Chapter 1076

NO. 199: You can always rely on his skill at handling monsters (Alliance Leader bonus chapter)

The annihilation phenomenon caused by the contact of demons with the main material world—namely, the denial of everything required for ordinary life, leaving behind black snowflake-like condensates in plain sight, essentially an incompatibility in physical law.

——Theme of the eleventh corporate meeting of Rhodes Island Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.

The environment limits one's vision, a fact everyone knows.

Although old Terra was not lacking in imaginative works about other worlds, nor in the few beings who truly ventured into dimensions and crossed planes to explore those spaces, ultimately no one truly wrote and published to spread this knowledge.

Honestly, this isn't bad.

After all, knowledge itself is not wrong, but people will not know what to do with it.

Writing such knowledge about other worlds might lead to madmen blindly exploring just to satisfy curiosity—then they might stumble upon things like demons that exist in other dimensions.

Of course, this is not to say that the original demons were brought by those seeking knowledge who explored other dimensions; it's merely that, for this post-apocalyptic world of Terra, blind exploration is unwise.

Whether it be the cause that destroyed the prior civilization, the civilization's own creations, or even the mysterious places the prior civilization had not yet explored,

For Terra, still babbling at its current stage of civilization, these are extremely hard to grasp, and a single misstep could invite catastrophic disaster.

Proper knowledge control is also a way to make the world more stable.

Even if that is achieved, these new humans still breed their own miseries, but that ends up being another domain's blame‑shifting meeting.

But this isn't wholly good, after all; such information control will directly force most Terra residents, researchers included, to start from scratch in exploring other worlds.

Walking the old road some have already taken, one might have to endure even more trial and error.

Fortunately, Terra's land is not only rich in talent, but also has the potential of a leaky sieve.

Just like the early Holy Terra Federation, which occasionally linked with other worlds, bringing forth otherworldly beings—be they human, beast, or object—these could greatly enrich the local development of technology and culture.

Whether it improves the situation or exacerbates contradictions obviously depends on the person.

At least the contact of the Holy Terra Federation is undoubtedly a good thing for the vast majority (though a few regional power holders dislike the other regions' share of cooperation); friendly otherworldly regimes directly brought them culture, knowledge, and technology capable of truly changing the whole environment.

Among them were not only the perfect technique for curing mineral sickness, but also rich and systematic literature on investigating otherworldly exploration.

That is how the opening line came about.

Countless times, within the Rhodes Island Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. building located in the Holy Terra Federation, senior technical staff periodically hold meetings concerning their homeland and the future.

They still hold dear that land of unending suffering, and cannot forget the enemy that once brought them painful memories.

Discussions about demons, the Faction, and even the latest findings and results concerning Originium have long become a monthly routine for the company.

And that also serves as the guiding cornerstone of this current 'game,' which the data programming strives to reproduce.

Thus, at present, including Aomo, players who have attained a high vantage point by their own means, together with NPCs, can see the shadow in the distance that has advanced to become extremely conspicuous.

That most direct visual image shows the erosion of the material plane by subspace.

In that hazy grey, countless black snowflakes drift, while on the ground they measure the extent of that intolerable territory.

【Clearly a counteroffensive surge has begun—what's going on?】

【Don't approach the area covered in black snow! I saw a Ursus soldier go in and disappear!】

Even players are not all fully aware of the nature of demons.

Just as many employees refuse to read the onboarding manual.

Many players joined the test simply to play, and the developers also refrained from spelling out, wanting to see how fully they would exhibit the nature of the 'Fourth Calamity'.

Thus, those reckless players who relied on watching little ads to revive themselves became the first batch of victims.

They were watching the little ads on the public screen, yet also had to see their own corpses standing opposite, striking down their comrades.

In the public screen, someone was already discussing whether stacking corpses like that could be mined for materials to strengthen weapons.

Moreover, some were discussing how to guarantee NPCs' acceptance of so many clones, while others wanted to take a shortcut via the Sea of Solaris; the endless dialogue had already begun to stray from reality.

But people are all dead, and we still can't revive them immediately; if they go off-topic, let them run.

Only the living are fit to consider reality, just as that aberrant dragon is unleashing spiraling purple flames with all its might, while the fire-summoned beast behind wildly swings hellish red flames to cut off any stragglers.

