Chapter 360: How Dare This World Make Me Adapt to It?

Jiang Ding stood atop a super aerospace fighter shaped like a giant silver-white bird.

Divine sense and magic power surged in, activating the third-tier particle radar to scan the battlefield within a hundred kilometers.

A scene of utter devastation—craters everywhere, severed limbs and broken arms everywhere, and the smoking wreckage of tanks. The carnage was extreme.

A tap of his toe, and the aerospace fighter vanished in a thunderclap of air.

He reappeared in the sky, descending toward the earth, landing in a place full of craters and shreds of flesh and blood.

He raised a hand, and lines of magnetic induction materialized in the air. Soil, stones, tank debris, and corpses slowly rose, revealing a faint-breathing figure among them.

"How are we doing, Commander of the First Army Group, Jin Jin Lingfeng?"

Jiang Ding smiled.

In the trench, hidden beneath layers of corpses, a petite silver-haired girl curled up in one corner, her face pale, her brow furrowed, one arm already gone, the stump a mangled mess of flesh.

"Great Sun Sword Child?"

Jin Jin Lingfeng opened her eyes, delighted, then said bitterly: "Damn Brother Xuanwu Reserve Child, bullying me while I'm only at Qi Refining—just wait until I advance to peak Foundation Establishment, I'll gather a dozen or so aerospace groups and beat him to death!"

"Mm, there will be a chance."

Jiang Ding carefully pushed aside the soil and stones around her, pouring in divine sense and magic power, casting a Foundation Establishment-level Rejuvenation Art to treat her wounds, and said with a smile: "As long as the Brother Xuanwu Heavenly Palace isn't destroyed, they'll keep picking their Reserve Children one after another. There'll be no shortage."

He treated the internal injuries and reconnected the severed bones.

What a pity—the left arm was nowhere to be found, or perhaps already shattered, leaving only a clean patch of pale skin at the stump.

A moment later, Jin Jin Lingfeng stood up. Apart from looking a bit thin and her breathing being faint, there were no more wounds.

From the aerospace fighter's perspective, Jiang Ding looked around. The battles of the Second, Third, and Fourth Army Groups had ended one after another, and they too had begun clearing the battlefield and rescuing their comrades.

The aerospace fighter vanished in a thunderclap of air, circling the entire battlefield at extreme speed.

"The casualty situation is as follows…"

Jiang Ding sent the intelligence he had gathered to the commanders of each Army Group, carefully marking the locations, positions, and wound conditions of several hundred thousand wounded.

"Yes, Commander-in-Chief!"

The voices of Jin Jin Chengkong, Dong Xue Senior Qian, and others came through.

Jiang Ding himself continued to pilot the aerospace fighter through the sky. Wherever he passed, within an eight-kilometer range, lines of magnetic induction flickered.

Soil and stones parted, revealing the wounded within, and he pre-treated those with severe injuries to stabilize their conditions.

There were too many people—if he tried to treat them all alone, his magic power couldn't hold out. He just had to wait for the others to arrive for follow-up treatment.

The efficiency was extremely high.

Almost every few seconds, over a hundred people were rescued. The pale green light of the Rejuvenation Art swept over them again and again, and wounds closed.

As long as a cultivator wasn't dead and their soul wasn't injured, treatment was very easy.

The tens of thousands of cultivators who had been briefly bewitched by the Incense God Baoding Mile also regained clarity, with no aftereffects.

Their souls were shielded by the Central Array Spirit Computer—a Jin Dan Incense God could not affect their essence.

Several hours later, the army was reorganized once more.

"Commander-in-Chief."

An Siyan had not fallen in battle and still served as Director of the General Headquarters' Staff Department. She adjusted her black-framed glasses: "In this battle, combined with the previous fighting, our army suffered one million two hundred seventy-seven thousand two hundred twenty-four casualties. After reorganization, the remaining forces have once again been divided into four tank Army Groups, each with over seven hundred thousand soldiers."

"Battle results,"

Her tone lifted with excitement: "Killed six thousand two hundred twenty-seven Foundation Establishment cultivators, among them sixty-five True Disciple-level Foundation Establishment cultivators who possessed Jin Dan-level combat power under specific circumstances. Additionally, seven True Disciple-level figures escaped."

"Incense God Baoding Mile—most importantly, one Jin Dan-level Incense avatar has been slain."

"Casualty exchange ratio, 205 to 1."

