The Era of Gods

Chapter 317: Confrontation Beyond the World

A Legendary Nightmare Beast was slain at the front lines, but the battle was not over, for the Children of Nightmare had no way to retreat.

As one Super Large Flesh Monster after another was killed, Lin Xiao let out a sigh of relief with the massive slaughter of these flesh monsters.

These flesh monsters had size but their individual strength was far too weak; even those of Rank 6 couldn’t match a Steel Golem in combat power, they were mere cannon fodder produced for quantity’s sake.

However, letting out a sigh of relief didn’t mean he could relax; it wasn’t time to be careless yet.

After all, this was a Child of Nightmare as experienced as a senior in high school, roughly equivalent to that level in an average higher education college, powerful amongst its peers with considerable accumulation of power and not lacking in trump cards. It was too early to rejoice now.

With the augmentation of several Ancient Treasures, even the weakest Small Fishman in Lin Xiao’s Clan possessed at least Level 4 combat power, and their overall strength allowed them to press forward, rapidly forcing the enemy into continuous retreat. The Child of Nightmare tried to strike against him or his Clan several times but was blocked by Slarda and the Flame Lord, with Lin Xiao’s Incarnation not having to make a move.

Advancing over ten kilometers, they could see the first Flesh Nest with the naked eye.

It was a Giant Meat Mountain hundreds of meters high, surrounded by a thick carpet of flesh. The surface of the meat mountain was full of folds like a human brain and undulated with breathing like a human stomach. At the edge of this thing, there were long cracks that opened every so often to reveal pink flesh color, from which a flesh monster enveloped in sticky flesh membrane would slide out.

These freshly born flesh monsters were about five or six meters tall, lying on the thick meat carpet around the meat mountain. Numerous sprout-like meat tentacles would extend from the carpet, inserting into the monsters to provide them with nutrients, rapidly maturing them to fight within half an hour after breaking free of the dried flesh membrane.

It was akin to a barracks that produced soldiers, popping out a Rank 6 flesh monster with paper strength every half an hour or so. This was quite formidable.

And within this Nightmare Realm, heaven knows how many Flesh Nests there were.

Without hesitation, Slarda immediately gave the order, and the Fire Elements began casting spells to summon a Rain of Fire. A Rank 7 Elite Fire Element gathered a group of Fire Elements and summoned a Flame Meteorite over a hundred meters in diameter to crash down.

The Flesh Nest gathered a massive amount of Nightmare Power to form a Shield that blocked the first wave, but it couldn’t withstand the second and third, or the fifth and sixth waves of meteorite impacts. Even though the Child of Nightmare interfered twice, the defenses were eventually breached by the ceaseless meteorites, melting away the Flesh Nest in one go.

After its death, it left behind a crystal-like Flesh Seed as spoils of war, which after passing through many subordinates, ended up in the hands of Lin Xiao’s Incarnation.

This thing, called a Flesh Seed Body, could grow into a new Flesh Nest if a large amount of flesh was provided for the seed to be placed and absorb.

The reason it was called a seed body was that it was separated from the mother body. Limited by the seed body, the highest growth limit was what they had just seen, which could only hatch flesh creatures with a physical strength of Rank 6 at most. It couldn’t hatch stronger flesh monsters, even with a dragon corpse.

Having a seed body of course meant there was a mother body, and Lin Xiao looked towards the depths of the Nightmare Divine Realm with considerable interest.

Four hours later, the reconnaissance troops discovered another Flesh Nest guarded by a multitude of Nightmare Creatures in another location. It was taken down by an attack led by the Wise Goblins leader Alemente.

With the main forces of the Child of Nightmare defeated, the subsequent resistance was very minimal; most of the peripheral areas had already abandoned defense, encountering scarce resistance on their way through.

Lin Xiao surmised that the enemy had gathered the majority of their troops at the very center of the Nightmare Divine Realm, preparing for a last stand.

There, the Child of Nightmare’s True Body resided, located at the core of the Nightmare Divine Realm. Not only could it exhibit its full strength there, but it could also utilize the core’s defenses.

Generally speaking, the most central defenses of a divine realm are the strongest, naturally imposing a suppression on enemies due to the influence of the True Body. Countless examples prove that many battles where the weaker overcame the stronger in dire situations occurred at the core.

Thus, there would be a fierce battle ahead. Only by completely breaking the last defense at the core of the realm could they officially defeat the adversary.

As the Child of Nightmare contracted its territory, the subsequent battles for the outskirts of the Nightmare Divine Realm went very smoothly. In no much time, they had conquered several Flesh Nests and obtained a number of Flesh Seeds.

It’s worth mentioning that as they continuously conquered the enemy’s territory, once they had captured a significant area, the power of Lin Xiao’s God’s realm began to enter the Nightmare Realm, suppressing the opponent’s Field, and the ubiquitous Nightmare Power within the Realm retreated in response, revealing a gray world.

Under the influence of Nightmare Power, the main body of this Child of Nightmare’s realm was grayish-black. Not only plants and creatures turned grayish-black due to years of influence, but even the iron ore buried beneath the soil was tinged with gray.

All resources within this Nightmare Realm were unusable directly; they had to undergo a process of Purification from the Nightmare Power before they could be put to use.

