The battle between planes should have been a cosmic spectacle capable of shaking souls.
However, situated within the ship plane as a mere cog in this colossal war machine, Jie Ming’s feelings were somewhat mixed—thrilling, yet also a bit boring.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
On the light screen, beams of energy capable of vaporizing mountains effortlessly tore through the void, slamming heavily onto the living Flame and Frost Plane below.
Each hit was accompanied by a deafening roar and soul fluctuations from the plane itself, akin to agonized howls of pain.
The living plane showed no weakness in return, its massive magma mouth spewing flames that incinerated all in their path, while the gas clusters formed by its eyes stirred up energy storms powerful enough to warp the void.
The offensive and defensive tactics between the two sides were filled with myriad variations and intricate calculations.
Jie Ming could see simulated data of various energy transmissions, rune chains, and elemental tides through the main control screen inside the node.
But from an outsider’s perspective, the two planes were merely hurling massive barrages of energy cannons at each other in a frenzy—simple, brutal, and lacking in spectacle.
And Jie Ming’s own task was utterly tedious.As a gear in this vast war machine, an insignificant part, all he had to do was follow the instructions from the magic network terminal and precisely manipulate his node.
Increase energy output, switch rune frequencies, stabilize spatial fluctuations… over and over again.
It wasn’t that his task was useless, for the proper operation of every node directly affected the ship plane’s offensive and defensive efficiency.
But he truly had little sense of participation.
Most of the time, Jie Ming felt like an audience member sitting in a control room watching a grand cinematic epic.
“The tension is certainly there—after all, if the ship plane loses, we’re all dead. This is a genuine plane war…” Jie Ming couldn’t help but grumble inwardly.
This life-or-death pressure brought him a peculiar thrill, keeping him from dozing off in boredom.
Yet, even as the battle raged fiercely on both sides, with external energy fluctuations nearly shredding the entire void,
Jie Ming’s side remained idle enough for him to closely observe the situation on the field.
“Something’s off…”
Suddenly, Jie Ming’s heart stirred; he spotted an anomaly in the data stream!
Because the ship plane, under Augustine’s control, was facing the living Flame and Frost Plane’s fury without falling behind at all?!
This exceeded his expectations.
He admitted that the ship plane, after extensive modifications by the wizards, had an internal structure—from the core energy furnace to the outer armor—that far surpassed that of an ordinary plane in strength.
Moreover, the wizards operating this war fortress numbered in the tens of thousands, all elites.
Prior to this, the Flame and Frost Plane had also suffered a heavy blow from Augustine’s “leyline core strike,” giving them the upper hand and preventing it from fully unleashing its power.
But it wasn’t that Jie Ming underestimated Master Augustine.
Though he was a sixth-level wizard with unfathomable strength,
From what Jie Ming knew about “living planes,” there was no reason for the wizards’ side to hold even the slightest advantage in this pure contest of “mass,” let alone maintain balance—that would be immensely difficult!
Wizards were powerful, without a doubt.
Through their profound understanding of various knowledges, they could fight above their level against most beings in the endless planes, triumphing over the strong with the weak.
But unfortunately, “living planes” were precisely the “fish that slipped through the net”!
These special existences with autonomous will could not only easily crush wizards of the same level but even slay those one level higher.
The fundamental reason lay in: the “mass” of a living plane, formed by the plane itself, was simply too exaggerated.
According to the wizards’ classification of beings, living planes reached the sixth-level being tier upon birth.
However, unlike sixth-level beings like wizards, who even at sixth level had only fully mastered one or a few rules…
Even smaller living planes, at the moment of their birth, could fully master at least millions of complete foundational rules!
And for a slightly larger living plane like the Flame and Frost Plane, one capable of nurturing special races like lava giants and snow monsters, the number of fully mastered rules could easily exceed “billions”!
The reason wizards held such a dominant position in the endless planes was primarily due to their formidable combat prowess.
And that powerful combat prowess stemmed from the “elemental levers” leveraged through their knowledge, allowing their power to multiply exponentially.
At the sixth-level wizard stage, beyond knowledge, with the boost of complete rules, it wasn’t difficult to amplify one part of power into hundreds of thousands of times the effect; exceptional wizards could even achieve millions-fold amplification.
But living planes, from birth, possessed rule systems numbering in the millions, tens of millions, or even billions!
Even if their mastery depth of individual rules couldn’t match the “refined control” of a sixth-level wizard at its extreme,
They triumphed through absolute numerical superiority.
Any single wizard’s rule-based attack would be diluted and weakened by their vast array of rule systems.
This alone was enough for a living plane to suppress an ordinary sixth-level wizard in rule confrontations.
Not to mention, the energy and matter contained within a living plane itself were countless times that of a sixth-level wizard!
Even with the ship plane serving as supplement and compensation, on paper, winning against a living plane through normal wizard means was nearly impossible.
Yet the reality was that Master Augustine was now trading blows evenly with the living plane, showing no sign of falling behind.
Each attack from the ship plane elicited an angry roar from the living plane.
And the living plane’s counterattacks were all perfectly blocked by the ship plane’s sturdy defensive barriers.
Jie Ming carefully observed the data fed back from the ship plane, as well as the energy fluctuations from the living plane below that carried a strong sense of disharmony during its movements. He couldn’t help but speculate inwardly:
“This leyline core strike… the damage seems greater than expected?”
He noticed that every counterattack from the living plane was accompanied by a faint but genuine tremor from within.
Its core energy transmission also exhibited a massive rupture.
The living plane, at every moment, was enduring immense agony!
Because of this agony, it couldn’t consolidate its full power.
Thus, much of the power it could have unleashed was in a suppressed state.
“Wait… agony?!”
Jie Ming’s heart jolted suddenly, his mind recalling Viola’s sickly delighted expression and words from before.
Almost instinctively, he whipped his head to the side, toward Viola, who had been eagerly watching the light screen outside the porthole.
The sickly excitement on Viola’s face had reached its peak, her lips curling into an evil arc.
She seemed to have anticipated that Jie Ming would discover this truth; the moment he turned to look at her, the cunning and bloodthirst in her eyes could no longer be concealed.
“Oh? You’ve figured it out?”