Chapter 656: Harvesting a Disaster-Level!

“It seems that by following the characteristics of The Strange, even without a sealing formation, it can still be conveniently subdued.”

Jie Ming clapped his hands and sat up from the bed, satisfied with discovering yet another property of The Strange.

He glanced down at his chest.

There wasn’t a single red mark on his skin. Everything was as usual, as if the silent confrontation earlier had never happened.

Looking at the metal sheet in his hand that sealed the Rift Dweller, Jie Ming thought for a moment and turned his gaze toward the basement.

Before long, the sound of footsteps climbing the stairs came from outside the bedroom door.

Soon, as the door opened, a metal box with limbs walked over to Jie Ming’s side.

The metal box leaped onto the bed, knelt respectfully before Jie Ming, opened its “skull,” and retrieved the other metal sheet stored inside that sealed the Shadow Thief.

Jie Ming casually picked it up. Sensing the mutual attraction between the two metal sheets, an idea formed in his mind.

He stood up, walked to the window, and pushed it open.

The cold midnight wind carried salty, damp air surging from the sea. Most of the lights in the old district had already been extinguished, leaving only a few scattered gas lamps struggling in the thick fog, emitting dim yet stubborn glows.

Jie Ming’s body floated out from the window like a fallen leaf swept up by the night wind, rising silently into the night sky.

The distance below seemed compressed in his perception. In just a few breaths, the rooftops of the old district had shrunk into a blurry silhouette beneath him. A faint glow slowly lit up around his body, blocking prying gazes coming from the darkness.

He flew toward the sea, his figure quickly merging into the thick fog.

The wind over the sea was far fiercer than on land.

The dense fog moved slowly between sea and sky like the breathing of some enormous creature.

Jie Ming hovered in the air roughly three hundred nautical miles from the coast. The seawater below was black as ink, reflecting not a single gleam of light.

It felt as if what lay beneath was not the sea, but a bottomless abyss.

He raised his right hand, palm facing downward.

The Alchemy Technique spell model in his spiritual sea was activated.

Water molecules in the air and substances in the seawater were restructured by an invisible force.

Under the control of his spiritual power, molecules collided rapidly, and the liquid in the ocean quickly condensed into tangible form.

Gray-white stone slabs began spreading outward from beneath his palm, like a stone flower silently blooming in the dark night.

Soon, a circular stone platform roughly five hundred meters in diameter stood upon the sea surface.

The platform’s surface was smooth as a mirror, with slightly raised edges and a slightly lower center, naturally forming a basin-like structure.

Jie Ming walked across it, his fingers tracing in the air.

Runes took shape stroke by stroke beneath his fingertips, each one infused with precisely controlled spiritual power.

As energy runes lit up one after another, sealing formations were laid into the stone surface layer by layer, interlocking and weaving into an invisible net.

Isolation, lockdown, suppression… various sealing formations stacked upon one another, each line precisely embedded into the gaps of the next, fitting perfectly without any space.

Jie Ming used not only the standard runes from this plane’s Spirit Medium Association but also incorporated sealing formations from the wizarding world.

He had studied the Association’s techniques thoroughly, but when handling such high-risk experiments, he trusted what he was familiar with at his core.

Moments later, the sealing formation was complete.

Having finished all this, Jie Ming stood at the center of the platform and took out the two sealed metal sheets from his coat one after another.

In his right hand was the Shadow Thief.

In his left was the newly captured Rift Dweller.

He placed both containers in the fixed positions at the center of the formation, then retreated to the edge and took a deep breath.

With his spiritual power active, Jie Ming simultaneously activated the seal-release technique.

The silver-white metal sheets sprang up automatically. A mass of thick black shadowy membrane surged out from one, spreading across the stone platform like a living pool of ink. The runes on the other metal sheet flickered a few times before going dark, and a nearly invisible black line “squeezed” out from within. It slowly unfurled in the air and eventually restored itself into that flat, thickness-less human-shaped membrane.

