Chapter 433: The Battlefield of Self-Inflicted Chaos

Translator: AnubisTL

A web of destruction, woven from countless forms of attack, crisscrossed the sky.

The biomechanical behemoths spat acid, the alchemical constructs fired energy beams, and the elemental behemoths summoned meteorites—the wizards’ cannon fodder units unleashed their first volley in unison.

The spectacle was breathtaking. Billions of attacks, trailing colorful wakes, plummeted toward the black insect tide like a meteor shower falling in reverse.

But Jieming’s heart sank.

Just 0.3 seconds before impact, the black ocean “came alive.”

It wasn’t a general movement, but a series of precise, nodal evasions.

In the area directly in front of him, tens of thousands of Scythe-Skull Race suddenly split to the sides. Their movements were so synchronized it was bone-chilling, leaving gaping voids within the black tide.

The wizards’ attacks roared past, striking only air and earth.

Explosions erupted in the empty spaces, sending out waves of fire, frost, acid, and lightning.

But in the next second, the surrounding Scythe-Skull Race shifted again, revealing the massive individuals embedded with complex runes behind them.

Those runes began to glow. The rapidly expanding energy of the attacks weakened instantly, leaving only the swirling elemental storms to knock over the nearby Scythe-Skull Race.

“They’re absorbing energy!” a more experienced fifth-tier wizard beside Jieming cried out. “Those are the foundational runes of a joint spellcasting array! They’re going to use our own power—”

Before he could finish, the runes on the giant creatures flared with blinding light.

The absorbed energy materialized as visible streams of radiance, surging across the ground and pouring into the carapaces of the surrounding Scythe-Skull Race. The luster of those shells deepened visibly, but the glow emanating from the Scythe-Skulls’ mouths intensified even faster.

“All cannon fodder units, deploy protective shields!” Frost’s voice crackled through the magic network, laced with an undeniable urgency. “Prepare to absorb the impact!”

Jieming issued the command almost simultaneously.

The Black Giants raised their arms in unison. The black liquid metal on their bodies rippled as they began to construct energy absorption fields.

But they were too late.

The Scythe-Skull Race’s counterattack came sooner than anyone had anticipated.

The giant creatures that had absorbed the energy tilted their heads back—if their mantis-like heads could even be said to “tilt”—and unleashed concentrated beams of energy from their mouths.

Tens of millions of beams fired simultaneously, converging in the sky to form a web of destruction that blanketed the entire frontline.

The first row of cannon fodder units evaporated in the light.

The flesh of biomechanical behemoths, the metal of alchemical constructs, the energy cores of elemental behemoths… all proved as fragile as paper before those beams.

The first wave alone had already shaved off an entire layer of the wizard legion’s cannon fodder units. At least a million units vanished in an instant.

“Damn it!” a wizard cursed.

“Second volley, scatter fire!” Frost’s voice remained calm. “Target the areas around the Absorbing Units. Do not hit them directly!”

The wizards quickly adjusted their aim.

This time, the attack was no longer concentrated. Instead, it rained down across the insect tide like a downpour.

Some Scythe-Skull soldiers were indeed struck, their black carapaces shattering and green ichor spraying outward.

But the results were limited.

Worse still, just as the wizards in another sector were preparing their third volley, collectively chanting to form their wizardry models…

A new batch of specialized individuals emerged from the Scythe-Skull rear.

They were smaller in stature, but their heads were abnormally developed, their compound eyes shimmering with an eerie spiritual light.

At the critical moment when the wizards’ spells were about to take shape, these creatures unleashed a simultaneous psychic shock.

It wasn’t an indiscriminate mental assault, but a precisely tuned frequency interference.

Jieming felt a sharp psychic wave pierce his mind, striking the critical node of his wizardry model.

He grunted, forcing his spirit to steady as he unleashed the Sunfire Extinction Ray with a single gesture.

A beam of dark gold light shot forth, fanning out into a shimmering screen that engulfed tens of thousands of Scythe-Skull Race.

Where the light passed, chitin, flesh, and bone were all decomposed into fundamental particles.

But as Jieming scanned his surroundings, his heart grew even colder.

Aside from himself and a few wizards with exceptionally strong mental defenses, most of the wizards’ spells had been interrupted.

Psychic backlash left many faces pale, and some even trickled blood from the corners of their mouths.

“They even know our casting rhythm…” Jieming muttered.

This was something simple prediction couldn’t achieve.

It required a profound understanding of the wizards’ tactical system—knowing when they would cast spells collectively, which wizardry models were most vulnerable during construction, and exactly what frequency of psychic shock was needed to disrupt them.

This demanded a colossal amount of combat data.

It required time and time again… reincarnation.

The battlefield fell into a bizarre stalemate.

Every time the wizards launched an attack, the Scythe-Skull Race countered with absolute precision.

Sometimes they evaded; sometimes they absorbed the energy to retaliate; sometimes they disrupted the spellcasting.

The black insect tide advanced slowly but steadily, each step landing precisely on the “blind spots” of the wizards’ tactics.

The casualty ratio began to skew.

For every Scythe-Skull killed, the wizards lost at least two cannon fodder units.

“Master Frost!” a sixth-tier wizard shouted through the command system’s internal spiritual network. “We’ll be worn down to death if we keep fighting like this! Their responses are too precise!”

There was a two-second silence.

Then, Frost’s voice echoed across the entire army, carrying a tone of grim resolve:

“All units, abandon standard coordinated tactics. I repeat—abandon all standard tactical templates. Operate freely in squads. Fight your own way—whether it’s a technique you rarely use or your most specialized skill, use it all!”

The moment the order was given, the atmosphere of the entire battlefield shifted.

The wizards froze for an instant, then a flash of realization crossed their eyes.

Right. If the enemy is familiar with our “standard” patterns…

Then we’ll just have to become “non-standard.”

“Black Giant Legion!” Jieming ordered almost simultaneously. “Switch to Temporal Chaos Mode, scatter the formation, and hunt freely! Devouring Evolution is authorized!”

A thousand Black Giants roared in unison, a low, guttural sound that shook the earth.

The black liquid metal layers on their bodies began to flow at high speeds, and the flow of time around them grew chaotic—some parts accelerated, others slowed.

Then, these black figures, dozens of meters tall, dispersed like ghosts. They abandoned their orderly formations, instead lunging at the insect tide in bizarre, irregular trajectories.

The other wizards made similar choices.

Some commanded their alchemical constructs to charge and self-destruct. Others forced their biomechanical behemoths to devour one another, evolving into grotesque mutants. A few even deliberately overloaded their elemental behemoths, unleashing chaotic elemental storms.

The battlefield instantly transformed from a disciplined military clash into a chaotic, unpredictable melee.

For the first time, the Scythe-Skull Race hesitated in their response.

Their once-perfect evasions were no longer flawless. Even with the advantage of having experienced this cycle before, they could not fully evade such a chaotic assault.

The frequency of their spirit shocks also began to fail, as the wizards stopped collectively constructing standard wizardry models and instead employed a variety of obscure, individual methods.

A fifth-tier wizard even summoned a swarm of metal bats that screeched piercingly. The creatures did little actual damage, but their high-frequency sound waves severely disrupted the Scythe-Skull Race’s communication.

The advance of the black insect tide slowed visibly.

“It’s working!” Jieming’s eyes lit up.

In this situation…

The vanguard of the black ocean finally crashed into the wizard legion’s cannon fodder units.

(End of the Chapter)