Chapter 287: Yang Plans as Primary, Yin Plans as Auxiliary (23)

At 5 p. m. that day, the battlefield footage from the Storm Continent arrived in Luosen's hands.

The footage was assembled from multiple distant, top‑down viewpoints, extremely clear, showing the situation on the otherworldly continent's battlefield from every angle.

Luosen made a copy and sent it to the Natural Empire's Tactical Simulation Department, so a group of commanders could get to know their future opponents and analyze countermeasures.

He kept one for himself and watched it alone, holed up in an underground laboratory.

While watching, he compared it with the data Duola had sent to determine the exact combat strength of each Elves combat unit.

The footage was long—over four hours.

Luosen sped the footage up fivefold, watched it through without missing a detail, and reached a conclusion.

"The Elves ground corps pose no threat at all; they're just sitting ducks for bombing."

With the Empire's current production capacity for unmanned incendiary aircraft, they could bomb the Elves into existential doubt.

"Ordinary flying dragons, at full thrust, can break the sound barrier; their flight capability is roughly comparable to the Empire's current manned fighter mainstays."

"In air combat, both sides could trade blows. But if anti‑air unmanned incendiary aircraft are used, the dragons would still end up as bombing targets."

"But this Truth Dragon is truly formidable."

"The Empire's current air force is no match; within three years it will be hard to build aircraft capable of confronting the dragon in the sky. Unmanned incendiary aircraft can't catch up, let alone bomb it."

"Once the Truth Dragons reach a scale of over a thousand, they will easily seize air superiority on the battlefield."

Luosen watched the Truth Dragons in the footage and began recalling the detailed figures Duola had provided.

"Maximum speed 4.2 times Mach, cruise speed up to 1.8 times Mach, average soul strength Legendary 10, average mana magnitude 30,000 Luosen, mana regeneration 400 Luosen per second—enough for a Truth Dragon to sustain supersonic cruise over 20,000 km."

"Physical resilience is extremely high; the Elves currently have no force capable of breaching their dragon‑scale defenses."

"Souls are exceptionally robust, spell resistance is very high. Soul‑based or magical attacks against them are greatly weakened; anything below level 3 is completely ineffective."

"De Rui Tan plans to forge 2,000 Truth Dragons; currently there are 40."

These detailed figures surprised Luosen quite a bit.

"The Life Goddess really has an extraordinary touch; with a little tweak she produced this monstrous contraption."

Why could Duola obtain such detailed data?

Because she is De Rui Tan's Life Saint.

De Rui Tan descends to the mortal world through her body, and also manipulates Life Tree branches via her body to perform various life alterations.

One detail is that when a demon god inhabits a mortal's body, the mortal can resist.

Given Duola's current soul strength, plus the loophole Luosen patched for her, she can refuse De Rui Tan's control whenever she wishes.

At present, De Rui Tan can destroy Duola with force, but truly controlling her is not difficult.

But Duola does not reject the control.

When De Rui Tan descended, she stepped back, becoming a calm observer, watching his every move and silently relaying them to Luosen.

Thus, Luosen not only knows the Truth Dragons' detailed combat capabilities, but also their body‑modification data.

"The so‑called Truth Dragon is essentially an upgraded Golden Dragon."

"Its foundation remains the Golden Dragon; its combat potential has simply been further unleashed."

"I could actually create it, even forge a stronger Truth‑Dragon body."

With Luosen's current knowledge of the Golden Warrior and the data Duola obtained, he could easily produce a similar, even vastly superior, powerful creature to the Truth Dragon.

However, he lacks enough Life Trees and sufficiently strong combat souls, so even if he created one, it would be just an empty shell.

Moreover, he has no intention of expending effort to do so.

In his view, these so‑called combat beasts are fierce, but their combat efficiency is too low to be worthwhile.

At the same time, he does not intend to implement the 'Life Modification' system within the Natural Empire.

Because this system would inevitably bring about a doctrine of noble bloodlines, essentially an aristocracy—and an even more entrenched one.

He has barely ushered the nation into a citizenry, and does not wish to return to the cage of aristocracy.