When first released, the two Stranges seemed to have no interaction with each other.

The Shadow Thief slowly glided across the platform, moving toward the side of the Rift Dweller. The Rift Dweller clung to the stone surface, seeping toward the edge of the platform.

Then, when the distance between them shortened to a certain critical point…

Their “bodies” turned toward each other at the same time, as if gazing across space.

Immediately after, their energy fluctuations began to synchronize. Both adjusted their frequencies and drew closer in the same direction.

The instant synchronization was completed, the two Stranges flew toward each other simultaneously. Like two metal sheets violently pulled together by magnetism, they collided at astonishing speed.

Their bodies collided silently in mid-air, yet fused into one the moment they made contact.

The shadowy membrane enveloped the human-shaped membrane. The human-shaped membrane embedded itself into the core of the shadowy membrane. The boundary between them began to merge.

The fusion was initially slow, like two liquids of different densities gradually mixing.

Probing, blending, mutually permeating.

But soon, the energy surge accelerated dramatically, like a whirlpool suddenly exploding beneath a calm lake surface.

Black light erupted outward from the core of their fusion, obscuring the moonlight and swallowing the scattered silver path of light on the sea.

The midnight sky suddenly grew even darker.

It was a darkness that made one’s gaze involuntarily slide away, as if even light itself felt superfluous.

It was so profound it seemed as though reality had torn open a fissure leading to nothingness in this area.

The sea surface over a large nearby stretch of water seemed covered by an indelible gloom, even the waves turning dark and heavy.

A bone-piercing chill suddenly descended.

The seawater temperature around the stone platform plummeted by at least ten degrees in that instant, and a thin layer of frost condensed on the platform’s surface.

The night sky overhead, already pitch-black as ink, now became even thicker, as if someone had poured an entire bottle of even blacker ink into it. Natural light in the environment was disappearing.

The very concept of “light” was being eroded by some force.

The energy light orb floating above Jie Ming’s head emitted a soft white glow, but now the edges of that glow began to blur.

It was as if someone were erasing a pencil drawing inch by inch with a rubber, fading bit by bit from the edges toward the center.

Jie Ming’s All-Purpose Eye operated at full frenzy. The Fate Subsystem performed high-speed calculations deep in his consciousness as data poured in like a waterfall.

The power of the newly emerged Strange before him was skyrocketing.

The hazard-level threshold was easily crossed.

Jie Ming could clearly sense the momentum of that power, growing at a rocket-like speed.

It took the fusion body of the two Stranges only a few seconds to cross the chasm from hazard-level to Threat-level.

And after entering Threat-level, the Strange’s power growth did not slow. Instead, it continued climbing at an even faster rate.

Jie Ming’s brows furrowed slightly, a trace of surprise in his heart.

He had originally estimated that the fusion of the two Stranges would reach at most the mid Disaster-level, but the current growth speed showed his estimation had been too conservative.

Threat-level high stage… Threat-level peak… and then, another threshold was brutally broken through.

Disaster-level Strange!

The sea surface around the stone platform underwent an extremely bizarre change.

The seawater no longer reflected any light, as if all light around it had been devoured by darkness.

Looking at the sea surface revealed not water, but a pure, thickness-less, texture-less void-like darkness.

Jie Ming felt the corners of his mouth curving upward uncontrollably, like a treasure appraiser who had just dug out a peerless rarity from a junkyard.

Before he could fully express this joy, the darkness before him completed its transformation.

The original solid form dissolved into nothingness. After the Shadow Thief’s shadow and the Rift Dweller’s crevice fused, what remained was only a pure darkness without outline or boundary, yet one that sent chills rising from the marrow.

Even Jie Ming felt an irrepressible awe rising up his spine the instant their gazes met.

Through the analysis of the All-Purpose Eye, Jie Ming understood that this was not fear brought by external force, but an instinct engraved into all life—fear of darkness, of confined spaces, of those “unseen places” deep within shadows—being infinitely amplified and manifested into the all-devouring blackness before him.

