Chapter 221: The Great Battle Concludes (Seeking Monthly Votes)

The strategy of judging the Black Tide of battle by sensing emotions had completely failed.

Realizing that the mysterious commander was also manipulating the emotional fluctuations of the Player Clan's overt commanders, the Earth-Chant Evil Spirit completely abandoned this tactic.

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

Just like that surge of joy earlier.

That sudden joy had made it believe it had walked into a Player Clan ambush, prompting a decisive retreat.

The result, however, was discovering that the Player Clan's damage-soaking units had rapidly filled the gap, reconstructing their defensive line.

This error in decision-making made the Earth-Chant Evil Spirit fly into a rage.

In the turn of a thought, it sealed the God-King's still-chattering mouth with black mist and cast its gaze toward the battlefield.

Among the three factions in terms of combat power comparison, the Black Black Tide under its control was undoubtedly in the strongest position.

The Player Clan's combat power was the weakest, yet also the most troublesome.

Especially the mysterious commander in the shadows, whose abilities were in no way inferior to the Evil Eye.

In fact, regarding war experience, they were even superior to the Evil Eye.

Through the process of engaging them, it was also learning the opponent's methods of war command.

Including the previous deception tactics, which taught it how to use an interweaving of valid and invalid orders to trap enemy commanders in the pitfall of over-analysis.

While feeling anger at being deceived, a trace of admiration also rose within its heart.

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

"Earth-Chant, try changing your command habits; you can insert false orders."

The Evil Eye's reminder echoed in its mind, and the Earth-Chant Evil Spirit nodded immediately.

Subsequently, following the Evil Eye's request, it altered its command habits to avoid having a data template established against it.

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

One thing was certain: the mysterious commander was constantly collecting information on its habits and had already launched multiple counter-strategies based on that habitual information.

This was a major taboo.

It had to make the Player Clan's mysterious commander unable to fathom it, and it also had to ensure it possessed no fixed command logic.

To maintain a state of information asymmetry, the Earth-Chant Evil Spirit chose a random strategy Cultivation Mode.

Using data information gathered from the battlefield, it simulated and deduced various possibilities.

Every action was randomly drawn from the newly generated strategy pool, thereby disrupting the mysterious commander's cognitive framework of it.

With this kind of randomness, even the Earth-Chant itself could not predict its own moves, so the opponent clearly had no way to judge them either.

Secondly, it interleaved the transmission of orders in three forms.

These were deception, validity, and error.

Error orders meant deliberately making mistakes; after making a wrong decision, a rupture in rhythm would occur, which would instead make it impossible for the mysterious commander to judge what its true intentions were.

Just as the Earth-Chant Evil Spirit had anticipated.

After the appearance of "error orders," the mysterious commander's rhythm clearly slowed, and they consequently lost the coherence of their command.

The high-intensity confrontation caused bloodshot threads to fill the Earth-Chant Evil Spirit's eyes.

The war was thus drawing to a close.

Although the Player Clan's mysterious commander was strong, the combat power of the player legions participating in the battle was clearly unable to match that commander's capabilities.

The Black Tide of battle was gradually becoming clear.

However, this battle had also exacted a heavy price from it; to resist the Player Clan and the insect swarm, there had been severe depletion of resources.

At this moment, the God-King was also communicating with Tourist Number One.

Rallying players to crusade against the bully was not only to vent their pent-up rage.

There was also a core objective: to obtain the Primordial Monster "Ice Mist Breath" from the hands of the Earth-Chant Bully.

But now, this Primordial Monster had still not appeared.

The front line could not advance, and assassin-build players could not kill their way into the rear of the Black Black Tide to search for traces of the Primordial Monster.

After fighting through the entire campaign, they had not even caught a glimpse of the Ice Mist Breath.

The Black Black Tide was like an impregnable barrier; wanting to hide the Primordial within it, even Tourist Number One had no way to start.

Unless their side contained the Odd Butterfly and mastered the spatial leap characteristics of a Lord Soul, allowing them to travel back and forth through the Black Black Tide with ease.

In response to the God-King's inquiry, after giving his answer, Tourist Number One stated:

"Although we cannot obtain the Primordial through means of war, the fact that the Earth-Chant Bully captured a Primordial Monster proves it knows we want one, and it has already discovered that the abilities we wield are very similar to the characteristics of Primordial Monsters. Especially since shortly after we last contained a Lord Soul, you used an ability on the battlefield nearly identical to the Lord's characteristics; this must have aroused its suspicion."

"Therefore, capturing the Primordial to annoy us is secondary; mostly, it wants to test whether we can truly master the rule-based abilities of Primordial Monsters."

