Chapter 236: Divine Power vs. Word Spirit

A large number of spaceships and fighter jets, as well as several landing craft, appeared within the Chitauri fleet; once their engines were engaged and acceleration picked up, they charged directly toward the Barbarian Assault Team.

Even Korik was a bit stunned by this scene; as an experienced veteran general, this was his first time seeing a civilization more reckless than his own, and because there were so many reckless ones, Korik was momentarily unable to determine if it was a trap.

"General, shall we open fire?" a staff officer asked Korik in a low voice.

Korik walked to the window, his divine power surging and spreading out toward a circular area of 100,000 kilometers in the vicinity; even after the enemy's main warships crossed the safety line, Korik still could not find any location where a trap might exist.

After hesitating for a long time, Korik waved his hand, "Pass the order, artillery positions two and three are to open fire, precision shooting mode, intercept the enemy's small probing force at a distance of 10,000 kilometers!"

Korik ultimately ordered the bombardment to begin; if he were simply wary of a potential trap and thus increased the distance of the battlefield, that would not be his, Korik's, habit. Today, regardless of what kind of trap it was, he was going to squarely and uprightly devour this batch of military forces in one bite!

Once the order was given, the artillery barrels on the second and third artillery positions, which were generally much thicker than a person, began to rotate slightly; guidance and locking magic began to take effect, estimating the enemy's movement trajectory and fine-tuning the orientation of the barrels.

Yifan was not idle either; because the artillery positions here on Asgard primarily used magic for target acquisition, his role was to perform verification—the verification used mathematical models he had designed on the fly, processing standardized data transmitted from the magic array interface.

Yifan did not need to know what data was required to lock onto the fast-moving ships; he only needed to see if the data transmitted back from the interface contained errors or omissions, or if it seriously deviated from the mathematical curves formed by other data. If such problems appeared, it generally meant the corresponding artillery barrel had malfunctioned and needed to be stopped immediately for real-time debugging.

War on a cosmic scale is just this boring; even for non-technological civilizations, they all play with modular methods. However, boring as it may be, efficiency is a certainty.

The light beams shot from the artillery barrels, depending on the properties of the magic particles, traced completely different trajectories in the starry sky after exiting the asteroid's one-way defensive shield.

A pale blue beam of light stirred up a passage scattered with ice crystals, accurately striking a rapidly shifting spaceship; the moment the light exploded, a large area of space around it was completely frozen, and a huge ice ball formed there.

The temperature here dropped instantly, and a flash of fire nearby exploded immediately, suddenly giving the ships in this range a taste of ice and fire.

The precision strikes Korik spoke of referred to this type of magic ray with a small attack range; single-shot and high-power, they could indeed be counted as individual weapons.

In fact, it was mainly because the effective range of these single rays was only a few hundred meters; when dealing with units like spaceships, it was barely enough. At any rate, one ray could at least eliminate one target on average; if the target were placed on a flagship, it would only consume a bit of the opponent's defensive energy.

"1,799 rays fired, estimated enemy units eliminated: 1,500,..."

Real-time battle reports were quickly fed back to the command center from the artillery positions' observation magic. Korik did not say much, only continuing to observe the starry sky outside. That's not right; this group of ships dares to charge the position with just this much ability? That is simply looking down on people too much.

At the same time, on the Chitauri flagship, the commander looked at the firepower coming from the target asteroid and felt a bit uneasy. The Asgardian firepower was potentially much stronger than imagined, but if it were only this, the problem was not yet major. This time, they had dispatched over 20,000 ships and over 50,000 fighter jets; breaking through the defensive line should be a sure thing.

The only problem was that once the distance closed, the number of units potentially destroyed would increase exponentially; after all, the attack formation would be too dense at that time.

"Firepower suppression, reduce the number of subsequent landing craft, increase the number of ultra-fast fighter jets, and circle around to the back to take a look; I want to know the situation on their backside," the commander ordered quickly.

Although he was prone to arrogance, his ability was beyond doubt, otherwise he could not have sat in this position. After watching the bombardment for so long, he had already calculated the specific distribution of the artillery positions, and at the same time, had roughly estimated the number and interval of the currently firing turrets.

