The moment of contact, Jie Ming's perception felt as if it were completely engulfed.
His body still stood in the center of the quiet chamber, but his vision, perception, and all understanding of the world were forcibly pulled away from their original coordinate system at that moment.
The physical structure of the Infernal Sulfur Plane vanished from before his eyes.
What replaced it was a boundless void filled with countless points of light.
Those points of light were densely packed, filling every corner of his perceptual field of view.
Brilliant colors twisted and interwove, forming a chaotic and psychedelic backdrop.
Each point of light was a current of elemental chaos, rolling, colliding, splitting, and merging within the Endless Chaotic Void—never ceasing for a moment. And above this twisted backdrop, a few orderly points of light were sparsely scattered.
Their luminosity was stable, their colors gentle, like pearls carefully arranged by an invisible hand.
Those were the planes of Wizard Civilization, each emitting marking fluctuations at its own unique frequency, proclaiming 'this is Wizard Civilization territory.'
But what truly seized Jie Ming's attention at this moment were not these planes.
Rather, it was a certain direction at the edge of his perception.
Under the premise that he had actively suppressed his perception to an extremely low level, that 'light' still penetrated all suppression and forcefully occupied the boundary of his perception with a nearly overbearing posture.
It was a curtain of pure white light.
So white that no other color was mixed in, so white that even perception itself trembled.
It pressed down from some direction in his field of view like the sky, as if an entire firmament burning with pure white flames was slowly tipping over.
Jie Ming knew that he was still an unfathomable distance from that light curtain, and the energy impact could not reach here at all.
But even so, he could still feel an indescribable sense of oppression.
The absolute order contained within that white light, its volume, its luminosity, and the overwhelming presence that instinctively terrified all creatures who saw it.
Jie Ming subconsciously held his breath.
Although in the state of fusing with the planar origin, he had no need for this function, human instinct still made his chest perform this action.
He finally understood why Viola had asked him to lower his perception intensity.
If he had fused with the planar origin at maximum perception without preparation, that white light would have been enough to completely engulf his perceptual field of view in an instant. That impact force would cause immediate spiritual injury.
Actively lowering perception was like putting on sunglasses before looking at the noonday sun.
Still dazzling, but at least not directly burning the eyes.
Jie Ming no longer pressed forward recklessly. Instead, following Viola's advice, he maintained the current perception suppression and slowly extended the boundary of his perception.
As the boundary expanded inch by inch, more background points of light were brought into his field of view.
That pure white light curtain finally began to take shape from 'an infinite expanse of light.'
Its edges carried a soft gradient, from pure white to pale gold, then to transparency, like a boundless ocean of light with foam surging on its surface.
Around it, a large number of Wizard Civilization planes were slowly moving. Their marking fluctuations traced thin lines in his perception, and the direction of every line was away from that white light.
Jie Ming suddenly paused.
Among those receding lines, one extremely faint line connected to his perception's origin point.
That was the Infernal Sulfur Plane.
He suddenly realized: the Infernal Sulfur Plane was also moving.
At an extremely slow but absolutely persistent speed, in a direction away from that white light.
All the planes of Wizard Civilization were fleeing from it.
Jie Ming continued to extend his perception outward and finally 'saw' the general extent of that pure white light curtain.
It almost filled a small half of his perceptual field. The gradient light at its edges extended to the other side of his vision, as if someone had used white and gold paint to smear an infinite trail across the void.
According to the perceptual theory in the Endless Chaotic Void, that should be a mass of elemental power that was purely and extremely ordered.
Its elemental density was too high to be measured by conventional units, its degree of order so strong that it forcibly carved out a pure region without a single turbulent current within the Endless Chaotic Void.
And the oppressive feeling he had sensed was the real presence of that mass of power.
Jie Ming felt like a mortal standing before an exploding supernova.
Although the distance was vast for a mortal, the power of that 'supernova' could easily extend over.
More alarming still, this white light was expanding continuously at an extremely slow rate.
And the surrounding Wizard Civilization planes were moving outward at a tempo synchronized with its expansion, always maintaining a safe distance.
Jie Ming recalled Viola's words and couldn't help feeling some emotion:
'Indeed, for an existence of this level, no special marking is needed...'
As long as one fused with the planar origin, any wizard would immediately discover this white light in their perceptual field of view.
It was not marked, because it was a mark itself.
It was the starting plane of Wizard Civilization.
Or rather, regardless of what the starting plane originally was, now it was the initial coordinate from which all Wizard Civilization planes took their zero point. Every plane of Wizard Civilization had been retrofitted with relative movement functionality at the time of its transformation.
No matter how many new planes Wizard Civilization conquered, no matter where those planes were dragged within the Endless Chaotic Void, they always took this white light as their reference point, maintaining a fixed safe distance.
Jie Ming suddenly understood the true meaning of the term 'Apocalypse Apostle.'
The Octopusmen, the Multiracial Alliance, and all the other civilizations that had been crushed under the wheels of Wizard Civilization—the reason they had chosen this term was now patently obvious.
The apocalypse was not brought by the wizards.
The apocalypse was the white light behind the wizards.
The wizards were merely the ones who walked before the apocalypse.
That white light expanded through the Endless Chaotic Void at an unstoppable speed, absorbing or annihilating all elements in its path. And all the planes of Wizard Civilization always advanced ahead of the white light.
Before the white light arrived, the wizards came first.
The wizards came, and civilization ended.
For other civilizations in the Endless Chaotic Void, the order they saw was: first the wizards, then the apocalypse. Although the wizards were not the apocalypse itself, they were the heralds of the apocalypse's arrival.
Even if those civilizations were fortunate enough to avoid being conquered by the wizards, they would still be swallowed by the white light and ultimately face their end.
In a sense, the wizards' behavior of continuously searching for planes and expanding outward actually saved many planes of insufficient strength.
Jie Ming slowly withdrew his perception and deactivated the fusion state.
His feet once again felt the hard stone floor of the quiet chamber. The light of his domain automatically retracted back into his body.
The rune-covered walls of the quiet chamber were calm as usual. The Five Elements Rainbow Mirror floated at his side, emitting a faint golden light.
He was silent for a long time before opening the Magic Net terminal and sending a message to Viola.
'What exactly is that white light from the starting plane?'
Not long after the message was sent, Viola's reply came back.
'You saw it?' she asked.
Jie Ming stared at those words and replied, 'I saw it. What is it exactly?'
This time, Viola took a while before replying.
'To be honest, I'm not entirely sure either. It seems to be something that only eighth-level wizards are qualified to know the specifics of.'
'But I overheard Senior Andong mention it once.'
Jie Ming frowned. 'What?'
'That it's the product of an experiment by a ninth-level wizard.'