"If I'm not mistaken, even if we do nothing, the Earth-Chant Bully will eventually take the initiative to present the Ice Mist Breath to us. Only by letting us obtain the Ice Mist Breath can it learn the truth and make the test meaningful."

"But I can be certain that the Earth-Chant Bully cannot guess whether our abilities come from a genuine Primordial or are merely imitations of one."

"I have preliminarily established the Earth-Chant Bully's Cultivation Mode of thinking and logic. Combining this with past battle records against the Earth-Chant Bully, regarding this issue, the Earth-Chant Bully will most likely lean toward considering it an imitation, because in previous campaigns, players used Book-Speech Warriors to fabricate Black Black Tide evil spirits. This is a factor that will inevitably be calculated in."

Hearing the Star Net's analysis, the God-King pondered briefly before nodding in realization.

He understood Tourist Number One's train of thought.

Judging by the Earth-Chant Evil Spirit's logic and combining it with the information it had collected in the player strategy library, the fact that Book-Speech Warriors had fabricated Black Black Tide evil spirits had greatly increased the "imitation" judgment in the eyes of the Earth-Chant Bully.

And since the Earth-Chant Bully's database only contained data on the Lord Soul, it now needed more Primordial information to make a more detailed judgment on the Player Clan's abilities.

"Will it really take the initiative to give it to us?" After reaching this conclusion, the God-King asked curiously.

"Uncertain, but the deduced probability leans more toward it taking the initiative to give."

"Then why hasn't it given it yet?"

"The more we care, the less the Earth-Chant Bully wants to give; this is a form of emotional retaliation. Perhaps it wanted to give it long ago, but our reaction was too eager, causing it to choose to delay giving it... But all of this is merely my judgment based on current intelligence; it may not be the truth. Perhaps the Earth-Chant Bully never had such thoughts in the first place."

During their conversation, the war had already drawn to a close.

Players who had resurrected and rejoined the battle could no longer keep up with the troop production speed of the Black Black Tide and the insect swarm.

The player legions were about to become the first faction to withdraw from the battlefield.

Yet the slaughter between the Black Black Tide and the insect swarm remained as frenzied as it was at the very beginning, maintaining high intensity throughout with no sign of stopping.

At this time, the Earth-Chant Evil Spirit also revealed the Ice Mist Breath, which it had always imprisoned within the black mist, and began to stir things up.

But the command authority lay in Tourist Number One's hands.

Although the players were eager, they still chose to follow Tourist Number One's orders to fight.

Whether getting close to provoke or diving down from above the heads of the front-line players, Tourist Number One's orders were all focused on continuing to push the war forward, completely disregarding the existence of the Primordial Monster.

Just as the Star Net had speculated, facing players who cared not at all, the Earth-Chant Evil Spirit's desire to annoy the players with the Primordial Monster faded.

No response was the most boring outcome of all.

At this moment, atop the Sky-Abyss Domain Node Tower.

The Earth-Chant Evil Spirit stood suspended in mid-air; while consciously controlling the Black Black Tide in battle, it felt somewhat puzzled:

"What is wrong with the Player Clan? Don't they care very much about the Primordial Monster?"

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

"Earth-Chant, it is certain that the Player Clan cares greatly. From the previous round of battles, one could discover the Player Clan members' longing for Primordial Monsters. Even gathering such a massive scale of combat power to participate in this battle primarily serves the purpose of obtaining this Primordial Monster." After giving this answer, the Evil Eye fell silent for a few seconds before continuing:

"But the Player Clan's mysterious commander has clearly realized that if we truly defend, with the Player Clan's current combat power, they simply cannot seize it, so they have straightforwardly chosen to give up."

Hearing the Evil Eye's explanation, the Earth-Chant Evil Spirit nodded:

"Since they are unwilling to fight for it, then this Primordial Monster has lost its meaning. I will find an opportunity later to gift it to them."

When the battle began, the Primordial Monster had always been kept by it near the tower.

Unless the players had the ability to decapitate it, there was no way they could snatch the Primordial Monster from its hands.

Now that the Primordial had lost its significance for toying with the players, only its utility for testing remained, thereby acquiring more information on the Player Clan's abilities.

Just as the Star Net had predicted, upon discovering that the players were no longer interested in the Primordial Monster, the Earth-Chant Evil Spirit chose to gift it directly.

It threw the Ice Mist Breath into the player front lines via a toss.

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

But at this moment, the Star Net issued an order to capture it alive; nearby players immediately released their binding characteristics, imprisoning the Ice Mist Breath.

One thing was certain: the Earth-Chant Evil Spirit was very curious about how the players would handle it.

