Chapter 218-3: Three Disasters Converge, the Ultimate Showdown (3) |
In the direction of the Phantom Swamp.
The Swarm hive mind’s massive body was like a towering mountain. Its huge antennae danced in the air, receiving external pheromones.
Upon discovering the movements of the player race and the terrifying Black Tide and realizing that these two forces were about to clash, the hive mind let out a low, unwilling roar. A spiritual storm swept across the land at once.
In an instant, the ground cracked. Dense insect holes surged forth like bamboo shoots after rain.
Green spores spewed madly from the insect holes. Soon, millions of ghostly green light points filled the sky.
The hive mind’s spiritual pulse wave then turned into visible violet-black energy and spread in rings.
The blood-colored mycelial carpet covering the surface received the order and spread from the hive mind toward the engagement site. Countless hyphae danced and wove into incubation pouches, drawing on the energy provided by the hive mind to grow rapidly.
Before long, translucent embryos exploded under the Evil Moon’s illumination into scythe-blade arthropods.
The ghostly green light points floating in the air hatched as well. Razor mayflies gathered into dark clouds. The sound of their beating wings was like countless engines starting at once, resounding through the sky.
Spore rain spurted in succession from the pores on the hive mind’s back. Upon landing, it hatched into Abyss Stabbing Serpents, whose sharp fangs easily tore the earth as they rapidly devoured matter to grow.
Under the frenzied gnawing, the crust subsided ten meters in a short time.
The spiritual pulse swept again, and a sharp screech sounded.
Countless Swarm warriors converged into a blood-colored river and rushed toward the engagement point.
They squeezed against each other along the way. The clacking of colliding carapaces layered with the screeching of Swarm warriors, creating an extremely clamorous scene.
From high above, the Swarm surged like a tsunami.
The earth shattered under the feet of Swarm warriors, and the sky was obscured by their wings.
Wherever they passed, not a blade of grass remained, only death and destruction.
The three factions finally converged at the Abyss of Heaven Territory Node in the Emperor’s Mound Mountain Range, forming a three-way standoff.
Starnet, which had still been reorganizing battle formations, was not surprised to find the Swarm joining the battle. This was a high-probability event in simulations.
In a war of hundreds of thousands, it would be strange if the Battle Swarm did not participate.
The Earthmind Evil Spirit thought the same and had begun monitoring at the first sign of the Swarm’s movements.
Just then, a spiritual pulse swept across the battlefield.
All Swarm warriors suddenly raised their heads and let out sharp screeches.
The sound cut through the sky like a sharp sword, forming a surging sonic wave that howled over the land with the Swarm legion as its origin.
Where the sound wave reached, the earth trembled, trees rustled, and even the heavy clouds in the sky were shaken by this force and churned rapidly.
—
On the platform of the Abyss of Heaven Territory Node.
Arms folded across its chest, the Earthmind Evil Spirit stood suspended.
After the Evil Eye read the screech sent by the Swarm, translated information surfaced in its mind.
Realizing this was the Swarm hive mind provoking it, in an instant of thought, countless Evil Entities fell like dumplings.
The Black Tide surged rapidly. Countless fragmented whispers intertwined, like millions of ants gnawing at the heart. The sound waves gradually rose and contested the Swarm’s sharp screech, shrouding the entire world in these two terrifying sounds.
On the players’ side, God King issued an order at this moment.
“They are doing pre-war intimidation. Everyone shout, we cannot lose in momentum.”
Hearing God King’s order, players took action one after another.
“Ah ah ah ah.”
“Awo awo awo awo.”
“Woof woof woof, jie jie jie, bleh bleh bleh.”
Compared with the unified tones of the Swarm and the Black Tide, the players’ shouts were incomparably chaotic, a veritable riot of demons.
At this time, the Earthmind Bully, who was responding to the Swarm hive mind’s provocation, felt a trace of helplessness upon hearing it.
The voices of the player race required no translation. Pure brainless behavior.
The Swarm’s screech carried a spiritual intimidation effect. Black Tide whispers plus roars could corrode will. The players were purely shouting loudly, completely meaningless to compete with them for who was louder.
“So noisy.”
The Earthmind Bully could not help but gather the Black Tide into a middle finger and show it in the direction of the player race to express disdain.
Just then, a spiritual pulse wave swept across the battlefield once more.
The Swarm launched the offensive first, splitting into two torrents that pounced on the players and the Black Tide, officially opening the curtain on war.
The Black Tide promptly slammed onto the ground and then split into two routes to pounce on the player race and the Swarm.
