It is worth noting here that if the system and Cheng Yu had relied on a real, thorough understanding of the Deep Sea Empire's Sea Folk rather than just data files, they would have known that they did not need to formulate any strategies or battle plans at all.
To the arrogant Sea Folk of the Deep Sea Empire, those so-called wars were merely activities meant to consume surplus populations and weaken the strength of other major Sea Folk groups.
One could easily arrive at this conclusion with a little thought: how on earth did the Naga, a Sea Folk people, manage to claim a corner of the Keynes Continent? Was it simply because they had more arms?
You must be joking. Decades ago, the seas still saw occasional wars between the Merfolk and the Naga, yet even so, the Naga still had the surplus strength to launch "activities" for thinning out excess population.
Not to mention forcefully occupying a corner of the continent. True, humanity's top-tier combat strength could easily crush these salted fish, but if every war involved deploying top combatants to carpet-bomb the enemy, wouldn't the other side be able to retaliate with tidal waves?
Moreover, the entire ocean was the enemy's home turf. In a war, never mind losing tens or hundreds of thousands of lives—what did it matter if tens of millions were lost? Most Sea Folk had a reproductive rate of dozens to hundreds of offspring per birth, could walk the moment they were born, and grew fast enough to enter the battlefield within a single year.
Their population would recover within a decade, leaving a surplus to spare. But what about Humankind? At your most extreme, the ratio of ordinary people to professionals directly reached one-to-one. If Humankind's high-end combat strength hadn't been exaggeratedly numerous compared to the Sea Folk, it really would be hard to say whose world the Keynes Continent would be right now.
Ultimately, after more than a dozen major wars, everyone tacitly accepted the reality that this deep-sea race had established a terrestrial empire.
They had originally thought that these multi-armed freaks would surely focus their energy on the Merfolk, the ocean's other dominant race. Who could have known that the leaders of the two races would fight and fight until they actually fell in love? And there you had it-the ocean was unified, and a super empire was born.
Fortunately, however, the Naga Empire shared a full border with that madhouse known as the Jebel Theocracy. The madmen of the Abyssal Cult did not care who you were; if you possessed intelligence and a soul-well, although you might not be as appealing to demons as human souls, you could still serve as a sacrifice to summon demons.
Imbued with abyssal sulfur and fire properties, demons served as the ultimate natural counter to these oceanic salted fish. Coupled with the fact that these battles took place on land, there had not been a single peaceful day since the establishment of the Naga Empire.
As the person-in-charge of the Naga Empire and its eldest prince, Phil spent every day either dealing with the summoners of the Jebel Theocracy or rounding up a bunch of his brothers to go pick a fight with the Jebel Theocracy.
Yet even so, the Deep Sea Empire still had surplus populations to send to Kadrian to farm combat achievements, not to mention the other coastal nations that suffered harassment from these salted fish from time to time.
It was fair to say that the Deep Sea Empire really blossomed everywhere and spread its affection far and wide. To sum it up in one sentence:
"I freaking look at everyone with displeasure, and I'm going to provoke every single one of you. If any of you feel you can go toe-to-toe with me head-on, just say the word. I've had my say-who agrees, and who opposes?"
Naturally, not a single race across the entire continent even let out a peep. Therefore, after the eldest prince-who had kindly attempted to "persuade with pleasant words" under the premise of grooming Cheng Yu to be the Northern Borderlands' spokesperson-suffered a loss of face, the Deep Sea Empire prepared to "teach a lesson" to this "little thing" while incidentally making a public display of might.
So why would they need any plan for where to land? They simply landed wherever it was easiest.
The Far North Coast, the largest and gently sloping coastline in the Northern Borderlands—you'll do. As for the rest of the scattered small fry, they could just land wherever caught their fancy.
The second elder and the Shark Commander stood atop the Giant Octopus Elder, swimming toward the Far North Coast leading a main force of nearly seven hundred thousand.