“So that’s how it is. A Strange born from the instinctive fears of living beings? In that case, although it looks very much like darkness, it should be called a Shadow Strange…”

While Jie Ming was clicking his tongue in wonder, the fully evolved Shadow Strange began to change.

From within that boundless darkness, claws reached out.

One, two, ten, a hundred…

They spread out from the depths of that darkness, long and twisted, as if all the deepest nightmares humans had as children staring into closet cracks had now materialized and were reaching toward him.

Each claw was blurry, constantly shifting shape, yet their “gripping force” was real.

Jie Ming felt countless claws seize his arms, waist, and ankles, dragging him toward the core of that darkness.

The moment he made contact with the darkness, Jie Ming’s body began to disintegrate under the pulling and erosive forces, like paper soaked in water, crumbling bit by bit from the edges.

His body was being eroded.

Where the claws gripped, his existence grew blurry, boundaries disappeared, shapes twisted, and form flickered repeatedly between stable and unstable.

Watching the erosive changes on his body, Jie Ming felt somewhat astonished.

Although this manifested body of his was far from his true body, it had still undergone layer after layer of reinforcement from body forging techniques and Internal Circulation. Its resistance far exceeded any known creature in this plane, yet it could not withstand this erosion.

The erosive speed of those claws grew faster and faster.

Most of his body had already become semi-transparent. The muscle textures beneath his skin were blurred, like a pencil sketch being erased by a rubber.

“So this is Disaster-level…” Jie Ming murmured.

Through the All-Purpose Eye’s analysis, Jie Ming had roughly understood the Shadow Strange before him.

Strictly speaking, this Shadow Strange’s strength was unstable. During daytime, it might only be ordinary Disaster-level.

But it was extremely compatible with the characteristics of night… even complementary.

Night Strange represented absolute dominion over “lightless states,” while this fusion entity was the embodiment of “shadow fear.”

During the day, because daylight shadows were not deep enough and people’s fear of shadows was not strong enough. 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

But at midnight, in absolute darkness without a trace of natural light, it was a genuine Disaster-level entity.

Jie Ming could almost imagine what it would be like if this thing appeared in a city.

At midnight, it would be born from some dark corner, slowly spreading like an opaque fog.

Weak gas lamps and electric lights would not only fail to dispel it but would cast even deeper shadows on the ground and walls.

And those shadows would be its nourishment.

The fear in people’s hearts toward dark corners would nourish it, allowing it to swallow the entire urban area within minutes.

If left unchecked, an entire city would turn into a dead city overnight.

“Good thing I was the first one to encounter you,” Jie Ming said, gazing at the churning darkness, his tone returning to calm.

Then, he released his suppression.

Dark golden light exploded outward from his body. Jie Ming’s figure suddenly enlarged as his double-sided dharma image took form above the sea.

The thousand-meter-tall dharma image hovered silently in the air, its spine piercing into the low-hanging clouds. Every contour looked as if cast from refined gold tempered in a furnace for a hundred years, appearing exceptionally heavy, thick, and majestic.

When the true body’s face looked down upon the sea domain below, it carried an oppressive force that made all things bow their heads.

Beneath his feet was the stone platform, which sank several meters under the pressure when the dharma image appeared.

Fortunately, Jie Ming had anticipated this possibility and built the stone platform sturdily enough to keep it intact.

Overhead was the boundless night sky. The darkness that had once been thick enough to nearly solidify now became thin and powerless before him.

The faint glow naturally emanating from the dharma image was not even a divine ability, merely the natural dissipation of sufficiently powerful force. Yet this glow flowed calmly outward, already enough to force the surrounding shadows back inch by inch.

The darkness attempting to erode light shattered and disintegrated the instant it touched the dark golden radiance, as if slamming into an invisible iron wall.

The moment it appeared, the darkness within several hundred meters around the dharma image was dispersed.

The Shadow Strange churned violently on the sea surface.

