Chapter 220: Deception Countermeasure (Monthly Ticket Bonus Chapter)

Just as the Lord of Bliss stared in stunned disbelief, the intensity of the confrontation at the Emperor Tomb Mountain Range battlefield escalated once again.

At the very front of the player battle line.

Upon receiving instructions from the Star Net, the melee players released Blood Soul Tether Chains, wrapping them around their own Tank-Flow players, then swung the chains and twisted their bodies to initiate the Throw Tactics.

They attempted to hurl the Statue-Flow players over the defensive wall constructed by the Calamity-Type units, striking directly at the rear of the Black Black Tide.

At this moment, at the Tianyuan Domain Node, on the Evil Eye High Tower platform.

Noticing the Statue-Flow players being thrown toward them, the Earth Chant Evil Spirit frowned slightly.

The voice of the Evil Eye also rang out at this time:

"Earth Chant, something is wrong; the Player Clan's mysterious commander doing this undoubtedly leaves their own Tank-Flow units with no retreat."

"Once they cross the Calamity-Type unit defense line, we cannot possibly give them a chance to leave; the Tank-Flow is the most important unit type in the player legion, and they would not waste them so easily."

"The Player Clan's mysterious commander clearly realizes this; even if they break through our Calamity-Type unit defense line, the DPS power behind the Player Clan cannot keep up, making this look more like a suicide mission."

Hearing the Evil Eye's reminder, the Earth Chant Evil Spirit, who also felt something was amiss, decisively began to deduce.

Various data streams flashed through its mind; combining this with information from the 'Player Strategy Library,' Earth Chant finally generated a deduced simulation scene in its consciousness.

The Tank-Flow players, after leaping over the Calamity-Type wall, turned in mid-air and released the Star Shift Life Soul upon the Insect Clan warriors.

Instantly, a massive wave of Insect Clan warriors crossed the defense line built by the Calamity-Type units, falling into the rear of the Black Black Tide.

They erupted into a fierce clash with the Black Black Tide units under its control.

The Player Clan seized the momentum to launch a fierce attack, forming a pincer strategy with the Insect Clan warriors against the Calamity-Type units.

After seeing through the opponent's intent, Earth Chant decisively raised the Black Black Tide Curtain.

Just as suspected, this group of thrown Player Clan Tank units turned in mid-air, selecting the Insect Clan's destruction-type units to activate their position-swapping rule ability.

Fortunately, the defense was timely; the Insect Clan units were intercepted in mid-air by the Black Black Tide Curtain the moment they descended.

Upon landing, they fell into the encirclement of the Calamity-Type units, failing to enter the rear of the Black Black Tide.

The Insect Clan Main Brain reacted quickly as well; the destruction-type units that had been swapped instantly erected a defensive line on the spot, resisting the siege of the Black Black Tide evil spirits.

Insect Clan reinforcements from the flank arrived swiftly.

But what puzzled Earth Chant was that the melee units on the Player Clan's left wing actively advanced toward the Insect Clan, attempting to intercept their charge.

Just then, golden danmu streaked across the livestreams of the melee players once again.

Instantly, the melee players on the first and second battle lines rushing toward the Insect Clan warriors collectively turned around.

This time, their gaze was fixed on the Calamity-Type units of the Black Black Tide.

"Not good!"

Earth Chant decisively controlled its own DPS units to retreat, increasing the distance between them and the front-row Calamity-Type units.

The Unit Backlash Tactics were released early, but the backlash did not target the front-row Calamity-Type units; instead, it struck the continuously retreating DPS-type units.

Just as Earth Chant had suspected in its heart.

The impregnable Calamity-Type wall was torn apart.

After the Star Shift swap, a large number of Calamity-Type units were air-dropped onto the Insect Clan battle line, while a massive force of Player Clan melee units switched to the front of the Black Black Tide.

"Hahaha!"

Seeing this scene, the God King, located at the center of the Player Camp, could not help but burst into loud laughter.

