Chapter 2: Temporarily Ignoring the Base Camp Situation, Continue Attacking Platinum Capital, Strive to Capture It as Quickly as Possible.
The second option seemed feasible, but last night, Wu Ying·Solario deliberately revealed a card, namely Xiao·Fulia.
Wu Ying·Solario intentionally let Su Xiao know how strong an assassin Xiao·Fulia was. At this moment, the base camp was enduring the onslaught of corrupters from two Dark Holes. Under these circumstances, if Xiao·Fulia infiltrated the Mother Nest to assassinate Jila, and Jila was killed, their side's situation would collapse.
Returning from Platinum Capital to their base camp would take at least two hours at best. Going back now would be too late.
This situation seemed hopeless, but fortunately, Su Xiao had prepared a contingency plan, which was now just right to use.
Not to mention that Amu was guarding the Mother Nest, their side also had a powerful combatant. Please don't misunderstand, it wasn't Hao Mei, but the newly ascended Savior·Aiseiya.
When the Nether Forces first attacked their side, Aiseiya wanted to assist in the defense. Su Xiao's reason at the time was to have Aiseiya protect the World Child·Laikeli's safety. After weighing the matter, Aiseiya agreed.
Protecting the World Child·Laikeli was a facade. Su Xiao could naturally sense that Aiseiya's combat power was close to his own, so he deliberately kept her strength hidden.
Recently, Aiseiya had nowhere else to go, and because their side's food was excellent, she had been staying at the Sun Holy Nest. She wasn't stupid; she knew the outside was full of corrupters. Even for her, facing an endless tide of enemies was very dangerous.
In the current situation, it was just right to entrust Aiseiya as a guard, to protect Jila alongside Amu for a while. Of course, compensation must be given afterward. Such dangerous tasks required payment.
Su Xiao was not omniscient. In terms of commanding troops, he knew he was inferior to Wu Ying·Solario, but that didn't matter. He would defeat the opponent in his own area of expertise.
The battlefield below grew increasingly chaotic. Hundreds of thousands of Demon Beasts and countless corrupters were locked in a melee. In the sky, a Nether Dragon Whale, half its body scorched, fell, its mouth tightly clamped around a roaring Demon Flame Dragon.
Their side's front line had advanced to within a hundred meters of the alloy city wall. The city was about to fall. The situation at the base camp was still manageable; it could hold.
On the battlefield, a Demon Beast swept its tail blade, lunged forward, and climbed onto the alloy wall. Just as it was about to climb higher, a fluorescent green fireball fell, incinerating it.
The city was about to be breached, but Wu Ying·Solario on the wall was exceptionally calm. A black orb of light gathered in his hand, floating above him. Above him, there were already two black orbs. Including this newly appeared one, there were three in total.
The sky suddenly darkened. The darkness churned like a vortex. Within the viscous darkness, a colossal figure composed entirely of corrupters descended. Its head was made of hundreds of skulls pressed together, its torso was stitched together from corrupters, and its dozen giant arms were formed from tens of thousands of corrupter limbs. This assembled giant was nauseating to the soul just by looking at it.
Like a calf being born, the upper half of this giant squeezed out of the Dark Hole. Then, it raised its dozen giant arms to pry open the Dark Hole.
Crack, crack, crack, crack, crack…
A sound like breaking glass came from the Dark Hole. Finally, with a crisp crack, the Dark Hole shattered, turning into a black cavity over ten thousand meters in diameter, irregular in shape. Corrupters poured out from within.
If other Dark Holes were like draining water, releasing corrupters, this time it was like smashing the bottom of a water tank, letting the liquid inside gush out violently.
"Roar!!"
The corrupters roared downward. A horrifying scene unfolded. With such a massive influx of corrupters, Platinum Capital was flooded, submerged by corrupters like a deluge.
To prevent Platinum Capital from falling and thus protect the World Gate, Wu Ying·Solario had played all his cards.
On the city wall, Wu Ying·Solario looked at Su Xiao on the dragon's back in the distance. He admitted this opponent was strong, but the current situation was that, after the Dark Hole was breached, corrupters from the colony planet would continue to pour out for days. Given the enemy's clearing speed, they wouldn't be able to reduce the number of corrupters in Platinum Capital; instead, the corrupters would only increase.
As for the enemy gaining energy by killing corrupters to spawn more troops, Wu Ying·Solario had long noticed this. That was why he risked a two-front war. When Platinum Capital was attacked, he decisively opened two Dark Holes at the Sun Holy Nest.
This way, even if the enemy spawned troops from the Mother Nest, they couldn't break out of the base camp and couldn't reinforce the front line.
This would solidify the enemy's front-line forces, or even cause them to dwindle as the battle dragged on, making it even more impossible to clear the corrupters from Platinum Capital.
"Law Destroyer, it's a pity we are enemies this time."
With that, Wu Ying·Solario turned and walked down the steps formed by kneeling corrupters, heading toward the city wall and into the World Gate within the city.
Barbatos flew high in the sky, allowing Su Xiao to overlook the entirety of Platinum Capital. The current situation was that their Demon Beast army had completely surrounded Platinum Capital but couldn't break in. The city was packed with corrupters—not just filled, but packed solid. The four sides of the dozens-of-meters-high alloy walls made Platinum Capital look like a giant water tank.
Su Xiao was indeed inferior to Wu Ying·Solario in tactics, but that didn't matter. He took out a [Blazing Sun's Wrath·Apollo] from his storage space. When in doubt, Apollo says hello.
Just as he was about to activate the Apollo in his hand and throw it into Platinum Capital, a notification appeared.
[Notification: Ancient creature successfully awakened.]
