The Octopusman Commander stood at the flagship’s command console, his mouth tentacles stretched taut, his complexion shifting from ashen gray to a full iron blue. He stared fixedly at the golden figure unfolding again on the screen, finally realizing that from start to finish, he had been played for a fool by the enemy.
Now, the trump card of the planar origin self-destruction had been nullified.
And the enemy stood in the very center of his fleet, completely unscathed.
The Octopusman Commander slammed the console.
The metal surface let out a harsh dull sound, and he had actually cracked it with that blow.
“Redraw the battle plan!” His voice was hoarse and urgent, as if forced out from deep in his throat. “All combat units, listen up: abandon long-range fire suppression, advance en masse, and close in for melee annihilation against the opponent!”
The order spread quickly through the fleet’s communication channels.
The next moment, the hatches of countless warships opened simultaneously.
Tens of thousands of Octopusman combatants surged out like a swarm of metallic locusts erupting from steel nests.
Once outside their ships, the energy coating on their bodies reflected a cold, hard luster under the pale purple sky. Armor nozzles continuously spewed exhaust, propelling them through the air in high-speed turns as they tightened formation.
Every combat squad maintained standard assault formation.
Tens of thousands of sixth-level Octopusmen, and over a hundred seventh-level Octopusmen, charged straight at Jie Ming’s Dharma Aspect like an enraged swarm.
Jie Ming stood at the center of the Dharma Aspect’s chest, taking in all the battlefield information.
These Octopusmen’s maneuvering was clearly more agile than their warships, their movements smoother in transition, and the weapon interfaces on their armor activated almost simultaneously. That is to say, warship firepower was not really their forte—their original civilization must have favored individual combat. These ships were likely standard equipment provided by the Multiracial Alliance using their shipbuilding technology.
What they truly trusted was still their own armor and bodies.
This also meant the real fight was about to begin.
Jie Ming hesitated no longer. He raised his hand, and his Inner World burst open.
The next instant, a mass of blue gelatinous substance gushed out from the Inner World rift, like a sudden deep-sea wave rolling in.
That mass had now expanded to be larger than Jupiter. The moment it appeared, every detector in the Octopusman fleet blasted out a series of over-limit alarms.
The Nest’s colossal body slowly unfurled in the void, layers of ripples spreading across its blue gel surface. Then, with an agility completely at odds with its size, it lunged sideways to place itself between Jie Ming and the charging Octopusman combat group.
At the same time, countless silver-white teleportation lights flickered beside Jie Ming.
His Inner World—the ultimate trump card in planar warfare—was being pushed to its limit.
No need for emergency troop deployments from the Infernal Sulfur Plane, no need to pre-build cross-planar teleportation arrays.
He only needed his forces to teleport into the Inner World from the Infernal Sulfur Plane and wait, then release them at the perfect moment—a true descent of divine soldiers.
The Black Giant Legion marched out from the teleportation lights in formation.
The moment they appeared, the vertical slits in their chests opened in unison, emitting a low, heavy war cry that rang out like hammer blows against the void.
The vanguard consisted entirely of sixth-level Black Giants.
Over the years, Jie Ming had completely overhauled the Black Giant Legion’s equipment system.
Every elite Black Giant was now outfitted with a Talisman Imprint Shamanic Artifact, capable of releasing the Return to Ruins Armor and the Trigram Fire Annihilation Divine Light.
Though limited by production output, each elite Black Giant could only be equipped with one set, but that was already enough to elevate their combat power to an entirely new level.
The Octopusman vanguard had already closed in.
A seventh-level Octopusman warrior in the lead crossed his hands before his chest, the energy conduits on his armor’s arms blazing with blinding blue light. A shockwave of highly concentrated energy blasted straight toward the chest of a nearby sixth-level Black Giant.
A faint golden ripple spread across the Black Giant’s liquid metal skin. The energy stabilization field of the Return to Ruins Armor instantly activated, absorbing and converting most of the shockwave’s energy.
Then he raised his right arm.
The Trigram Fire Annihilation Divine Light emitter on his arm armor glowed with a dark gold light. A beam compressed to the extreme blasted out, instantly piercing the seventh-level Octopusman’s armor shield and exploding a clean hole completely through his right shoulder.
More Black Giants opened fire simultaneously.
Hundreds of Trigram Fire Annihilation Divine Light beams wove a dark golden net across the battlefield, tearing a massive gap in the Octopusman charge formation.
A heavy warship trying to flank and support from the side hadn’t even reached the battlefield’s edge before it was pierced by over a dozen beams. Chain explosions erupted inside the hull, and the ship snapped in two midair, plunging into the depths of the void engulfed in blazing flames.
The Octopusman fleet hastily activated their defensive barriers.
But the piercing power of the Trigram Fire Annihilation Divine Light at the sixth level was already terrifying to the extreme.
The energy barriers of the defensive shields were torn open like paper before the beams. The beams, undiminished after piercing the shields, continued to blast through the engine compartment of a frigate behind them.
The next moment, ship fragments scattered in all directions, and the engine explosion lit up half the battlefield.
On the front line, the Nest had fully expanded.
Its blue gelatinous body was like a living ocean, extending continuously from the battle’s center to both sides, as if it meant to envelop the entire planar sky.
A few seventh-level Octopusmen tried to bypass the Nest from the flanks to attack Jie Ming directly.
But their attacks landed on the Nest’s gelatinous surface and didn’t even stir a ripple.
As the Nest continued to expand, it began to generate a noticeable gravitational field. The attacks not only failed to harm it but were absorbed and converted into its own mass.
The Nest’s defense had become nearly invincible against these enemies.
The only pity was that its own destructive power was indeed insufficient.
When it was originally designed, it was a unit specialized in defense and survival.
It could absorb all attacks, stand like an impenetrable wall before the enemy, but to actively destroy the enemy, it ultimately relied on the Black Giant Legion to deliver the finishing damage.
For a time, the front line fell into a brief stalemate.
The Nest couldn’t break the enemy, and the enemy couldn’t break the Nest.
The blue gelatinous ocean tugged back and forth in the void, the battle line trembling in the deadlock.
Just then, several extremely terrifying auras erupted simultaneously from the deepest part of the warship formation.
Seeing the battle situation turning sharply against them, the previously hidden eighth-level Octopusmen could no longer stay put.
Eight eighth-level Octopusmen, including the Octopusman Commander, sprang out from different directions, their armor burning with incandescent white light from high-speed friction with the air. They locked onto Jie Ming’s true body and launched an encirclement without hesitation.
But at that instant, a layer of grayish-white light blossomed suddenly before them.
Viola had somehow already stood before Jie Ming.
Her silver-gray long hair streamed in the energy turbulence stirred by the Law-Crystallization Domain. Her eyes narrowed slightly, and that habitual smile still hung at the corner of her mouth.
But this time, the smile radiated danger.
“Ah, how about playing with me?” Viola tapped her finger at her lips, her aura rising layer by layer.
The eighth-level Octopusmen all stopped almost simultaneously.
They uniformly braked midair, as if seized by some invisible force.
The grayish-white light of the Law of Agony swirled around Viola.
The light was not glaring—it could even be called quiet.
But when it fell upon the Octopusmen, every muscle in their bodies screamed an instinctive warning, as if one more step would plunge them into some unbearable abyss.
A sixth-level being, blocking the path of eight eighth-level beings.
Above the battlefield, the scene froze for an instant.