The dragon-like beast forged of gold and iron, as well as the free-form shape of ink-and-wash painting, are also locked in combat in the distance.

In this obvious upheaval of heaven and earth, the gods, one after another, could no longer stand by, each deploying abilities that, while not necessarily grand in scale, could check the runaway situation.

The demons do not possess the intent to drag Terra into the astral plane, but the demons themselves are equivalent to the astral plane's tentacles.

When the tentacles gather, when their mass is sufficient, the boundary between the exotic dimension and the main material world will gradually blur.

The result of the entire land tilting toward the astral plane is that not a single splash of water is raised.

It merely adds to the astral plane a continental specimen filled only with deathly aura.

——When this information is made public through the mouth of a researcher with a player's identity, even those gods who initially did not believe it must, faced with the fact that everything is now progressing according to the 'prophecy', step onto the battlefield they themselves did not wish to tread.

Standing together with those humans, and standing side by side with those inferior beasts.

At this moment, even Aimu Zhiji, who is usually particular about training itself, cannot help but admit that Suzi's words are correct—this opportunity, this experience, is indeed something that other trainers' horsegirls find hard to possess.

When she gazes upon the countless lights like stars pouring into the shadows, tearing open vivid colors within, she indeed feels a clear realization that she is saving the world.

And at the very front of that battle line, the fierce and brutal violet-silver dragon is attempting to seize the sky first.

The blade-like surge spawned from the swinging giant claws strikes the shadow's outermost edge, bursting forth like a wave impact, thereby showing the first gods who set foot on the battlefield the way forward.

The most direct manifestation of the wasteland's rejection of the material domain is that space which seems to carry its own lethal potency—any being that steps into it must at all times be bound by its utterly different world rules, which are constantly in effect.

And life is a precise masterpiece; precision is both praise and flaw—this itself means that any problem in any part may pull the whole body along.

Ordinary carbon-based life forms incapable of modular decomposition cannot set foot on that gray wastelandized land; even the beast incarnates called gods must, before manifesting their true forms, learn to ceaselessly bombard that land with pure energy, just like the Magna Bahamut Aberrant.

The release and extension of energy are likewise based on the laws of the main material world; striking every inch of air in the wastelandized land and its skies is itself a collision of the two dimensions.

In such collisions, energy will inevitably be consumed bit by bit, but if the energy index is sufficient—it is not impossible to rebound against the wasteland, carving out a space therein where ordinary life can take hold.

The lingering shade of Mr. Utaka from days past is itself the strongest example.

Although he, as a warlock king, is already able to represent a peak of the casting domain of the Terra earth.

But this peak is neither impossible to replicate nor impossible to surpass.

If one were to ask why…

Boom!

The power that transcends laws is gestating before the chest; in that stage of energy accumulation that can also be translated as transcendence of principle, the monster card flung by the dragon claw to several li away reappears, once again showing that terrifying figure that once drove the demons mad.

Griliza. Third stage.

It voraciously feeds in the wasteland's territory, displaying a step that is both fiendish and unstoppable by magic, yet instead it is moving toward Aomo's side.

This is clearly not just wanting to stick close; rather, it notices that the Bahamut accumulating power here is practically a feast.

It is precisely because of this eating habit that forces even six relatives to disown, that Aomo initially threw it so far, letting the dense line of demons and demon puppets along the wasteland's edge serve as a barrier to slow Griliza's actions.

Even if it slows it down a bit while eating, that counts as slowing.

Fortunately, Griliza also helped himself attract almost all the demons' attention, allowing him, amidst the vast energy-accumulating light effect of the blazing purple flames that span heaven and earth, to touch the deepest power of the Bahamut's instinct.

Its power is a divine strike.

Its meaning is the moment of destruction.

Its name is the Cocoon of Creation.

Its momentum is the Big Bang of the universe.

With a vast formation constantly extending and expanding, nearly covering several kilometers, it constructs an energy drain strong enough to make Aomo feel it personally, and can only unleash the destructive momentum of this strike.

Descend with that ultimate power capable of penetrating dimensions and annihilating laws!

All converge, forming a directional, giant pillar of purple flame visible to everyone.