In this three-way melee, Tourist Number 1 had indeed found a method to break through the wall.

By borrowing Insect Clan units and using the Star Shift trait to force a position swap.

Now that the front-row units of the Black Black Tide and the Insect Clan had been swapped, the player legion, which had gradually fallen into a disadvantage in terms of combat power, suddenly gained a breathing space.

But before the God King could rejoice for long, Earth Chant had already completed its countermeasure.

Behind the Black Black Tide, the rapidly retreating DPS-type evil spirits merged into the black mist to complete the backlash, and the silhouettes of the Calamity-Type units emerged from the black fog.

The Calamity-Type units that had been thrown toward the Insect Clan direction were actively sacrificed.

Within an extremely short time, Earth Chant completed its tactical response, and the Calamity-Type defense line was reconstructed.

Earth Chant's tactics were clear: the response to the Player Clan must involve Calamity-Type and Plague-Type units.

Meanwhile, the response to the combat Insect Clan would primarily consist of Apocalypse-Type units.

The brief chaotic situation was instantly reversed by Earth Chant, and the war moved from disorder back to order.

Subsequently, Earth Chant controlled the Calamity-Type units to launch an offensive against the destruction-type Insect Clan warriors that had attacked via the position swap.

At this same moment, the Star Net issued an order, demanding its own melee players coordinate with the Black Black Tide to attack the Insect Clan warriors trapped in the encirclement.

The Insect Clan Main Brain did not hesitate for even a moment, sacrificing some of its own trapped Insect Clan units and ceasing all support.

The shift between offense and defense was completed in merely two minutes and thirty seconds.

Without waiting for new instructions from the Star Net, Earth Chant launched a counterattack.

Amidst the churning black fog, the Curse-Type unit 'Bone-Eroding Wail' rapidly generated behind the Black Black Tide.

Their figures were hunched, their emaciated bodies wrapped in tattered black robes emitting a rotting stench, the hems fluttering in the wind.

Beneath the tattered hoods were nearly pathological gray-green faces, with cracked patterns covering their gaunt gray cheeks.

Driven by Earth Chant's will, they extended hands like withered branches, their twisted jet-black nails glowing with black light.

What seemed like useless clothing was actually part of their life structure, lighting up with spirit runes as their abilities were released.

This new unit type was not recorded in the 'Evil Spirit Bestiary,' so the Star Net immediately issued an analysis command to the highest-ranked players in the forward guidance group.

Instantly, analysis information appeared.

[Bone-Eroding Wail (Black Black Tide Evil Spirit)]:

Hunting Level: 63

Target Introduction: A Black Black Tide Curse-Type DPS unit, condensed from the resentment and power of death within Black Black Tide energy; possesses extremely powerful curse abilities, capable of releasing a long-range Disaster Impact Wave that causes corrosion effects on all targets within its coverage, significantly weakening their Black Black Tide resistance.

After clarifying the introduction information for Bone-Eroding Wail, massive amounts of data were generated in the Star Net's database.

However, it made no tactical adjustments.

The ability of Bone-Eroding Wail is to weaken Black Black Tide resistance, proving it was generated to weaken defenses.

The players' rule resistance was not within the scope of weakening.

From this, it was deduced that Earth Chant's target this time was the Insect Clan units, not its own player legion.

Just as the Star Net had anticipated, the long-range curse bombardment of Bone-Eroding Wail instantly descended upon the front rows of the Insect Clan army, with black particles adhering to the carapaces of the Insect Clan tank-type units.

Instantly, the front-row Insect Clan warriors, whose Black Black Tide resistance had been continuously rising during the battle, suffered weakened surface defenses, and the hardness of their carapaces changed.

The casualty rate of the Insect Clan front line climbed rapidly.

The intensity of the war escalated once again.

At this time, the Star Net also chose to break from conventional confrontation, attempting to employ Deception Tactics.

