Seriously? Turtling this hard? Cheng Yu stared dubiously at the mountain of shells before him. Had it really blocked the 0-5s' attacks across the coastal waters just like that?
Next, all the Shuttle Fighters switched to Explosive Rays, but the results were even worse. Some powerful force seemed to hold the shells together. Even shattered fragments gathered back into place.
And so this army achieved what the Deep Sea Empire had failed to accomplish last time: a landing without casualties. Slowly, a wave pushed the shell island onto the beach of the Far North Coast.
Then a gap opened in the shell island, and a swarm of black murlocs poured out, their bodies covered in barnacle-like parasites. Cheng Yu decided their looks alone could put him off two bowls of rice, then asked the system,
Do you have any information on those things?
"As it happens, yes. Berserk Murlocs, a controllable variant of Kuo-toa. They're biological weapons developed through experiments by Naga Mages. Their strength is roughly Black Iron One-Star."
Cheng Yu frowned slightly. Even their vanguard was Black Iron One-Star?
Fortunately, these Berserk Murlocs no longer had the shell island to shield them. A second wave of attacks immediately descended from the skies over the Far North Coast.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh! Another rain of lasers fell. Some Berserk Murlocs raised their bulky left arms, covered in barnacle-like parasites, over their heads.
The Explosive Rays were not particularly effective. Designed for dense, large-scale bombardment, they merely blasted away some barnacles and bits of skin and flesh when they struck the Berserk Murlocs' left arms.
The three Co-Linked Wisdom units immediately switched to Piercing Rays, and another rain of lasers followed, this time in a different color.
The Berserk Murlocs continued shielding their heads with their left arms.
Unfortunately for them, their arms did not have nearly as many shells as the shell island. At most, two Piercing Rays were enough to kill a Berserk Murloc.
Every step this legion took left hundreds or thousands of corpses on the beach of the Far North Coast. But what happened next made even Cheng Yu marvel.
The surviving Berserk Murlocs lifted their fallen comrades' bodies overhead and linked them into a single barrier. Their death rate immediately plummeted.
The Deep Sea Empire's army continued pushing south and finally cleared the beach of the Far North Coast, but left nearly a hundred thousand corpses behind. At the sight, Cheng Yu sneered.
"You're only guarding against the sky. Your fronts are wide open."
Under the "desperate charge" of over a million Berserk Murlocs at the very front of the Deep Sea Empire's vanguard, they crossed the beach of the Far North Coast and reached the gentle slopes. Just then, beams of light shot straight through their ranks.
Fifty thousand 0-3s lay concealed beneath the slopes. Their twin scorpion-tail emitters were barely noticeable among the shrubs. Exploiting the opening left by the Berserk Murlocs' skyward defenses, all fifty thousand 0-3s fired a volley of Piercing Beams.
If the 0-5 Shuttle Fighters' Piercing Rays were needles, the 0-3s' Piercing Beams were wooden rods. Moreover, the 0-3s were designed for siege warfare, and the power of their Piercing Beams far exceeded that of the Shuttle Fighters' Piercing Rays.
A single Piercing Beam blasted straight through the marching ranks of Berserk Murlocs, punching through the chests of nearly a hundred along its path.
Then the 0-3s fired Explosive Beams from their other scorpion tails. The Shuttle Fighters overhead angled themselves to fire Piercing Rays through the gaps the 0-3s had opened, maximizing casualties.
One volley of Explosive Beams from fifty thousand 0-3s, coordinated with tens of thousands of Shuttle Fighters overhead, left roughly another two hundred thousand Berserk Murlocs dead at the foot of the slopes.
Just as Cheng Yu was thinking of pressing the advantage, the shell island suddenly split into hundreds of smaller islands. An enormous tentacle wrapped around them and hurled them out, sending them crashing directly in front of the Berserk Murloc army and crushing quite a few murlocs in the process.
The shell masses continued writhing, as though the shells themselves were alive, then squirmed toward the highest point of the slopes. As before, the Berserk Murlocs shielded their heads with their left arms and followed behind the small shell islands.
The fifty thousand 0-3s adjusted the direction of their scorpion tails carrying Piercing Beam emitters and concentrated fire on the shell islands. After one volley, they finally exposed what lay inside: masses of flesh.
Countless strands of muscle connected the shells. At the same time, the center of each fleshy mass emitted a strange pulse, and Cheng Yu watched the blasted shells begin gathering back toward it.
Cheng Yu's eye twitched. Had the big shot not said that they were the only one still around in this era, he would have suspected these were the servants of some Evil God. Their looks really left him no choice but to wonder.
Just then, the system popped up with information for Cheng Yu.
"Shell Demons are creatures discovered by the Deep Sea Empire in extremely deep waters. They exist in large numbers but could originally only operate in the deep sea. After research and modification by Naga Mages, they can now operate in shallow waters and even on land. They possess no intelligence, only predatory instincts, but in terms of defense, Shell Demons are unquestionably Bronze creatures."
Cheng Yu nodded. These Naga Mages again. No wonder the Naga and Merfolk jointly ruled the Deep Sea Empire, while the other sea races seemed to have no standing whatsoever. There was a reason for it.
