Peony detached her right hand to use it as a projection device, then brought over a stool, drinks, and snacks. She sat beside Wang Jixuan, craning her neck to watch the three-dimensional projection before them.
The surface of Fortress No. 76 was perfectly quiet.
Wang Jixuan watched the stacked surveillance feeds, accepted the candied fruit Peony handed him, and chewed it a few times.
Hm? It actually wasn't an industrial product.
Wang Jixuan asked, "Where did this candied fruit come from?"
"Candied fruit?"
Peony answered honestly:
"You had special talent subsidy points. I saw that you usually didn't have much use for them, so I exchanged some for snacks. They were really expensive supplies."
"Tastes good."
Daoist Wang chewed the candied fruit by his lips and reminded her:
"Save some for Ling Tong... Can we see the Command Center on the Third Floor?"
"According to the rules, we can't," Peony said with a mysterious smile. "But if you allow it, we can."
"Give me the feed."
"Right away."
Peony's delicate right hand resting on the table snapped its fingers. A Projection Screen appeared to Wang Jixuan's left, showing the Command Center where Dongfang Zhenghong was stationed, with audio and video synchronized in real time.
So this was the perspective Old Fu used when he secretly watched commanders everywhere?
Pretty interesting.
The large screen before Dongfang Zhenghong displayed the radar interface, where dozens of red dots flashed continuously.
A group of High-Tier Psionicists was steadily moving underground. They seemed to be using some kind of psionic ability to slowly pass through obstacle after obstacle.
"Estimated targets will appear by the side walls of the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Floors!"
"Their advance has slowed. They're avoiding the minefield!"
"Commander, should we trigger the mines ourselves?"
Dongfang Zhenghong said slowly, "Individual human targets are too small. The blast mines prepared for Drill Worms can easily be blocked by the surrounding strata, so manually detonating them would be extremely ineffective. Wait until they get closer."
"Yes!"
Seeing this, Wang Jixuan felt somewhat relieved.
To be honest, he had been rather worried about Uncle Tai and the others' safety.
But judging from Dongfang Zhenghong's tone, as well as what Old Fu had said before—that they had prepared sufficient combat strength—they at least had some confidence now.
Fortress 76 had become an important center for the development and production of Psionic Weapons. D5 would never abandon it so casually.
Moreover, Wang Jixuan had already seen some of the situation inside the fortress in the corner of the screen before Dongfang Zhenghong.
Most civilians had already entered the shelters on every floor;
A vast number of Mechs filled the streets of the Middle City and Upper City;
Black Shell, along with that batch of third-generation Half-Human Mechs, had equipped themselves with anti-Psionicist gear and could begin bombing at any time.
The military had indeed made thorough preparations.
There was another point as well:
Autonomous Mechs possessed powerful learning abilities. With human commanders' permission, they could share their Combat Experience and use the network built by their computational cores to continuously evolve their anti-enemy tactics, thereby upgrading their own tactical capabilities.
The Autonomous Mechs had already accumulated extensive experience fighting Blade Beasts;
The ongoing battles in the Xingrui Plains of the D3 Integrated War Zone had also allowed the Autonomous Mechs to gather vast amounts of Psionicist data.
The combat power of these Mechs was constantly being unlocked.
Thus, Wang Jixuan was rather looking forward to the coming battle. He wondered what spectacular scenes would unfold when these Psionicists fell into the vast ocean of Mechs.
They were getting close!
The Psionicists used certain special abilities to weave through the Underground Minefield, somewhat similar to Ji Xiao's ability yet different from it...
Peony closed her eyes, focusing on coordinating the live broadcast for Wang Jixuan.
The atmosphere in the command hall where Dongfang Zhenghong was located gradually became stifling;
Wang Jixuan could practically hear the heartbeats coming from the feed.
Their heartbeats gradually fell into the same rhythm.
Suddenly, the flickering red dots on the main screen stopped moving. The Psionicists had struck a wall and began arranging themselves along an arc.
Those red dots were still roughly sixty or seventy meters in a straight line from the fortress wall.
The formation barrier!
"What's going on?" Dongfang Zhenghong asked with a frown.
A staff officer beside him reported, "Commander! They may be gathering! They're already very close to us!"
Dongfang Zhenghong nodded and thought quickly.
Unfortunately, their Mechs, Half-Human Mechs, and Special Operations Team could only fight in normal space. They had few means to deal with enemies hiding in the rock layers through psionic abilities.
Seeing this, Daoist Wang leaned back slightly.
"Peony?"
"Yes."
"Didn't I tell them before that I'd set up a grand formation?"
"You did," Peony answered softly. "But they didn't seem to take it seriously. They only thought it was some new technology you'd developed to protect the Seventh Floor."
Wang Jixuan: ...
Fine. It probably wouldn't matter.
