Chapter 100: The Ancient Progenitor's Wrath and the Desperate United Front
The fissures in the earth continued to spread beneath the Ancient Progenitor's advancing footsteps. Fine cracks extended toward Panshi City, while a cold, foul wind surging from the depths of the earth whipped against their faces, carrying shattered rocks.
The countless psychic tentacles drifting around the Ancient Progenitor trembled gently. The consciousness of hundreds of thousands of scaled beasts across the entire wasteland flowed into its Sea of Consciousness network. It no longer relied on issuing commands in segments; every scaled beast became a part of its own body, charging in perfect synchronization.
The beast tide, which had originally been attacking the city wall in scattered formations, now diverted the majority of its forces. They pivoted, converging toward Zhou Lin's squad on the wasteland. Dense swarms of scaled beasts, like a black ocean, surged from all directions, trapping the small group in the center.
"Everyone, form a joint Sea of Consciousness battle array!" Zhou Lin roared in a deep voice, raising his hand to signal the remaining Imperial Guards to quickly close in. "Lin Yan, your fourth-tier Sea of Consciousness will serve as the core fulcrum of the array, drawing everyone's psychic power. Jiang Tao, you are in charge of regulating the flow of power and stabilizing the weak nodes. Old Chen, lead the remaining close-combat warriors to hold the perimeter. Intercept the charging scaled beasts; do not let them break our Sea of Consciousness formation!"
"Understood!"
Everyone sprang into action. Over a dozen surviving Sea of Consciousness cultivators immediately formed a ring, weaving and converging their psychic power outward. Lin Yan stood at the core of the formation, fully deploying his fourth-tier Sea of Consciousness. Countless fine, resilient psychic threads extended outward like numerous cables, firmly linking everyone's Sea of Consciousness together.
The psychic power, originally independent for each individual, was now fused into one, transforming into a massive, heavy psychic barrier standing before the Ancient Progenitor.
The Ancient Progenitor's dark golden vertical pupils narrowed slightly. Its will carried a hint of surprise: "A joint Sea of Consciousness array. Humans are indeed skilled at clinging together to survive. Unfortunately, this kind of power is worthless in the face of absolute Sea of Consciousness volume."
It gave a slight shake of its head, and the psychic tentacles floating around its skull suddenly swept forward.
Boom!
A boundless psychic torrent slammed into the joint Sea of Consciousness grand array. The shockwave generated by the invisible collision swept across the surroundings. Low-tier scaled beasts near the battle array had their brains instantly explode, collapsing to the ground one after another.
The surface of the grand array undulated violently, with cracks spreading at lightning speed. Several Imperial Guards at the outer perimeter, whose cultivation was relatively weak, let out muffled groans. Blood sprayed from their mouths and noses as their Seas of Consciousness took damage, nearly severing their connections.
"Hold steady! Do not let it collapse!" Lin Yan's mind was taut. His psychic threads moved at high speed, continuously repairing the cracks in the grand array. He dispersed and conducted the force of the impact onto every cultivator within the array, sharing the damage.
Zhou Lin stood at the very front of the grand array, bearing the most pressure alone. The veins on his temples bulged, and blood continuously trickled from the corners of his mouth. As the Marshal of the War Zone, he possessed a profound foundation in his Sea of Consciousness, serving as the first gate to withstand the onslaught.
"Its psychic tentacles are the channels for its power!" Zhou Lin shouted loudly to Lin Yan. "Purely defending will only lead to us being slowly exhausted. Look for an opportunity to sever the tentacles, and the strength of its psychic network will drop!"
Hearing this, the Ancient Progenitor let out a low hiss. It no longer insisted on pure psychic suppression. Instead, some of its psychic tentacles shifted direction, transforming into countless tiny psychic spikes. Like a torrential rain, they continuously stabbed toward the joint grand array, specifically targeting and ambushing the weak points in the cultivators' Seas of Consciousness within the formation.
Jiang Tao's face was deathly pale. Exhausting all his strength to perceive the trajectories of the spikes, he issued constant warnings: "Left side! Three spikes! Brother Lin, pressure increasing on the left!"
Lin Yan immediately mobilized a massive amount of psychic threads to rush to the left and intercept the spikes. But attending to one thing meant neglecting another. A gap instantly appeared on the right side. An Imperial Guard, failing to defend in time, clutched his head and fell to the ground in agony, suffering a devastating blow to his Sea of Consciousness, and was forced to drop out of the battle array.
The power of the joint grand array instantly diminished by a fraction.
On the perimeter, Old Chen gripped his long knife, single-handedly holding back the swarming scaled beasts. He swung his blade continuously, his entire body splattered with dark green beast blood. Several new wounds appeared on his body, and his stamina was rapidly depleting. He kept slaughtering the low-tier scaled beasts that pounced at him, but the beast tide was endless. Corpses piled up, and scaled beasts continuously climbed over the mounds of bodies,逼近 (closing in on) the battle array.
"We can't hold out like this!" Jiang Tao panted and shouted. "People keep getting injured and dropping out; the power of the grand array is continuously decaying!"
The Ancient Progenitor took a slow step forward, getting closer and closer to the joint battle array. Its massive shadow loomed over them.
