Chapter 173-1: Victory in War, Rule Containment (1) |
The war in the Evil Moon domain at the Colorful Mist Coast entered its final stage.
The Earthmind Evil Spirit’s pace of generating units clearly slowed, and the players’ chaotic and disorderly playstyle also gave it a headache.
Every player squad and small group had a different combat mode.
It could generate units that effectively countered players based on their ability characteristics. For example, the plague-series units were created specifically to counter Gargoyle build players.
But in scattered small-scale battles, it could not form absolute tactical suppression the way it did when playing against warband mode.
An overly dispersed small-team invasion mode required it to carry out far more detailed layout operations.
This was also, in the Earthmind Evil Spirit’s eyes, what made players the most troublesome.
With Black Tide energy about to run out, the Earthmind Evil Spirit chose to use the last of it to generate high-tier units.
At this point, it only wanted to test the battlefield performance of more powerful units.
The Black Tide intensity in the Emperor’s Mound Mountain Range region ranged from the Third to the Fourth Palace, while the intensity it currently controlled was in the Fourth to Fifth Palace.
But the Black Tide legion, when encountering special situations, could still generate powerful units from even higher palace tiers.
What limited the Black Tide Evil Entities’ intensity was mainly the amount of Black Tide energy. If the intensity was insufficient to generate higher tier units, it could be exchanged by means of compression and refinement.
So in theory, even with the most basic Black Tide intensity, by continuously compressing the energy one could generate a catastrophe class Evil Entity from the ultimate palace.
But this was only in theory.
If there were truly that much Black Tide energy, it would certainly be used first to raise the Black Tide’s quality level.
This quality level improvement was similar to realm breakthroughs achieved by living beings through cultivation. In all aspects such as devour efficiency, unit generation speed, energy control efficiency, and more, strength would be enhanced.
Energy devoured thereafter would also be converted to the quality corresponding to the realm level.
For example, devouring a creature with life energy of 100, if level 1 Black Tide had a devour conversion speed of 1, then level 2 Black Tide would have a devour conversion speed of 2.
Some special substances were difficult for level 1 Black Tide to devour, but level 2 Black Tide could convert them with ease.
Like the Crystal Wing Strain nurtured by the Battle Swarm.
The bodily structures of these special combat units were unique. Most substances could not be absorbed by low level Black Tide, but as Black Tide intensity rose it could crack this anti-devour restriction and perform more detailed devouring.
This process was like unlocking.
The Swarm’s anti-devour resistance was like a combination lock. During devouring, the Black Tide needed to compute and analyze the composition of the substance being devoured.
After cracking was completed, the lock could be opened and the substance converted into Black Tide energy.
Each time Black Tide intensity was raised, devour computational power would be greatly enhanced. The higher the Black Tide’s ability, the stronger its devouring.
The premise was that the Battle Swarm’s anti Black Tide devour trait would not be simultaneously enhanced as the Black Tide’s level rose.
If both rose in tandem, then increased devour strength would still be useless, and the Swarm’s substance combination locks would remain hard to crack.
Such as that herd of beastly bugs in the Emperor’s Mound Mountain Range.
Every time it thought the Black Tide it controlled had leveled up and could enjoy a fine feast of bugs, the bugs’ anti-devour resistance would always surprise it, a complete synchronous upgrade.
Add to that the player race, a beastly force that, while not growing stronger in sync, still clung on tight.
The two beastly forces banded together, leaving it with no room to live.
But it always believed it would one day break through environmental limits.
A predicament that seemed unbreakable was just a checkpoint on the road to the summit.
Once it broke through layer upon layer of limits and shattered the shackles of the environment, it would stand in a broader world in a new form and spread fear to every corner of the world.
Its thoughts surging, the Earthmind Evil Spirit’s awareness focused on a massive doomsday-series unit in the Eighth Palace, the Skeletal Colossus Soldier.
In a flash of thought, the Black Tide energy compressed rapidly to adapt to the unit about to be generated.
The intensity of the compressed portion of Black Tide energy climbed markedly.
As black mist heaved, the prototype outline of the doomsday-series Skeletal Colossus Soldier emerged.
Bone powder spurted within the black mist, drawn by invisible force to cover the outline of the Skeletal Colossus Soldier.
Accompanied by a low growl like rolling thunder, the Skeletal Colossus Soldier tore through the black mist and revealed its form.
It had a towering body more than ten meters high, like a moving mountain of bone, its whole form suffused with the aura of decay and death.