Watching the army of the Deep Sea Empire draw closer and closer, Cheng Yu recalled the battle plan for this operation: two Wisdom units, the Conductor and the Performer, would co-link to command the defense of the Far North Coast.
This was one of the capabilities the Wisdom units had proposed yesterday: Co-Link, which concentrated computing power to execute micro-operations on the battlefield or ultra-precise manipulations at the microscopic level of research.
Cheng Yu had asked the system just how exaggerated this Co-Link capability was. For instance, if a single Wisdom unit's independent command previously turned an army into a single individual-with the Wisdom unit acting as a grandmaster martial artist's brain, causing that individual's hand-to-hand combat skills to skyrocket-
Co-link command meant that this individual's brain could not only control their fists and feet, but could also freaking control their individual cells. How is anyone supposed to fight that?
They closed in, entering the strike range of the 0-5's Shuttle Fighters.
At that moment, three tens of thousands of Shuttle Fighters arrayed in a square matrix above the Deep Sea Empire's army, thirty thousand explosive beams firing down toward the surface from a space-based perspective.
In an instant, a laser rain fell over the skies of the Far North Coast.
Whoosh whoosh whoosh, boom boom boom!
The explosive beams struck their targets and detonated instantly. However, the Deep Sea Empire's army was arranged in a vertical formation, with the two tens of thousands of Giant Whale Warriors positioned right at the top. Naturally thick-skinned to begin with, and after the explosive beams had their power dampened somewhat by passing through the seawater, the bombardment only left them with minor flesh wounds.
The occasional explosive beams that slipped through the gaps between the Giant Whale Warriors merely inflicted casualties among the Kuo-toa and Crab Warriors.
All in all, the first salvo of explosive beams achieved no real success.
For the second wave, the thirty thousand Shuttle Fighters engaged in free-fire.
Seeing this, the second elder ordered the Naga Mages to deploy magical shields. A ceaseless barrage of explosions rang out above the heads of the Giant Whale Warriors.
Yet the explosive beams were indeed blocked outside the magic shields. Although this steadily drained the Naga Mages' magical energy, they had numbers on their side and were still in the ocean after all. Why were the Naga and Fishmen known as the darlings of the sea? In the water, every single aspect of their abilities received terrifying enhancements.
After round upon round, the Nagas' magic reserves had hardly decreased. Having calculated through several iterations that the explosive beams could not produce an effective result, the thirty thousand Shuttle Fighters rotated one hundred eighty degrees, turning their other ends to fire Piercing Beams.
The second elder frowned, for she sensed that the ensuing light rain differed from the previous one. Repeating this light rain a few times this time around could shatter the magical shields and even pierce right through the bodies of the Giant Whale Warriors.
The second elder promptly issued an order to release multi-layered magic shields, with the Naga Mages casting spells in rotation and resting in shifts. Layer upon layer of magic shields overlapped, and the Piercing Beams lost their effectiveness once again.
The two Wisdom units immediately decided to temporarily abandon space-to-surface strikes. Slowly, as the first Crab Warriors set foot ashore, they were met head-on by a Thermal Ray Projectile, a white light piercing straight through the Crab Warrior's hard carapace, shooting far into the distance right through its body.
As more and more Crab Warriors came ashore, an increasing number of white rays lanced down from the slopes overlooking the Far North Coast, accompanied by roaring explosions. Some Crab Warriors were blasted until not even their shells remained, leaving behind nothing more than a puddle of melted sand.
Upon seeing this, the second elder issued her commands.
"Naga Mages, cast shields! Merfolk Mages, whip up waves! Bring out the giant conches, and Merfolk Mages, cast Hardened Armor Spells on them! Crab Warriors, push the conches forward from behind! One thousand Merfolk Knights, on my mark, charge into the enemy's battle formation once the waves rise to disrupt their deployment! All Shark Warriors, follow behind the Merfolk Knights and tear through the enemy defense line!"