Since the Insect Clan Main Brain and Earth Chant Bully enjoyed deducing developments, it would try interspersing changeable commands to see how they would choose to respond.

Golden danmu streaked through different livestreams as new deployments unfolded.

It mobilized a portion of the player legion's strength to carry out meaningless faction changes.

Subsequently, a comical scene occurred.

The Insect Clan Main Brain and Earth Chant simulated dozens of possibilities based on the Star Net's commands and decisively controlled their own battle lines to adjust accordingly.

The effect brought by the invalid commands was exactly what the Star Net wanted.

By interspersing valid and invalid commands, it trapped the Insect Clan Main Brain and Earth Chant in a pitfall of over-calculation.

After several consecutive attempts, the Star Net issued a valid command again, and the danmu appeared in the livestreams of a portion of the players.

[Turn to coordinates 2938.2824, wait for my command to release the attack.]

Noticing that some player formations had suddenly turned, Earth Chant and the Insect Clan Main Brain simultaneously deduced the strike location, instantly guessing the intent.

The Black Black Tide rose into the sky, generating Calamity-Type flying units to prepare to intercept the elemental bombardment.

The Insect Clan's Giant Shell Beetles also ascended, their spreading wings connecting in the sky to form a carapace shield wall.

The Star Net's command was issued once again in the form of danmu.

However, the direction of the strike was not at all within the range indicated by the turn; the players who received the command tilted their bodies and released a round of biased strikes.

This round of deceptive DPS interspersed within a valid command immediately caused significant area damage to the rear of both the Black Black Tide and the Insect Black Tide.

At the Tianyuan Domain Node, on the High Tower platform.

The voice of the Evil Eye rang out in Earth Chant's consciousness.

"Earth Chant, the opponent is using your habits to conduct an offensive interspersing deception and valid commands."

Earth Chant did not speak, but an idea spontaneously arose in its heart.

If they could do it, so could he.

Immediately following this, Earth Chant replicated the Star Net's deception commands and performed a technical upgrade.

Behind the Black Black Tide, as the beam condensed by the Destroyer shot toward the sky, it suddenly transformed into churning black fog, decomposed in mid-air, and reassembled into dense Surge-Type assassin units, changing their drop point from the sky to stab toward the rear of the Insect Black Tide and the player army.

The light shields released early by the Star Net were avoided due to the change in trajectory; upon landing, the Surge Assassins began slaughtering within the player groups.

But they were quickly exterminated by the melee players of the mixed fourth battle line.

After being continuously deceived by the Star Net, Earth Chant also learned to employ this set of tactics, utilizing the Black Black Tide's advantage of being able to change at will to make a more powerful deceptive counterattack.

The Star Net subsequently made adjustments to its battle formation deployment.

The Black Black Tide's legion system advantage was too great; a pure technical contest offered no chance of victory, so it had to make good use of the Insect Clan that had joined the battlefield.

Let them become a sharp sword for its side to confront the Black Black Tide.

After the emergence of Deception Tactics, it was as if Pandora's Box had been opened.

Both the Star Net and Earth Chant simultaneously activated Deception Tactics.

The intensity of the deduction and calculation increased significantly.

More detailed analysis was needed to determine whether the tactical orders being executed were valid commands or deceptive ones.

The only one unwilling to employ deceptive tactics was the Zerg Overmind.

What could be affirmed was that the Zerg Overmind possessed super-high intelligence along with powerful information processing capabilities.

If it were willing, it could completely imitate the Star Net and the Earth-Nian Evil Spirit.

But its bloodthirsty nature, deep in its bones, made it crave extreme martial collisions, unwilling to fight in such a manner.

As the war continued, the Earth-Nian Evil Spirit on the Evil Eye High Tower platform was also searching for the mysterious commander of the Player Clan.

The current situation was that both the Zerg Overmind and he were commanders playing with open cards.

Yet the mysterious commander of the Player Clan remained nowhere to be seen.

This left the Earth-Nian Evil Spirit with a bone stuck in its throat.

