Chapter 54: Joining the Battle

**Chapter 54: Joining the Battle**

Most importantly, he had only just arrived in this area. There was no reason he should’ve been discovered so soon.

The only explanation was that the native coalition possessed some detection method beyond his expectations.

“Damn it! The detection range of Alchemy is too limited!”

Attempting to activate his runic wizard tool for flight, Jie Ming’s expression darkened when he realized the surrounding area was under an anti-flight restriction.

Alchemy and Analysis Technique, after all, weren’t specialized detection witchcraft. Even with his sixth-layer Qi Refinement cultivation, their maximum detection radius was only about a hundred meters.

The advantage was their precision in analyzing energy and materials, making them ideal for scavenging resources.

The downside, however, was evident now—if the enemy was prepared, they could encircle him unnoticed.

“Damn it! I’ll study detection witchcraft when I get out!” Jie Ming’s tone was laced with irritation.

Being hunted on such a massive, premeditated scale sparked a surge of anger within him.

Jie Ming wasn’t one to revel in slaughter or harm the innocent, but neither was he someone who’d tolerate being bullied.

Since they’d come knocking, there was nothing more to say.

He exhaled slowly, his expression turning icy. “Want to kill me? Fine. If you want a fight, I’ll give you one!”

Activating his mobility runic wizard tool—though flight was restricted, it still bore inscriptions for Light Body Technique—his form blurred into a shadow, charging toward the native coalition’s weakest flank, where life signatures were sparsest.

He could sense more enemies converging from further out.

Breaking through would be easy, but Jie Ming wasn’t about to let them off lightly.

If the earlier ambushes could be called accidents, this was them spitting in his face. He had to return the favor!

Merely eliminating this small group was pointless, and charging their main force was suicidal.

Jie Ming knew that to disrupt a legion of this scale single-handedly, he needed to scatter their formations, sabotage their supplies, and dismantle their command structure.

*Boom! Boom! Boom!*

A torrent of fireballs poured from his hands, effortlessly clearing the enemies before him and breaking out of the encirclement.

…

…

Over the next few days, Jie Ming moved like a phantom along the edges of the intense battlefield.

On the battlefield, the low energy consumption and near-infinite usability of his runic wizard tools were amplified to their fullest.

As long as the core materials remained intact and the surrounding elemental energy kept up with consumption, he could unleash a flood of witchcraft in a short time, like a mobile artillery platform.

Using the mobility runic tool for blinding speed to approach enemies, he deflected arrows and spell attacks with his defensive runic tool.

Most crucially, he used his attack runes for precise strikes on the native coalition’s key points—shamans in distinctive garb, commanding officers, and supply caravans.

Often, he simply hovered far in the sky, unleashing indiscriminate, saturated firepower on the densest native formations until his runic tools overheated, then swiftly withdrew.

To counter the natives’ unknown detection methods, Jie Ming adopted no fixed tactics, acting on whim.

Like a mad artist splashing paint on a canvas, each stroke carried devastating power.

His overwhelming strength soon sowed chaos and fear among the native coalition.

“What is that? A wizard?!”

“How is this possible?! How many spells has he cast?! Why hasn’t his mental energy run out?!”

“Stop him! The flank’s in disarray!”

The natives had never seen a wizard capable of such relentless spellcasting.

Their tactics relied on attrition, exploiting wizards’ limited mental energy.

But Jie Ming’s appearance shattered their understanding.

His figure darted along the battlefield’s edges, each flicker accompanied by explosions and fallen natives.

Their meticulously crafted hunting net developed massive holes in the face of this unexpected “phantom.”

…

…

In the Limestone Realm’s valley, a desperate atmosphere coiled like a cold serpent around the trapped Noren Academy apprentices.

The natives’ arrow rain and knight charges left them gasping, their wizard tools’ energy screeching to depletion, potion bottles shattering one by one, unable to halt the dual exhaustion of mental and willpower.

Augusta and Horn, the two geniuses once pinned with high hopes, were now entangled by the natives’ targeted tactics and numerical advantage, struggling in their own predicaments.

Like mighty trees in a storm, they stood resilient but were steadily eroded.

Yet, just as the apprentices’ defenses teetered on collapse, a dazzling light pierced the valley’s gloom.

“Look! Over there!”

Someone shouted, and many apprentices instinctively looked up, soon catching crude images shared through detection tools, “seeing” a direction beyond the valley’s edge.

The sight before them made them forget their pain and fear of death.

A godlike figure rampaged through the native coalition’s flanks and rear.

With no fixed path—darting left, right, forward, back—he was too fast to track.

Each pause unleashed a cataclysmic flood of elemental power.

Fireballs fell like meteor showers, reducing native formations to scorched earth, their terrifying density and persistence defying all understanding of wizardly power.

“What… what is that?!”

“Such strong elemental fluctuations! Just one person?!”

The apprentices were stunned.

They’d never seen anyone sustain such high-level witchcraft endlessly, as if their mental energy was infinite.

The natives’ numerical advantage seemed feeble before this force.

The valley’s outer native forces were thrown into disarray, their arrow rain on the valley thinning as their flanks suffered massive casualties.

It was hope!

In their desperation, they saw a glimmer of survival!

“Someone’s helping us!”

“Is it support from the Academy?”

“No way support is just one person!”

“Whoever it is, while he’s drawing their fire, counterattack!”

The trapped apprentices’ spirits lifted. Seizing the natives’ brief chaos and troop adjustments, they shored up their crumbling defenses and mounted a shaky counterattack.