Because perfection does not exist in this world; there are only trade‑offs.

Being strong in one area inevitably means having a huge weakness in another.

"Then, how should I deal with these Truth Dragons?"

Luosen fell into contemplation.

After careful deliberation, he came up with an idea.

"First, we need to develop a war artifact for direct confrontation, and we must prepare on two fronts."

"The first front is to quickly produce the Heart of the Ocean."

Once the Heart of the Ocean is created, we'll have a power source far beyond this era's, and the next step will be to start building sky warships.

When sky warships take to the air, their overwhelming force will directly crush the so‑called Truth Dragons.

That is the true radiant path; once realized, it will crush all modified life.

"What if I'm unlucky and can't get the Heart of the Ocean in time?"

First, the Heart of the Ocean can certainly be made.

Why is that?

Because a forerunner has succeeded.

The 'Lost Plane' and the three great Abysses spoken of by Life Goddess Adela are the forerunners who wield solar power.

But time is uncertain.

"If the Unified Empire is crushed before the Heart of the Ocean matures, we'll have to confront the Elves army head‑on."

"If we can't handle the Truth Dragons, the Empire will lose air superiority—that's absolutely unacceptable."

A war without air superiority would be fought terribly fiercely.

How to confront them directly? Building an air force is unrealistic, because fixed‑wing aircraft can't match the long‑winged dragons, and pilots' souls are far weaker than the dragons'.

"So we still have to rely on the anti‑air unmanned fire‑bombing aircraft."

"Its current performance isn't enough, so we'll improve it to let it chase the Truth Dragon!"

"A slight performance shortfall doesn't matter; we can make up for it with numbers."

"If one doesn't work, launch ten; if ten don't work, launch a hundred—surely we can bring it down."

"However, whether it's the Heart of the Ocean or the upgraded anti‑air unmanned fire‑bombing aircraft, both require time."

"But given the current state of the storm continent, in at most seven months the Fusion Empire will be completely annihilated, and the Elves will fully occupy the storm continent."

"After a period of regrouping, the Elves will turn around and trouble them."

"If there is no interference, this period is estimated not to exceed two years."

"The time is too short, may not be enough; I need to find a way to delay the Elves' progress."

"How to delay?"

"There are many methods."

"The overt strategy is war containment."

"First, to unite with the Radiant Empire to attack the Holy Elves Empire's homeland. They've already done that."

"The Radiant Empire has already seized eight overseas dragon islands, totaling 50,000 square kilometers."

"But from the current situation, the Holy Elves Empire's war potential is enormous; the joint effort of the two great mortal empires does not cause much delay."

"Second, to assemble a fleet, cross the fengbao yang, and directly clash with the Elves Empire on the opposite continent."

"The second matter is very hard to pull off."

"Because mortal fleets have weak deep‑sea navigation, limited trans‑sea delivery capability, and lack geographic advantage compared to the Elves."

"The Holy Elves Empire has a nice spot called 'Sunrise Cape', less than 1,100 km from the storm continent, whereas both the Radiant Empire and the Natural Empire face sea crossings over 6,000 km."

"Therefore, with the strength of the two great empires, the overt containment effect is minimal."

"If overt plans fail, we can only resort to covert schemes."

"In the footage, the Truth Dragon still displays its divine might on the front‑line war."

"Watching that almost invincible massive figure, Luosen squints and shows a faint smile."

"'Truth Dragon. Hehe~~~ It can fight, but calling it "Truth" is an exaggeration.'"

"He instantly spotted the fatal defect of this powerful engineered life."

"That is, it is artificial."

"Artificial life inevitably has one drawback: a lack of diversity."

"Especially De Rui Tan, who has an obsessive compulsion for perfection."

"He can't tolerate any speck of sand in his eyes; once he spots a so‑called 'flaw', he strives within his ability to improve it to the extreme."

"This trait results in the Truth Dragon's diversity being almost zero."

"In nature, when a species lacks diversity, it is extremely dangerous."

"A random mutation into a highly contagious lethal virus could cause the species' extinction."

"Thus, targeting this flaw, Luosen devised a plot against the Truth Dragon and all Truth Warriors."