"A great victory!"

"A great victory?"

Jiang Ding sighed: "Trading over two hundred Qi Refining cultivators for the life of one Foundation Establishment cultivator—it's rather brutal."

These were not Bi Xiao Gao Jie Qi Refining cultivators.

No matter how many Qi Refining cultivators they had, they could not participate in a Jin Dan battlefield.

These over one million people were all immortal-talented cultivators nurtured by the Immortal Gate's small-immortal-path quality education from childhood, with basic attainments in Gong Fa, alchemy, artifact refining, formations, spirit plants, spirit beasts, and other disciplines.

Each one had a massive amount of educational resources invested in them, and their probability of advancing to higher-level cultivators in the future was far greater than that of Bi Xiao Gao Jie Qi Refining cultivators.

Fortunately, the flames of war had not yet reached the homeland, with the Grand Void Illusion Realm serving as a buffer—only a great deal of resources, which the Immortal Gate already severely lacked, had been lost.

Without replenishment, the advancement of many Qi Refining and Foundation Establishment cultivators, and even Jin Dan cultivators, would be affected.

"There's no helping it."

An Siyan said solemnly: "The Jiudaxian Sect and the Immortal Gate are both domain-overlord-level powers. Such casualties are hard to avoid."

"If it were any other power, the Immortal Gate's Qi Refining troops could bulldoze any battlefield below Jin Dan with negligible casualties."

"In fact, if not for your appearance, before the new-generation third-tier tactical nuclear weapons appeared, the Immortal Gate would have completely abandoned any world that required Qi Refining cultivators to land and fight."

The Brother Xuanwu Heavenly Palace had developed forbidden treasures capable of neutralizing third-tier tactical nukes, so naturally the Immortal Gate could also develop countermeasures.

It was just that the timing was uncertain—perhaps ten-odd years, several decades, or a century. Such was always the way with scientific research; there was never a precise timeline.

"I think we should learn to adapt to the deaths of our comrades. These things will come sooner or later. This world is just this cold and cruel."

"Adapt to the deaths of our comrades?"

Jiang Ding repeated An Siyan's words, then shook his head: "Attack. As long as we're strong enough, that day will never come."

"Besides—how dare this world make me adapt to it?"

"Uh…"

An Siyan didn't know what to say.

"Yes! Commander-in-Chief!"

The tank army rumbled forward.

Smoke and dust filled the sky, visible clearly hundreds of li away, the clouds on the horizon trembling from it, countless demon beasts fleeing in panic, and a broad, flat road was forcibly carved through the steep, rugged primeval forest.

In the sky, at the front of the great army, a youth in blue robes sat cross-legged atop a super aerial warship, a third-tier spirit-particle radar continuously scanning the battlefield within a hundred kilometers to ensure no enemy could lie hidden in ambush.

Several days later, the great army traversed more than five thousand kilometers, arriving seventy kilometers from the array foundations of the nine central Xuan Wu Ding Gao Jie formations.

The nine array foundations, soaring into the heavens, pierced straight into the clouds and connected to the beyond, providing anchor points and amplification for the Brother Xuanwu Celestial Palace's military formation in the beyond, which spanned several thousand kilometers.

"Coordinates…"

Each army corps commander issued orders downward.

There was no need for prior reconnaissance—the Immortal Gate forces simply pressed forward without regard for anything, reaching within the effective firing range of the target, and then fired.

"Fire!"

Millions of cannons fired at the same instant, streaks of white tearing across the sky, shrill whistling sounds rising and falling one after another, blanketing the heavens and the earth.

Boom!

The nine heaven-piercing giant pillars were drowned in dense swarms of armor-piercing shells, trembling ceaselessly, their spiritual light dimming by a large margin, the pillars somewhat blurred—but they withstood millions of armor-piercing shells without being destroyed.

Their defensive power was terrifyingly formidable among the Jin Dan tier.

"Fire!"

"…"

Commanders such as Jin Jin Lingfeng did not even spare a glance; the army groups fired in unison five times in a row, the smoke of cannon-fire becoming clouds, obscuring the sky's clouds.

Rumble rumble rumble…

Amid the endless bombardment, the nine heaven-pierging giant pillars collapsed with a thunderous crash, and the aura of the military formation in the beyond weakened by another measure.

The great tank army continued rumbling forward, its target aimed straight at the final core of the Nan Bu Ding Gao Jie formation.

(End of this chapter)