Free Web NovelChapter 271: Chapter 265: Mowing the Grass
Over 3,200 Magical Beasts had already breached the 200-kilometer defense perimeter.
They no longer maintained their previous fan-shaped formation. Seven squadrons of Storm Falcons had spent thirty-six hours on non-stop bombing runs, utterly obliterating the core forces within the Magical Beast horde.
Without high-level Magical Beasts to command them, this army of stragglers was like a splatter of mud, trickling toward Zone 18.
But to Allen, still a First-level Wizard, these were not entirely harmless specks of mud.
Over three thousand yellow dots represented ordinary Magical Beasts, among which were two hundred twenty individuals with Magic Power fluctuations exceeding 1,000. Eight orange dots were the "tough nuts" that had luckily survived the airstrikes.
"Jarvis, have the sixth sub-thread take command of inner-circle combat operations. Once target prioritization is complete, begin guiding strikes immediately."
Allen’s main consciousness remained immersed in his Sea of Spirit, carving the complex Will Rune.
His sub-thread, like a high-speed server, leveraged the processing power of Dseek and Jarvis to instantly tag over three thousand targets on the virtual sand table.
Dense clusters: 27.
Scattered small groups: approx. 700.
Orange-tagged "tough nuts": 8.
[Purgatory Platforms, Squads One through Twelve, lock onto dense clusters.]
[Pre-set firing solutions loaded.]
[Fire.]
The commands were issued instantly through the Demon Eye network.
The sixty Purgatory Platform launchers of three Golem Legions, organized into groups of five, simultaneously broke their silence at their respective positions. Specially designed anchoring appendages plunged deep into the Gobi’s hard rock layer as the launch racks elevated.
WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH!
A piercing whistle tore through the Gobi’s howling winds. Hundreds of Red Lotus Magic Missiles traced intersecting parabolas of death across the grayish-yellow sky.
The artillery barrage began to saturate the area.
The light of the explosions instantly consumed twelve dense beast clusters. Shockwaves blasted tons of rubble and Magical Beast remains dozens of meters into the air. The temperature spiked to three thousand degrees in seconds; Low-Level Magical Beasts were either killed by the blast or left as charred husks.
The twelve squads fired in sequence. After three full salvos, twenty-seven blackened craters scarred the Gobi.
Over one thousand three hundred Magical Beasts were erased.
The surviving Magical Beasts completely broke down amidst the immense sound and light, abandoning their formations and scattering frantically in all directions.
Target density dropped sharply, and the cost-effectiveness of heavy fire saturation fell below the threshold.
"’Purgatory Platforms, cease fire,’ the sixth sub-thread commanded. ’Spider Slayers Mark II, deploy and engage.’"
As the command was issued, one hundred thirty-two preset ambush points beneath the Gobi’s gravelly surface activated in unison.
The Spider Slayers Mark II began their hunt.
Six hundred sixty Slayers burst from the sand and gravel. Organized into tactical squads of five, their low chassis allowed them to blend perfectly into the complex terrain. Six articulated legs propelled them in leaping bounds across the rubble, their speed far exceeding that of any quadruped or biped, their agility belying their metallic construction.
Squad G-17 locked onto a pack of sand lizards five kilometers away. There were twenty of them, with an average Magic Power fluctuation of only around 600.
Slayer One came to an abrupt halt on a weathered rock six hundred meters from the target. Its six legs dug securely into the rock’s crevices as its head silently split open, revealing the "Judgement" sniper module. An azure halo of charging energy gathered at the muzzle.
FZZT—
A completely silent, ghostly blue beam crossed six hundred meters and precisely pierced the lead lizard’s skull. The stench of burnt flesh filled the air. The pack of lizards erupted into chaos, scattering like headless flies.
Three hundred meters to the flank, Slayers Three and Four fired simultaneously. Two beams crisscrossed into the pack, and within three seconds, three more lizards had their heads blown apart.
The remaining lizards finally spotted the attackers’ direction. One of them, the largest mutated lizard, kicked off powerfully with all four limbs, trying to hide behind a massive, wind-eroded boulder.
Behind the boulder, the air rippled like water.
