novelno Chapter 1324 The War Begins
Chapter 1324 The War Begins
The horizon was trembling.
A vast swarm of alien species, dark and menacing, advanced from the distant horizon.
From a distance, they appear to be running on all fours like wild beasts, their bodies low to the ground, their backs forming a continuous, undulating black curve in the twilight, like a giant scythe cutting across the earth.
There are too many of these different species.
So many that the horizon was completely obscured, so many that the boundary between the sky and the ground became a thick black line, so many that no matter which direction your gaze moved, you saw the same sight—alien species, alien species, and more alien species.
King Kong stood at the highest point of the city wall, his hands gripping the railing, looking down at the surging black tide.
The contractors in the Paradise of Reincarnation had different expressions, but their eyes were the same.
Their eyes held no fear, no anger, no hatred, only an unadorned instinct.
The predator's instinct.
On the other side of the city wall, the students of Kivotos held their guns, pointing them towards the outside of the city wall.
They stood very close together, with less than two meters between each person. Every few meters, a heavy machine gun was mounted on the battlements, with ammunition belts hanging down from the left side of the gun, swaying gently in the morning breeze.
Their bodies were trembling.
It wasn't the kind of shiver caused by the cold, but a tremor that seeped from the very marrow of my bones.
Although they possess a kind of immortality, their past experiences have mostly involved dealing with people.
They had never actually seen these alien species before; they looked like monsters from movies.
Their brains didn't know what instructions to give, so they chose the most primitive response—trembling.
Lin Yi stood on a high platform inside the city wall, from which he could see the entire battlefield situation.
A pinned message appeared at the very top of the war channel.
"If anyone is seriously injured, others should immediately bring them back to the medical area. Do not treat them on the spot, do not try to carry them on your own, and do not be reckless. If you fall, have your teammates carry you back. If your teammate falls, you carry him back. No one is allowed to die outside the city walls."
The message was short, but every word carried weight.
After seeing this message, none of the contractors in the Paradise of Reincarnation replied.
On the battlefield, replying to messages is a waste of time, and wasting time is equivalent to wasting life.
The moment Lin Yi sent the message, the power of the abyss surged from his body.
The halo effect covered the entire base camp within seconds, with the halos of more than 100,000 people lighting up at the same time.
Standing on the high platform, Lin Yi could clearly feel the abyssal power and physical strength within his body draining away.
The rate at which it was passing was much slower than Lin Yi had imagined.
He originally thought that bestowing the aura upon 100,000 people at once would drain all his abyssal power and physical strength in an instant, and he was even prepared to faint after the aura was released.
But the actual consumption was much lower than he had expected.
Aura-type buffs themselves don't consume much resources, which is a basic balancing mechanism in the skill system of the Paradise of Reincarnation.
Single-target buffs are powerful but consume a lot of resources.
The group buff has a weak effect but low cost.
Aura-type buffs have the weakest effect and the lowest cost.
Because aura-type buffs are passive, continuous, and area-of-effect, you don't need to inject extra energy with every attack. You only need to maintain a relatively stable energy flow for the duration of the aura.
This is why Lin Yi dared to increase the number of people by so many at once.
He wouldn't do that if it was too taxing.
It wasn't because he was reluctant to part with it, but because he knew that in war, the power of support professions was not limitless.
You waste energy on unnecessary things, and when you really need it, you don't have any left.
Lin Yi closed his eyes, sensing the rate at which the abyssal power within his body was draining and the rate at which his stamina was being depleted, and then opened his eyes.
At the current rate, he can maintain this aura for at least six hours.
If he can still draw power from the abyss in the divine kingdom six hours later, and if he can still squeeze out physical strength from his body, he can sustain himself for another six hours.
Six hours later, he really couldn't take it anymore.
Six hours is enough.
At the same time that Lin Yi completed the deployment of the halo, a new message appeared in the war channel.
It was posted by Lin Yi, and it was pinned to the top of the screen.
"Don't go too far. This camp is huge, and the aura's range has been expanded to its limit. If you jump off the city wall and leave the aura's support range, the buff will disappear. You can leave if you want, but you'll have to figure it out yourself."
After the message was sent, there was a moment of silence on the city wall.
The contractors of the Paradise of Reincarnation glanced down at the halo beneath their feet, then looked up at the alien army outside the city walls, and made their decision.
The vast majority of contractors chose to stand on the city wall.
Their choice was not out of fear, but out of a more rational judgment.