With the territory under their control expanding, most areas of the Nightmare Realm became clear, with only the most central part occupied by dense Nightmare Power, resembling a game map with only a small central area shrouded in black fog of war.

Results from the occasional Scouting Elementals sent into this area revealed that the Mother nest of flesh and blood was indeed inside. Since the area was full of Nightmare Creatures, they couldn’t approach closer, but from a distance, they could see a Giant Meat Mountain nearly three hundred meters tall. Behind this flesh was an even larger shadow, emanating an ominous aura that made even the Scouting Air Elements struggle to maintain their form.

After no fewer than a hundred reconnaissance missions and the loss of several hundred scouts, Lin Xiao had a fairly clear understanding of about half the situation within the core area.

After synthesizing all the information, he fell silent.

The strength the enemy had amassed here was beyond his expectations.

Or rather, the defenses the enemy had erected here were stronger than he had anticipated.

What caught his attention the most was those Biological Defense Pillars derived from the Mother nest of flesh and blood, thick columns of flesh that grew dozens of meters high from the ground, each topped with a gigantic eyeball that could swivel around, serving both combat and surveillance purposes. Many of the scouts had been discovered by these things.

In this core area, the Mother nest of flesh and blood was frantically spewing out Super Large Flesh Monsters at a much faster rate than its offspring. In this period, around four to five thousand Super Large Flesh Monsters had accumulated, adding to those from before and the existing top-tier Nightmare Creatures, amassing a reluctant combat force of Rank 6 strength, which numbered in the seven to eight thousand range.

Although they were mostly for show and might not defeat a real Rank 6 Transcendent creature even two against one, the sheer numbers made a difference, and another Sixth Level elite without the support of an Extraordinary Magic Network might indeed falter.

After all, these were veteran Rank 7 Nightmare Lords on the verge of their ‘college entrance exams,’ with a whole year more of preparation compared to them.

A year’s accumulation in Rank 7 is much greater than a year’s accumulation in Rank 4; under certain circumstances, it could be even more than two years of accumulation in Rank 4 and Rank 6 combined.

An outright assault under these conditions was impossible; the old method had to be adopted, summoning Water Elements from the Extraordinary Magic Network as cannon fodder.

After all, by this time, he had already taken control of all areas surrounding the Nightmare Realm, leaving no concerns for the rear.

Additionally, the Water Elements he summoned this time numbered more than thirty thousand. He gathered all seventy thousand of his subordinates, including thirty thousand Wise Goblins, twenty thousand Supreme Naga, and twenty thousand Earth Dwarves, to summon together.

As many as seventy thousand Rank 6 Super Large Water Elements, divided into four groups, each with fifteen thousand in number, converged on the center from four different directions, mounting a direct frontal assault.

Yes, the other troops were merely for assistance; they would not engage in battle.

His method was simple, since the opponent defended with what amounted to a cheap trick, he could also attack in a similarly cheap manner.

Summoning a wave of Water Elements every day to gradually deplete the enemy’s living force, grinding them down slowly, for there was no rush.

This battle was about the survival of the Divine Realm and his own life and death, with no room for propriety—any dirty trick would do as long as it brought victory.

Indeed, shameless tactics are called such because they leave the opponent feeling helpless.

He didn’t stop summoning Water Elements to die and deplete the enemy’s forces. When enough had died in battle, he retreated, only to continue summoning and depleting the next day.

This daily summoning and depletion visibly reduced the size of the enemy’s assembled Nightmare Creature army at the center of the realm until, by the sixth day, they had advanced to the very heart, now able to see the Mother nest of flesh and blood that loomed like a mountain range with the naked eye.

The battle was progressing smoothly, and Lin Xiao became increasingly sly as time went on. Initially, the Clans assisted in the offensive, but later they simply stayed far away from the battlefield, leaving the Water Elements to take turns attacking and depleting the enemy.

This move was incredibly shameless, leaving the Children of Nightmare with nowhere to even attempt an all-out counterattack.

The outer reaches of the core were already being slowly overtaken by the spreading power of Lin Xiao’s God’s realm. The Children of Nightmare’s control over their own Field had greatly weakened. If they dared to break out from the core, Lin Xiao would be forewarned and ready to respond, making a desperate move impossible.

The moment the True Body took action, Lin Xiao would keep his distance, and the Children of Nightmare wouldn’t dare leave the core. If they did, Lin Xiao would be ready to encircle and kill them.

To use a defensive tactic like the Children of Nightmare’s might sound good in theory—burning boats, fighting with one’s back to the river—but if the disadvantage was too great, it just meant waiting for death.

Moreover, the enemy made a grave mistake by not having the resolve to bear huge losses and launch an all-out attack, instead splitting the battle into three phases.

They didn’t press on the attack after suffering huge losses in the first battle when the two realms fully connected.

The second time was an all-out battle just outside the core.

The third was the desperate defense of the core.

Had they the resolve to swarm out and launch a full attack in the first phase, they might not have won, but they would not have lost so disastrously.

At the very least, even if Lin Xiao could have won, his losses would have been substantial.

Alas, there are no ‘ifs’ in war. With the situation changing in the blink of an eye, one who misses the opportunity is doomed.

And that’s just the state of affairs right now.