Slayer Two activated "Shadow Travel," passing directly through the three-meter-thick solid rock wall via the Shadow Realm, and appeared without warning at the mutated lizard’s side.
Two sharp blades extended from its forelimbs.
A cold glint of light flashed.
The blades sliced into the gaps between the lizard’s neck scales, severing its spine and scrambling its central nervous system. The lizard’s massive body shot forward two meters from inertia before crashing to the ground. frёeωebɳovel.com
Overhead, Slayer Five dove down from the edge of a ten-meter-high cliff.
Its six heavy metallic legs, like six steel spikes, pinned a lizard that was attempting to counterattack. The sniper module was pressed against the back of the lizard’s head at point-blank range.
A flash of blue light, and brain matter splattered onto the sand.
The entire process took less than twenty seconds. All twenty lizards were annihilated.
Without pausing, Squad G-17 turned and pounced toward the next marked coordinates.
Similar scenes were playing out simultaneously at one hundred thirty-two locations within the defense perimeter.
On the Demon Eye’s reconnaissance display, the blue dots representing the Spider Slayer squads were like efficient phagocytes, devouring the scattered red dots one by one.
Shadow Travel ignored terrain obstacles, beam snipers controlled the mid-range, and blades finished the job with close-range kills. They were unpredictable, and their coordination was seamless.
Against cannon fodder with Magic Power fluctuations below 1,000, this assembly-line-style slaughter tactic demonstrated a suffocating dominance.
This was the first time the Spider Slayer Mark II had truly shown its might on this plane. The enemies they’d faced before either had impenetrable armor or were of such a high level they were completely unbeatable. This time, they finally had a chance to shine.
But there are always surprises.
On the tactical network, Squad G-42 tagged a high-risk target.
It was a giant wolf over six meters long, its body covered in black fur as stiff as steel needles. It was standing on the wreckage of a Spider Slayer Mark II.
It was an Ironmane Wolf with a Magic Power fluctuation as high as 1,400, an elite member of its pack.
Its speed was so fast it left afterimages, and its instincts were exceptionally sharp.
Squad G-42 had fired a five-shot volley from four hundred meters away, but the wolf had dodged every single shot with bizarre, evasive movements. Then, ignoring the grazing wounds from the beams, the Ironmane Wolf forced its way into close-combat range and shattered Slayer Four with a single swipe of its claw.
[Casualty confirmed. Coordinates uploaded. Requesting high-tier asset intervention.]
The four remaining Spider Slayers immediately disengaged, pulled back in four different directions, and executed a tactical retreat.
The response came within a second.
[Shadow Assassin 04 en route to battlefield.]
The Ironmane Wolf threw its head back and howled, its hind leg muscles bulging as it prepared to pounce on the nearest target, Slayer Three.
The very instant it launched itself—
the air behind it silently split open.
There was no Magic Power fluctuation, no killing intent, not even a change in the wind’s direction. A slender, dark-purple-painted machine, like a phantom emerging from the abyss, had materialized in the Ironmane Wolf’s blind spot.
The Shadow Assassin.
It was a specialized assassination weapon, equipped with an improved cloaking coat and a spatial-jump module.
A translucent white spike extended from one of its limbs—a Crystallized Poison Blade.
With no wasted motion, the poison blade plunged precisely into the Ironmane Wolf’s hindquarters, where its fur was thinnest.
CLICK.
The high-pressure injection pump inside the machine made a barely audible hiss of depressurization. Twenty milliliters of high-purity crystallization fluid were instantly forced into the Ironmane Wolf’s circulatory system.
The blade was withdrawn. The machine retreated, melting back into the shadows. The entire assassination took less than half a second.
The Ironmane Wolf’s howl caught in its throat. It whipped its head around in fury but bit nothing but air.
But soon, a strange stiffness began to spread from its hindquarters.
White crystals spread wildly through its body, following the paths of its blood vessels at a visible speed. It was like being doused with cold water in the iciest circle of Hell; the frost instantly seeped into its very core.
"Urrgh..."
The Ironmane Wolf struggled to take a step forward, and tiny white specks began to appear on its eyeballs.
Ten seconds.
Just ten seconds. This mutated giant wolf, once full of life with a Magic Power fluctuation of 1,400, was now dead.
