Chapter 221: The Great Battle Concludes (Begging for Monthly Tickets)

The strategy of judging the war's direction through sensing emotions had completely failed.

Realizing that the mysterious commander was also manipulating the emotional changes of the player faction's surface-level commander, the Earth-Nian evil spirit completely abandoned this tactic.

This meant that emotional changes were not necessarily the truth, and could also be a deceptive tactic.

Like the joy it had felt just now.

The sudden burst of joy made it think it had fallen into the player faction's ambush, so it chose to withdraw decisively.

But it turned out the player faction's tank-type units had quickly filled the gap, rebuilding the defensive line.

The miscalculation in its decision-making made the Earth-Nian evil spirit furious.

In an instant, it sealed the God King's still-muttering mouth with black mist, and turned its gaze toward the battlefield.

Among the three factions' relative combat strength, the Black Tide under its control was unquestionably in the strongest position.

The player faction's combat strength was the weakest, yet also the most tenacious.

Especially the mysterious commander in the shadows, whose ability was in no way inferior to the Evil Eye's.

And in terms of warfare experience, even stronger than the Evil Eye.

In the process of fighting against it, it was also learning the opponent's style of war command.

Including the earlier deceptive tactic, which taught it how to use the interweaving of valid and invalid orders to lure the enemy commander into a trap of over-deduction.

While feeling anger in its heart at having been deceived, a trace of admiration also rose within it.

Such an opponent was both a formidable enemy and a teacher.

"Earth-Nian, try changing your command habits—you can insert erroneous orders."

The Evil Eye's prompt rang in its mind, and the Earth-Nian evil spirit immediately nodded.

Then, following the Evil Eye's instructions, it altered its command habits to avoid having a data template built up on it.

After that, it began varying its command style, tactical rhythm, and even decision-making logic.

It was certain that the mysterious commander was constantly gathering information on its habits, and had used that habit information to launch multiple counter-strategies.

This was a major taboo.

It had to ensure the player faction's mysterious commander could not figure it out, and that it itself had no fixed command logic.

To maintain the state of information asymmetry, the Earth-Nian evil spirit chose a randomized strategy mode.

Using the data information collected on the battlefield, it simulated and deduced various possibilities.

Every action was randomly drawn from the latest generated strategy pool, in order to disrupt the mysterious commander's cognitive framework of it.

This randomness was something even Earth-Nian itself could not predict, and the opponent clearly could not judge it either.

Next, it wove the transmission of orders in three forms.

They were: deceptive, effective, and erroneous.

Erroneous orders meant deliberately making mistakes—after a wrong decision caused a break in rhythm, it would instead leave the mysterious commander unable to judge what its true intentions were.

Just as the Earth-Nian evil spirit had thought.

After the "erroneous orders" appeared, the mysterious commander's rhythm noticeably slowed, and it likewise lost the continuity of its command.

The high-intensity confrontation left the Earth-Nian evil spirit's eyes filled with bloodshot veins.

The war was also drawing toward its end.

Though the player faction's mysterious commander was strong, the combat strength of the player legions participating in the war clearly could not match this commander's ability.

The direction of the war was gradually becoming clear.

But this battle had also cost it no small price—to resist both the player faction and the insect race, its resources had suffered serious depletion.

At this moment, the God King was also communicating with Tourist No. 1.

Rallying players to crusade against the bully was not only to vent his spite.

Another core objective was to obtain the Meng Yuan Chu monster "Frost Breath" from the Earth-Nian bully.

But now this Meng Yuan Chu monster had still not shown itself.

The front line could not be pushed forward, and the assassin-class players could not cut through to the rear of the Black Tide to search for traces of the Meng Yuan Chu monster.

After fighting the entire campaign, they had not even caught a glimpse of Frost Breath's shadow.

The Black Tide was like an airtight barrier; if it wanted to hide a Meng Yuan Chu, even Tourist No. 1 had no way to begin.

Unless our side had contained the Strange Butterfly and mastered the spatial-jump-type Painful Painful Minghun trait, which would allow easy movement back and forth within the Black Tide.

Facing the God King's inquiry, after giving his answer, Tourist No. 1 added:

"Although we cannot obtain the Meng Yuan Chu through warfare, since the Earth-Nian bully captured a Meng Yuan Chu monster, it proves it knows we want the Meng Yuan Chu, and has already discovered that the abilities we display are very similar to the traits of Meng Yuan Chu monsters—especially since shortly after we contained the Lord Painful Painful Minghun last time, you used an ability on the battlefield nearly identical to the Lord's trait, which must have aroused its suspicion."

"So capturing the Meng Yuan Chu to disgust us is secondary; more importantly, it wants to test whether we can truly master the rule-abilities of Meng Yuan Chu monsters."

