What these stone tablets recorded was an ancient civilization that had been destroyed long ago.
Judging from the surviving information, this civilization had once been quite prosperous, with a complete world system and an extremely mature inheritance of power.
At its height, there had even been dozens of ninth-level beings!
That number alone was enough to surprise Jie Ming.
Ninth-level existences, after all, were an extremely scarce top-level force in any civilization whatsoever.
Even the wizard civilization had only nine ninth-level wizards.
Powers like the Multiracial Alliance or the Behemoth Alliance sounded as if they had quite a few ninth-level existences, but the thing was, those powers were “alliances” to begin with.
Only by countless civilizations joining together could they have ninth-level existences in such numbers; worked out in detail, beneath every ninth level stood an uncountable number of civilizations with no ninth level at all.
So for a single civilization to have dozens of ninth-level existences was already quite an extraordinary thing.
Leaving aside the question of combat strength, this civilization had most likely been superior even to the wizard civilization in the inheritance of power.
And yet a mighty civilization like this, with dozens of ninth-level existences, had still ended in destruction.
The tablets preserved a great deal of material on the civilization’s development, but no complete record of the cause of its destruction.
Some of the key content seemed to have been deliberately erased, and the information that remained had been left fragmentary by the damage to the ruins.
As for the conceptual entity of malice Jack had encountered, there was no clear record of it at all.
“Dozens of ninth-level existences, and it was still destroyed in the end?”
Jack, looking at the translated content on the light screen, was rather startled too. “What level of war would it take to wipe out a civilization like that completely?”
“No way to judge yet.” Jie Ming went on leafing through the tablets.
“These records are incomplete; we can’t even fix the time the civilization was destroyed. What is certain, though, is that a catastrophe far beyond the scale of an ordinary war once happened here.”
He checked through them several more times and finally confirmed there was no other information of value.
Although he had not found the origin of the conceptual entity of malice directly, the tablets themselves were precious enough.
Jie Ming saved them all, then turned to Jack. “Take me to that plane for a look.”
Jack nodded at once. “No problem.”
But then Jack thought for a moment and hesitated. “Though, that place isn’t on the front line anymore.”
“That plane used to belong to a plane cluster the wizard civilization and the Behemoth Alliance were fighting over. Later we won a victory nearby, and the whole region was brought under our control. It’s currently in the development stage.”
Jack explained, “To teleport straight there, we’d probably need to apply to the local authorities for permission.”
Jie Ming nodded. “That’s no problem.”
He pulled up his magic network terminal and directly contacted the clone the artificial intelligence Felix had assigned to him.
“Felix, arrange a teleportation for me. I intend to go to the plane cluster where Jack served before.”
Felix’s phantom image soon appeared on the light screen. “Querying information on the relevant region.”
Felix gave its answer shortly:
“The target region is currently within the wizard civilization’s zone of control. Clearance of the principal hostile forces has been completed, and resource recovery and plane development are under way. The current safety assessment indicates that the region can guarantee the normal activity of seventh-level wizards.”
“Shall I arrange an escort for you?”
“Not for now. We’re leaving right away.” Jie Ming declined outright.
“Understood. The wizards stationed there have been contacted, and teleportation permission will open shortly.”
Jie Ming closed the communication and motioned to Jack. “Let’s go.”
The two of them then headed for the teleportation area.
…
…
The light of the teleportation array flared.
After a brief spatial distortion, Jie Ming and Jack reappeared in another plane base.
He had barely stepped out of the teleportation array when Jie Ming’s feet came to a sudden stop.
His eyes widened slightly.
Because he could clearly feel an immense malice surging in from every direction.
The feeling was extremely similar to the black shadow that had earlier been attached to Jack, but in scale it was on an entirely different order.
If the earlier conceptual entity of malice had been just a fist-sized ball of black mist, then the malice shrouding this whole region now was like a boundless black ocean.
It filled the heavens and earth around him, so thick it seemed to have condensed into substance.
Jie Ming could even clearly feel the negative intent it contained.
Hatred, hostility, rejection, and a kind of almost instinctive urge to attack.
They were interwoven, forming a malice so vast it was alarming.
Jie Ming instinctively looked around.
Quite a few wizards were at work inside the teleportation base.
All of them looked perfectly normal. No one showed any discomfort, as if they did not feel this malice pervading heaven and earth at all.
Jie Ming frowned slightly, then opened his True-False Void-Piercing Pupil and saw the state of this region clearly.
The malice, formless and immaterial before, became in his perception countless pitch-black veins spread across the sky, the earth, and the void all around.
They were not actively attacking the life nearby.
On the contrary, whenever a wizard passed, the black veins would quietly shift to either side, deliberately avoiding the areas where living things moved.
Even the energy structures near the teleportation array showed no obvious interference.
Jie Ming watched carefully for a moment, and a look of surprise gradually came over his face. “So that’s how it is…”
He finally understood.
The malice here did not come from some living thing that was still active; it was the remains left behind by some enormous conceptual entity that had once existed here.
What was more, the scale of this conceptual entity in life had probably been far beyond anything he had imagined.
Jie Ming looked down at the ball of black mist temporarily sealed in his hand, then surveyed the surroundings again.
The conceptual entity of malice Jack had encountered was probably not the only individual in this region.
More precisely, it was not the original one.
In this plane cluster there had once existed a conceptual entity of malice of truly enormous scale.
But in the end it had been killed, leaving vast conceptual remains spread across the entire region.
And the black figure Jack had released from the ruins was very likely a new individual, born after a long time from some part of those remains gathering together again.
In other words, the conceptual entity of malice Jie Ming had captured earlier had been bred anew from the remains of the old individual.
As for the malice pervading heaven and earth before him, that belonged to the ancient conceptual entity that was already dead.
They had lost their complete spirituality, yet still retained part of their instincts.
It was like how, after a frog dies, certain nerve reflexes can still persist for a short time.
Of course, a conceptual entity naturally had no nervous tissue to speak of.
What they retained was only some residual pattern of behavior.
Even though the main body was dead, these patterns were still running, making the surrounding malice keep away from the areas where life was active.
Jie Ming stood beside the teleportation array and said nothing for a long while.
From what he could see so far, this conceptual entity’s power in life had probably been quite astonishing.
Otherwise, there was no way its remains could still affect so vast a region after its death.
More importantly, since one newborn conceptual entity of malice already existed, there might be other conceptual life here born from the remains.
If he could find them, and study the process of their birth…
Jie Ming’s breath caught slightly in spite of himself, and an excited light surfaced in his eyes.
This time… it seemed he really had found a remarkable treasure house of knowledge.
“Mentor? Is something wrong here?”
Jack had noticed the change in Jie Ming’s expression and asked cautiously.
Jie Ming looked at Jack, and the corners of his mouth lifted in a smile.
“Little fellow, what you’ve brought me this time is extremely valuable!”