First Clash

The familiar tornado column was still that same familiar size, one kilometer in diameter. Above, it stirred the sky into roiling winds and surging clouds; below, it churned the sea into raging waves, like a living evil dragon unleashing its might.

But now, before the octahedron Huo Gu had created, such a colossal, terrifying thing seemed utterly insignificant.

At this moment, the octahedron already covered fifty square kilometers. Compared to the tornado column's area of nearly one square kilometer, it was a full fifty times larger. From the octahedron's point of view, the tornado column was probably like an adult looking at a rope dangling down from the second floor.

Huo Gu stared coldly at the tornado column that had appeared out of nowhere. All kinds of emotions surged in his heart, but he forcibly suppressed them all. Right now, he needed only one state—calm.

"Accelerate growth. Increase methane absorption. All muscle cells, prepare. Strengthen the precision of the scale armor..."

Huo Gu issued order after order in perfect order. On the tornado column's side, it seemed to burn with rage at being ignored as the octahedron continued growing on its own. After probing several times, it launched a fierce attack.

The tornado column moved straight forward and enveloped part of the octahedron. Within the area occupied by the tornado column, the airflow speed rose to a degree that could directly cause physical damage.

The lower half of the tornado column was like a living electric drill. Even though Huo Gu had made preparations in advance, the tornado column still tore it into a bloody mess.

After one round of attacks, an ugly scar several kilometers long appeared on one face of the octahedron, exposing the dark skeleton beneath its surface.

Huo Gu watched the entire process coldly and rationally, then issued new orders to the octahedron.

"Increase methane absorption. Raise body temperature. Speed up metabolism. Adjust tendon thickness. Thicken the bones. Improve load-bearing capacity..."

Under Huo Gu's orders, the octahedron adjusted itself and rapidly healed the wound without even leaving a scar. At the same time, the dark scale armor on its surface faintly took on a reddish hue, and large amounts of steam rose from it.

"It would be rude not to return the favor. You'd better accept this 'greeting gift.'"

"Fire!"

Once the order was given, more than twenty Titanium Snails lurking in the nearby ocean shot out of the water one after another, relying on the thrust generated by liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen as they rushed toward the top of the tornado column.

The tornado column reached a height of more than ten thousand meters. Even for the Titanium Snails, whose speed could already trigger sonic booms, it would take half a minute.

With lightning speed, the Titanium Snails fearlessly charged one after another into the cloud layer at the upper end of the tornado column.

Inside the cumulonimbus clouds, dense arcs of electricity flashed at every moment. Like sharks smelling blood, they immediately locked onto the intruding Titanium Snails.

A great amount of lightning struck them. Before lightning that could move at the speed of light, the sonic-speed Titanium Snails were no different from snails. As a matter of course, the lightning strikes detonated the liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen inside the Titanium Snails, and blossoms of explosion dyed the surrounding cumulonimbus clouds in other colors.

However, on the ground, after receiving the signal that the Titanium Snails had been wiped out, Huo Gu not only showed no disappointment, but instead watched the tornado column with anticipation—he knew the objective had been achieved.

The distant tornado column was like a drunken cripple, swaying unsteadily as if it might topple at any moment and smash heavily into the surface. It was extremely unstable.

Very soon, a few minutes later, the terrifying tornado column dispersed from top to bottom just like that.

When the equatorial hot, humid air mass pushed toward the poles while dry, cold air masses invaded the upper atmosphere, vortex motion would occur, forming thick cumulonimbus clouds. The latent heat inside the cumulonimbus clouds would continue to be heated by lightning generated through electrostatic reactions between cloud layers, thus producing powerful air currents—in other words, what was known as a tornado.

Huo Gu had known from the very beginning that after the Titanium Snails entered the upper cumulonimbus clouds of the tornado column, they would be attacked by lightning.

Whether it was their sharp conical heads or their metal shells, lightning had no reason to let the Titanium Snails go, because this was precisely lightning's nature, its physical laws—point discharge and arc discharge.

The lightning detonated the Titanium Snails. The source of the explosions was the liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen used as propellant fuel. However, these explosions were incomplete explosions. Only a small portion of the liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen took part in the exothermic detonation; most of it was scattered to every corner of the cumulonimbus clouds by the shock waves produced by the explosions.

Having lost the pressure of their containers, the liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen soon returned to hydrogen and oxygen within the cumulonimbus clouds, and this process absorbed heat.

A tornado needed to rely on the thermal energy provided by the cloud layer to maintain its state. During the Hadean Eon, the temperature of the cloud layers could even rival a steam boiler, which was why their power was so great.

Huo Gu had used precisely this point to forcibly lower the temperature inside the cumulonimbus clouds, and the tornado column naturally could no longer maintain its state.

So-called natural phenomena were like this. Every condition had to be met. Missing any single link would not do; otherwise, they absolutely could not be triggered.

The octahedron did not slow the continued expansion of its body. The order it had received was to keep expanding its form without stop. Everything else had nothing to do with it.

It seemed that this act of expanding its form had provoked that enemy of unknown true form. Lightning from the clouds fell like rain, and more than ten tornado columns regenerated all at once.

Unfortunately, to the octahedron, the lightning did not even count as drizzle. At least drizzle would make a little sound when it landed on the scale armor. The moment the lightning landed on the octahedron, it was conducted into the earth by the scale armor or bones. It only looked dangerous from the perspective of a bystander.

The only things that could truly be considered somewhat threatening to the octahedron were those giant tornado columns that connected heaven and earth.

At this moment, the cluster of giant tornado columns was gradually closing in on the octahedron.

"How could I possibly let you succeed?"

Huo Gu immediately issued orders. This time, hundreds of Titanium Snails rushed out of the water and launched a surprise attack on those tornado columns. This time, they were no longer the prey that had once dodged and hid, but fierce beasts capable of baring their fangs at the hunter!

Suddenly, just as the swarm of Titanium Snails reached high altitude, a thunderstorm erupted within the cumulonimbus clouds. Dense arcs of electricity fell, each one reaching hundreds of millions of volts.

The enemy was not stupid. It was impossible for it not to guard against what had happened before. Repeating the same trick would hardly achieve the same effect as before.

The cluster of tornado columns directly enveloped the octahedron completely, apparently intending to rely on their terrifying wind speeds to forcibly dismember and tear apart the massive octahedron.

However, they were wrong, outrageously wrong.

"What a pity. You were one step too late. If you had taken precautions, how could I possibly not have taken precautions against you?"

The result was vastly different from last time. This time, under the combined pincer attack of the tornado columns, the octahedron was completely unharmed!