Research, contact, killing... Regardless of whether this information was useful to the Earth-Chant Evil Spirit, what the Star Net needed to do was to complicate the presentation of the intelligence.

It chose to have three players escort the imprisoned Ice Mist Breath back toward Emperor Tomb Village, adding more possibilities to the Earth-Chant Evil Spirit's conjectures.

This was the complication of ability acquisition.

As for the level of ability manifestation, there was no way to prevent it.

The Earth-Chant Bully would inevitably discover in the next campaign, or in many future engagements, that the players had already mastered the abilities of the Ice Mist Breath.

But what the Star Net was curious about was exactly how the Earth-Chant Bully would respond.

Theoretically, there was only one best way to respond.

Henceforth, whenever a Primordial Monster appeared in the Emperor Tomb Mountain Range region, the Earth-Chant Bully would kill it, causing the Primordial Monster to respawn at random locations elsewhere in the Monster World, thereby avoiding contact between the Primordial Monster and the players.

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

With the development of the player legions, node spaces were continuously increasing.

Emperor Tomb Mountain Range, Colorful Mist Coast, Winter Snowfield, Underground Cave World... Clearly, even more branch nodes would appear in the future.

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

The Monster World was a real world; apart from a very few areas where monsters could respawn, most areas, after being explored by players, would find it difficult to generate resources meeting the needs of novice players within a short period.

For example, the areas near the Colorful Mist Coast no longer had any monsters to hunt; one needed to explore farther regions to hunt monsters.

Or the regional intensity would upgrade, causing novice players to be unable to hunt and grow in that region.

For example, the Emperor Tomb Mountain Range and the Winter Snowfield regions.

Initially, both these regions perfectly matched the growth needs of novice players.

With the rapid growth of the Earth Nian Bullies, the Combat Insect Clan, and the Bliss Legion, the confrontation intensity gradually escalated, no longer suiting novice players.

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

The initial scene of the Underground Cave World, the "Mechanical Ruins," would soon fall into a similar situation.

Therefore, it guessed that when the next recruitment cycle opened, there was a high probability new spatial nodes would generate, and players would gain new exploration environments.

Although the Earth Nian Evil Spirit was strong, it could only defend the Emperor Tomb Mountain Range region and lacked the ability to interfere with the Primordial Containment of other nodes.

At the current stage, the Emperor Tomb Mountain Range region was also the area most lacking in Primordial Monsters.

The Earth Nian Bully's methods of killing Primordials to defend were certainly effective, but the effect was limited and would not affect player growth.

The final struggle continued.

The Player Legion's defensive line was about to be pierced, and the number of Damage-Tanking flow players was constantly decreasing.

Although Support flow players could release light shields for defense, they could only hold out for a short time, far less critical than the Damage-Tanking flow players.

The Star Net also adjusted the war Cultivation Mode at this time, aiming to kill more Black Black Tide warriors and Insect Clan warriors.

Maximizing war profits.

Among the participants this time, the ones having the most fun were undoubtedly the novice players.

They died in batch after batch; as soon as their resurrection cooldown ended, they would re-enter the battlefield to share the kill rewards.

This yield was much higher than hunting in other spatial nodes.

The cyclic resurrection tactic of novice players served the role of cannon fodder on the battlefield.

Through collective charges, they attempted to disrupt the combat rhythm of the Black Black Tide and the Insect Black Tide; secondly, they could be used to probe the intentions of these two forces. Their combat value was limited, primarily holding strategic value.

But they were not entirely without combat value.

Novice players also released rule-based characteristic abilities, which could still inflict armor-penetrating damage against specific targets.

During the war, these cannon fodder novices were akin to shit-stirrers on the battlefield.

Without restrictions, novice players would dare to charge from all directions toward the rear of the Black Black Tide and the Insect Black Tide, engaging in endless disruption.

Choosing targeted slaughter would only tie up a portion of their combat strength.

In the eyes of the Earth Nian Evil Spirit, and even the Insect Clan Mastermind, only the Player Clan dared to play like this.

If any other force dared to commit cannon fodder combat strength, the result would be exactly the opposite.

Cannon fodder, being easily digestible nutrients, charging continuously only made them grow stronger with every battle.

However many came, they would eat them all; they were essentially a continuous supply of nutrients.

But the Player Clan was different.

Even if killed and devoured, they produced not a single bit of energy.

The most excited ones in the entire arena were also the novice players; the instructions they received were basically only two.

Gather at the coordinate locations indicated by the bullet comments, then roar and launch a fearless charge toward another coordinate location.

They truly got to indulge in a war addiction found only in glorious history books.

This experience also allowed many novice players to witness the terror of the Novice Village.

