The fifth-level wizard in dark red robes stared at the blackened remains of the Prowler on the ground, his brows furrowed tightly.

Experience told him that creatures with such simplistic body structures were highly likely artificial constructs.

After destroying a second Prowler, he was essentially certain: his position had been exposed.

Since he was already discovered, hiding further was no longer viable.

His mental force surged, instantly layering three shields of different attributes upon himself.

With defenses in place, he lifted off the ground, preparing to ascend quickly and escape this potentially encircled area.

Just as his body began to rise, a spot roughly a thousand meters to his side-front emitted an extremely faint ripple, like water patterns in space.

“Spatial teleportation? Or concealment?” Alarm bells rang in the fifth-level wizard’s mind.

As a fifth-level wizard, his sensitivity to spatial fluctuations was extraordinary, and he possessed considerable knowledge of spatial matters. He immediately realized an enemy was approaching via spatial means.

He did not panic. Rich combat experience guided him to the most rational response—outwardly maintaining his ascent while secretly mobilizing mental force, readying a fourth-ring witchcraft specifically for countering spatial movement: [Spatial Stagnation].

Now!

At the peak of the spatial fluctuation, he fiercely locked onto the source with his mental force, the tip of his staff erupting in silver-gray light.

[Spatial Stagnation] spread like an invisible web, instantly enveloping the area!

He was confident: as long as the opponent emerged there, even a brief stagnation would give his follow-up witchcraft time to crush them.

Hiss—!

Yet almost simultaneously with [Spatial Stagnation]’s activation, a teeth-grinding tear—like fabric being ripped apart—sounded from behind him!

His three meticulously layered shields, especially the outermost force field, flashed wildly, their structures destabilizing!

“Behind me? Impossible!!” Every hair on the fifth-level wizard’s body stood on end, an icy despair surging up his spine to the top of his head.

He wanted to dodge, to turn—but having just precisely released [Spatial Stagnation], his mental force and body were in a brief “recovery” state, leaving no time for effective reaction!

Puff! Puff! Puff!

The three shields crumbled like paper before absolute power and the bizarre attack method!

In the next instant, Jie Ming’s figure materialized from nowhere behind the fifth-level wizard like a ghost, as if he had always been standing there.

His right hand maintained a forward thrusting posture, faint black cracks from slicing space lingering at its edge.

[Spatial Slash]!

This strike, born from the shearing force of phase switching, ignored conventional energy defenses, precisely breaching the fifth-level wizard’s shields, robes, and the flesh beneath.

It carved a massive, impeccably smooth wound in his back!

Jie Ming’s palm followed the [Spatial Slash], plunging like a blade through the defensive gap and piercing straight through the wizard.

His hand emerged clutching the opponent’s still-powerfully beating heart!

“Urgh…!” The fifth-level wizard’s body stiffened violently, agony and the weakness of rapid life force drain assaulting him simultaneously.

Jie Ming’s expression remained impassive as his five fingers clenched!

Squish!

The heart, brimming with vast vital energy, burst in his grasp like overripe fruit.

He withdrew his arm, trailing a spray of hot blood.

The fifth-level wizard staggered a step and collapsed to his knees.

Hands clutching the horrific hole in his chest, he gasped heavily, his face turning deathly pale in an instant.

Feeling the void and pain from his missing heart, he laboriously raised his head, glancing at Jie Ming behind him—breathing steadily, his wizard robe barely stained with blood. A trace of bitterness and resignation flashed in his eyes.

“I… lost.” His voice was hoarse.

Heart destruction was merely a minor injury for a fifth-level wizard; he had several methods to sustain life or even regrow it.

But he knew full well: the opponent had instantly breached all defenses with such a bizarre method at his most vigilant moment, delivering a “fatal” blow. The gap was obvious.

His survival was solely because the opponent adhered to the “stop at serious injury” rule.

Jie Ming’s face resumed its harmless smile as he gave a slight bow to the defeated fifth-level wizard, a gesture of courtesy among lineage peers.

Then, his figure flickered, vanishing into thin air once more like merging with the atmosphere, leaving no trace.

The fifth-level wizard endured the agony and weakness, carefully scanning the area where Jie Ming disappeared, combing every inch of space with his mental force like a fine-toothed comb.

