Chapter 110-1: The Great Battle Ends, Wealth Soars (1) |
Ancient battlefield, north.
The brutal war was still raging.
More precisely, this was a brutal war only in the eyes of the Skyfire race.
For the other three forces, this battlefield brought nothing but gains.
As for losses, they could be completely ignored.
In Qi Sheng’s eyes, players would suffer no reduction in combat power after death, and could re-enter the battlefield through the flesh reconstruction rule trait of Emperor’s Mound Village.
In the Earthmind Evil Spirit’s eyes, the Black Tide Evil Entities, upon death, would simply merge back into the Black Tide and be gestated anew. The cost of death was driven infinitely low. Even mass deaths would not pain him in the slightest.
In the Swarm hive mind’s eyes, Swarm warriors were inherently cannon fodder to fill the lines. Through battle they provided pheromones for improvement and evolution, allowing the next generation of the Swarm to grow stronger through continuous refinement. Every battle meant the next generation would be stronger, while the previous generation was destined to be eliminated as cannon fodder. Death represented progress.
But in the eyes of the Skyfire race, every warrior was an elite of the race.
Though all were ‘warriors,’ the attackers and defenders defined their own warriors completely differently.
In the three forces’ eyes, warriors were consumables; even mass deaths did not matter. Yet in the eyes of the Skyfire hierophant king, warriors were the core power of plunder wars and could not be allowed to be casually expended.
This destined any war of attrition to develop in a direction unfavorable to the Skyfire race.
Under the Evil Moon hanging high, the war continued.
The Skyfire race’s resistance grew weaker and weaker, and the frequency of deploying the skyfire grand array grew longer and longer.
To let the priests of the race better recover their state, after a bitter fight and returning inside the city to rest, the Skyfire hierophant king took out 108 energy crystals for the priests to replenish and use.
This act immediately aroused the dissatisfaction of the Earthmind Evil Spirit and the Swarm hive mind.
Under their control, the Black Tide and the Swarm became ever more frenzied in their assault.
Like Qi Sheng’s thinking, in the eyes of the Earthmind Evil Spirit and the Swarm hive mind, the energy crystals were already in their own pockets.
Although there were two other extremely annoying forces that would compete for them, their side would at least gain a portion of the profits.
But if the energy crystals were consumed in meaningless large-scale group casting, this was, in their view, a pointless waste.
To ensure the reserve of energy crystals, they chose even more insane attacks, intending to seize the Skyfire race as quickly as possible.
At the rear of the Black Tide, vast black clouds converged from Territory Nodes in all directions and merged into the Black Tide. At once the Black Tide’s gestation speed for Evil Entities abruptly increased.
At the rear of the Swarm, the hive mind accelerated the gestation of the next generation. Life seeds shaped like spores surged outward like rolling black clouds centered on it. After landing, they grew rapidly, generating one Swarm warrior after another, gathering into a sea of insects advancing toward the battlefield.
Two hours later.
Above Skyfire City, the Skyfire Grand Array recondensed, like the Eye of the Fire God, slowly opening.
As spirit patterns crisscrossed and lit up, countless sparks appeared within the array, rapidly catalyzed and enlarged, transforming into blazing, roaring fireballs.
At this moment the Skyfire hierophant king issued an order. The priests controlling the array accordingly urged it to release its power, bringing down a rain of fire.
But under this wave of fiery rain, a large number of Swarm warriors survived and continued their fierce assault.
This meant the Skyfire race’s brief respite in the war was completely lost.
The flames released by Skyfire warriors were different from the rule power Inkflame released by players. The pheromones provided by each battle allowed the Swarm warriors to grow, their fire resistance continually increasing during this period, while the Skyfire race warriors’ lethality continually diminished.
By now, even the ultra-wide-area skyfire grand array could no longer completely rout the Swarm tide.
After the skyfire grand array suspended in the sky was extinguished, exhaustion and despair could not be hidden in the eyes of the Skyfire hierophant king.
He finally realized that the suspicion he did not dare admit was the truth.
The Swarm tide attacking from the west of the city possessed a powerful evolutionary ability. They were continuously adapting to the flame abilities released by the Skyfire race, and by now could already endure the ultra-wide-area suppression of the skyfire grand array.
If the battle continued at this trend, he had no doubt the Swarm tide would evolve a resistance that completely immunized the power of Skyfire.
