren't entering Blue Feather Empire to cause destruction; they wouldn't have to face another long war.

At this time, the practitioners from the Desasi Empire and some from the Blue Feather Empire had already flown far away. Finally, they all stopped. After each side cleared a large area below, they took out from their spatial rings a huge stone slab engraved with a teleportation array. Both sides activated the array on the slab almost simultaneously, and then two powerful magical fluctuations came at the same time. Nearly a hundred figures appeared above the teleportation array.

Shaoke recognized the practitioners that came out of the Blue Feather Empire. There were Death Mages in black cloaks, Bloody Knights in scarlet armor, and an assassin who had been invisible. There were even a few Archers and two Summoners. At the Desasi Empire side, the same number of Eighth-order Practitioners appeared there.

This sudden change made Shaoke and a few other practitioners who were obviously Wandering Mages nervous; they worried that the other side would hunt them here. If that happened, Shaoke knew he absolutely couldn't escape, not even a chance to counterattack.

The practitioners of the two empires gathered completely without any hesitation and began low conversations. Shaoke and the other Wandering Mages watched them nervously, ready to try to flee at any sign of trouble. Of course, they didn't dare to do that now, because about a hundred practitioners were staring at them! Although not locked on, that deathly gaze still made Shaoke, who was accustomed to killing, somewhat uncomfortable. Fortunately, this situation ended quickly. A Black-robed Mage from the Blue Feather Empire drifted a short distance towards Shaoke and the others, then stopped.

"We are on a mission. An outsider has descended onto this plane and we need to search for and kill it. If you wish to join this operation, follow my orders; otherwise, leave immediately." With that, he scanned Shaoke and the others and added, "The Descender is not a god." Then he quickly spun the staff in his hand, which was wrapped in yellow flames, looking very eerie.

A Wandering Mage flew forward a bit, approached the other, and said, "What do you need me to do?" This action indicated he had decided to join the mission. Then Shaoke and the others also reluctantly decided to participate. After all, the temperament of Death Mages was known, especially to Shaoke.

"Kill that Descender as quickly as possible." Then the mage explained the situation to the group. He was not worried that Shaoke and the Wandering Mages would attack them; in the Blue Feather Empire, no one dared to actively attack Death Mages above the eighth rank. Of course, those freakishly strong individuals were not in this category.

Everyone quickly dispersed. Shaoke took out his crystal ball and let it float in the air, then rapidly flew towards the direction designated by the commander. Next to him were a Death Mage and a practitioner from the Desasi Empire. Thus, in groups of three, they began detecting the Misty Forest.

They kept flying deeper into the forest. After about half a magic hour, a human mental fluctuation suddenly appeared in Shaoke's crystal ball. This discovery slightly surprised the other two practitioners. They didn't expect Shaoke to detect the Descender first, given that they were both practitioners trained by their empires to be able to kill across ranks! Thinking of this, the two practitioners looked at Shaoke with very strange eyes, but the mage didn't care about that at all.

After a covert communication, the other Eighth-order Practitioners quickly flew over from afar. "Did you detect the presence of that Descender?" the Black-robed Mage asked Shaoke calmly.

Shaoke thought for a moment and said, "A mental fluctuation similar to an ordinary person. The other party probably hasn't noticed us." Then he pointed to the crystal ball floating in front of him, indicating the location of the Descender.

Then, according to the prearranged plan, the mages who could use Spatial Tear instantly tore through space and flew directly to the location Shaoke indicated. Shaoke also followed with dozens of mages. Meanwhile, the warriors and summoners, who couldn't use Spatial Tear at the moment, scattered and fully released their detection methods, probing towards where the Descender was.

Shaoke and dozens of Eighth Tier Mages instantly appeared above the Descender. Under a large tree lay a person, young, looking only in his twenties. His clothes were not those of any race on the Barbarian Continent. Short hair, a strange outfit, and an iron rod resembling a javelin in his hand.

When Shaoke saw this person, he became panic-stricken. Fortunately, his mental energy was strong enough to forcibly suppress his shock. This Descender was wearing Earth clothes, clearly a soldier's gear.

"Outsider, how did you come here?" The crowd paid no attention to Shaoke; everyone activated their defensive spells. One of the mages asked the other in the common continental language. But the outsider didn't answer; instead, he pointed at his throat, indicating that he couldn't speak.

"It's him." Several mages almost simultaneously chanted spells. Within a dozen breaths, over a dozen eighth-rank single-target and area attack spells were quickly released by them. The forest of about ten acres was instantly destroyed. After several violent explosions, a huge crater appeared on the ground, and Shaoke could no longer sense the mental fluctuation of this Transmigrator.

After the blast ended, no one left. Instead, a necromancer chanted another spell, and then a human-shaped soul emerged in the sky. This soul was that of the Descender. Over a dozen clumps of Arcane Fire quickly burned beneath the bound soul. The intense burning made the soul twist continuously, looking very painful. Shaoke stood by, watching dazedly. He didn't know what to do now. Of course, he didn't dare to show any abnormality now; he just stared tightly at the dissipating soul.

In just a few breaths, the transparent soul completely dissipated in the air under the influence of over a dozen mages. Then some mages took out crystal balls or other magical items that could enhance detection range to probe the surroundings, to prevent any possible survivors.

The practitioners from behind also gathered around. After seeing the huge crater and receiving orders from the leader, everyone knew that the outsider had dissipated in the air, and this dissipation included the complete dissipation of the soul. All this made these Eighth-order beings relax.

Then a Black-robed Mage told Shaoke and the others that the mission was over and they needed to go back. Then these people ignored Shaoke and the few Wandering Mages, and instead took the magic arrays to return to their respective stations. Only some practitioners carried the huge teleportation array and flew away from the Misty Forest.

Everyone left, only Shaoke alone hovered at the last location where that Transmigrator vanished, staying there quietly. His mood was very bad. Having come to this world for hundreds of years, he never expected to suddenly see familiar people and things from Earth today, but in an instant the other person completely dissipated in the air, which made him inexplicably sorrowful.

I don't know how long passed, but from afar came numerous mental fluctuations, fluctuations completely of humanoid creatures. Then Shaoke tried to calm his emotions, intending to leave.

"Hey! The one in the sky, don't leave yet." A rough and loud voice came from a distance of several thousand meters. Then Shaoke saw a line traced from the direction of the sound, a line formed by trees falling to the ground. "Was the explosion just now caused by you?"

A tall barbarian appeared before Shaoke. His body, four or five meters tall, indicated that he was a fully mature barbarian. Shaoke did not leave but looked at him calmly. This barbarian gave him a feeling of familiarity, but he didn't know why he felt this way.