On the forum, players often joked: If you're really awesome, go break into the Novice Village.

Just as these players said, the Novice 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 outstanding individuals in the Player Legion were qualified to enter.

But all happiness must eventually end.

In the three-way melee, the number of player deaths gradually reached a point where they could no longer form a battle formation.

The defensive line formed by frontline Damage-Tanking flow players was torn apart by the Black Black Tide, and Plague-type units followed the Calamity-type units into the second battle line.

On the other side, the Insect Clan army also tore through the left-wing defensive line.

With the war reaching this stage, the Star Net continued to command, ordering the remaining players to constantly retreat, stretching the battle line to force the Black Black Tide and the Insect Black Tide to converge.

Through the clash between the two forces, they sought to gain a bit more war space and profit.

Two hours later.

The players on the battlefield were completely cleared out; players resurrecting and walking out of Emperor Tomb Village saw the war had ended and no longer rushed to the main battle line.

Continuing to charge at this time was no different from committing suicide.

Some players chose to watch the ongoing clash between the Earth Nian Bullies and the Insect Clan Mastermind from a distance, while others headed to other spatial nodes, hoping to grow quickly through hunting and expecting to one day be qualified to break into the Novice Village.

During this period, a massive number of players flooded the forum, discussing topics related to this battle.

Tourist Number One's intervention once again was stunning.

Following this came curiosity: who exactly was this Tourist Number One?

At this moment, atop the Evil Eye Tower in the Tianyuan Domain Node, the Earth Nian Evil Spirit was also pondering the same question.

Having cleared out all the players, it still had not found the hidden mysterious commander.

"Earth Nian, perhaps there is such a possibility: the Player Clan's mysterious commander connects to the Player Clan via mental perception similar to our command method, never actually appearing in this campaign, remotely directing the course of the war."

Speaking to this point, the Evil Eye paused briefly before continuing:

"But this guess may not be correct. I retrieved the battle records and discovered the mysterious commander actually had blind spots in their vision during the war; this does not seem like a situation that would occur with perception coverage, and I cannot analyze a reasonable explanation."

Upon hearing this, a thought immediately surfaced in the Earth Nian Evil Spirit's mind.

"Retrieve the battle records."

Upon hearing this, the Evil Eye immediately input the battle record footage into the Earth Nian Evil Spirit's mind.

Scanning through the battlefield image information filled with various digital symbols, the Earth Nian Evil Spirit gradually confirmed its hypothesis.

It discovered that whenever a player was eliminated, the blind spots in vision mentioned by the Evil Eye would appear.

This proved that the Player Clan's mysterious commander was piecing together the battlefield picture through the visions of the participating players.

"Earth Nian, in future engagements, this might be an exploitable flaw."

Upon hearing this, the Earth Nian Evil Spirit nodded with a smile.

Although the mysterious commander was strong, it had ultimately found some slight flaws.

But the specific answer would require detailed verification during the next engagement.

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

Next, expanding outward to acquire resources was the key.

In the turn of a thought, the Black Black Tide in the perception image rolled back, choosing to actively withdraw from the battlefield.

Countless Evil Influence units decomposed at this moment, retreating along with the Black Black Tide.

The Insect Clan warriors under the Mastermind's control immediately launched a pursuit, but after chasing for only a short distance, they also chose to give up, transforming into a blood-colored wave and returning to the Phantom Swamp region.

The Great Battle of the Novice Village officially concluded.

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

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

The players died without loss, the Insect Clan had rear supply lines, and only the Earth Nian Evil Spirit was fighting with resources it had painstakingly earned, many of which were plucked away by the players.

The war ended, and the Earth Nian Evil Spirit's gaze turned to the God King bound beside it.

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

After suddenly landing and steadying himself, the God King raised the middle finger of his right hand toward the Earth Nian Evil Spirit:

"Grandson, give your grandfather a quick death."

Upon hearing this, the Earth Nian Evil Spirit grinned, revealing a ferocious smile:

"Quick death?"

"What do you mean? Do you want to be tortured first?" The God King was also stunned.

"I have no interest in torturing you. I am very curious about what your Player Clan's resurrection method actually is, but the answer to this question is clearly beyond my reach. Therefore, what I am more curious about is, if I imprison you by my side, what method could you possibly use to leave?"

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

"Rest assured, during this period I will maintain your bodily functions and monitor your every move to prevent you from leaving via suicide... If you really cannot think of a way to leave, prepare to stay here for the rest of your life."

"You son of a bi—"

"Hahaha." Seeing the God King furious and frustrated, the Earth Nian Evil Spirit could not help but burst into loud laughter.

(End of Chapter)