When that time came, the war would turn into a one-sided slaughter of the Skyfire race by the Swarm tide.
Such a powerful racial talent completely exceeded his understanding.
The Skyfire Rune Technology he was so proud of was useless in the face of the Swarm tide’s racial talent, no matter how many new breakthroughs it had.
They spent a thousand years developing it, consuming innumerable resources in the process, yet the Swarm tide completed a leap in life in only four days, gaining the ability to be immune to the Skyfire runes. The technology he was proud of seemed like a joke.
This growth that defied common sense also manifested in the other two racial forces attacking from the other directions.
To the north, within the Black Tide, the strength of the Evil Entities gestated within the black mist was continually rising. This could be felt very directly in combat.
During this period, two newly born troop types were even gestated, with combat strength far superior to the Evil Entities previously produced.
The force coming from the south was the same. Individual combat strength kept climbing, and the pressure they brought to the front line kept increasing.
This battle had not developed in the direction he had envisioned at all. The three forces pressing in grew stronger the more they fought, yet their own Skyfire race warriors had already lost more than half, were mired in bitter battle, and no longer had enough energy to fend off ceaseless incursions.
The bitterness in his heart turned to anger.
He once again issued an attack order, leading his people in a mad counterassault against the Swarm tide.
At this moment, he had realized his own ignorance and arrogance.
He had once been the supreme deity of the Skyfire World, revered and worshiped by his race and countless servant races.
But that was only in the Skyfire World.
The peak combat power of this world was far from something the current Skyfire race could contend against. If the war continued, defeat was destined.
Yet he could not stop the war, for they had been completely dragged into the quagmire by the three forces.
Despair, vexation, fury, regret… all kinds of emotions intertwined in the depths of his heart. He knew he was wrong, but he already had no way out.
All he could do was keep fighting.
When the Black Tide rose again at the northern horizon and the scattered player race from the south struck once more, the Skyfire hierophant king’s eyes were filled with nothing but exhaustion.
A new round of the combined offensive by the three sides struck, and the remaining people of the Skyfire race kept dying in the war.
At last, the city gate constructed of flames was breached.
The three forces fought their way into the city and a melee on all sides erupted.
Having returned once more before the throne, the Skyfire hierophant king gazed from afar at the chaotic scene within Skyfire City, and endless bitterness welled up in his heart.
He knew the tide had turned against him.
Before breaking the spatial barrier, he had countless times trembled with excitement in his dreams, envisioning the Skyfire race becoming a terrifying calamity that swept across myriad worlds. He would surpass his ancestors to become the strongest Skyfire hierophant king recorded in the annals, and the pathfinder who led the Skyfire race to glory.
At this moment, the dream ended.
The beautiful things of his imagination were nothing but flowers in a mirror, the moon in water. The races and forces of the outside world were far more fearsome than he had imagined.
Now, he needed to pay the price for his impulsiveness.
“Hierophant king, we will escort you away.”
Just then, an aged figure appeared at the Skyfire hierophant king’s side, dropped to one knee, and pleaded.
Hearing this, the Skyfire hierophant king calmly shook his head, a wry smile appearing on his face. “Where could I flee to? Without the Skyfire race, am I still the Skyfire hierophant king?”
“You should lead 1,000 new-generation elites of the race away. Perhaps someday in the future you will rise again in this world, restore our race’s glory like the ancestors, and grow into a superpower standing at this world’s summit.”
Upon hearing this, the Skyfire hierophant king shook his head again.
“That is no longer possible. Our ancestors prepared for years in advance to escape calamity, and after crossing space they fortunately arrived at a world where the native races had not yet birthed a civilized intelligence. The resources there had not been exploited or used. Our arrival was like a dimensional-reduction strike, and subsequent development was incomparably smooth. Those native races all became slaves for our race’s development and contributed strength to our climb toward new technologies.”
“But where can I escape to now? I even suspect this world has races far more powerful and terrifying than these three major forces. Where could I possibly find a place to settle down… I have only one thought now, to live and die with my race.”
When he said this, the Skyfire hierophant king no longer had his former arrogance.
Cold reality had savagely shattered the fantasies in his heart.
He had failed to lead the Skyfire race to glory; instead, he had led the Skyfire race toward destruction.