Its body was entirely pieced together from gigantic white bones. Its skull was massive and hollow, its eye sockets burning with pitch-black flames. Its jawbone gaped slightly as if roaring in silence. Its spine was like a thick keel, vertebra by vertebra stringing together the colossal body, each segment inscribed with Black Tide runes that emitted a cold gleam.
Its ribs expanded outward to form a great skeletal shield. The sharp bone stubs were like blades. The finger bones on its arms were long and pointed. After generation, a thin layer of flesh plated its surface, and when that connected with the bone tissue it produced a tooth-aching kak-kak sound.
Players fighting the Evil Entities noticed a new unit had been generated, and they all looked over. Their analysis abilities activated in turn.
The Black Tide Evil Entity compendium automatically recorded the new unit’s information.
[Black Tide Skeletal Colossus Soldier]
Hunt Level: 82
Target Introduction: A Black Tide doomsday-series unit with strong elemental resistance and self-healing ability. It can generate a death field with a radius of 133 meters. All flesh-and-blood beings that die within the field will be molded into Cursed Soldiers to be revived and join the battle. The higher the flesh-and-blood strength, the higher the hunt level of the generated Cursed Soldier.
—
Seeing the analysis information, nearby players remained extremely calm.
The Skeletal Colossus Soldier’s ability traits looked anything but easy to deal with.
The Black Tide’s endurance in prolonged battles was already strong. With this ability to generate units from enemy flesh and blood, it could significantly enhance dominance in attrition.
But players left no flesh after death, so the Skeletal Colossus Soldier’s lethality could be ignored.
At most it was a powerful doomsday-series unit that was hard to kill.
In fact, the Earthmind Evil Spirit on the Evil Eye Tower did not plan to use the Skeletal Colossus Soldier and other high-tier units to repel players again.
It had only one thought now, to test as many high-tier units’ battlefield performance and combat combinations as possible before the war ended.
After this campaign ended, if the player race returned to the Emperor’s Mound Mountain Range region, it would begin a rampaging development mode.
The natural-catastrophe series and the plague series had wondrous effect against players, but they might not perform so well against other forces in the Monster World.
Or rather, when facing other forces, the natural-catastrophe and plague series would severely slow the Black Tide’s expansion speed.
Especially the natural-catastrophe units, which had always occupied the lower tiers within the Black Tide unit system.
Not that the natural-catastrophe units were weak, but the Black Tide’s strongest war mode had always been offense.
Only by reaping the lives of enemies could the Black Tide swell rapidly like a rolling snowball. As for its own losses, most of the energy consumption could be reclaimed through Black Tide backlash.
In this brutal sweeping mode of rapid advance, the deaths of its own Evil Entities could even be ignored.
So most Black Tide Evil Spirits pursued extreme lethality.
Death-catastrophe, frenzy tide, destruction, and a series of high-damage output units were the first choices.
It had chosen a war mode built around the natural-catastrophe and plague series entirely because it was forced by this beastly player race.
Under the threat of the rule trait that allowed players to decompose Evil Entities upon kill, a Black Tide legion built purely for efficient damage output would see its energy consumption flow like water.
Only by pairing the natural-catastrophe and plague series and using tactics such as defense, control, and backlash could battle losses be minimized.
But when crossing hands with other forces, the importance of the natural-catastrophe and plague series would be greatly reduced.
This was also why it was conducting battle tests of high-tier units from other systems.
And players were its training targets.
A large number of natural-catastrophe and plague-series units were backlashed and decomposed during this period, turned into Black Tide energy for compression.
Next to appear were destruction-series units, the Destruction Stone Idol.
The instant it crashed to the ground, a shockwave spread out from the idol as the center, instantly forming a destruction field similar to a domain.
Black electric currents spread within the domain. All players shrouded by the idol, except the Gargoyle build, were instantly sent back to the small dark room.
That was followed by the curse series, deathspeech series, fear series, and more.
For players, although these units were strong, single high-power units actually reduced pressure on the battle line.
Relying on a single powerful unit, there was no way to block their overwhelming advance.
The concentrated fire of over a hundred thousand players was not something these level-80-or-so Evil Entities could withstand, especially since players also had a growth-type pet that weakened defense, Pollution (scorpion).
As the war continued to now, it became a carnival of harvest for players.
The Earthmind Evil Spirit did not care about this at all and continued generating new units to join the battle.