Seeing this notification, Su Xiao remained expressionless. He suspected that this world's World Consciousness had some issues. Earlier, when he was about to start the battle with a big move to catch Wu Ying·Solario off guard, the War Lord's title ability had gotten stuck under the World Consciousness's interference. It took this long to complete the interference. The delay was too high; nearly three hours had passed.
[Successfully awakened ancient creature·Moth World.]
[Moth World is a super-high-dimensional creature from this world's ancient era, a metallic lifeform/ancient creature, extinct for 9852 years. This metallic creature possesses powerful devouring and splitting properties, having once devoured 98.52% of the organic matter on this planet.
Due to its unique life structure, Moth World cannot absorb the active life force within carbon-based organisms and cannot expel it. It can only continue to split to prevent the active life force retained in its body from crystallizing.
During its splitting process, Moth World needs to consume soul power. To avoid extinction, it can only continue to split and devour living beings. The reproduction rate of this planet's organisms was slower than Moth World's devouring speed.
With Moth World suppressing its own splitting speed as much as possible, after 1752 years, only this massive group remained on the planet, with no other life. Eventually, due to a lack of soul energy intake, the Moth World group reached its end. During this period, the active life force within them had begun to semi-crystallize. Later, due to crustal changes, these semi-crystallized life forces were buried underground, forming the current Life Ore.]
[Friendly forces' morale has reached its peak.]
[Hunter currently commands over 400,000 soldier-type units.]
[Moth World's true intelligence and numbers can reach the extreme value of this world.]
[Warning: This world's suppression of Moth World's splitting speed has been temporarily lifted.]
…
As the last notification appeared, an iron-gray flying insect appeared in front of Su Xiao. The Moth World, which even the world would target, was actually a metal fly the size of a common fly. It was now vibrating its wings, its translucent red compound eyes fixed on Su Xiao.
After about 5 seconds, the Moth World buzzed away, diving into a corrupter corpse on the ground, leaving a black hole behind as it burrowed inside.
On this corpse, holes of various sizes appeared at a visible rate, as if rapidly eroded by time. In the blink of an eye, only a few specks of dust remained.
Buzz～
Thousands of Moth Worlds scattered. Whether it was corrupters, Demon Beast corpses, or even the fungal carpet, nothing escaped the Moth World's devouring.
5 seconds passed, and a large area of the battlefield was empty. Not only were there no corpses or fungal carpet, but even the topsoil was gone.
Bubu Wang, crouching behind Su Xiao, was dumbfounded. It instinctively shrank back behind Su Xiao's leg. If it were targeted, it would be gone in the next second.
Buzz!!
The sound of wings vibrating echoed across the battlefield. Seeing this, the middle-level commanders of the Nether Forces on the city wall all changed expressions, sensing something was wrong.
The Moth World, like an iron-gray dust storm, began attacking indiscriminately. Wherever they passed, whether it was Demon Beasts, Demon Flame Dragons, corrupters, Gray Armor Warriors, Soul Twisters, or Nether Dragon Whales, they turned into a few wisps of debris in the next second, devoured completely.
A hair-raising scene unfolded. When the Moth World swarm was blocked by the alloy city wall, they developed a big appetite. Metal was their favorite, especially artificially refined alloys.
In the blink of an eye, the front wall of Platinum Capital disappeared. The corrupters inside surged out like a broken dam, meeting the Moth World swarm.
There were many corrupters, but once the Moth World had sufficient soul energy, their splitting speed was a pattern of one splitting into two, two into four, four into eight. Even more terrifying, the Moth World had no distinction between a main body and split bodies; all splits were main bodies.
Originally, the number of corrupters in the city was spectacular. Now, the corrupters in the city were being rapidly decomposed by the Moth World swarm. The Moth World swarm grew rapidly. After devouring all the corrupters in the city, they charged straight toward the Dark Hole above.
A few seconds later, the already broken Dark Hole in the sky cracked again and finally dissipated in midair.
When the last wisp of black smoke in the sky disappeared, a corrupter, eaten down to half its body, fell, landing with a splat inside Platinum Capital.
High-rise buildings, city walls, everything disappeared. Platinum Capital was now a barren wasteland, leaving only a large area of low, dilapidated ruins.
"…"
Su Xiao was speechless for a moment. He hadn't expected the creature summoned by the War Lord's title ability this time to be so powerful. Originally, he thought he would lose at least two-thirds of his current forces to capture Platinum Capital. Now, with less than one-tenth of the losses, he had successfully taken the place.
Taking out a pocket watch from his bosom, Su Xiao opened the lid and counted the seconds one by one. When the second hand passed 12, he knew something was wrong. No notification appeared. Under normal circumstances, the Moth World would only exist for 60 seconds. But now, over 100 seconds had passed, and the notification for the Moth World's disappearance still hadn't appeared.
Su Xiao checked the series of previous notifications and quickly found the problem. Previously, when he activated the War Lord's title ultimate ability, the notifications were [War Spirit Reviving...] followed by [Body Constructing...].
This time, it wasn't revival but awakening. More importantly, no body construction took place this time. The Moth World appeared directly.
This world had Life Ore precisely because of the extinction-level disaster brought by the Moth World. Everything has two sides. After that disaster ended, a large amount of Life Ore was buried underground in this world, leading to the subsequent unique ecosystem.
Su Xiao suspected that this metallic lifeform called Moth World, even after so many years, hadn't completely died out. How long could such a metallic lifeform hibernate or remain dormant? It was hard to say.
Originally, Su Xiao shouldn't have summoned the Moth World. But with the assistance of this world's World Consciousness, he successfully summoned it.
For some reason, Su Xiao always felt that this world's World Consciousness, while clearly favoring their side, had been causing trouble.
Su Xiao carefully recalled the interventions of this world's World Consciousness, which were as follows: