Chapter 102: The Trunk Severed, Total Domain Paralysis
A cold gleam pierced the sky. The short blade, infused with both inner qi and fourth-tier Sea of Consciousness power, unleashed the most formidable strike it had ever delivered.
The Ancient Progenitor had just forcibly twisted its head to protect its main trunk tentacle, but its movement was ultimately half a beat too slow. That fleeting blind spot and momentary bodily stiffness were precisely captured by Lin Yan.
Puff——!
The short blade met no resistance as it fiercely cleaved into the base of the main psychic tentacle at the back of the Ancient Progenitor's head, a tentacle as thick as an arm.
This single tentacle was the central hub of the entire underground psychic network, the core of all branching tentacles and the consciousness links of all scaled beasts. All previous illusions, node networking, and domain-wide psychic control relied entirely on this main trunk to sustain them.
The blade biting into flesh did not result in an ordinary severing of blood and tissue; it was the severing of the psychic source.
A mournful, piercing psychic wail, seemingly originating from the very foundation of heaven and earth, suddenly exploded, piercing through the Sea of Consciousness of everyone present.
The Ancient Progenitor's massive body instantly went rigid. Its dark golden vertical pupils instantly lost focus, and the hundreds of branching tentacles drifting around its body all stiffened and trembled in unison.
"No——!"
The Ancient Progenitor's furious, desperate will erupted violently, only to shatter abruptly halfway.
The moment the main trunk tentacle was severed, the domain-wide psychic network it had maintained for twenty-five years collapsed completely.
On the wasteland, the movements of hundreds of thousands of scaled beasts froze in unison.
Scaled beasts climbing the city walls plummeted to the ground. The charging beast tide halted in place. The frenzied murderous intent of the high-tier scaled beasts was instantly severed. All the creatures that had been acting upon the Ancient Progenitor's psychic commands lost their control, instantly transforming into bewildered, feral beasts.
The six major bastions simultaneously detected an epic-level signal collapse.
The psychic monitoring curves, which had previously been flashing red across the screens, instantly dropped to zero and flattened.
On the city walls, the oppressive psychic pressure that had been continuously weighing down the minds of the defenders completely dissipated. The soldiers who had been trapped in illusions or severely wounded by psychic spikes suddenly came to their senses, gasping for air as the light of hope reignited in their eyes.
"The psychic signal... it's completely gone!"
"The enemy's domain-wide control is broken! The Ancient Progenitor's master network has collapsed!"
The roars of the soldiers on the city wall echoed across the defense line. The despair that had been suppressed throughout the entire night finally saw the first glimmer of hope.
In the center of the wasteland battlefield.
Having suffered a devastating blow to its source, the Ancient Progenitor experienced a violent backlash in its Sea of Consciousness. Its massive body trembled violently, completely out of control. It frantically thrashed its body, desperately trying to crush and tear apart Lin Yan on its back.
"Shatter! Shatter for me!"
Its remaining psychic power no longer attacked outward. Instead, it entirely retracted to devour its own body, attempting to forcibly reconnect the severed main trunk tentacle.
But the severing of the psychic source was irreversible and irreparable.
The more it forcibly mobilized its power, the more devastating the damage to its own Sea of Consciousness became.
Knowing that this golden opportunity was fleeting, Lin Yan did not greedily press the attack. The moment he severed the main trunk, he borrowed the momentum of the behemoth's thrashing to leap into the air, landing steadily on the scorched earth dozens of meters away, and smoothly retreated to create distance.
Looking up, he saw that the Ancient Progenitor's aura had already suffered a cliff-like decline.
The oppressive might that had previously blanketed the sky and earth was completely gone. Its dark golden pupils were dim and lifeless, and most of the tentacles around its body had withered and drooped, no longer able to maintain its previous terrifying combat power.
Seizing a once-in-a-lifetime tactical opportunity, Zhou Lin gave a commanding order, his voice shaking the four quarters.
"Now! All troops, counterattack!"
The battered joint Sea of Consciousness grand array凝聚 (converged) once again. This time, it was no longer for defense; it erupted with full force. A condensed, heavy pillar of psychic light, like a divine sword at daybreak, shot straight toward the weakest point of the Ancient Progenitor's chest armor!
Rumble!
The pillar of light pierced through its body.
The Ancient Progenitor's massive body trembled violently. The chest scales shattered, and dark green blood gushed out.
It let out a low, agonizing roar, no longer able to maintain its towering stance. Its colossal body took step after step backward, stumbling on the verge of collapsing.
The tide of scaled beasts, having lost the coordination of the psychic network, descended into complete chaos.
Low-tier scaled beasts collided and bit each other. High-tier scaled beasts looked around in confusion, charging aimlessly. The previously unsolvable deadly encirclement instantly crumbled.
Old Chen led the remaining close-combat squad members to charge in顺势 (taking advantage of the momentum), harvesting the chaotic high-tier scaled beasts and sweeping across the battlefield.