In war, launching a decapitation strike against the enemy commander could be the decisive move determining victory or defeat.

The reason the three parties could engage in a chaotic melee was that the gap in combat power was not large enough to bulldoze two battlefronts, with each commander situated in an absolutely safe position.

But if the gap in combat power were widened, decapitation strikes would become highly effective.

Just as when he had previously captured the Player Clan's commander, successfully disrupting the combat rhythm of the Player Legion and ending the war confrontation ahead of schedule.

Therefore, this hidden mysterious commander must be ferreted out to avoid interference from various unknown factors; at the very least, their location had to be clarified.

While commanding the battle, the Earth-Nian Evil Spirit was also observing the facial expression changes of the Player Clan's overt commander.

But having learned from the previous lesson, the Earth-Nian Evil Spirit did not choose to directly capture the Player Clan's overt commander.

Elemental perception, environmental observation, expression observation... including whether any gaze was directed at the Player Clan's overt commander, were all crucial pieces of information within perceptual observation.

The players had mastered an ability to shift forms and swap positions.

The previous attempt to capture had resulted in a vicious ambush.

This time, having learned its lesson, it began investigating the possibility of position swapping.

After multiple engagements, it discovered a glaring flaw in this displacement ability.

One must make contact with the gaze of the target to execute a rule-based swap; this was also the reason why both the Player Clan's front-line units and the Zerg's front-line units needed to turn around when swapping positions.

Theoretically, there existed a possibility that a member of the Player Clan was secretly protecting this overt Player Clan commander.

As soon as he activated Void Flash, it would trigger a trap, swapping the overt commander with a Player Clan member carrying explosive weapons, ultimately sending him via Void Flash to the Evil Eye High Tower.

Therefore, all potential factors had to be eliminated, including the direction of the overt Player Clan commander's wandering gaze.

After repeated confirmations by the Evil Eye, ensuring there were no issues, the Earth-Nian Evil Spirit launched its operation.

It decided to first capture the Player Clan's overt commander.

This commander possessed crowd-control abilities similar to a Lord, making him a very troublesome combat unit on the battlefield.

Decapitating him also aligned with the demands of war.

Without excessive hesitation, while frequently commanding the war, the black mist surrounding the Earth-Nian Evil Spirit converged, generating a Void Flash.

In the turn of a thought, the Void Flash vanished, and the positioning God-King manifested behind him.

This was to reduce the God-King's reaction time.

The tentacles of the Void Flash extended forward, resting on the God-King's shoulder; the God-King was startled, but it was already too late to activate Star Shift Swap.

In fact, he had always been guarding against the Earth-Nian Evil Spirit's decapitation attempts.

But the Earth-Nian Evil Spirit had never acted thus.

It even made him feel that the Earth-Nian Evil Spirit perhaps no longer had any designs on him.

Most importantly, the arrival of the Void Flash was difficult to guard against.

Originally, he had already conceived a method of response.

That was to have a player possessing the Star Shift Soul constantly watch over him, waiting for the Void Flash to arrive, then activating Star Shift to swap places with him.

But this time, command authority had been handed over to Tourist Number One, so no such deployments had been made in this regard.

As a sensation of weightlessness struck, the God-King reappeared on the High Tower platform.

Looking at the Earth-Nian Evil Spirit, whose Iron Face bore a ferocious smile, the God-King's own Iron Face displayed an expression as if he had eaten shit.

"Is this necessary? You know I am not the commander of this war."

"Very necessary; you hold a tiny sliver of value in my eyes."

Hearing these words, the God-King decisively raised his middle finger.

Fortunately, his death would not affect the course of the war.

Tourist Number One's command perspective was pieced together from the live broadcast feeds of all players; so be it if he died.

But just as he thought the Earth-Nian Evil Spirit would strike to kill him, he saw the black mist surrounding the High Tower platform transform into tentacles that bound him, suspending him in mid-air.