"If I'm not mistaken, even if we do nothing, the Earth-Nian bully will ultimately take the initiative to hand over Frost Breath—only by letting us obtain Frost Breath can it learn the truth, and only then will the test have meaning."

"But I can be certain that the Earth-Nian bully cannot guess at all whether our ability comes from a Meng Yuan Chu or is an imitation of one."

"I have initially established the Earth-Nian bully's mode of thinking; combined with past combat records against it, regarding this question, the Earth-Nian bully will most likely lean toward the imitation direction—because in a previous campaign, a player used the Book-Speech Warrior to replicate the Hei Chao Xie Sui, which is a factor that must be factored into its calculations."

After hearing Star Net's analysis, the God King thought briefly, then nodded in sudden realization.

He understood Tourist No. 1's thinking.

Judging by the Earth-Nian evil spirit's mode of thinking, combined with the information in its collected player-strategy database, the Book-Speech Warrior's replication of the Hei Chao Xie Sui had greatly raised the "imitation" judgment in the Earth-Nian bully's eyes.

And the Earth-Nian bully's database only held data on the Lord Painful Painful Minghun; it now needed more Meng Yuan Chu information to make a more detailed judgment on the player faction's abilities.

"Will it really hand it over to us on its own?" After reaching his conclusion, the God King asked curiously.

"Not certain, but the probability from deduction leans more toward handing it over voluntarily."

"Then why hasn't it handed it over all this time?"

"The more we care, the more the Earth-Nian bully doesn't want to give it—this is a kind of emotional revenge. Perhaps it wanted to give it long ago, but our reaction was too eager, so it chose to delay before giving… but all of this is only my judgment based on current intelligence; it may not be the truth—perhaps the Earth-Nian bully simply has no such thought at all."

As they talked, the war had already drawn to its end.

The players who revived and rejoined the battle could no longer keep up with the Black Tide and Bug Tide's rate of reinforcing.

The player legion was about to become the first faction to withdraw from the battlefield.

And the Black Tide and Bug Tide's grinding slaughter remained as frenzied as at the very start—full intensity the whole way through, with no sign of letting up.

The Di Nian Evil Spirit also revealed at this moment the Frost Breath it had kept imprisoned within the black fog, and began putting on a show.

But command authority was in the hands of Tourist No. 1.

Though the players were eager, they still chose to follow Tourist No. 1's orders in combat.

Whether it was closing in to provoke or diving in a low pass over the front-line players' heads, Tourist No. 1's orders were all focused on continuing to push the war forward, utterly indifferent to the existence of the Meng Yuan Chu monster.

Just as the Star Net had guessed, facing players who no longer cared, the Di Nian Evil Spirit's idea of using the Meng Yuan Chu monster to disgust the players faded.

No response—truly the most boring thing.

At this moment, atop the Gao Ta at the Tianyuan Domain node.

The Di Nian Evil Spirit hovered in midair, and while its consciousness directed the Black Tide in battle, it felt somewhat puzzled:

"What's wrong with the player faction? Don't they care about the Meng Yuan Chu monster?"

In response to the question, the Evil Eye's voice rang out in its mind:

"Di Nian, it's certain the player faction cares a great deal. From the previous campaign we can already see the player faction members' longing for the Meng Yuan Chu monster—in fact, the main purpose of assembling such a massive force to join this battle was also for this Meng Yuan Chu monster." After giving its answer, the Evil Eye fell silent for several seconds, then continued:

"But the player faction's mysterious commander clearly realized that if we truly intended to defend, the player faction's current forces couldn't snatch it at all, so they simply chose to give up."

Hearing the Evil Eye's explanation, the Di Nian Evil Spirit nodded:

"Since they're unwilling to fight for it, this Meng Yuan Chu monster has lost its meaning—I'll find a chance later to just give it to them."

When the battle began, the Meng Yuan Chu monster had always been kept by it near the Gao Ta.

Unless the players had the ability to behead it, there was no way to take the Meng Yuan Chu monster from its hands.

Now that the Meng Yuan Chu has lost its meaning of toying with the players, all that remains is its testing use—to obtain more information on the player faction's abilities.

Just as the Star Net had predicted, upon discovering the players were no longer interested in the Meng Yuan Chu monster, the Di Nian Evil Spirit chose to simply gift it over.

It sent the Frost Breath into the player battle line by tossing it.

Then its perception spread out, and it began observing the players' behavior.

But the Star Net issued a capture-alive order at this moment, and the nearby players immediately released binding traits to imprison the Frost Breath.

It could be certain that the Di Nian Evil Spirit was very curious how the players would handle it.

Research, contact, kill… regardless of whether this information was useful to the Di Nian Evil Spirit, what the Star Net needed to do was complicate the presentation of intelligence.

