A massive chasm, as if born from the abyss, slowly tore open across the sky!

The once-blue heavens were now stained with an eerie void, a realm of death that devoured all light!

“The sky… collapsed?!”

The void-like rift stretching across the horizon, like a wound from the dawn of creation, swallowed light and hope alike.

Jie Ming’s mind blanked for a moment, his pupils contracting to pinpoints, every hair on his body standing on end.

He’d witnessed high-tier powers before, but this grand spectacle, capable of effortlessly rending a plane, was beyond comprehension.

Even during his trials in the Elosia Plane, when a seventh-rank wizard forcibly tore through a plane’s barrier, it paled in comparison to the shock and despair before him now!

Yet, Jie Ming quickly snapped out of his stupor.

He noticed, at the center of the rending sky, a strikingly familiar “sphere” appeared—the Ship Plane, one he’d once been inside!

“So that’s it,” Jie Ming realized instantly.

The disturbance wasn’t the sky collapsing but the Ship Plane and the Flamefrost Plane, under Master Augustine’s control, undergoing a cataclysmic “mutual collision”!

This was exponentially more terrifying than the sights he’d seen in the Elosia Plane.

He’d thought a seventh-rank wizard tearing a plane’s sky was impressive enough.

But witnessing two planes collide in such a brutal, direct manner left an even deeper, bone-chilling impression.

“No wonder Mentor Clark said some native inhabitants surrender the moment wizards invade. With an invasion this dramatic… only a rare few would dare resist,” Jie Ming mused.

The thought flashed through his mind, followed by another critical realization:

“Wait, this means… Master Augustine is piloting the Ship Plane back?”

This fact sparked a flurry of questions in Jie Ming’s heart.

The most pressing, and the first to hit him, was—

“Hold on! How did Augustine return so precisely?”

Jie Ming’s mind raced.

He recalled the intelligence he’d gathered on the Flamefrost Plane:

Due to the constant “Water Element Plane Projection,” the outer regions of the Flamefrost Plane experienced an abnormally accelerated time flow.

This temporal distortion posed a massive challenge for wizards traveling to and from the plane through the chaotic void. Even a brief departure and return could mean years, or decades, passing within the Flamefrost Plane!

Yet Augustine, in mere months, had piloted the Ship Plane back to the junction, gathered reinforcements from the main plane, and returned via this plane-colliding spectacle…

That was impossibly fast!

From the wizarding world’s perspective, it was godlike speed.

But given the Flamefrost Plane’s accelerated time flow, it was simply impossible!

“Wait… accelerated time flow?” Jie Ming froze as the term clicked.

His gaze locked onto the magma giants, still relentlessly charging yet held at bay by the node’s defenses.

More precisely, he focused on the “time-stasis fields” enveloping them!

Certain truths began to pierce through the fog.

The magma giants and snow beasts, mortal enemies, had set out from opposite ends of the plane toward its center.

Crucially, both carried time-stasis energy fields.

When they converged in that fleeting moment, it meant the entire Flamefrost Plane was enveloped by a strategic-level “time-stasis field”!

The wizards, protected by the pre-activated Temporal Stability Anchor, were unaffected and could operate normally.

But the Flamefrost Plane itself was now frozen in time!

The chaotic void sea’s time was already erratic, with each plane’s temporal flow relatively independent.

When the Flamefrost Plane was halted, other planes’ time continued unabated.

From the Ship Plane’s temporal standard, Augustine’s round trip—leaving the Flamefrost Plane, gathering reinforcements at the junction, and returning—took less than an hour.

But from the Flamefrost Plane’s perspective, that external time could equate to a decade or more!

Yet, with the plane entirely covered by the time-stasis field, the situation reversed.

No matter how much time passed in the chaotic void sea’s other planes, the Flamefrost Plane remained locked in that frozen moment.

Thus, within that “same moment” of stasis, Master Augustine piloted the Ship Plane back with a massive reinforcement army.

This wasn’t just clear to Jie Ming—other wizards, after brief reflection, grasped it too!

But this realization led to deeper questions.

“This… doesn’t this mean?!” A second-rank wizard at Jie Ming’s node widened his eyes. “Augustine… has already allied with the Flamefrost Plane’s monsters?!”

“Damn that old fox!”

The surrounding wizards quickly pieced together the truth.

Wizards weren’t fools—far from it.

The perfunctory performance of both sides in this battle, combined with Augustine’s precise return with the Ship Plane and reinforcements, practically screamed that an alliance had been formed.

Though the wizards were indignant at being played like pawns, their focus soon shifted to a new question:

If Augustine had allied with the monsters, who was their real enemy?

Undoubtedly, for two mortal enemy races to set aside their hatred, even betraying their own plane to “cooperate” with the wizard civilization, and with such cautious actions…

There was clearly a far more terrifying, powerful enemy they faced!

Yet, despite the wizards scouring nearly the entire Flamefrost Plane, no trace of another intelligent civilization or its overlord had been found.

This eerie unknown cast a heavy shadow over every wizard’s heart.

Compared to the others, Jie Ming thought even further.

He suddenly understood why the magma giants and snow beasts couldn’t produce “Mortal Dust Qi.”

“What a… troublesome situation…” Jie Ming sighed.

Previously, when he discovered these races couldn’t generate Mortal Dust Qi, he’d considered various possibilities.

The Great Dao Book Pavilion had plenty of material on this, offering numerous theories with a bit of reference.

The best-case scenario was that these races were part of one or two “shared consciousness” entities, each individual merely a cell of a greater being.

A single entity couldn’t form a “society,” thus producing no Mortal Dust Qi.

If true, finding the “core” would solve everything.

The worst-case scenario was the current one: the Flamefrost Plane’s monster hordes were “owned”!

This mirrored other races under the wizard civilization—conquered or enslaved, unable to provide Jie Ming with Mortal Dust Qi.

Conceptually, they didn’t form a “true society” but were in a state of being “domesticated,” “colonized,” or… “farmed.”

Now, Augustine’s alliance with the two monster races, and their abnormal behavior, clearly indicated a more powerful “overlord” behind them!

Jie Ming was a step ahead of the other wizards in this realization.

But it deepened his unease.

An entity capable of enslaving such powerful, numerous monster races—whether a civilization or an individual—was undoubtedly formidable.

And Jie Ming was equally curious: where was this mysterious enemy hiding?

The wizards had combed the Flamefrost Plane and found no trace of another civilization or its overlord!

That was the most chilling part!

But there was no time for further thought.

Buzz…

A unified command from the three fifth-rank wizards rang through the magical network and node communicators, heavy with unprecedented gravity:

“All personnel! Toward the camp! Prepare for impact!”

The order came abruptly, but the wizards didn’t hesitate.

Veterans of countless battles, they understood the commander’s intent.

Since Augustine had openly allied with the monster races, this command was reasonable.

All nodes simultaneously retracted their scattered energy, instantly forming thick energy shields facing the camp!

Layered runic curtains stacked like an elemental steel wall!

Wizards not operating nodes also ceased attacks, deploying their strongest defensive spells.

Magic shields, force barriers, spatial distortions… colorful protective spells lit up instantly.