Still, they were organisms, whatever else they might be. Hadn't one concentrated volley from the 0-3s already wrecked half of them?
While the next volley was being prepared, the Shell Demons all turned around. Another volley shattered all their shells, but they turned once more, and the damage from the first volley had already vanished. The shattered shells seemed to have been pulled together even more tightly.
Cheng Yu frowned. Are you exploiting a damn bug on me?
The Wisdom units naturally reached the same conclusion. Since that was the case, they would stop trying to eliminate every Shell Demon in one go and focus their attacks on just a few instead.
Sure enough, the fifty thousand 0-3s adjusted their scorpion tails and fired another volley. More than twenty Shell Demons in the center were blasted apart, creating an opening to exploit.
The fifty thousand 0-3s aimed at the center and fired another volley of Piercing Beams. Although the casualties met expectations, the results could not compare to their first attack.
But then more tentacles emerged from the sea, continuously flinging Shell Demons ashore from the Deep Sea zone. They not only filled the gaps the 0-3s had blasted open but also began reinforcing the Shell Demon defensive line.
Cheng Yu frowned slightly. How many damn Shell Demons did these salted fish bring?
The Wisdom units had countermeasures. Some 0-3s began firing at the Shell Demons falling from the sky, not to kill them, but to knock them off course and alter where they landed.
Then the ten thousand Purger 0-4s stationed at the highest point of the slopes began picking off Shell Demons with Tungsten-Steel Alloy Solid Rounds. Pure kinetic force blasted the Shell Demons, along with the Berserk Murlocs behind them, straight into the sea.
Just then, a vast wave surged toward the slopes. Since the strategic focus this time was to settle the battle on land, fewer 0-2s had been deployed along the Far North Coast than last time.
But this time, there was no need to freeze the entire coastline into an ice field. One hundred and fifty thousand 0-2s switched to Cryogenic Particle Rounds and began firing their Cryogenic Particle Cannons toward the foot of the slopes.
Sure enough, the wave slowed after crossing the beach. Once it advanced a little farther into the sloping terrain, part of its crest froze and toppled over.
But something beneath the ice seemed to smash the wave-shaped ice wall directly apart. Then two million soldiers of the Deep Sea Empire arrived at the lower slopes. Among them were troop types seen in the previous attack, as well as others that had never appeared before.
Cheng Yu knew, however, that this army was more elite than the last. Why? There were Kuo-toa this time too, but their muscles were more developed than those of the previous ones. The crabs were also noticeably larger.
All the 0-5s in the sky deployed their full complement of Shuttle Fighters. Nearly a hundred thousand Shuttle Fighters fired Explosive Rays at full power, disrupting the Deep Sea Empire army's advance.
The 0-3s halfway up the slopes also emerged from underground and began retreating toward the highest point while firing. Elsewhere, the hundred and fifty thousand 0-2s switched directly to Thermal Mode, firing their Thermal Cannons to slow the enemy's advance.
But both the Explosive Rays from overhead and the arcing Thermal Cannon shots were blocked by a thin film of water.
Meanwhile, in the Deep Sea zone off the Far North Coast, the seven thousand accompanying Naga Mages and three thousand Merfolk Mages were channeling magic power together inside an extraordinarily large Magic Circle.
Without support from the Shuttle Fighters' Explosive Rays and the 0-2s' Thermal Cannons, the firepower of fifty thousand 0-3s and ten thousand Purger 0-4s alone struggled to hold back the Deep Sea Empire's army of over two million.
To further weaken the attacks of the 0-3s and Purger 0-4s, some Giant Whale Warriors and Giant Shark Warriors even pushed Shell Demons ahead of them. The Purger 0-4s' tungsten steel solid rounds no longer achieved their spectacular results, though they still blasted the Shell Demons apart and killed or wounded some of the Giant Whale Warriors and Giant Shark Warriors.
Compared with their earlier effectiveness, however, their killing power had clearly dropped by more than one level.
As the Deep Sea Empire's legion drew ever closer, the 0-3s stationed halfway up the slopes had to accelerate their retreat. The Purger 0-4s also began slowly withdrawing toward the Small Plain behind them.
Indeed, beyond the gentle slopes south of the Far North Coast lay the Small Plain of the Northern Borderlands. Despite its name, this plain was anything but small, and it stretched in a long strip from east to west.
Any army coming from the north had to cross this plain. It was also the second of Cheng Yu's four defensive lines, and arguably the most important, because his buildings lay along all the defensive lines beyond it.
Following the Conductors' recommendations, Cheng Yu had stationed well over half the troops at his disposal here and redirected six Satellites to concentrate their surveillance on the area.
After losing several thousand 0-3s, the northern first defensive line's remaining forces—over forty thousand 0-3s, ten thousand Purger 0-4s, a hundred and fifty thousand 0-2s, and over three hundred 0-5s—withdrew to the second defensive line on the Small Plain. The Deep Sea Empire had officially breached Cheng Yu's first northern defensive line.
Just then, an alarm sounded inside the Main City.
"Attention, Commander. Attention, Commander. Enemy forces are landing in the east. Enemy forces are landing in the east."
Before you continue