It chose to have three players escort the imprisoned Frost Breath back toward the Imperial Tomb Village direction, adding more possibilities to the Di Nian Evil Spirit's guesses.

This was complication on the ability-acquisition front.

As for the ability-performance front, there was no way to guard against it.

The Di Nian Overlord would inevitably discover in the next campaign, or in multiple future engagements, that the players had already mastered the Frost Breath ability.

But what the Star Net was curious about was how exactly the Di Nian Overlord would respond.

In theory, there was only one best way to respond.

Henceforth, whenever a Meng Yuan Chu monster appeared in the Imperial Tomb Mountain Range region, the Di Nian Overlord would kill it, letting the Meng Yuan Chu monster respawn at random locations elsewhere in the Monster World to avoid contact between Meng Yuan Chu monsters and players.

But this method could only restrict the Imperial Tomb Mountain Range region.

Along with the development of the player legion, node spaces were constantly increasing.

Imperial Tomb Mountain Range, Colored Mist Coast, Frost Winter Snowfield, Di Ku Shi Jie… in the future, more branch nodes would clearly continue to appear.

From the player legion's development trend, one could see that the birth of new nodes was related to the growth in player numbers.

The Monster World was a real world; aside from a very few regions where monsters could respawn, most regions, once explored by players, could not in the short term generate resources sufficient for newbie players' needs.

For example, the area near the Colored Mist Coast no longer had any monsters to hunt—players had to explore farther regions to hunt monsters.

Or the region's intensity would rise, causing newbie players to be unable to hunt and grow in that region.

For example, the two regions of Imperial Tomb Mountain Range and Frost Winter Snowfield.

Initially, these two regions were very well-suited to newbie players' growth needs.

As the Di Nian Overlord, the Combat Bug Race, and the Bliss Corps grew rapidly, the confrontation intensity gradually escalated and no longer fit newbie players.

At this point, the high-dimensional existence behind the scenes would open up new spatial nodes.

The initial scene of Di Ku Shi Jie, "Mechanical Ruins," would also fall into a similar situation not long after.

So it guessed that when the next recruitment round opened, there was a high probability new spatial nodes would be generated, and players would gain new exploration environments.

Though the Di Nian Evil Spirit was strong, it could only defend the Imperial Tomb Mountain Range region and had no ability to interfere with Meng Yuan Chu containment at other nodes.

At the current stage, the Imperial Tomb Mountain Range region was also the area most lacking in Meng Yuan Chu monsters.

The Di Nian Overlord's defensive measure of killing Meng Yuan Chus would certainly be effective, but not by much, and would not affect the players' growth.

The final struggle was still continuing.

The player legion's defensive line was about to be pierced through, and the number of tank players was still steadily decreasing.

Although support players could release light shields for defense, they could only defend for a moment—far less important than tank players.

The Star Net also adjusted the war mode at this moment, targeting the killing of more Black Tide warriors and Bug Race warriors.

Maximizing the war's benefits.

Among the participants this time, the happiest were undoubtedly the newbie players.

They died batch after batch, and once their resurrection cooldown ended they would re-enter the battlefield to share kill rewards.

This was far more profitable than what they earned hunting in other spatial nodes.

The newbie players' cycle-resurrection tactic served the role of battlefield cannon fodder.

Through collective charges, they attempted to disrupt the Black Tide and Bug Tide's combat rhythm; secondarily, they could also be used to probe these two factions' intentions. Their combat value was limited—the main value was strategic.

But it wasn't entirely without combat value.

The abilities the newbie players released were also rule-based traits, still capable of dealing armor-piercing damage to specific targets.

During the war, the cannon-fodder newbies could be called the shit-stirrers of the battlefield.

Without restrictions, the newbie players would dare to charge from every direction toward the rear of the Black Tide and the Swarm, causing endless harassment.

Choosing targeted slaughter would in turn tie down part of the combat power.

In the eyes of the Earth-Script Evil Spirit and even the Swarm's Overmind, only the Player Clan would dare to play this way.

If any other faction dared to deploy cannon-fodder troops, the result would be exactly the opposite.

Cannon fodder like this was easily digestible nourishment; the price of constant charging was that they grew stronger and stronger the more they fought.

No matter how many came, they ate them all—truly nourishment delivered on a continuous basis.

But the Player Clan was different.

Even killing and devouring them produced not a single shred of energy.

The most excited ones on the entire battlefield were also the newbie players; the instructions they received were basically just two things.

Gather at the coordinate points indicated by the barrage, then roar and launch a fearless charge toward another coordinate point.

They truly got their fill of the war fever that only exists in the glorious annals of history.

This experience also let many newbie players witness the terror of the Newbie Village.

The forums often had players joking: If you're really badass, go try your luck in the Newbie Village.

Just as these players said, the Newbie Village had already become, in the eyes of the player community, the highest hall of glory for top-tier players.