"Your resistance ends here." The Ancient Progenitor's icy will descended. "Your struggles will only bring more senseless deaths."
It prepared to concentrate all its psychic computing power to condense a devastating psychic heavy cannon, aiming to shatter the entire joint Sea of Consciousness grand array in one strike. The Seas of Consciousness of everyone inside would instantly collapse.
Lin Yan's brain raced as he pondered a countermeasure. If they took this hit head-on, the entire squad would be wiped out. His gaze swept over the floating psychic tentacles of the Ancient Progenitor, then looked down at the continuously cracking earth beneath his feet.
The Ancient Progenitor's true body was massive and slow-moving; all of its power output relied on the psychic tentacles around its head. As long as they could get close and destroy the tentacles, its psychic network would be paralyzed.
"Marshal Zhou, I have a plan," Lin Yan said in a low voice, quickly transmitting his thoughts. "Maintain the grand array and use all your strength to stall the charging of its psychic heavy cannon. I will look for an opportunity to bypass the front, launch a close-range surprise attack, and sever its psychic tentacles."
Zhou Lin's eyes shifted. "It's too risky! Its psychic perception covers the entire area. The moment you move, you'll be locked onto, and countless scaled beasts will intercept you immediately!"
"There are no other choices." Lin Yan's eyes were resolute. "If we continue to defend to the death, we will all die here. Only by interrupting its psychic link do we have a chance to reverse the tide of battle."
The psychic power around the Ancient Progenitor continued to converge. The air seemed to freeze as the devastating strike took shape. All the scaled beasts on the wasteland halted their attacks, quietly waiting for their master to crush this last force of resistance.
Lin Yan gripped his short blade tightly and adjusted his breathing. He quietly diverted a portion of his fourth-tier Sea of Consciousness power, preparing to create a brief psychic illusion to interfere with the Ancient Progenitor's perception.
"Unleash the full power of the grand array to attract all its attention! Give me a three-breath window!"
Zhou Lin gritted his teeth and gave the order. The joint Sea of Consciousness grand array flared with blinding light, actively charging head-on against the psychic power the Ancient Progenitor was gathering, forcefully drawing all of its attention.
As expected, the Ancient Progenitor's attention was drawn by the erupting power of the grand array. Its dark golden pupils stared fixedly at the joint battle formation ahead, continuing to charge its psychic heavy cannon.
Now!
Using the blinding light of the grand array's eruption as cover, Lin Yan released a faint interference illusion from his Sea of Consciousness. Keeping his body low, he moved like a shadow. Using the scattered corpses of scaled beasts across the ground as concealment, he swiftly flanked from the side, quietly advancing toward the massive true body of the Ancient Progenitor.
The countless psychic tentacles drifting around the Ancient Progenitor trembled gently. The consciousness of hundreds of thousands of scaled beasts across the entire wasteland flowed into its Sea of Consciousness network. It no longer relied on issuing commands in segments; every scaled beast became a part of its own body, charging in perfect synchronization.
The beast tide, which had originally been attacking the city wall in scattered formations, now diverted the majority of its forces. They pivoted, converging toward Zhou Lin's squad on the wasteland. Dense swarms of scaled beasts, like a black ocean, surged from all directions, trapping the small group in the center.
"Everyone, form a joint Sea of Consciousness battle array!" Zhou Lin roared in a deep voice, raising his hand to signal the remaining Imperial Guards to quickly close in. "Lin Yan, your fourth-tier Sea of Consciousness will serve as the core fulcrum of the array, drawing everyone's psychic power. Jiang Tao, you are in charge of regulating the flow of power and stabilizing the weak nodes. Old Chen, lead the remaining close-combat warriors to hold the perimeter. Intercept the charging scaled beasts; do not let them break our Sea of Consciousness formation!"
"Understood!"
Everyone sprang into action. Over a dozen surviving Sea of Consciousness cultivators immediately formed a ring, weaving and converging their psychic power outward. Lin Yan stood at the core of the formation, fully deploying his fourth-tier Sea of Consciousness. Countless fine, resilient psychic threads extended outward like numerous cables, firmly linking everyone's Sea of Consciousness together.
The psychic power, originally independent for each individual, was now fused into one, transforming into a massive, heavy psychic barrier standing before the Ancient Progenitor.
The Ancient Progenitor's dark golden vertical pupils narrowed slightly. Its will carried a hint of surprise: "A joint Sea of Consciousness array. Humans are indeed skilled at clinging together to survive. Unfortunately, this kind of power is worthless in the face of absolute Sea of Consciousness volume."
It gave a slight shake of its head, and the psychic tentacles floating around its skull suddenly swept forward.
Boom!
A boundless psychic torrent slammed into the joint Sea of Consciousness grand array. The shockwave generated by the invisible collision swept across the surroundings. Low-tier scaled beasts near the battle array had their brains instantly explode, collapsing to the ground one after another.
The surface of the grand array undulated violently, with cracks spreading at lightning speed. Several Imperial Guards at the outer perimeter, whose cultivation was relatively weak, let out muffled groans. Blood sprayed from their mouths and noses as their Seas of Consciousness took damage, nearly severing their connections.