The player army, which already had two battle formations set, did not need to adjust. As Starnet issued orders, they met the Swarm army and the Black Tide army in two directions.
Boom.
The earth trembled as six catastrophe torrents collided on the battlefield.
The great battle was about to erupt.
On the Swarm side, the rear stinger bugs shook their bodies. In an instant, countless black steel needles rose into the sky and fell densely toward the Black Tide and the player race.
Countless golden bullet-screen messages streaked across the livestream rooms. The sky was instantly covered by connected Light Shields.
The steel needles struck the Light Shields like raindrops falling on a lake, forming countless spreading ripples of light rings.
The bullet screens streaked again, and elemental orbs rose from the ground.
Functional support players instantly retracted the Light Shields, and the sky was immediately lit by gorgeous multicolored radiance.
The steel winged strain in the Swarm army took to the air on the other side and gathered in midair. Using their hard carapaces, they formed a sky bastion to block the bombardment of elemental meteors.
On the other side, the Earthmind Evil Spirit gazed at the densely falling elemental offensive and stinger steel needles, while waves of black mist sliced through the air.
Facing the Swarm side, the Black Tide directly covered the steel needles to devour them.
The rule elemental energy released by the player race could not be devoured, so it generated the natural-catastrophe series unit Gigadimension to respond by directly bearing the damage.
In an instant of thought, the frenzy tide series unit Ruinator was quickly generated.
A thunderstorm brewed in the sky. The corner of the Earthmind Evil Spirit’s mouth curled up, and thick battle intent surfaced in its eyes.
On the main battle line, after the front-line warriors of the three sides collided, they kept squeezing toward the center, forming a three-way melee in the central area.
The battlefield was like a pot of boiling water. Flesh and elements intertwined. Energy clashed with acid. Screams and roars were deafening.
Yet within this chaos, there were three exceptionally calm command nodes.
—
Starnet center.
Holographic projection light screens flickered in the air.
Every action of each player, every trajectory of each released attack, including the movements of the Swarm army and the Black Tide legion in the livestream images, was precisely captured and transformed into data streams that flowed into the central processor.
Content was being generated and deduced every second.
Consciousness darted through the data streams, and every order was delivered with precision, cutting the Swarm and Black Tide lines like a scalpel.
The will of the Earthmind Evil Spirit shrouded the battlefield. The perception provided by the Evil Eye extended like tendrils.
It collected everything on the battlefield and saw through every change on the battlefield. It did not need ears to hear every heartbeat that sounded on the battlefield.
The enhanced Evil Eye brought every detail on the battlefield under control.
On the Swarm hive mind’s side, its neural network covered the entire battlefield. Every Swarm warrior was its sense. Every patch of mycelium carpet was its tendril.
It did not need to think to instantly compute the optimal route of attack.
Among the three great calamities, it was the most extreme evil. There was no delay or emotional hesitation in any decision. It would decisively sacrifice some individuals in exchange for overall victory.
The will to slaughter swept the battlefield, condensing the power of the Swarm into a torrent of destruction that sought to tear apart any target that blocked its advance.
The wills of the three commanders intertwined on the battlefield, like three invisible rivers of will colliding.
They could all extract useful information from the chaos and convert it into action.
Starnet used data to predict the trajectories of the other two calamity class forces.
The Earthmind Evil Spirit sought opportunities to seize flaws through perception and the strategy database.
The Swarm hive mind coordinated the swarm’s actions through its neural network, attempting to escalate the intensity of the campaign.
The situation on the battlefield changed in an instant. Players in the united warband could no longer distinguish anything and acted entirely according to Starnet’s orders.
During this time, the three commanders remained calm.
It was like an invisible game of chess, with all three sides being masters.
Every step was carefully calculated, and every clash hid a killing move.
Starnet, the hive mind, and the Earthmind Evil Spirit were different lifeforms.
But they all shared one common trait.
Their thinking rivaled that of a precisely operating supercomputer, able to analyze and integrate massive amounts of information in an instant.
They saw order within chaos, grasped rhythm from disorder, and kept trying to lock the initiative of war firmly in their own hands.
This level of contest had already surpassed the scope that ordinary beings could understand.
The three commanders, amidst a deluge of constantly evolving battlefield data, were adept at extracting crucial information.
Even a single small step taken unintentionally by a lone warrior on any side would be a minute detail extracted in this game, which might, after accumulation, evolve into a winning chip.
At this moment, a consciousness quietly descended upon the Emperor’s Mound Mountain Range region.