Yet he was stunned to find it calm as if nothing had occurred—no residual spatial disturbances, no energy leakage.

“Completely… incomprehensible…” He sighed helplessly, frustration etched on his face.

In the wizard world, failing to understand an opponent’s methods often meant an insurmountable chasm in the relevant knowledge domain.

He had to admit: in understanding and applying spatial knowledge, he had been utterly defeated by a wizard two levels below him.

Mobilizing mental force to manipulate his flesh, the massive penetrating wound in his chest began writhing and healing at visible speed, even regrowing his heart.

Once mostly recovered, he shook his head, struggling to his feet, preparing to fly back to the palace.

Having lost, lingering held no meaning.

Yet the moment the thought arose—before he could even mobilize mental force—his vision blurred and shifted.

When it cleared, he was back in the grand hall.

He knew this was undoubtedly Wizard Noren’s doing, teleporting confirmed losers directly back.

Looking up, he found the hall’s atmosphere somewhat peculiar.

Most wizards’ attention was not on him, the recent returnee in defeat, but nearly all fixed on several massive light screens floating above the hall.

The screens clearly displayed battles unfolding across the contest area.

The most prominent, drawing the most gazes, was the central one tracking Jie Ming’s actions.

Within the hall, only the interwoven energy images on the screens and occasional low murmurs filled the air.

The wizards present were all called geniuses outside; their discernment was extraordinarily sharp.

Jie Ming’s lightning-fast assault and concealment appeared simple but contained technical profundity that left even these experienced high-level beings wide-eyed.

“Multitasking three ways—sustaining two ongoing spatial witchcrafts on himself while diverting attention to control decoy fluctuations and launch a precise attack…” A white-haired third-generation disciple murmured, disbelief written across his face.

Simple multitasking was no great feat for wizards with mental force tempered thousands of times.

Handling multiple tasks and constructing several witchcraft models simultaneously was a required skill for many elite wizards.

Releasing spatial witchcraft alone, though complex, could be achieved by several present who specialized in it.

But combining the two—in the midst of intense, ever-changing combat, continuously maintaining multiple high-consumption, high-precision spatial witchcrafts, especially on oneself as a “high-value, high-interference” target—this was utterly inconceivable!

The reason lay in spatial witchcraft’s infamous “computational black hole” nature.

Space was one of the foundational frameworks of planes, its rules complex and subtle.

Any spatial witchcraft—from the basic [Blink] to advanced [Spatial Leap]—required massive real-time calculations for coordinate positioning, channel stabilization, countering space’s inherent “resilience,” and external interference.

This computational load grew geometrically with the witchcraft’s effects.

Ongoing spatial witchcrafts like [Phase Shift] and [Spatial Stabilization]—requiring constant maintenance and dynamic parameter adjustments with the wizard’s movement—were bottomless pits of computational drain.

Unlike one-off attack spells that ended upon release, they demanded continuous precise mental force investment.

Critically, when applied to the caster themselves, computational complexity exploded with the wizard’s own energy level!

A wizard was a massive aggregate of energy and mass; safely embedding such a “colossus” into phase space or constructing a stable spatial field around it required countering disturbances and computational load directly proportional to the wizard’s own scale and energy tier.

In essence, ongoing self-applied spatial witchcraft consumed computation as a percentage of the wizard’s own energy level!

The higher the level, the more terrifying the cost!

For supremely gifted geniuses with mental force control and computation far surpassing peers, barely managing “dual-tasking” to sustain two self-buffs might be possible.

But diverting a third thread of focus for precise control of another independent witchcraft? Delusional—at least before the soul essence leap at seventh level, it was widely deemed impossible!

Yet Jie Ming had done it.

“Tsk tsk, Clark, this disciple of yours… is a bit demonic.” Wizard Augusta nudged Clark with his elbow, tone full of amazement. “What he just did… could you manage it?”

Mentor Clark gave him a look that said “what a stupid question” without a word.

But Augusta understood immediately: even Clark himself likely couldn’t.

In fact, none of the sixth-level wizards present could probably replicate Jie Ming’s feat.

“Unless… I install another brain on myself. But this kid shows no signs of body modification…”

He grew even more intrigued by the figure on the light screen, stroking his chin and clicking his tongue in wonder.