"Hold steady! Do not let it collapse!" Lin Yan's mind was taut. His psychic threads moved at high speed, continuously repairing the cracks in the grand array. He dispersed and conducted the force of the impact onto every cultivator within the array, sharing the damage.
Zhou Lin stood at the very front of the grand array, bearing the most pressure alone. The veins on his temples bulged, and blood continuously trickled from the corners of his mouth. As the Marshal of the War Zone, he possessed a profound foundation in his Sea of Consciousness, serving as the first gate to withstand the onslaught.
"Its psychic tentacles are the channels for its power!" Zhou Lin shouted loudly to Lin Yan. "Purely defending will only lead to us being slowly exhausted. Look for an opportunity to sever the tentacles, and the strength of its psychic network will drop!"
Hearing this, the Ancient Progenitor let out a low hiss. It no longer insisted on pure psychic suppression. Instead, some of its psychic tentacles shifted direction, transforming into countless tiny psychic spikes. Like a torrential rain, they continuously stabbed toward the joint grand array, specifically targeting and ambushing the weak points in the cultivators' Seas of Consciousness within the formation.
Jiang Tao's face was deathly pale. Exhausting all his strength to perceive the trajectories of the spikes, he issued constant warnings: "Left side! Three spikes! Brother Lin, pressure increasing on the left!"
Lin Yan immediately mobilized a massive amount of psychic threads to rush to the left and intercept the spikes. But attending to one thing meant neglecting another. A gap instantly appeared on the right side. An Imperial Guard, failing to defend in time, clutched his head and fell to the ground in agony, suffering a devastating blow to his Sea of Consciousness, and was forced to drop out of the battle array.
The power of the joint grand array instantly diminished by a fraction.
On the perimeter, Old Chen gripped his long knife, single-handedly holding back the swarming scaled beasts. He swung his blade continuously, his entire body splattered with dark green beast blood. Several new wounds appeared on his body, and his stamina was rapidly depleting. He kept slaughtering the low-tier scaled beasts that pounced at him, but the beast tide was endless. Corpses piled up, and scaled beasts continuously climbed over the mounds of bodies,逼近 (closing in on) the battle array.
"We can't hold out like this!" Jiang Tao panted and shouted. "People keep getting injured and dropping out; the power of the grand array is continuously decaying!"
The Ancient Progenitor took a slow step forward, getting closer and closer to the joint battle array. Its massive shadow loomed over them.
"Your resistance ends here." The Ancient Progenitor's icy will descended. "Your struggles will only bring more senseless deaths."
It prepared to concentrate all its psychic computing power to condense a devastating psychic heavy cannon, aiming to shatter the entire joint Sea of Consciousness grand array in one strike. The Seas of Consciousness of everyone inside would instantly collapse.
Lin Yan's brain raced as he pondered a countermeasure. If they took this hit head-on, the entire squad would be wiped out. His gaze swept over the floating psychic tentacles of the Ancient Progenitor, then looked down at the continuously cracking earth beneath his feet.
The Ancient Progenitor's true body was massive and slow-moving; all of its power output relied on the psychic tentacles around its head. As long as they could get close and destroy the tentacles, its psychic network would be paralyzed.
"Marshal Zhou, I have a plan," Lin Yan said in a low voice, quickly transmitting his thoughts. "Maintain the grand array and use all your strength to stall the charging of its psychic heavy cannon. I will look for an opportunity to bypass the front, launch a close-range surprise attack, and sever its psychic tentacles."
Zhou Lin's eyes shifted. "It's too risky! Its psychic perception covers the entire area. The moment you move, you'll be locked onto, and countless scaled beasts will intercept you immediately!"
"There are no other choices." Lin Yan's eyes were resolute. "If we continue to defend to the death, we will all die here. Only by interrupting its psychic link do we have a chance to reverse the tide of battle."
The psychic power around the Ancient Progenitor continued to converge. The air seemed to freeze as the devastating strike took shape. All the scaled beasts on the wasteland halted their attacks, quietly waiting for their master to crush this last force of resistance.
Lin Yan gripped his short blade tightly and adjusted his breathing. He quietly diverted a portion of his fourth-tier Sea of Consciousness power, preparing to create a brief psychic illusion to interfere with the Ancient Progenitor's perception.
"Unleash the full power of the grand array to attract all its attention! Give me a three-breath window!"
Zhou Lin gritted his teeth and gave the order. The joint Sea of Consciousness grand array flared with blinding light, actively charging head-on against the psychic power the Ancient Progenitor was gathering, forcefully drawing all of its attention.
As expected, the Ancient Progenitor's attention was drawn by the erupting power of the grand array. Its dark golden pupils stared fixedly at the joint battle formation ahead, continuing to charge its psychic heavy cannon.
Now!
Using the blinding light of the grand array's eruption as cover, Lin Yan released a faint interference illusion from his Sea of Consciousness. Keeping his body low, he moved like a shadow. Using the scattered corpses of scaled beasts across the ground as concealment, he swiftly flanked from the side, quietly advancing toward the massive true body of the Ancient Progenitor.
