Chapter 605
"The Night Furnace is no secret. If they can't even solve this, would they dare to divide their forces?" Yuki glanced at Master Taiyi, making the latter shiver. Only then did he realize that he had used the Landscape and Society Map to scout ahead. The thought of the eight Grand Judges possibly turning against him made his fat tremble.
"Therefore, the Night Furnace can only be used once. Now is not the time. I'm letting you stir up trouble and get the High Inquisitors to act, not to hunt them down."
"So who do you want to kill?" Elysia couldn't help but ask, looking in the direction Yuki was pointing.
That was a fierce battlefield, the exact opposite of what you see in some novels. In the Reincarnation Game, there are no one-on-one duels on the battlefield; the strong are the ballast, so why protect the weak?
Within a single node space, hundreds of players from both sides are locked in a fierce battle. Since no single space can match the infinite size of Yuki, the defending side has retreated to the edge.
The Grand Inquisitor can use force to crush the rules, something ordinary Judge cannot do. Yuki didn't choose the conventional path of soldier against soldier, general against general, king against king; quite the opposite—
"I'll kill whoever is weak."
Chapter Sixteen: Tian Ji's Horse Racing
Despite their similar names, the Grand Inquisitor and the Judge are not the same creature at all. The latter, like most of the players gathered by Yuki, are cannon fodder. However, the combat power of these cannon fodder is already enough to threaten the top combat forces, making them even more important in this chaotic search battle.
Tens of thousands of private spaces and hundreds of separate battlefields—without cannon fodder to scout ahead, are we supposed to send Aizen and the others to check each one one by one? There are only a few hours left; they could work themselves to death and still not be able to search them all.
Let's use a tactic of soldiers against soldiers, generals against generals. Ordinary Judge will be responsible for searching, while the Grand Judge will be responsible for dealing with powerful enemies.
"But why should I play the conventional game with you?"
Yuki gazed at the countless images. Only a few people remained in the starry sky. Elysia and the others had already clashed with the Grand Inquisitor. Just as expected, they moved swiftly upon hearing the news and immediately launched an attack.
As expected, it's difficult to take down a few epic-level players who are focused on Isshin away, especially when neither side is fighting to the death.
"They guessed that I couldn't teleport a large number of troops instantly, so I could only select the most elite players as reserves. Their numbers would inevitably be limited, and their strength would not be as good as theirs."
"Of course, if you can go toe-to-toe with the Judge, there's no need for all this fancy stuff." Hayasaka Ai stood beside him, hands behind her back, observing carefully. "They're not using their full strength because they're afraid of being targeted by you?"
Taiyi's X-ray vision has already been discovered, and Elysia and the others are no pushovers either. You can't take them down with just a barrage of attacks. You need to reserve the strength to retreat at any time.
"That's their fatal weakness. Every Grand Inquisitor doesn't want to be a stepping stone; to put it bluntly, they're afraid of death." Yuki snorted, then turned to ask, "Hiyori, how many details have you read?"
"First, they maintained a fixed distance, remaining unmoved even when Mr. Geralt actively tried to draw their attention; second, they showed no intention of forcibly breaking through the blockade, including the fallen angel trapped by the Landscape and Society Map, who did not go all out." Shiina Hiyori paused for a moment, then said solemnly:
"This proves they are waiting for you to appear. Your speculation that the Grand Inquisitors can assemble instantly and may be able to invade the stripped space is correct."
That's right, this is it.
Yuki laughed. If he had rushed out like a fool, thinking that the Night Furnace was invincible, the eight burly men would have jumped in his face to show him how cruel the world was.
"But they know I'm testing them. If they don't show up for a long time, they'll get serious. The fall of even one of them, Elysia or the others, would have a huge impact." Yuki didn't want to test the Grand Inquisitor's patience and wanted to see the battle unfold more directly.
Elysia and the others strictly followed his orders and refused to fight the Grand Inquisitor to the death. However, this did not stop the enemy's advance. The battlefield was constantly being squeezed, and some battlefields were separated by several buildings.
"We're attacking." Yuki finally stood up, not even glancing at the high-level battlefield of Epic Rank IV, and directly ordered, "Hiyori stays behind, using Shared Reading to monitor the battlefield, and also indicating targets to Kaguya. Kaguya, find a high vantage point to specifically intercept enemies moving on the streets."