On the walls of Panshi City, all artillery fire re-locked onto the beast tide on the wasteland, roaring incessantly.
The general offensive beast tide that had previously pressed humanity to the brink of suffocation had completely turned into routed soldiers awaiting slaughter.
Stumbling back to the edge of the massive rift, the Ancient Progenitor's eyes were bloodshot as it stared fixedly at Lin Yan ahead.
Twenty-five years of planning, years of lurking, a meticulously orchestrated domain-wide general offensive, the cultivation of countless high-tier combat forces, and the excavation of a thousand underground passages... They had been just one step away from leveling the six major human bastions.
In the end, it was all ruined by a human youth.
Ruined by seemingly insignificant yet fatally precise breakthroughs, step by step.
"Lin Yan..."
Its will was hoarse and broken, carrying sky-high reluctance and bone-chilling hatred. Through the smoke of war, it locked onto its opponent. "My race will not perish, and the rift will not close... For today's humiliation, I will repay it a hundredfold, a thousand-fold in the future!"
With those words, the Ancient Progenitor no longer lingered in the battle.
It knew full well that its source was severely damaged and its combat power had plummeted; staying on the battlefield would only lead to being surrounded and slain by humans.
Its massive body suddenly turned. Dragging its severely injured form, it plunged headfirst into the pitch-black underground rift. Simultaneously, it mobilized its remaining, feeble psychic power to detonate the surface rock layer of the rift!
Rumble——!
The rock layer at the mouth of the massive rift collapsed in a chain reaction. Boulders rained down from the sky, forcibly sealing off its escape route completely.
Dust billowed into the sky, and the earth trembled.
In just a few breaths, the Ancient Progenitor completely遁 (fled) into the deep underground, vanishing from everyone's sight.
On the wasteland, smoke lingered, corpses littered the ground, and a pungent stench filled the air.
The leaderless beast tide scattered completely.
Zhou Lin stared at the collapsed rift and let out a long breath. His taut muscles suddenly relaxed. Blood overflowed from the corner of his mouth once again, but his eyes were bright. "We won... We held the line."
The devastatingly brutal domain-wide beast tide general offensive came to an end with humanity's bastions turning the tables against all odds.
Lin Yan gripped his blood-stained short blade, gazing at the devastated wasteland and the completely silent underground rift. His eyes remained calm, without a trace of relaxation.
The Ancient Progenitor had escaped.
Its race was not extinct, its underground foundation remained, and the seeds of hatred had been deeply sown.
This was not the end; it was merely the beginning of a new round of war.
End of Chapter.
The Ancient Progenitor had just forcibly twisted its head to protect its main trunk tentacle, but its movement was ultimately half a beat too slow. That fleeting blind spot and momentary bodily stiffness were precisely captured by Lin Yan.
Puff——!
The short blade met no resistance as it fiercely cleaved into the base of the main psychic tentacle at the back of the Ancient Progenitor's head, a tentacle as thick as an arm.
This single tentacle was the central hub of the entire underground psychic network, the core of all branching tentacles and the consciousness links of all scaled beasts. All previous illusions, node networking, and domain-wide psychic control relied entirely on this main trunk to sustain them.
The blade biting into flesh did not result in an ordinary severing of blood and tissue; it was the severing of the psychic source.
A mournful, piercing psychic wail, seemingly originating from the very foundation of heaven and earth, suddenly exploded, piercing through the Sea of Consciousness of everyone present.
The Ancient Progenitor's massive body instantly went rigid. Its dark golden vertical pupils instantly lost focus, and the hundreds of branching tentacles drifting around its body all stiffened and trembled in unison.
"No——!"
The Ancient Progenitor's furious, desperate will erupted violently, only to shatter abruptly halfway.
The moment the main trunk tentacle was severed, the domain-wide psychic network it had maintained for twenty-five years collapsed completely.
On the wasteland, the movements of hundreds of thousands of scaled beasts froze in unison.
Scaled beasts climbing the city walls plummeted to the ground. The charging beast tide halted in place. The frenzied murderous intent of the high-tier scaled beasts was instantly severed. All the creatures that had been acting upon the Ancient Progenitor's psychic commands lost their control, instantly transforming into bewildered, feral beasts.
The six major bastions simultaneously detected an epic-level signal collapse.
The psychic monitoring curves, which had previously been flashing red across the screens, instantly dropped to zero and flattened.
On the city walls, the oppressive psychic pressure that had been continuously weighing down the minds of the defenders completely dissipated. The soldiers who had been trapped in illusions or severely wounded by psychic spikes suddenly came to their senses, gasping for air as the light of hope reignited in their eyes.
"The psychic signal... it's completely gone!"
"The enemy's domain-wide control is broken! The Ancient Progenitor's master network has collapsed!"
The roars of the soldiers on the city wall echoed across the defense line. The despair that had been suppressed throughout the entire night finally saw the first glimmer of hope.
