CHAPTER 1743: CHAPTER 487: INVISIBLE FIGURE

Zheng Qing had experienced an explosion himself once.

But watching other people or a cat explode was a first for him.

Honestly, aside from a moment of confusion when the light ball flashed, he surprisingly wasn’t startled; instead, he felt it was only natural.

Something akin to, "I’ve blown up myself, what’s so strange about a shadow exploding?"

To say ’explosion’ is actually not entirely accurate—because Zheng Qing, who was in close proximity, did not feel the shockwave like a hurricane, nor did he experience the high temperatures, high pressure, or even suffocation typical of an explosion.

There was only a brief but extreme magical fluctuation, wildly releasing around a point. In physical view, it was merely a faint black light ball, but under the wizards’ spiritual sense, it looked like the birth of a galaxy, hundreds of suns competing, emitting strange and brilliant lights.

In Zheng Qing’s understanding, this kind of ’explosion’ was more akin to a violent decomposition, construction, and reconstruction on a conceptual or rule level.

In an instant, the young wizard gained a deeper understanding of the essence of forbidden curses. A forbidden curse is not just a powerful spell that can annihilate life and overturn the world; its greater effect is to subvert rules.

It’s like if the world originally used the US Dollar as hard currency, capable of international settlements and purchasing commodities, a concept accepted by all nations. Until suddenly, all countries stopped using the dollar and rebuilt a new trading system at some point. Such simple yet profound rule changes would directly lead to world economic collapse, causing widespread suffering and wars among great powers, and even causing irreversible damage to the entire ecosystem.

Back to the Black Prison battlefield, facing this ’explosion’ directly, Zheng Qing realized that only such ’explosions’ involving rules and concepts could truly harm or even destroy a top-level Great Wizard.

Perhaps due to this realization, or perhaps because he faced a ’semi-forbidden curse’ explosion once, the solid seed deep in Zheng Qing’s soul slightly trembled and sprouted anew.

However, the young wizard, fully focused on the ’explosion’ scene, did not immediately notice this.

Due to the proximity, Zheng Qing clearly witnessed the entire process of this ’explosion’—the Druid Grand Priest Seberk within the faint black light ball widened his eyes in horror, opened his mouth as if wanting to say something, but no sound emerged.

People could only see the brilliance bursting from around it, as if trying to compete with the black light ball. Yet, with the distortion of light, the silence of magic, and the dimming of colors, the figure of the Great Druid began to fade bit by bit from people’s sight. Like a watercolor painting wetted, or as if someone erased it bit by bit with an eraser.

There was no magic tide erupting in a desperate fight, nor any chaotic rule flows stirring frantically. A powerful wizard just vanished suddenly and quietly within the faint black light ball, with frustration and silence.

This was the first Great Wizard-level existence sacrificed since the outbreak of the war on this battlefield.

From the sky above the inner castle to the edge of the outer castle; from the two suns ripped across the sky to the Colors of Star peeking at the war from the end of the Black Prison World; from wizards to demons, all Great Wizard-level beings were observing this destruction with their gaze.

And those young wizards responsible for inducing the death of the first Great Wizard.

To the extent that their struggle over the remaining four Xuanhuang Fruits slightly eased.

Those gazes, tangible and filled with pressure, were so intense that Zheng Qing even felt as if he could hear the clang when the Great Wizards and Great Demons’ gazes met.

He instinctively shivered, immediately snapping out of the daze from the Great Wizard’s demise, recalling the scroll the black cat tossed him before the explosion.

Without a word, he tore it open—after all, the cat said to tear it open at a certain point, implying the timing was up to Zheng Qing—the young scholarship student felt that the time to tear it was now.

To his slight disappointment, the scroll did not contain some powerful magic provided by the ’relevant departments’.

As expected, if it really contained powerful magic, the black cat wouldn’t have needed to blow itself up to stop that terrifying Great Wizard of the Dark Council.

There was only one line of spell on the scroll:

"Become a ghost, become a Yu, unseen by all!"

As Zheng Qing’s eyes swept over these eight words, the incantations and runes adorning the scroll dissipated sequentially, transforming into a stream of light, shooting towards the nearly disintegrating faint black light ball, then unfurling, retracting, and converging into a stream that landed back at Zheng Qing’s feet.

The boy lowered his head.

Due to the two suns splitting the shadows beneath him, one of them became a bit darker. An epiphany floated within his mind, just like when he appeared in the Land of Void after his own explosion, the black cat, not originally a living being, returned to its essence after the explosion and became Zheng Qing’s shadow once more.

Though he wondered if it could revert to its original state.

Just as this thought flickered through the young wizard’s mind, the slightly thickened shadow began swaying left and right on the ground, writhing like seaweed under the sea, while a notion squeezed into Zheng Qing’s mind—why aren’t you running yet?!

The cat indeed has nine lives.

Zheng Qing’s lips curved slightly, and he stood up—not sure if it was due to the fat man’s magic potion or the shadow’s side effects, he felt the originally empty magic power within him replenishing, reviving much of his strength.

"Follow the other wizards’ squads, retreat towards the back of the inner castle!"

The captain of the Atonement Hunting Team waved a hand, issuing new orders to his hunters at a rapid pace: "No fighting, no hesitating, start running immediately... the faster you run, the better!"

He completely forgot about his past mistake of leaving his teammates behind to ’play the hero’.

Zhang Ji Xin kept a stern face, silent; Xin Fat Man snickered coldly; Xiao Xiao lowered his eyelids, silent; Dylan was tying a new belt for himself—for the transformation earlier, he had to switch to a new robe.

Yet it was Blue Bird, usually reticent, who spoke on behalf of everyone this time.

"What about you?"

The swordsman in the blue robe succinctly asked, looking calmly at their captain.

Zheng Qing averted his eyes with a bit of guilt.

"I... I’ll come later," he muttered, lacking conviction: "There are a few other matters... unrelated to you all..."

"So much nonsense," Zhang Ji Xin rolled his eyes.

"If you want to bring Zhu Si back, you must defeat that Pureblood Mi-go," Xiao Xiao adjusted his glasses, the diviner’s gaze always sharp and seeing further than the other hunters in the team: "But in my view, on this battlefield, the little girl following that Mi-go might be safer than being with us."

The Doctor voiced the most troubling issue in Zheng Qing’s heart.

He had vaguely guessed the identity of that Mi-go, even the Rat Immortal, and precisely because of this, he had not rashly attacked that Mi-go.