"'I'll toss a contagious virus specifically targeting the Truth race onto the storm continent; see what you do?'"

"In Luosen's view, the Fusion Empire's toxins are downright weak."

"The truly terrifying biological poison in the world is called a virus!"

"Such a homogenized engineered life has virtually no firewall between individuals; a single dose of virus can make them swing between ecstasy and death."

"Thus, the Elves' supreme blade is broken, and the Fusion Empire, which originally could be conquered in half a year, can now be delayed three to four years, even five to six."

"That should be enough for him to produce a mature Heart of the Ocean."

"After devising the plan, Luosen handed the overt strategy to Emperor Luosen, asking him to convene the generals and heads of the weapons research department to devise solutions."

"As for the covert plan, of course he handles it himself."

"This matter can only be done by him; no one can help."

"He began to focus on creating the Truth virus."

"No need to worry about the virus running amok, turning into a Seven‑Injury Fist."

"Because the Truth Warriors' genetics differ greatly from mortals, there is strong reproductive isolation; they are no longer the same species."

"'I'll make this virus spread via respiratory droplets.'"

"'Since there's a species barrier, I'll make an RNA virus this time—fast mutating, hard to treat.'"

"'After infection, the incubation period will be set to seven days; within those seven days there are no symptoms, allowing it to infect more individuals.'"

"'Symptoms? They'll become weak and fatigued, speak with heavy breaths, their heart rate spikes at the slightest movement, yet they won't die—just linger in a half‑dead state.'"

"There are three Golden Warriors as base samples, plus detailed modification data that Duola can provide at any time, and with the aid of the Life Tree branches, this thing isn't hard to pull off."

"About ten days later, Luosen produced this contraption."

"Then he phase‑shifted to the storm continent and began spreading poison everywhere."

"His current base soul strength has been optimized to Legendary 13.1, higher than De Rui Tan's 12.8."

"He also masters a large number of covert spells."

"Meanwhile, thanks to Duola and the efforts of the empire's external intelligence spies, he knows the Elves' military movements well, so his poisoning is silent and unseen."

"After finishing the poisoning, he returned to Weilan, patiently awaiting Duola's news."

"About ten days later, Duola indeed sent him a message."

"'Master, good news!'"

"'The Fusion Empire has created a highly covert and terrifying toxin specifically against Truth Warriors; its effect is severe, reducing their combat power by at least ninety percent.'"

"Luosen muttered greedily, knowingly asking, '*tch*~~ That's really good news; how did De Rui Tan respond?'"

De Rui Tan flew into a rage, then searched for an antidote, but the antidote was hard to find; after several days, there was still no result.

Pretty good~pretty good~~

Luosen was very happy.

He suddenly had another thought flash through his mind: "Animals can be infected by the virus, plants can too."

Can I launch a virus at the Elves' core Life Tree?

If possible, that would be too fun.

But after thinking it over carefully, he found the difficulty extremely high.

Because the Life Tree is in the core area of the Endless Forest, that place is not like a chaotic battlefield, watched by countless eyes, and De Rui Tan also pays close attention to it, making it hard for him to sneak in.

Furthermore, plants are not like animals; plant vital activity is weak, so the virus spreads slowly, thus the effect is not great.

"Let's drop this for now."

He then continued contacting Duola: "Any other important news from the Endless Forest?"

"There is one."

"The Star Goddess Xixi's magic has advanced to Legendary, and it is still rising at an extremely fast speed, making De Rui Tan both happy and worried."

Luosen secretly smiled; the growth limit he had initially set for Xixi was Legendary 17, far exceeding De Rui Tan's Legendary 12.8.

"Hehe~ I'll just see if you can tolerate her."

Then he replied to Duola: "Continue observing."

"Master, when will we defeat De Rui Tan?"

"No, not defeat, but kill."

"If it's just defeat, we could do it now. But I don't want this guy to live, so we need to set a proper deadly trap."

"Oh~ I understand."

"This trap really needs careful planning, and we have to start laying it out bit by bit now."

"Otherwise, this guy might escape."

(End of chapter)