Breaking this defensive grand formation would surely consume a great deal of the Psionicists' power. In a roundabout way, he was reducing his side's property losses.
Peony suddenly said, "Sir, Commander Dongfang's side has intercepted the Psionicists' communications. Would you like to listen?"
"Play it."
Crackle.
After a burst of static, the voices of several middle-aged men and women rang out at once:
"What's happening? Why can't we get through ahead?"
"I can sense psionic energy flowing right in front of us, like a wall. But I can't detect this Psionic Fluctuation."
"Strange. There's clearly nothing there, but it feels like a glass wall is blocking us."
"We're not far from the fortress. I can sense a huge hollow cavity ahead. That must be the inside of the fortress."
"How far exactly?"
"Sixty meters... Captain Angel, what do we do?"
"Spread out a little. I'll blast it open... Watch for mines nearby. We can't delay underground for too long. Captain Lu's ability can't last much longer."
Angel must have been the deputy commander of the Destruction Group?
Wang Jixuan was somewhat curious about this person.
She was probably an Awakened Psionicist as well, and likely not much weaker than Meng Jin.
—The Destruction Group's average combat strength was slightly above that of the Judgment Group.
About half a minute later.
Boom!
A muffled shock arrived first through the surveillance feed and then through the tapped communications channel.
The Command Center on the Third Floor of the Fortress where Dongfang Zhenghong was stationed trembled slightly as well.
Several deep mines outside the defensive wall had been detonated.
A shockwave rushed toward the surface, shattering underground rock layers continuously, though the affected area was not very large.
Then...
Wang Jixuan watched several feeds. Since the cameras could not capture the formation barrier itself, he had no idea how badly the grand formation had been damaged.
The Mountain Protection Grand Formation he had set up used only one hundred and eight formation foundations. It was merely a basic defensive formation, but it included effects such as [spiritual energy absorption], [spiritual energy conversion], [borrowing Earth Qi], and [force distribution and technique nullification].
The Mountain Protection Grand Formation at Wangxian Valley started with thousands of formation foundations. It also connected to the earth veins of every peak and fully drew upon the power of the underground Spirit Veins.
That was a true Mountain Protection Grand Formation. It was said to be able to withstand Immortal's Finger.
No matter how rampant the heretical fiends were, they would not lightly attack Major Sects like theirs because of the Mountain Protection Grand Formation.
"Peony! Show me Wu Man and Zheng Shiduo!"
"Alright," Peony answered with her eyes closed, and a new Projection Screen soon appeared beside Wang Jixuan.
It showed the second floor of the workshop.
Wu Man, Zheng Shiduo, Uncle Tai, and Gao Huating stood before an enormous stone monument. It was carved with many patterns of rising clouds and mist, and was currently wrapped in a layer of light.
This was the grand formation's core, its main formation foundation.
Wu Man remained calm, lightly gripping a jade Remote Control as he directed the flow of the formation's spiritual power.
Zheng Shiduo and Uncle Tai manipulated two Projection Screens, remotely controlling dozens of Mechs. They were ready to replace the crystal cores of the formation foundations that consumed the most energy at any time.
Gao Huating hummed softly. Waves of strange psionic energy circulated around them, reducing their anxiety.
Suddenly.
Boom, boom, boom!
Three muffled explosions erupted underground in succession, and three entirely different psionic attacks slammed into the grand formation's light barrier.
Three Awakened Psionicists had attacked at the same time!
The stone slab shook incessantly. The jade Remote Control in Wu Man's hand glimmered faintly, while Zheng Shiduo shouted nervously, "Get ready! The crystal cores' psionic energy is dropping too fast!"
As his words fell, Wu Man thrust the long jade piece forward.
A layer of earthy yellow energy appeared at the bottom of the main formation foundation, instantly enveloping the entire stone monument.
At the same time, massive amounts of Earth Qi surged upward. The formation foundations storing spiritual energy released the power used by the grand formation, thickening the already unbroken formation barrier once more!
Zheng Shiduo and Uncle Tai were somewhat flustered as they issued commands for dozens of Mechs to replace the crystal cores. The Mechs executed the orders flawlessly.
A string of roars sounded outside.
Yet the main formation foundation's stone monument shook less and less. The grand formation actually became increasingly stable, and its spiritual power flowed more smoothly.
In the blink of an eye, the Mechs had finished replacing the crystal cores. They picked up fresh crystal cores and waited to replace those in the grand formation's foundations.
Wang Jixuan smiled in satisfaction.
The combination of technology and cultivation had produced an unexpectedly excellent result!
They only needed to prepare a few hundred crystal cores to exhaust these Psionicists to death!
Then Wang Jixuan could not help feeling emotional.
I overestimated them.
They really could not break this Mountain Protection Grand Formation!
