Locke hid within the common people's building layer of the port city, frowning as he looked toward the dark gate in the sky.

It seemed the Black Wizard Alliance truly intended to launch a full-scale attack on the White Wizard Association this time.

"I should observe the situation first. I'm not a die-hard loyalist of Lilith's Cottage, so I can only protect the academy within reasonable limits and fulfill the obligations in my contract," Locke said. "If the situation becomes too dangerous, I should still leave here as soon as possible."

"It would be best if I could first restore Lilith's Cottage's defensive barrier. As long as we can activate the large-scale Life Force Field barrier, we can effectively stop those black wizards' attack on Lilith's Cottage."

Locke saw a skeleton wearing a white bone crown leading a large group of skeleton armies walking along this street.

Skeleton Kings were high-level undead life forms. Among the black wizard organizations in the southeastern quadrant, it seemed the White Bone Cult researched this field the most.

"Most of the First Circle wizards in the academy seem to have gone out during this time period, so is this a backdoor raid?" Locke pondered.

Skeleton Kings possessed the ability to summon Skeleton Mages from corpses, and Skeleton Mages possessed the ability to summon Skeleton Warriors from corpses. So a single Skeleton King could raise a skeleton army in an extremely short time.

At this moment, the Skeleton King's troops were hunting the common people in the civilian city. Large numbers of common people were screaming as those white bone skeletons caught up to them, then mercilessly killed them. From their corpses, Skeleton Warriors wielding bone spears crawled out.

The Skeleton King laughed heartily. It held a bone staff, and on top of its skull were magic arrays after magic arrays, as if a formal wizard from the White Bone Cult was remotely controlling it. "Not enough, not enough, not enough, we need more Skeleton Warriors."

"Hahahaha, the number of enemies is limited, but the number of my skeleton legion increases every moment."

"The skeleton legion must be like an ocean, drowning the enemy."

"Kill, kill, kill."

It pointed the white bone in its hand forward, and immediately several bone blades flew out, landing on the ox cart of a fleeing family of three craftsmen, about to kill them but in the next moment, those bone blades suddenly missed and landed elsewhere.

At the same time, all the skeletons present, including the Skeleton King, had the psionic magic on their bodies forcibly deleted and purified in an instant. One soul after another that had been forced to remain in skeletal bodies was able to leave the bodies of the neither-living-nor-dead.

Locke walked through the alley, his eyes calm.

The number of skeleton armies was completely futile in the face of a First Circle wizard's permanent defensive field.

No matter how many skeleton armies there were, they were just a bunch of small fry. Once the Life Force Field barrier was activated, they would all be forcibly purified.

The undead sea of Necromancy magic at the apprentice stage posed not the slightest threat to a First Circle wizard.

The Skeleton King's bones rapidly decayed. The soul fire within its skull kept flickering and jumping, frightened and uneasy. "Formal... formal wizard... it's actually a formal wizard."

"No... my skeleton legion, ahh..."

Dense psionic magic rune-inscribed psionic arrays were forced to appear on its massive skeleton frame. One rune after another was forcibly destroyed under the oppression of the Life Force Field barrier, and then the various psionic arrays on its body began to shatter.

The soul fire within the Skeleton King's skull could no longer be contained. The flames suddenly extinguished. A Skeleton King's skeleton frame futilely knelt on the ground and lowered its skull. The white bone crown on that skull also fell to the bluestone brick ground and shattered into two halves.

Locke examined the small portion of psionic arrays remaining on this Skeleton King's body. "Hmm, the White Bone Cult's psionic school skeleton sub-magic is quite interesting."

"Using psionic arrays to forcibly bind souls within skeletal frames to form soul fire, and having these skeletons devour each other to form high-level skeleton undead."

Locke examined this Skeleton King, using the residual magic to reversely understand the characteristics of the White Bone Cult's common magical concepts. "This is... there are actually traces of wizard apprentices' souls being devoured."

"The souls and bones of the White Bone Cult's black wizard apprentices who failed in competition are all used as materials for skeletons."