True Shot, Sure Hit cannot be achieved while standing in the starry sky. Hitting the target by following the network cable is possible, but moving from one exclusive space to another requires returning to the Outpost. Kaguya Shinomiya's range is sufficient to cover the entire Thorny Rose.
This is nothing more than a classic case of "Tian Ji's horse racing strategy," using mediocre horses against top-tier horses, and then using even better horses to crush inferior ones.
"Senior, Hayasaka, Mona, Frieren, the four of you come with me, let's crush those ordinary Judge."
The terrain of the entire Outpost is very simple.
This is an extremely monotonous city, filled with buildings that look exactly the same from the outside, with wide roads between them, and some 'illegal buildings' built by players themselves, either with their own gardens or Thorny Rose.
The latter two serve only as embellishments; the real battles unfold within the dedicated spaces of these buildings.
Ignoring the city's appearance, this is a chessboard with tens of thousands of squares, each a separate battlefield.
As a place for players to return and rest, these 'grids' are indestructible from the inside, at least not in epic-level conditions. The size of each grid varies depending on the number of players in the team, with some reaching hundreds of square kilometers.
Just like Yuki's private space, the weather and buildings inside are all created by the players themselves, just like when the seniors played 'Minecraft'. All the building materials can be exchanged from the Reincarnation Game at a very low price, or you can simply transplant the special items obtained from the dungeon, just like the virtual Grand Blue.
So from the outside it looks like an ordinary door, but if you push open this door, you might find a castle, a luxurious villa, a school building, or even a 'city within a city'.
"After adjusting the permissions, even the smallest 'single room' is 100,000 square meters."
Yuki appeared in the corridor, where faint footsteps could be heard from inside the building. The door next to him was open, and through the crack, one could see a futuristic steel corridor with large holes melted into it, revealing a pale 'primer'.
Once you step through this door, you'll enter the interior of a steel warship. Looking to the right, you can also see a magnificent foyer through a crack in the door.
He's like someone standing at the crossroads of the world; opening any door could lead to a completely different world.
The task of the 'Arbitration Council' is to prepare the battlefield in advance. They don't need to do much; they just need to lead the players to expand their exclusive space, making it as complex as possible, and then wait for players from other factions to enter their positions and further reinforce it.
For example, the door on the right is where the 'Mechanical Believers' took out a starship and threw it directly into the private space. This kind of thing is not as fragile as materials obtained from games; it's practically a mini-dungeon.
Bang bang bang--
The tolling of the Death Knell echoed. The invading Judge, caught off guard by the unexpected attack from behind, found themselves in a predicament. Meanwhile, Yuki stood at the doorway, his fingers tapping out a light rhythm.
A staged street battle, a house-to-house fight in the city.
Real street fighting, a tangle of one small world after another.
"Each room is an independent world, but unfortunately the area is still limited, so it can't be built into a larger battlefield."
Yuki wished he could replicate his own infinitely large personal space, so that the fighting would be unnecessary and it would become a race.
Well, we can't push our luck; we already have enough of a good position.
He looked at the doors on both sides of the corridor. These were complete blind boxes. One moment the Judge was tracking things in the secret base, and the next he might be engaged in a battle of attack and defense. He had just crushed all the fancy things with his power, and now he might be facing the castle brought by the Knights of the Round Table.
Different worlds, different styles, different enemies. You might go through all the trouble of blasting open a castle made entirely of special items, only to find two trembling weaklings inside. But the next time you open the door, you might find several epic players hiding in an apartment building made entirely of ordinary materials.
This is a blind box for both sides; the player inside doesn't know who will push the door open, and the Judge outside doesn't know what world lies inside.
"It's fair. Every battlefield can withstand a deadly battle. Gathering forces together is too inefficient, while dispersing them is too risky. Regional elimination is the most efficient method."
Yuki roughly understood the Judge's tactics: forcing him out to be beheaded was the best option; if that wasn't possible, eliminating powerful players like Elysia would suffice, and those dozens of epic-level Judge could suppress a Hive.
If a superior horse eats a medium-sized horse, and then uses a medium-sized horse to eat my inferior horse, what will become of the hair if the skin is gone? Similarly, if the hair is stripped bare, won't I be left with nothing?
"Hiyori, what's the situation of the battle now?"
"The Grand Inquisitor is getting serious. Master Taiyi can barely contain the 'Fallen Angel.' Mr. Geralt has been repelled. Players in Area C are providing cover. Ms. Shiki Ryougi has been imprisoned in the detachment space, and I cannot confirm her condition. Mr. Hassan has been forced into a private space, and surveillance access has been compromised..."