With the aura of power, they can kill more alien species.
Without the aura of power, they might die, and once they're dead, they can't be killed.
If you can't kill it, you'll lose out; if you lose out, you'll be unhappy; if you're unhappy, it's not worth it.
The contractors of the Paradise of Reincarnation may be crazy, but they are not stupid.
Fighting is fun, but you still have to take care of your own life.
This is the difference between them and real madmen—they will fight desperately to kill the enemy, but they won't die for it.
There's a very thin line between risking one's life and dying; they're walking on that line.
However, a small number of contractors still chose to leave the city walls.
These people jumped off the city wall and landed on the ground outside the wall, their boots kicking up a little dust as they stepped into the mud.
They didn't stop; as soon as they landed, they charged straight into the wave of the alien army.
No one tried to stop them, because everyone knew that this group didn't need any glamour.
This group is so powerful that they can fight their way in and out of the alien army without any external aids.
Their survival skills are beyond question, and their combat experience is so rich that they can predict with their toes which direction the enemy will dodge next.
They dared to leave the protection of their base without any buffs, not because they were not afraid of death, but because they knew they would not die.
Representative figures are naturally leaders like King Kong and Su Xiao.
King Kong jumped down from the east end of the city wall. He didn't use any cushioning skills and jumped directly from the eight-meter-high wall. When he landed, his knees were slightly bent, which absorbed most of the impact. His boots left two deep footprints in the mud.
He pulled his foot out of the footprint and then rushed into the swarm of aliens without looking back.
Su Xiao stopped beside a battlement on the southern section of the city wall, braced himself on the edge of the battlement with both hands, and flipped over.
After landing, he didn't rush out immediately, but stood still and looked up at the open field to the south.
The wilderness was empty and devoid of any alien species.
It's not that there are no mutant species, but rather that they haven't yet reached the south.
The alien army's formation is strongest in the eastern section, followed by the northern section, then the western section, and weakest in the southern section.
Because the southern part of the Reincarnation Paradise's base camp is the Fallen Zone, it takes some time for the alien species to get there.
King Kong was in the east, Su Xiao was in the south, and the others went to the north and west.
The city walls are on all four sides, and there are enough people in each direction.
Everything is ready; we're just waiting for the alien species to charge in.
The first wave of ground-dwelling creatures rushed to a position 300 meters below the city wall, a distance that is already within effective range for ranged classes, but no one fired a shot.
Hina Sorasaki stood atop the highest point of the castle wall, her black wings unfurled behind her.
She raised her right hand above her head, a signal to prepare to fire. All the students moved their fingers from the outside of the trigger guard to the trigger.
Hina clenched her right fist, and all the guns fired simultaneously, the gunfire exploding in the twilight.
The barrage of comments poured down on the ranks of the ground-dwelling species like a torrential rain.
The first batch of ground-dwelling creatures fell instantly upon being hit.
Bullets struck the scales, and a mist of blood rose in the ranks, with dark red blood droplets splattering in the air like flowers blooming in the twilight.
But there were too many ground-based creatures. As the front ranks fell, the rear ranks continued their charge, stepping over the corpses of those in front.
The people in the back row fell, and the people in the back row continued to charge, stepping on the corpses of those behind them.
They are like a tireless meat grinder. The meat in the front is ground up, and the meat in the back is fed in, ground up again, fed in again, and so on, in an endless cycle.
The first batch of land-dwelling creatures rushed to a position 100 meters below the city wall.
This distance is already a charging distance for the alien species. They no longer need to maintain formation; they just need to rush to the bottom of the city wall as fast as possible and then climb up.
The terrestrial creature's claws embedded themselves in the surface of the city wall, and it began to climb the steel plates.
The claws left deep claw marks on the steel plate, and the sound of metal scraping against metal was so grating it made your teeth ache.
The first group of ground creatures climbed to half the height of the city wall, and then they encountered mechanical dogs.
The mechanical dog jumped off the city wall, and the hydraulic system made a dull thud when it landed.
The machine gun on its back began firing, bullets entering through the back of the ground creature and exiting through its abdomen, leaving deep bullet marks on the city wall.
The ground creature that was hit fell off the city wall and crashed to the ground, splattering mud and blood everywhere.
But more and more land-dwelling species came from all directions.
As the war began, the sound of wind breaking came from afar.
The sound was shrill, like someone scratching glass with their fingernails, so piercing that you couldn't help but want to cover your ears.