Its darkness continuously contracted under the pressure of the dark golden light, trying to retreat once more, but the dharma image’s radiance was like an insurmountable mountain, sealing off all its possible escape routes.

Then, driven by instinct, it attempted to break through.

It charged toward the edge of the barrier, trying to reintegrate itself into the world’s rules and the night.

That was its natural sanctuary. That was its most instinctive judgment after fusion: the vast world belonged to it, and every dark place was its nest.

As long as it merged into the rules, it could be free!

At that moment, the runes engraved on the stone platform activated simultaneously. Azure light rose from the platform’s surface, forming a closed energy barrier at the edge of the formation.

The isolation barrier stood like an invisible wall between it and the world’s rules, unmoving.

The Shadow Strange slammed heavily into the edge, emitting a tremor that shook the air, and was bounced back.

It churned and tore at the inner wall of the barrier but could not break through the lockdown no matter what.

The dharma image true body flickered, crossing the barrier and standing outside it.

Jie Ming lowered his head slightly. That refined Daoist face looked down at the Strange trapped within the formation.

Then, he reached out his hand downward.

In the “vision” of the Shadow Strange, Jie Ming outside the barrier was slowly extending a hand toward it.

As that hand approached, with the distortion of perspective and the dharma image’s own pressure, it seemed to grow larger and larger.

Until it was like a mountain, like the vault of heaven itself bending down, like the entire world at this moment consisted only of the outline of that hand…

Then, the barrier along with the darkness within it was steadily grasped.

The five fingers closed.

The energy barrier of the formation shattered like foam under the closing of those five fingers, but under the pressure of the true body’s power, the Shadow Strange could not even run.

Closing, gripping, compressing.

In reality, Jie Ming’s true body slowly retracted. The dark golden radiance gradually withdrew inward.

The thousand-meter dharma image rapidly compressed, its contours condensing back into an ordinary human size.

He stood calmly at the center of the stone platform. The sea wind lifted the hem of his clothes and brushed across his cheek.

Jie Ming stood on the stone platform, lowered his head, and looked at his palm.

A seal floated there, pitch-black all over, condensed and dense, refracting a faint luster under the moonlight.

It was about the size of a glass marble—quiet and extremely harmless.

The All-Purpose Eye scanned it once, confirming the sealing structure was stable, energy fluctuations were suppressed within a safe range, and the fused Strange was in deep dormancy.

“Hehehehe… Jiejiejiejie!!!”

Then, Jie Ming couldn’t hold back and let out a loud, completely undignified laugh. His laughter drifted out with the sea wind and melted into the depths of the night.

“I didn’t expect,” he murmured, closing his fingers around the seal and feeling the suppressed power within it, like that of a deep sea in slumber. His voice carried irrepressible delight, “to gain something like this.”

Waves slapped against the edges of the platform, one after another, as if applauding him.

He had not expected to obtain a complete Disaster-level Strange so quickly.

This was not merely acquiring a high-grade research sample.

It also meant he could disassemble and study every step of its evolution from hazard-level to Disaster-level, and attempt to understand the evolutionary patterns of The Strange in this plane.

Moreover…

Jie Ming looked down at the small black orb in his palm, then raised his head to gaze at the thick fog over the sea that had been churned into chaos by his dharma image’s power.

An even more important research direction was gradually taking shape in his mind: if hazard-level Stranges could reach Disaster-level through fusion, then… what if the starting point of the fusion was higher? What if more Stranges participated in the fusion? What if the process was artificially intervened in and catalyzed…?

Jie Ming stored the small orb into his internal cave heaven. The smile at the corners of his mouth could not be suppressed no matter what.

He turned toward the direction of Mist Capital. His figure turned into a residual shadow and vanished into the thick fog.

The stone platform stood alone behind him on the sea surface, like an unvisited tombstone.

The dense fog surged back, swallowing both the platform and the pitch-black seawater together, as if nothing had ever happened here.