All bad news. The Judge aren't fools. With Yuki's delayed appearance, they can't let Elysia and the others keep stalling. Even if they're on guard and preparing to escape, once the Grand Judges get serious, the chances of escape aren't high.
"Did they regroup even for a moment?" Yuki was more concerned about this.
"Not yet, but I've noticed the Judge are deliberately driving them away; perhaps they'll reveal a similar ability soon."
This ability comes at a price, or rather, a cooldown period. If it is to be revealed, a reasonable benefit must be obtained.
Yuki thought in reverse: his arrangement was a test. The groups of people were neither too close nor too far apart, and now the Judge could only catch one group, which was clearly not what he expected.
"King Hassan was cornered, and the other Judge didn't teleport over and kill him instantly?"
"I don't know. My guess is that this kind of aggregation requires a spatial dimension, otherwise we would have been defeated long ago."
It's reasonable to assume that each dedicated space is independent, and to move to another one, one must first return to the Outpost, the relay point.
After a moment of silence, he turned his head and saw a humanoid mecha walking out of the room on the left. The mask was open, revealing it to be Hayasaka Ai.
"Resolved?"
"Yes, two squads of Judge, and I also rescued a group of people." The maid was extremely calm during the battle. She slightly stepped aside, and Levi Ackerman, John Wick, Teresa, and more than a dozen other players walked out, looking lingering fear.
The vast and complex battlefield gave them the opportunity to buy time; in a normal-sized private space, there would be no way to hide.
Boom--
The explosion came from the room on the right, and the shockwave made Yuki slightly cover his face.
Frieren has finished too. With no friendly targets, they directly covered the area. Even if they survive, they'll be badly injured.
Yuki waved away the black dust, revealing a cruel smile.
Each exclusive space has only one entrance, which leaves defending players with nowhere to hide, but also leaves attacking Judge with nowhere to escape, effectively suffocating them inside the nest.
He glanced inside the door. Ordinary building materials shattered under the spatial tear, revealing a white, bare spatial wall. Some Judge survived the magical cover, only to find there was nowhere to hide. Only the mecha girl holding the Death Knell strode in.
Due to time constraints, Yuki created several battlefields, most of which were made from ordinary materials obtained from the Reincarnation Game. These materials were simply unable to withstand the devastation of Transcendental Grade power. However, the exclusive space for parking the starship was different; it was very difficult to completely erase it.
"Go to the central node; it should be set up there."
"Okay." Levi Ackerman and the others turned and left, each region having a central node.
That area is the largest, with epic-level players in charge, and it's equipped with a large number of Transcendental Grade weapons and buildings. Unlike ordinary battlefields, it won't be wiped out by a single forbidden spell; that's what makes it a true urban warfare battle.
In other words, what appears to be a city on the outside is actually dozens of cities of varying sizes stacked within each 'hive,' some fragile, some hard, and some even a volcano, where the two sides are locked in a bloody battle amidst the lava.
The Judge has conquered the crater and opened the next door, behind which may lie a frozen wasteland. The Allied Forces are not lacking in items of the caliber of the Heart of the Frost Goddess.
"Mr. Yuki, the enemy has received the news and is on their way." Hiyori was monitoring the situation and could see dozens of Judge coming down the corridor.
They received news of the friendly forces being attacked. Each nest is a separate space and cannot be moved across spaces. If they want to provide support, they can only return to the city and move between buildings and streets.
However, during the movement phase, the Judge and Yuki exist in the same spatial dimension.
"Received. Troops deployed and assembled." Yuki gripped the hilt of his sword, nodded slightly to Hayasaka Ai and the others, activated his permissions, and the group vanished into thin air.
Shiina Hiyori was in charge of guiding the coordinates, Kaguya Shinomiya had already drawn her longbow from the high ground. Without even looking, she could lock onto the Judge rushing past on the street by Shared Reading. Being in the same spatial dimension, as soon as the arrow was fired, powerful figures would immediately break through the air and arrive.
The city was so vast that even at several times the speed of sound, it would take several minutes to reach, and along the way, a massive trap had already been set up.
The teleportation ability had a cooldown period of a few minutes, and Yuki had no intention of using it. He stood in the middle of the corridor, listening to the faint, chaotic footsteps, while Hiyori, transmitted images from various locations:
The Judge reacted quickly, immediately withdrawing mobile forces after realizing the enemy had changed tactics.