It was the peak battlefield that only the most elite among the player legions qualified to enter.

But joy always comes to an end.

In the three-way melee, the number of player deaths gradually became insufficient to maintain battle formations.

The defensive line formed by the frontline tank players was torn apart by the Black Tide, and plague-type units followed disaster-type units into the second battle line.

On the other side, the Swarm army also tore open the left-wing defensive line.

With the war reaching this point, the Star Net continued to command, demanding the remaining players keep retreating, stretching the battle line so the Black Tide and the Swarm would converge.

Through the clash between the two factions, they would buy more war space and profit.

……

2 hours later.

The players on the battlefield were swept clean; the players who revived and walked out of Imperial Tomb Village saw the war had ended and no longer rushed to the main battle line.

Continuing to charge at this point was no different from suicide.

Some players chose to watch the continued clash between the Earth-Script Overlord and the Swarm Overmind from afar, while others headed to other spatial nodes, hoping to grow quickly through hunting and looking forward to qualifying to try the Newbie Village in the future.

During this period, large numbers of players flooded the forums to discuss topics related to this battle.

Tourist No. 1's appearance once again was still stunning.

What followed was curiosity—who exactly was this Tourist No. 1?

At this moment, atop the Xie Yan Gao Ta at the Abyss Domain node, the Earth-Script Evil Spirit was pondering the same question.

Even after sweeping the players clean, it had failed to find the hidden mysterious commander.

"Earth-Script, there might be one possibility: the Player Clan's mysterious commander, similar to our command method, is connected through psychic perception to the Player Clan, and never actually appeared in this campaign, directing the war's course remotely."

Saying this, Xie Yan paused briefly before continuing:

"But this hypothesis may not be correct. I retrieved the campaign records and found that the mysterious commander actually had blind spots in vision during the war—this doesn't seem like something that would occur with perception coverage. I cannot analyze a reasonable explanation."

Hearing this, the Earth-Script Evil Spirit immediately had a thought surface in its mind.

"Retrieve the campaign records."

Hearing this, Xie Yan immediately fed the campaign record imagery into the Earth-Script Evil Spirit's mind.

Reviewing the battlefield imagery information filled with various numerical symbols, the Earth-Script Evil Spirit gradually confirmed its own hypothesis.

It discovered that whenever a player was lost, the vision blind spot Xie Yan mentioned would appear.

This proved that the Player Clan's mysterious commander pieced together the battlefield picture through the vision of participating players.

"Earth-Script, in future clashes, this might be a vulnerability we can exploit."

Hearing this, the Earth-Script Evil Spirit smiled and nodded.

Though the mysterious commander was strong, he had still managed to find a few vulnerabilities.

But the specific answer would require careful verification in the next encounter.

Now that the Player Clan had withdrawn, there was no need to continue the war.

Going forward, external expansion to acquire resources was the key.

In an instant, the Black Tide in the perception image reversed course, choosing to voluntarily withdraw from the battlefield.

Countless evil-omen troops disintegrated at this moment, retreating along with the Black Tide.

The Swarm warriors under the Overmind's control immediately launched pursuit, but after chasing only a short distance they also chose to give up, transforming into a blood-colored tide and returning to the Phantom Marsh region.

The Newbie Village battle officially came to an end.

In this battle, the Black Tide under the Earth-Script Evil Spirit's control was undoubtedly the strongest side.

Yet it was also the side that suffered the greatest losses.

Players died in battle without loss, the Swarm had rear supply lines, and only the Earth-Script Evil Spirit was fighting using resources it had worked hard to earn—and had quite a bit plucked away by the players on top of that.

With the war over, the Earth-Script Evil Spirit's gaze turned to the God King bound beside it.

With a wave of its hand, the black mist entwining the God King dissipated.

After the God King suddenly landed and steadied himself, he raised his right middle finger toward the Earth-Script Evil Spirit:

"Grandson, give your grandpa a clean end."

Hearing this, the Earth-Script Evil Spirit bared its teeth in a sinister grin:

"Satisfying?"

"What do you mean? Do you intend to torture me further?" The God King was also stunned.

"I have no interest in torturing you. I am merely curious about your Player Clan's method of resurrection. However, I clearly cannot learn the answer to that question. Therefore, what I am even more curious about is: if I imprison you by my side, by what means could you possibly leave?"

Hearing these words, the God King's expression suddenly changed.

"Rest assured. During this time, I will maintain your bodily functions, then monitor every single one of your movements to prevent you from leaving via suicide... If you truly cannot think of a way to leave, prepare to stay here for the rest of your life."

"You damn..."

"Hahaha." Seeing the God King furious and desperate, Di Nian Xie Ling could not help but burst into loud laughter.

(End of this chapter)