Chapter 673

Chapter 673: The Difficult World Invasion

World invasion is a rather unfamiliar term during the Red Heaven era, but it is not nonexistent.

In the era ruled by the king of the Manifest Realm, there was talk of world invasions, but what was being invaded was the Manifest Realm, a necessary step to kill the king of the Manifest Realm.

By the time of the multiverse era, world invasion became true cross-world actions, rather than a realm created by the king of the Manifest Realm.

Generally, only invading the "Opposing Universes" counts as an invasion; even the "Marginal Universes" do not qualify.

The Marginal Universes have already come under the rule of one’s own universe, significantly lowering the difficulty of invasion, as it would only result in suppressed powers without the threat of death.

Yun Ye set out from the Hongmeng realm, traversing the void to a previously unexplored world, ultimately arriving in the "Opposing Universes," which perfectly fit the description of an invasion.

A beam of light fell onto the boundless black ocean, causing no ripples.

"Ahem, ahem, ahem…"

Yun Ye stood on the water surface, coughing repeatedly.

This was the Opposing Universe, a place where no Master of Heaven’s Cavern had ever invaded, and the rules were completely incompatible with the Red Heaven realm.

What would an invader be like in such a situation?

Everything he saw was twisted and dark.

Everything he breathed was poison.

All he could feel was chaos and emptiness.

In this environment, most people would die in an instant; one would need to reach the Honored Position and gain authority over a realm to barely survive.

Yun Ye had not reached that level, but he wielded Earth’s Wind, Water, and Fire from birth, possessed Cave Power, and was protected by the Daoist Robe of Heavenly Feather Light. So, even after crossing a long distance, he was merely weakened rather than directly consumed by the world.

Amidst his coughing, Yun Ye’s physique adapted to the new environment. Although the strange, twisted scenery could not be erased, he could calculate and restore it to the appearance he wished to see.

The toxic air did not matter; he did not need to breathe anyway, so there was no need to waste Cave Power on adjustments.

Yun Ye examined himself and found that even with the protection of the Divine Artifact, his own power was greatly depleted.

His body flickered and faded, losing its presence; his powers were significantly downgraded. If this state continued for too long, his bloodline and strength would likely face permanent degradation, consumed by this world.

“Is it the amplification of the side effects from the transmission?”

Yun Ye muttered, pressing his forehead and closing his eyes to activate the ancient and modern Future Spirit Law, allowing the past and future of the entire world to reflect in his eyes.

In his view, the past was blurry, while the future appeared clearer.

The ancient and modern Future Spirit Law did not include "past Dao Law," only the past Spirit Law derived from the Heavenly Dry Universe, allowing him to glimpse the past mainly due to the endless enhancement of the Countless Dao Classics on the Spirit Law.

When in the Red Heaven cosmic cluster, the ancient and modern Future Spirit Law was always successful, but in the Opposing Universe, it fell short and became unclear.

However, the difference was not significant; the future was often more important than the past.

“I must find this special person as soon as possible, or else…”

He took a step forward toward his destination.

In reality, even transmission between parallel worlds burdens cultivators, let alone the Opposing Universe.

Ignoring the burdens and continuously transmitting could lead to a situation where the body could not be reorganized, suffering heavy damage to both soul and body.

This was a Dao injury, a kind of damage on the rule level, which was difficult to heal with ordinary means.

Yun Ye crossed a long distance and underwent continuous transmission. After arriving in this world, his body felt ethereal, and his power was reduced to almost nothing.

However, such Dao injury is not rare in the modern era. Even those who are not Honored Beings may experience such injuries. For instance, cultivators imprisoned in hell often face constant death and rebirth; after hundreds of years, their souls and bodies become riddled with wounds.

This situation has led to a market for various techniques, lowering the threshold for treating Dao injuries. Yun Ye has also mastered some repair methods, allowing him to barely maintain his condition. As long as he finds the destined person of this world and contracts with them, he can borrow their fortune to gradually recover.

But this is Yun Ye. Unlike Nan Xi, who lacks a powerful background and does not possess unmatched talent, she cannot bear the costs of recovering from her Dao injuries. Without serving a power like the Celestial Court of Destiny, she has no technological solutions even with money.

“Woo! Woo! Woo!”

Birds that resemble seagulls cried out as they flew across the blue sky. The twisted world began to restore itself from this point onward.

Flowing liquids reverted to oceans, distorted sky creatures transformed back into birds, and various life forms beneath the water did the same.

Although it feels like a self-deception, Yun Ye was finally able to look directly at this world. Maintaining a constant twisted state is a torment for a cultivator’s mind.

Only the world can counter the contamination of the world; relying solely on will is useless, so it is best to deceive oneself with illusions to avoid mental pollution.

