Arc 25Chapters 643–671
No recap yet.
No recap yet.
Broken Star left Slaughter Tide to pursue his oath at Against the Tide, passed the reserve-soldier assessment, and arrived at Training Camp No. 323. There, he recognized the instructors from his previous life.
Broken Star reunited with Li Zheng and the other former recruits when he joined Training Camp 323, where he impressed them by training seriously and never cheating. As the class neared graduation, Li Zheng decided to ask Elder You to approve an all-Player Warband in the Against the Tide Auxiliary.
Elder You forwarded Bricklayer’s proposal for an all-Player auxiliary warband to Godguard, whose members discovered the Players’ connection to primordial power and unanimously approved the plan. Godguard ordered the 138th Legion to prioritize supplies, the 137th Legion to assist, and Elder You to oversee the warband while keeping the Players’ secret origins confidential.
Li Zheng received Elder You’s approval to establish the Against the Tide Auxiliary player warband, and the Hardcore Grinders Group selected a snowy valley and had a dedicated training camp built there. The chapter ended with Li Zheng announcing an elite recruitment drive on the Player Forum, opening a new route for players to join Against the Tide.
Bricklayer announced open recruitment for the Against the Tide Player Warband, requiring applicants to pass an Ascension Reincarnation trial or five levels of the Ascension to Godhood Heart Refinement Trial. After players endured trials tailored to their weaknesses, Li Zheng screened applicants and selected a hundred elite players, leaving their new chat channel buzzing.
Li Zheng welcomed the newly selected players into the Against the Tide Player Warband and gave them three days to rest while he arranged support for the camp. Meanwhile, Qi Sheng discovered that the Blue Lantern Race was fighting the Dark Tide for the Purple Ember Continent while secretly establishing supply routes on the Pale Continent, and learned that the Dark Tide force there served the Lord of Rot.
Qi Sheng investigated the Lord of Rot and learned about the Dark Tide’s brutal advancement trials, the Lord’s struggle to devour its Auxiliary Eye, and its Supreme Rule of Enslavement. He concluded that Earth would eventually face the Lord of Rot, while the Blue Lantern Race’s defeat on the Purple Ember Continent would drive it to expand across the Pale Continent.
Qi Sheng reviewed the Player Faction’s new Role Selection and Ember rule nodes, then assessed the players’ expanding war against the Mechanical Overlord and Illusion on the Earthshaking Continent. Although both enemies had introduced tactics to slow the advance, the players continued capturing territory and resource nodes.
Trapped behind Illusion’s barriers, Shi Xiu proposed overwhelming Illusion with simultaneous taunts by millions of damage-soaking players. Ye Xiao organized a continent-wide test, and the barrage of taunts caused Illusion to lose control of the Virtual Legion.
Ye Xiao’s taunt bombardments repeatedly disrupted Illusion’s control, allowing the players to launch a full-scale offensive that devastated the Virtual Legion. Just as the players expected victory within days, the Mechanical Overlord joined the battle and halted their advance.
The players fought the Mechanical Legion and Virtual Legion in a vast, escalating war, with specialized builds and veteran fighters holding the battlefield. On the fifty-second day, Grandpa Tie, Li Tie, became the Player Faction’s first voluntary godhood ascendant and entered the Demigod Realm, then another silver pillar announced a second player’s breakthrough.
Fate Throat ascended to demigodhood after Li Tie, but Illusion ambushed them and trapped them in data cocoons before their transformations finished. As the battle continued, Li Zheng became the third orthodox player demigod, awakening an independent power of war that the Godguard believed could reshape the Against the Tide Legion, though they could not reach him.
Godguard failed to locate Li Zheng before the Mechanical Overlord’s Everburn clone killed him during his ascension. Everburn then slaughtered players on the Earthshaking Battlefield, but players began stacking Plague Poem curses against it, launching a Godslaying Operation.
Players used Plague Poem to cripple Everburn, the Mechanical Overlord's demigod clone, but the Mechanical Legion's other two clones arrived to rescue him. Just as the players' god-slaying operation seemed doomed, reinforcements from the Bully Alliance appeared and renewed their fight.
Di Nian Bully’s Dark Tide Alliance joined the players’ battle against the Mechanical Overlord and Illusion, turning the fighting into a massive counterattack. Despite their combined staying power, the players and Evil Spirits were driven back by the enemy’s superior top-tier forces until a huge spatial rift opened overhead, heralding the arrival of another faction.
The Insect Race joined the players and Dark Tide in a massive counterattack, using its swarming troops and demigods to wear down the Mechanical and Virtual Legions. Just as the Three Factions began turning the battle through their resurrection and attrition advantages, the strongest boss emerged from a spatial rift.
The players and the Evil Spirit Alliance fought the Mechanical Overlord as the battlefield turned toward battle formations and a new rule-fused unit. Di Nian and the other Evil Spirits brought Wan Ji to the battlefield, where an enormous new Insect Race unit appeared and left Di Nian stunned.
The Wan Ji Aggregate and Insect Prison · Demon Lord joined the ten-million-player Battle Formation Dharma Form to resist the level-802 Mechanical Overlord, but their combined defenses failed. The Mechanical Overlord absorbed three Rule Inscriptions and began evolving beyond its current limits.
The Mechanical Overlord reached level 843 and repeatedly crushed the players, Dark Tide, and Insect Race forces, but Divine King rallied the players to keep attacking head-on. As the three factions prepared another sortie, Star Network proposed a shared Demigod body, and Di Nian Evil Spirit refused until Star Network challenged him to reconsider what he had to lose in a life certain to end in death.
Di Nian Evil Spirit accepted Star Network's fusion plan and joined the Players and Insect Race in building a shared giant body. After they stabilized its powers and tested its coordinated control, the fused giant prepared to set off.
The Star Network coordinated the fused giant, combining the powers of Di Nian, the Zerg Master Brain, and the Divine King to fight the Mechanical Overlord. After the Overlord trapped the giant and began destroying it with a Divine Metal Halo, the Freedom Particles reversed the damage and began pulling the halo back.
The Star Network and its allies used Time Reversal to survive the Mechanical Overlord’s overwhelming attacks and wear down its energy through a prolonged battle. As the Mechanical Overlord unleashed its final reserves, the Fusion Giant launched a decisive strike, leaving the outcome unresolved.
The Star Network helped the Fusion Giant defeat the Mechanical Overlord, then claimed Everburn and used a newly developed Time Blade to overpower the Di Nian Evil Spirit and the Insect Race Demon Lord in the fight for the Divine Metal Inscription. The Star Network secured the final inscription and faced the two defeated rivals.
After the Mechanical Overlord fell, Illusion abandoned the battle and left the Dimensional Ascension Rule behind, ending the Earthshaking Campaign in victory for the players. The Glory Annals recorded their struggle, and the players gathered for photos and vows to keep fighting together.
Qi Sheng assessed how the 203-day Earthshaking Campaign had strengthened the Player Faction, expanded its resource holdings, and secured valuable rules. With the war over, the faction prepared to turn its attention toward the Blue Lantern Race’s accelerating invasion of the Pale Continent Region.