Chapter 670: Hollow City

Beneath the dark purple sky, Jie Ming’s figure glided silently above the clouds.

The Great Void Step compressed his presence to the very limit of perception, causing even the wind to flow around his body. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

His gaze did not linger on the barren wasteland sweeping past below. Instead, it focused on the deep recesses of his consciousness, on the vast fate landscape composed of countless points of light. The Fate Subsystem glowed with a faint golden halo at the center of his brow, rapidly processing the incoming data for him.

His awareness traced along the threads extending from destiny, continuously selecting the most suitable lines of fate.

In the end, Jie Ming chose a direction that aligned more closely with his own fate thread.

Judging by its position, the final target was a medium-sized city in a remote region of the plane.

Jie Ming adjusted his course and gradually accelerated.

Even while suppressing his speed, it took him a full half month of flight before he finally approached the target area.

The first thing to enter his perception was the energy field ahead.

The fluctuations emanating from this Strange were completely different from any he had encountered before. The entire entity’s energy covered the whole city, with an energy density that was unnaturally uniform.

He descended in altitude, emerging from beneath the clouds. The All-Purpose Eye lit up within the depths of his pupils.

Soon, Jie Ming saw the city itself.

From the outside, it looked no different from any other medium-sized city in this plane.

Streets crisscrossed in a grid, buildings rose and fell at varying heights. Factory chimneys stood in the suburbs, while the spires of churches pierced the city center.

It was evening. Streetlights were flickering on one by one across the city. Traffic flowed slowly along the main roads, their taillights dragging streaks of red through the twilight.

Near the suburbs lay a low residential district where wisps of cooking smoke rose from chimneys and dispersed into the gray sky. Everything appeared perfectly normal.

But the All-Purpose Eye told Jie Ming that there was not a single living person in this city.

Not only were there no living people—there was no life at all. Not even microorganisms existed here.

The entire city was like a painting. The artist had used the finest brushstrokes to depict every street and every streetlamp, yet had forgotten to place a single breathing thing within it.

The moving vehicles, their lights, and the cooking smoke were all projections.

These projections possessed mass, energy, and even realistic physical texture, yet they were not truly real.

Hollow City.

The term surfaced in Jie Ming’s mind.

He hovered in the air above the city’s edge. The All-Purpose Eye peeled back the city’s energy structure layer by layer, presenting it within his consciousness. The energy level of this city was outrageously high—several orders of magnitude greater than the sum of all the Stranges he had encountered before.

Yet this numerical superiority was only the most insignificant difference between it and other Stranges. Their very essences were fundamentally different.

If Hazard Grade Stranges were like torches, Threat Grade like bonfires, and Disaster Grade like forest fires…

Then this city… was like the sun.

Therefore… it was Destruction Grade!

Jie Ming’s pupils contracted slightly. A trace of excitement stirred in his heart despite himself.

After calming his emotions, Jie Ming shifted his gaze to several directions along the city’s outskirts.

There were people there. It seemed other wizards had chosen to come as well.

A brief scan of the energy fluctuations revealed four seventh-level Grand Wizards and over a dozen sixth-level wizards.

They hovered at different positions around the city’s perimeter, maintaining subtle distances from one another. Every gaze was fixed on the city, their expressions varied.

Jie Ming recognized several of them. He had seen their profile projections in the intelligence-sharing section of the magic network terminal.

The elderly man on the far left, dressed in a deep red robe with white hair and beard, was the seventh-level Grand Wizard “Crimson Flame,” a specialist in fire laws who had been renowned for at least eight thousand years.

The blurry figure on the far right, shrouded entirely in black mist, was the seventh-level Grand Wizard “Shadow Fiend.”

The seemingly youngest woman in the center was the seventh-level Grand Wizard “Frost Whisper,” a pinnacle master of ice laws who had risen to fame tens of thousands of years ago. The other sixth-level wizards were positioned farther out, showing respect to these seventh-level figures.

Seeing the scene, Jie Ming naturally did not rush to approach. Instead, he landed at the outermost edge of the group.

The Great Void Step operated at its minimum, making him appear like a slightly indistinct patch of air—neither deliberately concealing himself nor overly conspicuous.

His gaze turned toward the gathering point of the seventh-level Grand Wizards.

Although no voices could be heard between them, Jie Ming could sense their powerful spiritual forces colliding. They were clearly communicating and negotiating through spiritual power.

High-level wizards exchanged information at extreme speed and density. In mere seconds, they completed multiple full rounds of negotiation.

Then, Crimson Flame, acting as their representative, addressed all the wizards present with the results.

His voice was not loud, yet every word reached the ears of every wizard clearly.

“You should all have seen the true nature of this city. Destruction Grade, urban-type Strange. Its main body is the administrative district of the city itself. Its strength far surpasses any Strange we have previously encountered, and it possesses one immovable flaw: its area of influence is limited to its own city boundaries and cannot expand outward.”

He paused, his gaze sweeping across everyone present.

“However, a large number of secondary Stranges still inhabit the interior of this city. Their energy fluctuations are fused with the city itself. Any attempt to seal this city without first clearing them out will fail. Our consensus is simple: first subdue these secondary Stranges, each relying on their own abilities. As for the city itself, once the periphery is cleared, we will compete based on our respective strengths.”

No one raised any objections.

The moment his words fell, the wizards moved simultaneously, transforming into streaks of flowing light and flying toward different districts of the city. The golden halo at Jie Ming’s brow shifted from faint to bright as the Fate Subsystem activated at full power, assisting him in processing fate-related knowledge.

Deep in his consciousness, countless fate threads extended from various districts of the city—some thick, some thin, some bright, some dim. Most of them pointed toward certain directions on the city’s outskirts, exactly where the other wizards were heading.

He selected a fate thread leading to the eastern district.

That thread was not the thickest, but it possessed a unique “texture.”

It felt as if something at the end of the thread had formed a vortex, drawing all the surrounding threads into it.

Under the cover of twilight, Jie Ming’s figure silently slipped into the low altitude of the city’s eastern district.

Three others were heading in the same direction.

Judging by their chosen targets, these people were also proficient in fate knowledge. Thus, everyone had unhesitatingly selected the most distinctive location.