As he journeyed, Yun Ye’s understanding of the multiverse grew clearer.

In this universe, he was constantly shrouded in the world’s inherent malice, with all matter rejecting him as an outsider.

If it weren’t for the protective covering of Cave Power against this malice, all forms of life would likely attack him without hesitation, and even inanimate objects might do the same, causing sudden earthquakes, fissures, falling meteors, and various explosions…

This is the universe’s instinctive response to foreign matter; the clearer the world will is, the stronger the rejection becomes.

“This is a plane, precisely the type where the world’s will is strongest, often featuring a clear main character and a fated future. If a weak outsider arrives in such a world, they will either be crushed and devoured or assimilated and forget their identity.”

In Yun Ye’s eyes, he saw a beam of light, shimmering brilliantly at the other end of the ocean.

This was the light of fortune; he could see the area where the light was located, and the entire material, space, and time of the plane world leaned toward it.

To put it metaphorically, the external part of this beam resembled a funnel, with the possibilities of the entire plane converging. In a way, plane-type worlds are the easiest to resolve because everything occurs at a single point. Eliminating that point would cause the foundation of the world to collapse.

Although he didn’t understand why planes were so focused on individual heroism, this was advantageous for the invaders, saving them a lot of time.

After about half a day, Yun Ye finally reached the area, where a battleship came into view.

The beam of light originated from a location on this battleship.

“Noah, huh…”

Yun Ye ignored the hull of the ship and passed through it, arriving in the ship’s interior to stand before a white-haired boy.

He reached out his hand, only for it to pass through the white-haired boy.

His ethereal state was quite high, and his presence was extremely low, failing to attract anyone’s attention. He struggled to interact with objects or engage in conversation, needing a Spirit Law of the Open Heaven level to break through.

He didn’t forcibly break through, instead silently standing aside and patiently waiting for events to unfold.

The fortune’s main character often encounters many events. While they may not die, they will face setbacks. The boy before him was not an invincible protagonist but was soon to experience his first major change in life; he could act then.

“Distortion reaction increasing!”

“Ship’s hull being eroded!”

“Immediately withdraw from the interference range!”

Continuous reports rang out. Through the dialogue of these people, even without reading minds, Yun Ye quickly understood the language of this other world.

From bits and pieces of conversation, he grasped the general situation.

This world has two peculiarities: magic and distortion objects.

Magic is straightforward to explain; it is the extraordinary system of this world. Unlike traditional incantation-based magic, the magic here has modernized, completely discarding spells and relying purely on magic formulas for activation, resulting in efficiencies hundreds of times greater than before.

At the same time, it has modern magical weaponry to assist, making its destructive power, scale, and other attributes unimaginable.

According to research in modern magical science, they believe that any human reaching S-level status today is equivalent to the gods described in ancient myths, capable of establishing a divine system that endures for centuries, making even modern humans worship them.

Meanwhile, an A-level national Mage is clearly akin to the main deities in ancient myths or first-tier gods, holding authority and controlling a region.

However, magic does not grant immortality, so even those powerful Mages from ancient times, who proclaimed themselves as gods, eventually met death.

Thus appeared the first generation of god-kings and the second generation of god-kings; they were merely powerful individuals…

After discussing magic, we move on to distortion objects.

These existed in ancient times but have never been as frequent as they are now. They are natural disasters, possessing unimaginable power.

Modern Mages still require mental strength as a source to cast their magic, but these distortion objects operate completely outside of this mechanism, ignoring the laws of nature. Their abilities do not weaken or strengthen; they only transmit according to rules and must be sealed by Mages to be contained.

Many ancient treasures relate to distortion objects, like the Holy Grail and the Philosopher’s Stone, but all of these treasures hold immense fear. In the end, their owners inevitably sealed them away, waiting for time to wear them down.

As for those that remained unsealed, their owners generally ended up dead…

“Mages can seal distortion objects?”

“Can they let time erode distortion objects?”

Yun Ye had already seen the so-called distortion objects and felt disoriented.

Although they were fundamentally weak and ominous, these objects undoubtedly represented authority; they adhered to some rules inherent in the world…

How could such weak Mages seal rules?

Moreover, could they completely erase them?

That was simply impossible.

Even if authority were infinitely divided, it would still possess an indestructible nature. Only similar authority could destroy it, and even then, it would only shatter rather than be annihilated entirely, as time would naturally give rise to it again.

Furthermore, the magic practitioners’ magic was not some kind of divine mental light or nature’s magic that could be replicated; it was a technology wholly incapable of suppressing authority, both in essence and quantity, far from attaining the level needed to suppress and eliminate authority.