Everyone looked up at the same time, heading in the direction from which the sound came.
Those were three large, bell-shaped wooden barrels, each three meters thick and five meters long.
The surface of the wooden barrel is dark brown and reinforced with iron bars that intersect in a grid pattern on the surface, with each intersection secured by rivets.
The large wooden barrel traced an arc in mid-air and flew diagonally towards the base camp.
Three barrels flew towards the base camp from three different directions simultaneously. If you only looked in one direction, the other two would land without you noticing. The elder of the autistic brothers leaned against the battlement, holding an iron pipe in his hand.
The thing looked like a gun, but it was extremely rudimentary.
One end of the iron pipe is open, and the other end is sealed with a piece of sheet metal with a small hole drilled in it.
The entire iron pipe looks like it was picked up from a scrap heap in an abandoned factory and then roughly modified with the most primitive tools, making it barely usable.
The autistic man pulled a spiral nail from the bag on his back.
The nail is about 15 centimeters long and about 1 centimeter in diameter. It has threads that are evenly spaced, extending from the tip to the head.
He inserted the spiral nail into the barrel of the gun. The nail slid in with a metallic scraping sound, like a metal door that hadn't been oiled in a long time being pushed open.
Some of the autistic guys with uneven eyes licked their thumbs, leaving a wet mark on the pad of their thumbs.
Then he pressed his thumb against his forehead, leaving a drool mark.
Raise your gun.
aim.
shooting.
The moment the trigger was pulled, a puff of blue smoke shot out from the small hole at the end of the iron pipe.
No gunshot was heard.
It wasn't that there were no gunshots, but rather that the gunshots were masked by the explosions in mid-air.
The spiral nail struck the large wooden barrel flying from the east in mid-air.
The moment the nail pierced the wooden barrel, the barrel began to expand from the inside, like a spider web being torn apart.
Then the three barrels in the air exploded.
The explosion wasn't loud, but the shockwave was quite powerful.
Orange-red flames surged from inside the wooden barrel, forming a fireball in mid-air with a diameter of over fifty meters.
The surface of the fireball was churning, like a pot of boiling magma, each surge of flame carrying a deadly temperature.
The autistic man used his crudely made gun, which looked like a fire poker, to produce a terrifying effect.
There is no bullet flight time, no trajectory, and no delay.
After the line between three points, there is death.
Either don't get targeted, or die.
This is the ability of the autistic brother, and it's also the reason he's been able to live to this day.
The flames tumbled in mid-air for a few seconds before beginning to fall.
That wasn't an ordinary flame, but some kind of burning substance like tar.
The flames fell on the ground creatures climbing the city walls.
hiss.
The moment the flames hit the ground, a terrifying scorching sound rang out.
A pungent, burnt smell of grass and wood spread. The smell was so strong that it made one want to vomit.
Several students on the city wall gagged the moment they smelled the odor.
Some people covered their mouths and noses with the backs of their hands, some squatted down and buried their heads in their knees, and some even lay directly on the ground with their faces pressed against the cold steel plates.
It's not that they're being fussy, but the smell is genuinely unbearable on a physiological level.
The next moment, the flames began to gather.
The flames flowed from all directions toward the same center as if they were alive, and all the flames converged within seconds and then began to take shape.
A fiery python appeared below the city wall.
The fiery python tilted its head, as thick as a water vat, back slightly. The head tilted back so much that it almost touched its back, and it held this position for about a second.
As the snake's head tilted back, the flames on its neck became even brighter, turning from orange-red to bright white, and the temperature soared to a terrifying level in that instant.
The build-up is over.
Flames spewed from the snake's mouth, not just a single flame, but a whole blaze.
The flames spewed from the snake's mouth at a horizontal angle, but as the snake's head spewed fire, it began to move horizontally, burning everything around it from every angle.
After burning at 360 degrees Celsius, the fiery python raised its head and roared.
boom.
The Flame Python exploded.
The shockwave from the explosion spread outwards from the center, blasting the surrounding alien species into fragments.
This is a weapon of war; only a protracted racial war could give birth to such an exquisite and extraordinary weapon of war.
This is something that a race discovered through the lives of several generations when facing the crisis of extinction.
This is a Pelu Burst Barrel made by orcs.
It was originally intended to be used to fight off alien species.
Before the orcs defected to the alien race, the Peryl Burst Barrel contained Ice Vein Essence.