"Using students as magical materials, truly making the most of everything. Worthy of being black wizards indeed."

Locke waved his hand, and the entire Skeleton King began to collapse and dissipate into the air.

"I'm afraid the White Bone Cult deliberately transforms some excellent students into this type of Skeleton King. The original body of this Skeleton King was a first-class wizard apprentice..."

"It was transformed from him."

"Fortunately, I didn't go to the White Bone Cult back then. What kind of hellish place is that?"

Locke looked in the direction of his residence. "Forget it, I should first go check on Lilith's Cottage's defensive barrier. If the barrier isn't restarted, returning to my residence won't help."

Suddenly, the ground rumbled again. The expression on Locke's face immediately became serious. He looked up at the sky and saw the sky covered with a ring of aurora.

"This is..."

"The elements in the environment... have lost balance. Wood element is rapidly diminishing in scale."

Locke frowned and looked around. "Have the plants gone on collective strike? The Blood Curse Court's ecology knowledge is poor. This isn't something they could accomplish. It should be technical support provided by the Black Wizard Alliance."

"No wonder the Corpse Control Court had to surround the entire Lilith's Cottage main campus, isolating inside from outside."

After bribing the entire Lilith's Cottage region, the Blood Curse Court had actually caused large areas of plants in this land to stop working. Forests began withering, and grasslands began yellowing.

After all the plants went on strike, it immediately caused the wood element particle production in this region to plummet.

Plants had meaning for this world's ecology and held a very important position.

At this moment, the consequence of all plants striking was that the elemental balance in this region further spiraled out of control.

The climate would gradually become extreme, atmospheric composition would undergo abnormal changes, dry regions would become even drier, and flooded regions would suffer worse floods. Of course, those were things for much later.

But at this moment, under the deliberate manipulation of the Black Wizard Alliance, they were accelerating the situations that would occur after all plants went on strike through a series of black magic.

In other words, they were exterminating the entire ecological environment of Lilith's Cottage.

"Lilith's Cottage is the domain of plant-based wizards," Locke thought. "Lilith's Cottage has a large number of public buildings that are all a type of special plant ecology. I'm afraid many trump cards are also related to the ecosystem here."

"Are they using this method to completely cut off Lilith's Cottage main campus's ability to counterattack?"

At this moment, under the acceleration of black magic, Locke already felt the life energy in the air rapidly decreasing, and oxygen content was also dropping.

Through a series of complex changes, even the temperature was beginning to slowly rise. Most troublesome was that Lilith's Cottage's main campus was in a port city, so the nearby coastal areas were also part of this special ecology.

At this time, with the elements losing balance, water element, fire element, wind element, and earth element all displayed different characteristics of going out of control.

Wood element was the greatest mediator harmonizing the four basic elements of the world, but at this moment, it was beginning to be absent here because of the plants' collective strike.

Therefore, tsunamis, fires, storms, and landslides appeared, and even the city's foundations were collapsing.

This wasn't something the Blood Curse Court's ecology knowledge could create. This was the result of the Black Wizard Alliance of the southeastern quadrant casting spells together.

"This is actually a rare opportunity to observe ecology," Locke said. First Circle plant-based wizards had already reached the stage of researching overall ecology.

One of the ultimate goals of plant studies was to use magical plants to create a perfect, flawless ecosystem.

For plant-based wizards, observing special ecosystems and observing various changes in ecosystems could rapidly improve their understanding of plant-based magic.

At this time, Locke suddenly sensed the intervention of the Nibelung Astrology System. He relaxed his mental power and agreed to let the other party's divination magic system connect to his mental link.

"You... are Locke Augustine?" There was some surprise in Witch Gabriel's voice. "My God, I was only trying to use the Nibelung Astrology System to confirm how many formal wizards are still in Lilith's Cottage's main campus."

"Who would have known I'd discover that you, Locke, have become a formal wizard. Your mana... has your mana gasified?"

Witch Gabriel's voice contained some astonishment and jealousy. "You... how did you manage it? I'm still just an ordinary formal wizard."