The next time the turrets opened fire, the Chitauri warships came in synchronization, and all kinds of strange rays were fired together at the Asgardian artillery positions.

What is called a "United Nations brand"—this is a United Nations brand; all kinds of rays from dozens of nearby civilizations, from simple lasers to invisible rays, were all available.

The chaotic rays struck the defensive barrier, stirring up countless ripples; in an instant, the barrier looked like the surface of water under a heavy rain, and Korik and the others were at the bottom of the water looking up.

After the Chitauri firepower suppression was activated, the bombardment effect from the artillery positions became much worse. It was not that the positions were destroyed or unable to fire due to the suppression, but because many magic beams were accidentally triggered by the enemy's bombardment after leaving the defensive barrier, failing to hit any units at all.

Seeing the enemy ships approaching further, Korik instead breathed a sigh of relief. The opponent activating firepower suppression indicated, to a certain extent, that he had indeed just been overthinking things.

"Gungnir! Fire!" Korik shouted loudly.

In the artillery positions, the main barrels that had been prepared for a long time lit up with blinding light; the super-cannon named after Odin's weapon was ready!

Swish! Two particle beams spanning the sky erupted like two long spears piercing the galaxy, directly piercing through the area where the enemy units were most densely gathered.

Any unit that was grazed or touched by this Gungnir turned into dust, without even a chance to struggle.

Just as the beams were charging straight toward the main Chitauri fleet, an invisible fluctuation enveloped the entire fleet, and terrifying spiritual power transformed into ten thousand silk threads, linking the fleet with the surrounding space.

Boom!

The bombardment of Gungnir hit the bullseye, and the intense light spread from the center point toward the surroundings, but it failed to cause any damage because all of their attack power was spread evenly across all the surrounding fleets and the space they occupied.

Ebony Maw floated above the fleet with his hands behind his back.

Word Spirit: Eye for an Eye.

The energy dispersed in the surrounding space gathered behind Ebony Maw; after a short wait, two smaller Gungnir bombardments erupted and struck toward the asteroid.

Divine Power: Spatial Oscillation!

Korik flashed and appeared outside the asteroid, his right fist slamming into the empty space in front of him; invisible cracks instantly covered the space before him, followed by a violent oscillation that erupted completely.

Ebony Maw's two bombardments were rolled back, colliding with the front and back, canceling each other out, and becoming phantoms.

When Korik appeared, all the surviving units around him began to change direction.

Even in a civilization like the Chitauri that relies on mental control to maintain its army, when encountering a Cosmic Demon God, they are able to choose forced evasion and will not be judged by a military tribunal.

After all, ordinary spaceships and fighter jets are really no better than a puff of air in front of a Cosmic Demon God; almost all Cosmic Demon Gods can at least match a standard-level cosmic cruiser.

Those at the level of Odin or Thanos are even more likely to only be countered by warships like Titan Dreadnoughts or Colossus Dreadnoughts, which only top-tier civilizations can build and maintain.

Korik did not pay attention to those fleeing units; that was not his mission. Using a cannon to kill a mosquito was a complete waste; his target now was this guy in front of him.

Seeing that Ebony Maw had no intention of making the first move, Korik directly began to increase the intensity.

Roar, Berserk, Bloodlust—the old trio started with a round first.

Following closely, Korik's body shook, and the surrounding light, energy, perception, space, and many other elements shattered under the vibration; looking from afar, it was as if a black hole had appeared around Korik.

Divine Power: Subspace Oscillation!

Within the range that the "black hole" could radiate, the subspace experienced violent fluctuations, and most spells and equipment linked to the subspace were rendered ineffective.

Just at this moment, Korik, having crossed the oscillating space, appeared behind Ebony Maw, raised his right hand, and struck!

Huge power accompanied by fluctuations spread from Korik's fist; if Ebony Maw chose to dodge, this power could also be launched toward the Chitauri flagship.

Word Spirit: Mirror Entity.

Ebony Maw pointed forward, and a mirror image identical to Korik appeared in front of Korik, striking back with the same attack.

With a crack, the mirror shattered; Li Gui ultimately failed to beat Li Kui.

Word Spirit: Repulsion Aura.

Ebony Maw followed by swiping his finger forward; Korik, having broken through the Mirror Entity, felt a powerful repulsive force and was sent flying directly.

