Free Web NovelChapter 554: Chapter 475: Meat Grinder
Billions of creations roared simultaneously.
The sound defies any linguistic description.
It’s the friction of metal, the collision of flesh, the shriek of energy, the space itself wailing as elements clash.
They coalesce into a soundwave capable of shattering souls, sweeping from the battlefield’s center outward, even causing the Seventh Level Wizards observing from above to instinctively reinforce their spiritual defenses.
The war of the cannon fodder has begun.
From high above, this once silent gray-white wasteland is now covered by two distinctly colored "tides."
One tide is the alliance army of the Chaos Secret Sect and Tower of Annihilation.
Deep red flesh giant beasts move like mountains, with pus and arcs flowing on their surface, each step shattering the earth.
The gray-white skeleton army advances silently, cold soul flames flickering in their eye sockets, and their bone weapons inscribed with annihilation runes.
Suspended in mid-air are countless mutated flying units—some resembling skinned bats, others bonding eyeballs and tentacles, and some are simply shapeshifting shadows.
Most of these cannon fodder units are between Third Level to Fifth Level, but their numbers... are immeasurable.
They surge like a real tsunami, aiming to push flatly against Nolun Workshop’s defensive line.
And ahead of them lies a steel long wall formed by hundreds of interconnected black metal fortresses.
On the fortress surfaces, billions of defense runes flicker at a fixed frequency, building a translucent pale golden energy shield from foundation to peak.
The shield isn’t thick, even somewhat thin, but its coverage is vast.
Using each fortress as a node, the energy fields connect, stack, and resonate, eventually forming a colossal composite defense array spanning thousands of kilometers.
The cannon fodder torrent from the Chaos Secret Sect and Tower of Annihilation violently crashes onto this "wall of light."
In the front line, tens of thousands of flesh giant beasts begin decomposing upon touching the shield.
Skin carbonizes, muscles dissolve, bones shatter—they’re wiped from existence by the energy within the shield.
Yet this is just the beginning.
From behind, more cannon fodder units take their place.
They strike with their bodies, bombard with energy breath, attempt self-destruction to tear a hole in the shield.
Each attack causes ripples on the shield’s surface, making the fortress energy readings in that area fluctuate intensely.
However, the fortresses aren’t just for passive defense.
As the cannon fodder army enters firing range...
"Open fire."
The command is relayed through the spiritual network to every fortress control center.
In the next second.
The whole steel long wall, like a giant beast awakening, opens its innumerable eyes all over its body.
On each fortress’s wall, hundreds of firing holes simultaneously open.
Behind each firing hole is a specially designed "medium-sized elemental decomposition cannon."
Their power doesn’t match the super-heavy main cannon controlled by Jeming, but they fire faster, consume less energy, and are more suited for clearing large numbers of low-tier targets.
Boom boom boom boom boom!!!
Thousands upon thousands of beams pour out of the protective shield like torrential rain.
The scene is akin to the defensive line suddenly growing countless glowing spikes.
The beams strike precisely into the densest areas of the cannon fodder army.
Each hit clears a section of "blank" with a radius of dozens of meters within the enemy cluster.
Within the attack range, all units, regardless of form or level, dissolve into basic particles in the decomposition beams unless they reach Sixth Level.
But this still isn’t enough to halt the torrent numbering in billions.
More cannon fodder units cross over their comrades’ corpses and continue charging.
They reach the shield, exhausting its energy reserves.
The shield’s light begins to visibly dim.
At this moment, Nolun Workshop’s cannon fodder army moves.
But they don’t charge out of the shield.
Because there’s no need.
"Let them in."
Dionysius Spencer’s voice resonates in the High Tier Wizards’ dedicated channel:
"If this consumption continues, the energy reserves won’t hold. Open a few gaps in the shield, let the cannon fodder army press on; we’ll play whack-a-mole!"
The command is swiftly executed.
The pale golden shield surface suddenly displays several "weak points."
The Chaos Secret Sect and Tower of Annihilation’s cannon fodder rush in through the breached weak spots like sharks smelling blood.
Naturally, the cannon fodder units previously crazily attacking the shield also head towards the "gap" in the shield.
Then, they collide head-on with the Nolun Workshop cannon fodder army already in position.
The Black Giants silently raise tower shields, compressing the invading enemies into narrow areas, then using their war axes to harvest en masse.
The Shadow Warriors transform into flowing black walls, consuming and assimilating every intruder into new shadow material.
Mechanical bodies, elemental creatures, and modified beasts unleashed by other Wizards each showcase their strengths, engaging the enemy in bloody close-quarters combat within the "alley area" among the fortresses.
This is a pure exchange of quantity and quality.
At every moment, tens of thousands of cannon fodder units perish.
Yet Nolun Workshop’s defensive line holds steady.
Because the "gap" in the shield is limited in size, only a limited number of cannon fodder units can squeeze in short-term.
Inside the defensive line, the average level of cannon fodder units is higher, individual combat strength is stronger, plus there’s artillery support from rear fortresses, and the shield isolates most direct impacts from High Tier enemies.
More importantly—
Above the cannon fodder army’s battlefield, in the airspace belonging to the "High Tier cannon fodder" and "High Tier Wizards," Nolun Workshop doesn’t fall behind.
Seventh Fortress, Third Bombardment Control Room.
Jeming sits at console number 09, eyes shut tightly, fine beads of sweat dotting his forehead.
His consciousness is deeply connected with the external "super-heavy elemental decomposition cannon" of the Third turret.
The Wizards opt for a "rotation system" when using the turrets.
Operate a cannon, fire, exhaust spiritual power, disconnect, pass control to the next Wizard, continue firing.
The Wizard whose spiritual power is exhausted can then rest aside to recover it.
At this moment, the Third turret is recharging.
Through the perception runes on the turret, Jeming "sees" the aiming area.
It’s about fifty kilometers back in the cannon fodder battlefield, a Chaos Secret Sect’s gathering area for Fourth Level cannon fodder units.
Around thirty thousand units resembling giant beetles are preparing to charge anew under the command of several Fifth Level Wizards.
"Lock on."
Jeming murmurs in his mind.
Inside the turret, over seven million runes light up in harmony.
Vast elemental energy is drawn from a temporary Elemental Pool at the fortress base and injected into the turret core’s "Transformation Array," stripped of attributes, purified, compressed, finally converted into pure "decomposition" force.
This process demands astronomically high spiritual power from the Transformation Array.
An ordinary Fifth Level Wizard, operating such a cannon alone, would be drained of spiritual power after one shot, requiring at least several minutes resting with spiritual power Recovery Potion to barely regain operational capability.
Thus Wizards employ the rotation system.
If a Wizard of even lower level, it might take multiple people together to operate one cannon for a single shot.