Shadow Assassin 04 confirmed target elimination and proceeded to stalk its next high-risk target.
...
「One day later.」
The wind and sand of the Gobi had covered up most of the stench of blood.
In the Meditation Room, Allen slowly opened his eyes, a deep, ghostly blue light radiating from their depths.
He exhaled a long breath, his main consciousness once again taking full command.
"Report."
[24-Hour Inner-Circle Defense Operation]
[Results: 2,143 cannon-fodder-level targets eliminated; 187 apprentice-level and above (Magic Power 1000+) targets eliminated.]
[Of the 7 red-tagged "tough nut" targets: 3 were eliminated by Storm Falcon squadrons using Crystal Armor-Piercing Bullets in precision strikes; 2 were hunted down and killed by Shadow Assassins in coordination with Spider Slayer squads. The remaining 2 have escaped the surveillance range of this zone.]
[Friendly losses: 23 Spider Slayer Mark II units completely destroyed, 14 heavily damaged. Zero Shadow Assassin losses. Ammunition expenditure at 4.2% of total inventory.]
Allen nodded slightly. It was an exceptionally impressive report card.
Wiping out an onslaught of over three thousand rampaging Magical Beasts at the cost of fewer than thirty basic Golems was proof that the "over-the-horizon strike -> area-denial saturation -> micromanaged hunt" extra-zonal system he had built was a resounding success.
Factory Servants were previously dispatched to clean the battlefield and recover valuable supernatural materials. Damaged units have been towed back to the workshop.
Allen stood up and walked to the holographic sand table. "Jarvis, send me the detailed battlefield salvage report."
[Report generated.]
Dense rows of data scrolled rapidly through Allen’s mind. He quickly scanned the categorized statistics on magic cores, pelts, and bones, his expression calm.
Suddenly, the data stopped scrolling.
Jarvis highlighted an anomalous piece of data in conspicuous red and isolated it in the center of the display.
[Warning: Abnormal object discovered during battlefield carcass cleanup.]
The image expanded.
It showed four incomplete Magical Beast carcasses: a sand lizard, two red-eyed hyenas, and a low-tier rock rat. Their Magic Power fluctuations were all between 200 and 400, making them the lowest tier of inconspicuous cannon fodder.
But embedded within their dissected skulls were several minute metallic components.
Allen’s gaze turned cold in an instant.
He swiped his hand through the air, enlarging the microscopic analysis image of the metal fragments.
A rough surface, nano-scale filaments deeply fused with the flesh and tissue, and that strange, adhesive sensation characteristic of abyssal mutation.
The material was a perfect match for the metal module found inside the over-the-horizon Snail Monster he had killed at an altitude of twenty thousand meters.
"’He really didn’t just modify one of them,’" Allen’s voice was low, like the crunching of ice.
’The Snail Monster was a strategic-grade weapon with over-the-horizon strike capabilities; it made sense to expend resources modifying it. But what were these four?’
’The most common Low-Level Magical Beasts. No combat talent, no high reserves of Magic Power. What was the point of wasting precious metal modules and abyssal power on them?’
Allen’s mind raced.
’If these four Magical Beasts had implants... then how many of the two thousand-plus that were blown to bits or burned to ash also had them?’
’And how many among the tens of thousands that escaped into other zones?’
"’Locators? Scouts?’ Allen stared at the metal fragments on the screen, his Mechanical Mind forcibly suppressing a primal chill.
’The beast horde wasn’t just to expend my ammunition and Golems.’
’Hidden among these hundreds of thousands of Magical Beasts were an unknown number of mobile spies.’
’They were deliberately scattered, driven to break through the defense lines and infiltrate the White Wizards’ heartland.’
’Once the time is right, and the metal modules hidden inside their bodies receive that "signal"...’
"’Jarvis.’ Allen spun around and strode toward his lab. ’Retrieve these four metal fragments immediately. I need to compare them to the Snail Monster’s frequency modulator and develop countermeasures as quickly as possible.’"
"’Allocate all available processing resources,’ Allen commanded as he pushed open the lab doors, his cold voice echoing down the corridor. ’Notify Zone 17 and Zone 19 of this matter.’"
