Chapter 377: Many Against Many
Bai Mo withdrew his attention from the east, refocusing it on the Teach clone before him. This clone was no different from Teach himself; it wasn't a mere spirit energy projection but a being of flesh and blood.
After his casual strike failed, he finally grew serious. Immediately, he activated his abilities once more, seizing the various energies contained in his surroundings and transforming them into high-energy weapons in his hands.
Beneath the deserts of the Australian continent lay immensely rich geothermal resources. This geothermal energy, named "hot rock" geothermal power, if fully harnessed for electricity, would be enough for the entire world to use for nearly a century.
However, all development plans had now been brought to an end with humanity's withdrawal from the continent.
After the Sea Race officially declared war, maritime trade was almost entirely blockaded. Seres, the Brain Bug, who well understood that humanity's modern economic lifeline was foreign trade, immediately ordered the lower-tier Sea Race to attack all ships without regard for casualties. This forced humanity's long-distance trade to all but vanish, leaving only a very few ships, guarded by powerful individuals, capable of navigating through numerous obstacles to reach their destinations.
Australia, isolated overseas, after resisting wave after wave of desperate Sea Race landings, concluded that remaining would only lead to the entire nation being dragged down by the Sea Race's unending sacrifices. Consequently, after a national referendum, the vast majority of its citizens were relocated to the Americas, leaving behind only a handful of diehards unwilling to depart.
He chose this continent as his battleground precisely for the reasons mentioned above. After all, what Bai Mo desired was not a ruin named the Huaxia Federation.
Before this battle began, he had already anticipated that the final clash would undoubtedly flatten hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of land. At least seventy percent of the fifty-two Five-Tier powerhouses belonging to the Federation would choose to fight him. This didn't even account for any external reinforcements that might join the fray.
If a battle of such intensity erupted in Huaxia, the death toll could well be in the tens of millions. A significant portion of its cities would be razed to the ground.
Dozens to hundreds of meters beneath the surface, high-temperature granite exceeding a hundred degrees Celsius, became unnaturally cold to the touch after Bai Mo, hovering above the ground, plundered its internal energy.
However, the heat transferred from the deeper core would re-warm these stones after a period of time, until they regained their original temperature.
"Care to try the sun in my hand?" Bai Mo used his psionic power as a binding field, his right hand holding aloft an even more terrifying orb of light.
This time, the orb's energy density was comparable to the last, but its volume was nearly seven times greater. Within ten meters of the orb, the ground had already been seared into a thin layer of glass-like crystals by the intense heat.
"Snap!" With a flick of his fingers, the orb split into three, each hurtling towards Teach from a completely different direction. This was Bai Mo's probe, to see how many more tricks his opponent had hidden.
With the help of the Heavenly Net's ability, he already knew the truth behind the "Burning Steel Gate." He was merely curious about how far this particular clone could go.
"Tremor!" Teach's eyes suddenly turned crimson, and as they reddened, all the surrounding air began to vibrate at a terrifying frequency. This was his use of his resonance-inducing ability, mimicking the principle of the highly destructive high-frequency blade developed by the American nation, causing the air to vibrate at extremely high frequencies to generate a shield formidable in both offense and defense.
In addition, within the high-frequency air shield, Teach constructed a second line of defense using surface sand and gravel, just in case.
After completing all preparations in an instant, he subtly curled the corner of his mouth, silently causing the Burning Steel Gate to appear behind Bai Mo. Immediately, a previously vanished beam of death light reappeared from within the gate, reflecting back from two meters away at twenty times the speed of sound.
"A good idea, unfortunately, mismatched information dictates a futile effort," Bai Mo whispered this fact in an emotionless voice.
In an extremely short time, this beam of light passed directly through his body, which he had already transformed into a matter wave. It then shot straight into the sky.
The hole Bai Mo had intentionally left in his chest re-closed after half a second, leaving no trace whatsoever.
The plasma sphere exploded in mid-air due to overexpansion, illuminating the sky. Various rays scattered, and thermal energy was returned to the surrounding air, triggering a high-altitude level eight gale.
Yet this was merely an appetizer. The small suns, split into three and bombarding the high-frequency air shield, were the true protagonists capable of stirring up storms and changing the very landscape.
"Hahahaha, let's experience this together!" While struggling to defend, Teach opened the Burning Steel Gate again, sending nearly half of the violently incoming energy back towards Bai Mo via spatial transfer.
The essence of the Burning Steel Gate was precisely this ability to teleport energy-based attacks to virtually any location within a certain range.
To acquire it, Teach had brutally punched its previous owner to death. He then devoured the body piece by piece.
His ability was essentially equivalent to a risk-free Spirit Hub transplantation. As long as he had enough spirit energy within him, Teach could sustain an astonishing number of different abilities. However, to avoid generating low cost-performance abilities, he gradually became quite "picky," only choosing "food" that he deemed significantly valuable.
The massive energy tide unleashed by Bai Mo became chaotic under Teach's influence. And after the small suns lost their primary attack vectors, the air for several kilometers around them was dragged along, participating in this frenzy of heat and kinetic energy.
If an ordinary person were caught within it, the only question they could ponder would be whether they would first be roasted alive by temperatures nearing a thousand degrees, or torn to shreds by a Category 15 hurricane.
Yet, at the center of the high-temperature storm, Bai Mo remained calm and composed, standing rooted to the spot. Not a single strand of his hair was stirred, and he even had the leisure to observe how much of the nearby Ayers Rock had been shaved away.
The hurricane seemed to exist on a different plane, as if separated by a screen. He stood on one side, the storm on the other.
Relying on his "A Thousand Miles in a Foot" ability, the actual distance between the gale and his body was nearly two kilometers. With Bai Mo's level of control, a storm two thousand meters away naturally had no effect on him whatsoever.
And the previous attack, traveling at over twenty times the speed of sound, had still taken nearly a third of a second to truly make contact with him.
"Hoo, hoo, hoo." Teach, who had barely endured the deathly storm, couldn't help but gasp for several breaths before recovering as the gale gradually dissipated.
Although he was still completely unharmed, the enormous depletion of spirit energy was unavoidable. Therefore, upon seeing the figure who remained perfectly at ease, seemingly waiting for him to recover, he began to rapidly formulate effective countermeasures.
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