Wang Jixuan watched the wildly flashing lights and shadows in the feed, his expression gradually settling from lively and varied into calmness.
He had been somewhat biased from the start, believing that the Mountain Protection Grand Formation he had activated before leaving was merely a defensive formation. Without counterattack formations, trapping formations, or illusion formations, he had thought it was not powerful enough.
He truly had not expected the Psionicists not to search for the grand formation's weak points at all. They simply hammered relentlessly at the formation barrier.
The foundation of a grand formation's operation was the flow of spiritual power between its formation foundations. In truth, there were always traces to follow.
Even if they could compress psionic energy into an extremely small area and then force it to erupt, they could still forcibly open the formation barrier.
With an attack method like theirs, without the power of a Nascent Soul Realm cultivator's full-force strike, they could never break this grand formation.
With the triple supply of Earth Qi, spiritual energy, and crystal cores sustaining it, the Mountain Protection Grand Formation faced the increasingly frenzied attacks of the Psionicists outside and actually...
Became increasingly stable.
Wang Jixuan laughed helplessly. "Peony, ask Commander Dongfang whether he needs us to let the enemy in for a major battle. If so, Wu Man and Zheng Shiduo can stop."
"Understood."
Peony's voice soon came back through the surveillance view of the command hall.
Dongfang Zhenghong was stunned at first, then fell into a dilemma.
He truly had not expected Wang Jixuan to keep so many powerful enemies outside the gates so easily while he was not even in Fortress No. 76.
His dilemma was rather complicated:
If they did not let the enemy in, then wouldn't all the combat forces they had painstakingly mobilized and the traps they had set become useless? If there was no battle here, how could he prove his command abilities? He had always been kept in the rear. This was a rare opportunity for him to show his full capabilities.
However, Dongfang Zhenghong quickly made his choice.
He smiled. "If we can keep the enemy outside, why let them in? Subduing the enemy without fighting is the finest strategy."
Wang Jixuan raised his brows with a smile, then had Peony send Dongfang Zhenghong a written reminder.
The Psionicists relied on some kind of ability to keep moving underground, and they themselves could not maintain it for long. Eventually, they would either break through to the surface or return the way they came.
Moreover, Wu Man had a Storage Hoop;
Under Wang Jixuan's guidance, Ji Xiao's Earth Escape ability had already been strengthened.
Dongfang Zhenghong immediately understood. He summoned a messenger and ordered Ji Xiao to bring Wu Man's Storage Hoop artifact to the Command Center as quickly as possible.
Wang Jixuan did not watch what followed;
He chose to trust Dongfang Zhenghong and Ji Xiao.
After making those arrangements, Daoist Wang had Peony shut off the surveillance.
Just before it ended, Wang Jixuan heard the Psionicists' communications channel again:
"This is impossible!"
"It won't open? What the hell is this thing!"
"Black Storm is incredible. I'm already in love with him! This could only be technology he brought! If we had this technology!"
"Let's try together! Hurry!"
"Focus together on one point and increase the pressure without limit! According to the laws of physics, the smaller the area of application, the better!"
"Hahaha! Black Storm, you make me so happy!"
Daoist Wang: ...
These Psionicists were a little disgusting.
"Sir, aren't you going to keep watching?"
"Just watching won't let me fly back and help them immediately. Better not to watch... Tell me the moment there's news from over there."
Daoist Wang sighed softly.
A cultivator's life truly was lonely as snow.
When he got back, he would reinforce the Mountain Protection Grand Formation to three hundred and sixty formation bases!
Set up both killing formations and trapping formations!
Those defensive grand formations created by the seniors of the Cultivation World really were no joke!
Half an hour later, Peony brought back a battle report.
Using Wu Man's Storage Magic Tool and his own Earth Escape ability, Ji Xiao had carried a Tactical Nuclear Warhead and placed it along the route those Psionicists would take back, successfully detonating it.
The good news was that they had taken out more than a dozen Psionicists;
The bad news was that the S-rank Psionicists had merely been wounded before escaping.
The Tactical Nuclear Bomb had a relatively small yield, and its power had been greatly limited within the rock strata. Because the location had not been chosen cleverly enough, it had failed to achieve notable results, resulting in a certain waste of resources.
"Have Ji Xiao write a three-thousand-word self-criticism and systematically study the principles of chain reactions."
Daoist Wang gave the order.
At the same time.
In the workshop on the Seventh Floor of Fortress No. 76.
The cheering Zheng Shiduo and Uncle Tai formed a stark contrast with the dejected Ji Xiao in the corner.
A Pitch Black Butterfly landed by the window, carefully examining the stone stele that served as the main formation base of the Mountain Protection Grand Formation.
Then, the butterfly fluttered its wings and danced up and down for a while before turning into a glimmering light and chasing after Angel and the others as they retreated underground.
Before you continue