After masking his own traces, Jie Ming did not rush to inspect the information inside the Reflection Prism. After all, no one knew what kind of backup plans a ninth-tier artifact like this might hide.
Even if the ninth-tier existence hadn't planted any means inside, the Bovine-Tripe Creatures might have hidden all sorts of unpredictable things in there.
Given how much those fellows valued the object, they had absolutely arranged some kind of insurance. What if it contained a locating or sensing mechanism, or could even be recalled from a distance?
So Jie Ming quickly moved away while activating his True Illusion Void-Breaking Eye and carefully inspecting the entire Reflection Prism.
He soon caught several special fluctuations on different frequencies within the energy waves emitted by the prism, one of which was extremely subtle and completely different from ordinary energy cycles.
Jie Ming unfolded the Law-Crystallization Domain and sensed it again. He could clearly feel that this Reflection Prism was out of sync with the surrounding world, as if it formed a self-contained system.
"So that's how it is..." Jie Ming raised an eyebrow slightly.
Viola had once told him that after tier 6, it would become easy to distinguish ninth-tier artifacts. Indeed, because of their nature, ninth-tier artifacts were equivalent to a self-contained world, and under the Law-Crystallization Domain, they were quite obvious.
The Bovine-Tripe Creatures had used some unknown method to exploit that trait and turned the artifact into a signal that could spread outward.
No wonder they could accurately intercept the Multiracial Alliance's combat squads—the fluctuations this thing emitted could not be blocked, and even the squads' multiple layers of seals couldn't hide their tracks.
Perhaps the Multiracial Alliance's combat squads had also realized this, which was why they had intended to wipe out the Bovine-Tripe Creatures altogether.
But Jie Ming happened to have a way to deal with this object.
He waved his hand, and an unremarkable small device appeared in his palm. It was the ninth-tier artifact seized earlier from the Octopusmen's manufacturing factory—an energy source capable of supplying infinite energy.
Although he didn't know its name, as another ninth-tier artifact, it also emitted special energy fluctuations, making it the perfect tool to interfere with another ninth-tier artifact.
Jie Ming activated the energy device, continuously adjusted its energy frequency, and set its output waveband to a phase completely opposite to that signal.
With a soft hum, the two wavebands collided gently, and the fluctuations on the Reflection Prism's surface immediately became disordered.
Then Jie Ming rapidly layered seals upon it. In just a few seconds, hundreds of seals of different types covered the prism. In the end, the enormous prism, dozens of meters tall, was compressed along with the energy source into a glowing orb less than half a meter in diameter.
Since the energy source could output infinite power by itself, Jie Ming was quite ruthless when applying the seals.
Countless runes slowly revolved on the orb's surface. Through the seals, one could barely see the pale blue energy inside interweaving with the dark-gold seals, completely isolating all fluctuations within.
After checking again to confirm that not even a trace of information leaked, Jie Ming nodded with satisfaction and put it away into the deepest part of his Inner World. Then, through the spatial teleportation formation inside his Inner World, he sent the object directly back to the Infernal Sulfur Plane.
He didn't dare say much, only giving the Black Giant Priests an order through the Incense Fire Divine Dao to preserve the thing with the highest-level precautions.
"There's no rush. I'll study it properly after I get back."
Only then did Jie Ming truly breathe a sigh of relief. This way, even if he died, he could completely resurrect via the Substitute Doll.
With that major problem resolved, Jie Ming stopped, looked at the unstable space around the Shattered Bone Corridor, took a deep breath, and his gaze became resolute.
"Continuing along the original route won't work now. I need another path..."
The battle hadn't made much noise, but Jie Ming knew he had to reduce his connection to the Shattered Bone Corridor as much as possible.
Strictly speaking, he had already entered the corridor openly, so it would be quite difficult to shake off the connection—but not impossible.
"If I'm willing to pay the price, I should be able to make it in time..."
Jie Ming calmed his mind, and both the Inner World and the outside space trembled at the same time.
Mustard Seed Contains the Dao True Body Art!
Then... Coordinate Reset!
Silently, Jie Ming's figure vanished in an instant. The mapping coordinates between the Inner World and reality suddenly shifted. At the same time, a full star system away from his original position, the void trembled slightly, and a puppet carrying Jie Ming's coordinates reappeared.
This was not a spatial skill like traveling through space or teleporting; by twisting the mapping coordinates between the Inner World and reality, he had directly modified his own location in reality!
However, almost as soon as the coordinate reset was completed, his expression changed slightly.
Rumble...
Inside the Inner World, a terrifying spatial storm erupted without warning! The sky split open across countless li, and a spatial rift running through the entire Inner World appeared suddenly!
Mountain ranges were forcibly torn into debris, countless rivers were severed, and continental plates tilted and shattered.
In the core region of the Inner World, a fully automated alchemy factory's defenses had just lit up when they were easily crushed by the spatial turbulence. Even the heavily protected factory's wall was sheared away at one corner by the violent space storm.
Consequently, hundreds of precision instruments were exposed to the elemental turbulence brought by the spatial storm.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Flames burst out in succession, and almost every instrument in the automated factory was scrapped in an instant.
Jie Ming could clearly sense that the outermost plane barrier of his Inner World was covered with dense cracks, and a substance like blood was slowly seeping along the fissures.
Because of the Mustard Seed Contains the Dao True Body Art, his true body had long been fused with the Inner World. When the Inner World was injured, it was equivalent to his body suffering severe trauma.
Jie Ming shifted his vision to the Inner World, looked at his palm covered in cracks, then at the automated factory missing a corner, and couldn't help twitching the corner of his mouth:
"I just bought that new equipment..."
Under normal circumstances, using the Mustard Seed Contains the Dao True Body Art to shift the mapping coordinates would never cause such a serious problem.
But the problem was that Jie Ming was still not proficient enough in the art—he had only completed the first two steps, and hadn't even finished the final third step. In this state, while shifting coordinates, he couldn't fully separate the influences between reality and the Inner World.
Simply put, whenever Jie Ming performed a coordinate shift now, the various spatial or elemental fluctuations in the external real space would simultaneously affect his Inner World.