In the center of the wasteland battlefield.
Having suffered a devastating blow to its source, the Ancient Progenitor experienced a violent backlash in its Sea of Consciousness. Its massive body trembled violently, completely out of control. It frantically thrashed its body, desperately trying to crush and tear apart Lin Yan on its back.
"Shatter! Shatter for me!"
Its remaining psychic power no longer attacked outward. Instead, it entirely retracted to devour its own body, attempting to forcibly reconnect the severed main trunk tentacle.
But the severing of the psychic source was irreversible and irreparable.
The more it forcibly mobilized its power, the more devastating the damage to its own Sea of Consciousness became.
Knowing that this golden opportunity was fleeting, Lin Yan did not greedily press the attack. The moment he severed the main trunk, he borrowed the momentum of the behemoth's thrashing to leap into the air, landing steadily on the scorched earth dozens of meters away, and smoothly retreated to create distance.
Looking up, he saw that the Ancient Progenitor's aura had already suffered a cliff-like decline.
The oppressive might that had previously blanketed the sky and earth was completely gone. Its dark golden pupils were dim and lifeless, and most of the tentacles around its body had withered and drooped, no longer able to maintain its previous terrifying combat power.
Seizing a once-in-a-lifetime tactical opportunity, Zhou Lin gave a commanding order, his voice shaking the four quarters.
"Now! All troops, counterattack!"
The battered joint Sea of Consciousness grand array凝聚 (converged) once again. This time, it was no longer for defense; it erupted with full force. A condensed, heavy pillar of psychic light, like a divine sword at daybreak, shot straight toward the weakest point of the Ancient Progenitor's chest armor!
Rumble!
The pillar of light pierced through its body.
The Ancient Progenitor's massive body trembled violently. The chest scales shattered, and dark green blood gushed out.
It let out a low, agonizing roar, no longer able to maintain its towering stance. Its colossal body took step after step backward, stumbling on the verge of collapsing.
The tide of scaled beasts, having lost the coordination of the psychic network, descended into complete chaos.
Low-tier scaled beasts collided and bit each other. High-tier scaled beasts looked around in confusion, charging aimlessly. The previously unsolvable deadly encirclement instantly crumbled.
Old Chen led the remaining close-combat squad members to charge in顺势 (taking advantage of the momentum), harvesting the chaotic high-tier scaled beasts and sweeping across the battlefield.
On the walls of Panshi City, all artillery fire re-locked onto the beast tide on the wasteland, roaring incessantly.
The general offensive beast tide that had previously pressed humanity to the brink of suffocation had completely turned into routed soldiers awaiting slaughter.
Stumbling back to the edge of the massive rift, the Ancient Progenitor's eyes were bloodshot as it stared fixedly at Lin Yan ahead.
Twenty-five years of planning, years of lurking, a meticulously orchestrated domain-wide general offensive, the cultivation of countless high-tier combat forces, and the excavation of a thousand underground passages... They had been just one step away from leveling the six major human bastions.
In the end, it was all ruined by a human youth.
Ruined by seemingly insignificant yet fatally precise breakthroughs, step by step.
"Lin Yan..."
Its will was hoarse and broken, carrying sky-high reluctance and bone-chilling hatred. Through the smoke of war, it locked onto its opponent. "My race will not perish, and the rift will not close... For today's humiliation, I will repay it a hundredfold, a thousand-fold in the future!"
With those words, the Ancient Progenitor no longer lingered in the battle.
It knew full well that its source was severely damaged and its combat power had plummeted; staying on the battlefield would only lead to being surrounded and slain by humans.
Its massive body suddenly turned. Dragging its severely injured form, it plunged headfirst into the pitch-black underground rift. Simultaneously, it mobilized its remaining, feeble psychic power to detonate the surface rock layer of the rift!
Rumble——!
The rock layer at the mouth of the massive rift collapsed in a chain reaction. Boulders rained down from the sky, forcibly sealing off its escape route completely.
Dust billowed into the sky, and the earth trembled.
In just a few breaths, the Ancient Progenitor completely遁 (fled) into the deep underground, vanishing from everyone's sight.
On the wasteland, smoke lingered, corpses littered the ground, and a pungent stench filled the air.
The leaderless beast tide scattered completely.
Zhou Lin stared at the collapsed rift and let out a long breath. His taut muscles suddenly relaxed. Blood overflowed from the corner of his mouth once again, but his eyes were bright. "We won... We held the line."
The devastatingly brutal domain-wide beast tide general offensive came to an end with humanity's bastions turning the tables against all odds.
Lin Yan gripped his blood-stained short blade, gazing at the devastated wasteland and the completely silent underground rift. His eyes remained calm, without a trace of relaxation.
The Ancient Progenitor had escaped.
Its race was not extinct, its underground foundation remained, and the seeds of hatred had been deeply sown.
This was not the end; it was merely the beginning of a new round of war.
End of Chapter.