"What is the meaning of this?"

"No particular meaning; I just want you to watch how I win."

"You are an idiot..." Before the God-King could finish cursing, the tentacles extended by the Evil Eye connected with his body; his body jerked violently, and the battlefield scene unfolded in the God-King's mind.

The war continued.

But during this process, the Earth-Nian Evil Spirit was constantly observing the God-King's expressions.

It could be affirmed that this overt commander was extremely familiar with the players' formations and even their abilities.

A simulated data image of this Player Clan commander had already been established in the information database.

Every glance, expression, change in demeanor, and even emotional fluctuation would be simulated by the Evil Eye's deduction into several hypotheses.

Capturing him without killing him was naturally not for some perverse amusement.

Rather, it was to keep him nearby to provide real-time feedback of intelligence information.

Facts proved this step was highly effective.

In the ensuing battle, the Earth-Nian Evil Spirit adjusted the zoom of the battlefield perception feed, constantly focusing on engagements in localized areas.

The captured Player Clan commander indeed exhibited obvious emotional fluctuations and changes in expression.

Continuously predicting through expression capture, after deducing the mysterious commander's decisions, the Earth-Nian Evil Spirit could not help but burst into loud laughter.

At this moment, the God-King had already realized something was amiss.

He also discovered exactly where the problem lay.

The Earth-Nian Bully seemed to be observing his subtle expressions and emotional fluctuations, then judging the Player Clan's tactical deployments, or even predicting Tourist Number One's orders.

Recalling that Tourist Number One had once said the Earth-Nian Evil Spirit should have established his data image in the database.

All his expressions, movements, and emotions would become reference indicators for the Earth-Nian Evil Spirit's next actions.

At this point, apart from opening his mouth to curse in anger, he was utterly helpless.

Even if he closed his eyes, the perception feed of the battlefield would still float in his mind; it simply could not be shut off.

More importantly, he could not control the subtle changes in his facial expressions, nor the changes in his emotions.

It was like watching a horror movie; even knowing the content was fake, one would still feel fear; emotional changes were fundamentally impossible to defend against.

At this moment, on the battlefield.

Through consecutively expanding advantages, the Black Black Tide Evil Influences had already torn through the defenses of the players' right-wing battlefront, and the torrent of Assassin-type units was about to cut into the players' third formation line.

Realizing the gravity of the situation, the God-King grew anxious in his heart and decisively sought help from Tourist Number One.

"Number One, the Earth-Nian Evil Spirit is judging the course of the war through me; what should be done?"

Just as he posed the question, a golden danmu (bullet comment) streaked across his mind:

"Do not worry; the Earth-Nian Evil Spirit's calculations are all within my expectations; victory is assured."

As soon as the danmu streaked by, an emotion of joy uncontrollably surfaced in the God-King's heart.

The Earth-Nian Evil Spirit's expression suddenly froze; in the turn of a thought, it manipulated the Assassin-type units rushing toward the Magic-type players to retreat rapidly.

But just as the Assassin-type units withdrew, the Player Clan's damage-soaking units quickly moved up to fill the gap in the battlefront that had been so hard to tear open.

Suddenly feeling something was wrong, the Earth-Nian Evil Spirit whipped its head around to look at the God-King.

It realized it had been deceived by the joy surging in this fellow's heart.

The Player Clan's mysterious commander clearly knew it was judging the situation's trajectory through this overt commander's emotions and subtle expressions.

Therefore, the opponent had also exploited this point, manipulating the overt Player Clan commander's emotions to reversely influence its judgment.

The originally excellent advantage of cutting behind enemy lines had been wasted by its voluntary retreat.

Seeing the smile on the God-King's Iron Face, the Earth-Nian's expression turned ice-cold.

"Aiya, you saw through even that? Impressive," the God-King said with a grin, courting trouble.

Hearing these words, the Earth-Nian Evil Spirit instantly flew into a rage:

"You motherf****r..."

(End of Chapter)