Word Spirit: Forced Exile!

Word Spirit: Expel!

Ebony Maw's Word Spirits came one after another, giving Korik absolutely no chance to adjust.

After exchanging a few moves, Korik also had a basic understanding of Ebony Maw; although the power this person used was a bit strange, the Template was very much like an Asgardian mage.

Korik had no experience fighting Ebony Maw, but he had plenty of experience fighting mages.

Divine Power: Demon-Breaking Roar!

A battle cry sent the surrounding energy particles into a state of chaos, as if they had been stunned by a shout from Korik; Ebony Maw's Spoken Spirit was also affected and failed to exert its intended effect.

After activating the Demon-Breaking effect, Korik began to charge toward Ebony Maw with a single thought in mind: I want to get close to you!

As long as he stuck close enough and for long enough, the negative effects brought by the Demon-Breaking might even make it impossible for the opponent to survive in the universe.

Word Spirit: Scene Reproduction.

Word Spirit: Taskmaster.

Ebony Maw calmly raised his hands and unleashed two more Word Spirits, but this time the primary target was himself, which could reduce the impact of the Demon-Breaking effect.

A purple-headed figure carrying a long blade appeared behind Ebony Maw; the blade was stained with blood, clearly having just been used for slaughter.

This was Thanos from a massacre recorded in Ebony Maw's memory; at that time, the Black Order was not yet the five fixed members they were now—in short, it was a very distant memory.

Just as Korik was about to reach Ebony Maw, the Taskmaster took effect, and Ebony Maw transformed into Thanos—a Thanos carrying a long blade.

Korik didn't care about any of that messy business; let alone turning into a purple potato, even if he turned into a potato chip, it wouldn't stop Korik from landing a punch first—anything else could be said after the fight!

Clang~

Korik's iron fist and the long blade collided, emitting an extremely harsh sound.

Immediately after, the collision sounds became more frequent and faster, and the two actually began close-quarters combat.

In this regard, among the many people present, Korik dared to claim second place, and no one dared to claim first.

However, Ebony Maw's close-quarters technique was not bad either, especially with the scene enhancement of Thanos.

The two were locked in an inseparable battle for a time, exchanging hundreds or thousands of blows every second, until Thanos's long blade began to chip, and the two briefly separated.

Korik rubbed his arm, having gained a basic understanding of Ebony Maw's strength; this person's strength was slightly higher than his own, and the rhythm of the battle was mostly controlled by the opponent.

However, this gap was not impossible to bridge; Korik still had many trump cards he hadn't revealed, the most basic one being that he hadn't yet borrowed power from his own kin—once the power of the barbarian soldiers was added, it would be his turn to suppress the opponent.

However, looking at the current situation of the battle, Korik had no intention of entering a decisive battle state immediately; the jump engine of the Mountain was still under repair, their combat power was still slowly increasing, and the Chitauri's offensive had been blocked by the artillery positions firing at full power, so dragging the time out like this was an advantage for him.

Ebony Maw frowned; he had specifically studied intelligence on Asgard, and this unremarkable guy before him was much more troublesome than imagined.

The difficulty of implementing the delay plan was higher than expected, and it would require the opponent's cooperation to achieve it.

"Are you Heimdall?" Ebony Maw asked suspiciously; according to intelligence, the only person in Asgard with this strength might be Heimdall, who held the Guardian Sword, but the intelligence mentioned that Heimdall's strength would be greatly reduced when far away from the Asgardian palace, and besides, Heimdall's fighting style didn't seem to be like this.

"Your grandfather is Korik, the God of Earthquakes of Asgard; don't die without knowing who you died at the hands of!" Korik grinned, spread his hands, and two battle axes appeared in his palms.

"Korik, never heard of him," Ebony Maw said with a hint of disdain to Korik, who was charging again.

Korik couldn't be bothered to argue with Ebony Maw, so he swung his heavy axe down to seize the initiative.

The fierce battle began again, and the location of the two demon gods' fight began to shift; Ebony Maw didn't want to fight Korik within the main force of the Chitauri, as the damage caused by the aftermath might cause the battle situation to shift, and only by pulling the distance away would the duration of this war be prolonged.