They crossed the road, and after being sniped, one team immediately split up to search for Kaguya, while dozens more rushed towards the battlefield.
The hardened honeycomb was difficult to destroy, so they could only proceed along the corridor. With no other option, the Grand Inquisitors concluded that Taiyi, or rather, the resonance point at the other end, was located in a certain room, and they had to complete the search of the entire area.
As they ascended the stairs and rounded the corner, the lead soldier abruptly stopped. In the dimly lit corridor stood a swordsman, dressed in light-colored jeans and a white shirt, with black hair and red eyes. He appeared unremarkable, except for the long spear he held in his hand.
Storm Dragon Spear, this is Taiyi!
More terrifying than finding love around the corner is encountering Taiyi around the corner. The heart stops beating for a moment, the message sent to the direct Grand Judge is being transmitted, and Taiyi raises his gun.
Swish--
A streak of lightning lingered in the dimly lit corridor. Surpassing any teleportation, Yuki appeared directly on the other side of the corridor. The invisible assassin turned into minced meat, falling to the ground with a clatter. The ninja in front of him immediately fled to the side, only managing to blast a small hole in the wall.
"This place is incredibly sturdy." Yuki pinned him to the wall with a single spear thrust. Under the dual constraints of space and physical defense, even the most skilled martial arts techniques had no way to evade it.
A dazzling blue light filled the entire field of vision, and a blazing beam swept down the corridor. Yuki merely twisted his wrist, and as the spear struck down, the beam was split in two, revealing the psionic mage around the corner.
He was completely stunned. Under normal circumstances, let alone a corridor, a psionic ray would be enough to blast a mountain. There was no way he would be trapped in a small area, because the terrain could be changed in an instant.
Hundreds of psionic rays swept wildly through the corridor, blasting out countless holes, but it was all in vain. He still had no room to maneuver, and Taiyi, holding a gun in one hand, came straight at him.
"Withdraw..."
Puff!
The blade poured into his open mouth, and the accompanying death energy turned him to ashes. The Judge behind him felt a chill run down his spine.
What would happen if you encountered an absolutely powerful opponent face-to-face in a narrow cage?
The normal tactic would be to blast the cages open, quickly disperse the troops, and then use the open battlefield to delay and block the enemy. But this godforsaken place is so hard to destroy.
The Light of Divine Punishment.
A flash of white light swept across the entire corridor, Piercer a round hole in the wall at the end. In the lingering light, Yuki had already merged into the aura and charged forward.
Without needing to activate the Eternal Night Domain or use the Moonlit Ghost Step, he killed a person with a single, economical thrust in the most simple and unpretentious way, like a silent killing machine crushing all resistance.
Before him, the Judge either blasted the floorboards open to escape or blasted open the doors to hide in their nests. Yuki only cared about moving forward, breaking through the mind-reflection field, stretching out his left hand to crush the Espers's head, and scanning the surroundings with his eyes.
"Record the Judge's escape to the coordinates, and notify the 'Anthropomorphic Front' to bring people to clean up."
Those rooms were indeed good places to take refuge, and Yuki had no interest in rushing in to kill them. However, he had already scattered this squad of dozens of Judge, who had hidden in different spaces in twos and threes. When they opened the doors and stormed in later, the strength of the group would be reversed.
As the Timeflow Tide unfolded, ink-black tentacles emerged from the floor. Yuki leaped up and stomped the strangely-looking player to death.
"How's Kaguya doing?"
"Three epic-level inquisitors are on the hunt. Miss Mebius has gone to provide support. Would you like to come?"
"No need. If she can't escape, just let her find a room to hide in. That way, any tracking skills will be ineffective." Yuki his head to the side, dodging the sharp blade that stretched out from the void. Under the Timeflow Tide, everything within a hundred meters seemed to move in slow motion.
He reached out and dragged the beautiful girl with long, fiery red hair out of the void, then stomped on her until she was a bloody pulp.
"You arrange the manpower to ambush any enemy who dares to track Kaguya. If the enemy can't keep up, let Kaguya come out and continue the hunt."
"Guerrilla warfare? Mr. Yuki, you're really shameless."
"Cheater?" Yuki to the side, his exquisite spear piercing past his chest. A handsome young man with a golden ponytail arrived, spear in hand. Upon closer inspection, he was none other than the Spear Hero from the 'Adventurers's' lineage.