The Broken Cycle

Cough.

Put nicely, it was archaeology.

Put bluntly, what Saruman and the others were doing was grave robbing.

Of course.

No matter what.

Saruman had absorbed the best of all schools and truly forged his own path.

Even though he had used only the tiniest trace of magic, while the spike had pierced the force field itself, its power had been reduced to almost nothing. It merely left an insignificant little hole in Saruman's gray robe.

It had not even touched his skin.

And the force in Saruman's left hand that had "grasped" the nebular mist had not stopped.

It was as though he had calculated everything.

At that very moment, he guided the out-of-control mist over, silently engulfing the black-robed man, who had stiffened for an instant after his ambush failed!

"Taking advantage of the magical fluctuations and diverted attention caused when your opponent breaks your spell to launch an ambush—your tactical awareness is very good." Saruman slowly turned around, facing the somewhat disheveled black-robed man beneath the faint shroud of nebular mist he had guided over. "But you rely too heavily on specific routines and innate abilities."

"You overlooked the hidden cards your opponent might possess—for example, higher-level energy control and neutralization techniques. The principle behind this ripple force field is to convert concentrated attack energy into planar dispersion through high-frequency vibrations, then guide it in harmless directions. You need a broader way of thinking."

Saruman truly had the air of an old grandmaster among grandmasters.

"Pant, pant, pant, pant~"

The black-robed man stood amid the gradually fading nebular mist, gasping violently, sweat pouring down like rain. The repeated high-intensity spellcasting, the systematic dismantling of every tactical adjustment he made, and the immense mental pressure had pushed him nearly to his limit. He could feel his magic running