The Ice Vein Essence will form an Ice Python after the barrel explodes, and the Ice Python will spray ice flames.
The temperature of the ice flame is not high, but it can freeze the scales of the alien species, making them brittle and shattered.
Once the scales are broken, the alien species' defense will drop a level, at which point they can be easily killed with ordinary weapons.
After the orcs defected to the alien race, the filling in the Peryl Burst Barrel was changed to fire-based.
The alien species are immune to most fire damage. They have been dormant in the Earth's core for many years, where the temperature is extremely high, giving them a natural high level of fire resistance.
Using fire to attack aliens is similar to using cotton to hit a rock; although it still causes damage, the damage will be significantly reduced.
Orcs are very talented in the manufacture of weapons of war.
Their claws are more dexterous than human fingers, allowing them to perform precise operations in extremely small spaces.
Even if the current Pelikan Barrel Bombs land within a mutant swarm, they won't cause too many casualties.
This pleased the higher-ups of the fission species. They didn't care what kind of filler the orcs used, or how much damage the Peryl Bomb Barrel could cause. They only cared about one thing—whether this thing would threaten the alien species.
No, then you can continue using it.
Yes, then we'll wipe out the orcs and replace them with a more obedient race to manufacture weapons of war.
However, if the Pelikan Barrels land near your own base, that would be bad.
This thing has an incredibly high temperature, and it can explode twice – the first time when the wooden barrel explodes and forms a python, and the second time when the python explodes on its own.
It can also shoot fire at a 360-degree angle, with a range exceeding 300 meters.
If the Pelikan Barrel Bomb lands inside the base, the consequences would be unimaginable.
The contractors on the city wall looked rather grim after seeing the Flame Python explode.
It wasn't out of fear, but because they realized something—if that barrel hadn't been destroyed in mid-air, if it had landed directly inside the base camp, then the one lying on the ground now wouldn't be an alien, but their teammate.
"Leave it to us."
The autistic brothers stood in a corner of the northern section of the city wall.
The elder brother still held the iron pipe in his hand, the muzzle pointing to the sky, but the barrel had cooled down and was no longer smoking.
The younger brother stood next to his older brother, holding a similar iron pipe in his hand, the pipe itself also covered in rust.
This was the first time the two brothers had spoken.
They hadn't spoken a word since they boarded the spaceship.
Words are superfluous, a burden, and an inefficient form of communication for them.
As snipers, the autistic brothers lead the entire sniper unit at headquarters.
It's not that they wanted to be captain, but that no one was more suitable to be captain than them.
Their marksmanship wasn't the best, but they had an advantage that other snipers didn't have—they could know which direction the enemy would take cover before the enemy even fired.
This kind of thing isn't learned; it's a talent.
Just like some people are born strong, some are born fast, and some are born able to remember dozens of phone numbers.
The autistic brothers seem to know from birth where bullets should fly.
It was also thanks to the fact that the snipers were relatively quiet, otherwise the reclusive brother might not have dared to lead this team.
The profession of sniper does not require passion, but rather calmness, patience, and the perseverance to lie motionless in the same place for dozens of hours.
A talkative person cannot become an excellent sniper, because talking a lot means emotional instability, emotional instability means shaky hands, and shaky hands mean missing the target.
The autistic man pulled a new spiral nail from the bag on his back and stuffed it into the barrel of the gun.
Raise the gun, aim, and pull the trigger.
thump.
The Porcelain barrel that flew in from the west exploded in mid-air.
The flames tumbled in mid-air for a few seconds before falling, landing on the open field outside the city walls, among the charging alien horde.
The alien species are indeed highly immune to fire, but they are not as immune to shockwaves.
The shockwave from the explosion lifted dozens of ground creatures off the ground, tumbling several times in mid-air before crashing heavily to the ground.
After the reclusive brothers fired, the snipers on the city wall also began to move.
They were positioned at various points along the city wall, their eyes scanning back and forth between the clouds and the horizon, searching for the next Pelu barrel explosion.
The Pelu exploding barrels in the sky did not reappear for the next ten minutes.
It wasn't that the orcs didn't want to throw them away, but rather that their throwing devices needed time to be reloaded.
The manufacturing process of the Peryl Burst Barrel is very complex; a skilled orc craftsman needs three days to make one.
The maintenance of the throwing equipment is also troublesome. After each throw, the reinforcement of the iron bars needs to be checked; these things can't be done quickly. (End of Chapter)