Yet reality remains reality; Mages could indeed seal distortion objects. Yun Ye could only acknowledge his limited understanding in the face of reality.

In that case, he needed to observe closely, understanding himself and his enemy, ensuring victory in every battle.

“Begin sealing!”

As time progressed,

The five individuals spread out, and golden runes expanded, enveloping the building, thus completing the sealing.

Yun Ye continued to watch, examining the changes in the distortion objects.

He discovered that the key was not the Mages’ sealing; rather, these seals seemed to become a coordinate, causing the entire plane to spontaneously shift its power, just as the world repelled him as an outsider.

Thus, the effects of the distortion objects began to decrease, ultimately becoming completely ineffective.

The ominous nature of the distortion objects also shattered under the power of the plane, eventually disappearing, though it would return in some form many years later.

“Ah, I see now! Magic is merely a catalyst, indicating to the world that something is amiss and initiating a cleansing process? It seems the birth of humanity in this world is because the world’s will requires a sufficiently intelligent self-checking mechanism.”

Yun Ye followed Noah and Gunter toward the Ya Guang.

Unlike the two, he saw at a glance that Ya Guang had already been engulfed by shadow magic, constantly bombarded by lightning. Most of the pressure from this spell fell on the Ya Guang battleship.

The target of national-level magic is the nation, not individuals, and it is easy to destroy a battleship.

In just a few seconds, the Ya Guang sank, but to make Gunter, the national Mage, waste more power, they did not cancel the shadow magic. It was only when Gunter prepared to board that the heavenly thunder struck, shattering the disguise.

Boom!

The lightning evaporated large areas of water, and continuous explosions occurred. Even Gunter was battered and bruised, completely unable to defend himself.

Gunter spat out a mouthful of blood, his eyes fierce as he held Noah. He had never suffered such a major setback; he was entirely on the defensive.

However, there was still hope. His two teammates were not ordinary individuals. After hiding, they could seize the opportunity to launch a lethal strike.

The fact that they could escape from the onslaught of heavenly thunder demonstrated their high level of skill.

“Hehe.”

Three Mages emerged from the fog, each carrying a corpse on either side. Gunter’s pupils constricted…

It was Julia and Pang Fan!

Pang Fan had a gaping hole the size of a basketball through his chest, clearly dead, his eyes filled with disbelief.

Julia was in a similar state; she likely died from the fire meteor, her body flattened and heavily carbonized, her expression unreadable, probably in utter shock. As ace Mages, they had traversed the battlefield but never imagined they would die so tragically.

“Gunter, don’t overthink it. You think you can withstand my lightning with your body? That’s not even funny. My lightning is called heavenly thunder, not the kind from nature, but the kind from the gods. I can pierce through anything and unleash the energy to destroy everything. No material can defend against my lightning; it’s laughable that you even thought strengthening the magic would work…”

Hilo said lightly.

“The ace puppeteer does have some skill, but this is our home ground. The omnipresent electromagnetic waves won’t give her any chance to control us. Just imagine her helpless expression when we walk right in front of her; it’s truly delightful!”

Abu exclaimed, his eyes suddenly filled with killing intent as he fixed his gaze on Gunter. “Now it’s your turn, Gunter!”

The conflict between nations, the hatred between them, need not be elaborated.

The two major camps in this world, the Euro-Asian Alliance and the American Alliance, have formed since the Great War, with constant warfare and frequent skirmishes erupting regularly. This is precisely why the participation of S-level Mages in battles is restricted.

With S-level Mages, the advantage is overwhelming. As the war expands, they could even permanently alter landscapes and wipe out whole nations, destroying the environmental balance of the world.

Originally, Gunter could not comprehend this kind of deterrent power, having never seen a national Mage in action.

But today, he deeply understood this reality through the sacrifice of his teammates and himself; against such overwhelming strength, he had no chance to struggle.

“Yare yare, it seems this is the end.”

Gunter suddenly fired his gun.

Then, he was shot in the forehead and fell back, his lifeless body dropping straight into the sea as the magic support vanished.

“Foolishness. Human nerve activity is controlled by electric currents. After fighting for so long, you still thought your body was your own? You clearly don’t understand why our combined magic can reach national-level power,”

Padilla sneered.

“After today, everyone will understand.”

Hilo said, his gaze drifting to the side.

“Ah! Help! I’ll do anything! Please, save me!!!”

Noah had also fallen into the water, his fear completely ignited as he struggled desperately, realizing the meaning of death; he didn’t want to die.

The three of them stared at him for a moment, not acting immediately. They were also contemplating, wondering what this was…

“Contract, established.”

Then, they saw Noah being pulled as if by someone, suddenly yanked out of the water and kneeling on the surface.

Huh?

No fluctuations of magic power?

What happened? Who was there?