Watching secretly, Cheng Yu nodded to himself. This set of tactics is formidable; it instantly seized on our reliance on ranged output. But do you know what an ice age is?
Watching the gradually rising giant waves, the 0-2 units hidden in the bushes, forests, or simply operating unhidden within the interference net of the 0-4 units converted all firepower into freezing particles.
Four hundred thousand 0-2 units fired countless freezing particle cannons and freezing particle beams. In an instant, the thirty-meter-high giant waves were frozen solid, and all marine legions active on the water surface were instantly frozen in place.
The Far North Coast transformed into a sheet of permafrost in the blink of an eye. At that moment, rows of 0-4 units raised their barrel-shaped arms.
Whoosh whoosh whoosh!
Hundreds of half-ton solid Tungsten Steel shells hammered through the dozen-meter-tall giant conches that had been hauled onto the shore, and also blasted apart the thirty-meter-high wave of ice walls.
Cheng Yu sneered. Hardened Armor Spells? Do you know that the harder things are, the more brittle they become after being flash-frozen? A lack of culture is truly terrifying.
The second elder shattered the ice encasing her-which seemed to act as a signal. The ice sheet began to fracture as the Giant Whale Warriors broke out of the ice that had trapped them. Black Iron-ranked creatures like the Giant Whale Warriors did not suffer much impact; after all, they were Black Iron-ranked beings by nature, and it was not as though they had never operated in glacial environments, so the impact remained minimal.
The ones who suffered the worst injuries in this wave were the ashore Crab Warriors and the Kuo-toa soldiers preparing to come ashore, while those at the deep-sea level remained unaffected by the freezing.
Upon seeing those salted fish begin breaking through the ice, the mechanical legion launched its second round of firing, unleashing a barrage of Thermal Cannons and thermal rays.
The 0-5 units in the sky released even more Shuttle Fighters, combining Piercing Beams and explosive beams. However, Cheng Yu noticed that the Piercing Beams targeted thick-skinned Black Iron-ranked creatures like the Giant Whale Warriors, while the explosive beams directly bombarded clusters of small fry.
Cheng Yu shook his head repeatedly, feeling that under the co-linked command, every machine acted as a Wisdom unit, unleashing the most terrifying strike at the exact right moment.
The second elder watched with a purplish complexion. Having suffered such massive losses before her troops had even made it ashore, she would likely face endless ridicule and a demotion of authority upon returning this time.
She hastily waved her magic to shatter the ice, rescuing the Naga Mages and some of the Fishman Mages, while barking orders to the remaining Fishman Mages and Naga Mages.
"Quickly cast magic shields! Protect the remaining Shark Warriors and Giant Whale Warriors, and temporarily fall back toward deeper waters to regroup and rest briefly!"
How could the Wisdom units possibly allow them to retreat so easily? They instantly resolved to unleash all air-to-ground firepower: strike while the iron is hot.
Ten thousand 0-5 units deployed all their Shuttle Fighters, a dense swarm of precisely three million Shuttle Fighters arrayed across the skies of the Far North Coast.
Looking up, the second elder saw the sky appeared to be blocked by something. She knew that the enemy's previous sky attacks had originated this way.
Only she had not expected that thing to be positioned at such a height; apart from demigods, no one could destroy a weapon at such an altitude, the second elder thought to herself.
Immediately afterward, dense points of light began to flicker across the sky. They were faint, but with her four-star Bronze strength, she could still see them clearly.
Despite it being daytime, it resembled a night of starlight as countless stars twinkled.
Whoosh-
Three million Piercing Beams fired in unison, descending from the heavens like three million beams of light. Drawn by such violent, breathtaking beauty, Cheng Yu watched as though taking in an unprecedented meteor shower.
Every single biological entity of the deep-sea legion still lingering in the Shallow-Sea Beach was utterly annihilated!
Before you continue