113: Chapter 113 The Sneak Attack on the Iron Bug Hive and the Disguise of the Thunder Beast King
The instantaneous death of the God of Assassins brought forth a surge of divinity that turned into a cold current of death, sweeping across the entire battlefield.
Fear was no longer an invisible Plague but a materialized frost, congealing in the hearts of every deity in the Dark Alliance.
Inside the Alliance Joint Command flagship, a war fortress built from the remains of a meteor and inscribed with countless defensive divine runes, there was a deathly silence.
On the massive three-dimensional Divine Power light screen, the golden dot representing the God of Assassins flickered frantically under the gaze of all the deities, then... completely extinguished.
The extinguishing of that light dot seemed to drain all sound and light from the command room.
A scepter in the hand of one deity fell to the ground with a "clang," the crisp sound appearing exceptionally piercing in this dead silence.
"He... he has fallen..."
A deity responsible for intelligence spoke with a dry voice, carrying an uncontrollable tremor.
His divine body glowed slightly, a sign of Divine Power spiraling out of control due to extreme horror.
"Impossible! From the moment he cut into the enemy's divine domain to the disappearance of the signal, it was less than three breaths of time!"
Another deity roared in shock, unable to believe the facts on the light screen.
"Three breaths! A Sixth-Turn Demigod gone just like that, without even sending out a single divine oracle for help?"
"That madman... he wasn't injured at all! The Intelligence Department is a bunch of useless trash! That wasn't a heavily wounded demigod; that was a golden demigod at full status!"
The emotions of panic finally burst through the dam.
A golden demigod represented the Peak combat power of a pantheon. And an unharmed golden demigod capable of instakilling those of the same rank was an absolute disaster.
"Retreat! Initiate a full-scale retreat immediately!"
A deity let out a shrill scream.
"Fool!"
A thunderous roar suppressed all the noise.
A Barbarian God, standing over five meters tall with knotted muscles and an dark-gold giant axe slung over his shoulder, slammed a fist onto the metal command console in front of him.
Boom!
The hard command console was smashed into a deep dent, with electric arcs flying everywhere.
"Retreat now? Where do you think we are? That is his divine domain! Our army has already penetrated deep into the heartland; turning around now is equivalent to showing our backs to his Zerg Swarm without any reservation!"
The Barbarian God's blood-red eyes scanned the room, carrying a bloodthirsty madness.
"If we are hunted down, we will only die faster and more miserably! If we can't beat him in a frontal assault, we'll play dirty!"
His voice was filled with a desperate ruthlessness.
"That trash, the God of Assassins, was too arrogant, thinking he could take the enemy Divine Lord's head by himself! He went to his death because he was alone, but we are not!"
He pointed at the area on the light screen shrouded in thick mist, representing the core of Su Chen's divine domain.
"Assemble all our elite assassination units! Activate the 'Shadow Golem' legion! That madman has pushed all his main Zerg Swarm to the front lines; his nest must be completely empty right now!"
"We will bypass his defensive lines and directly blow up his core temple! Once the temple is destroyed and the divine domain collapses, no matter how strong he is, he'll be torn to shreds by the planar storms!"
This insane proposal plunged the command room into an eerie silence once again.
It was a massive gamble.
If they won, they would hunt down an unprecedentedly powerful enemy at the smallest cost.
If they lost...
The gazes of all the deities fell upon that extinguished golden light dot.
There was no way back.
"Approved."
The Alliance's supreme commander, a mysterious deity shrouded in shadow, spat out those two cold words.
...
In Su Chen's divine domain, night was merely a light and shadow effect that could be adjusted at will.
But for stalkers, darkness was always the best ally.
Inside a long, narrow, and steep canyon, there was a deathly silence.
This was the edge of the divine domain, filled with jagged rocks and thin Divine Power—a "worthless area" that even the lowest Zerglings were too lazy to patrol.
However, at this moment, the silence was noiselessly broken.
Five hundred massive humanoid constructs, each ten meters tall, were walking through the shadows of the canyon with heavy yet eerily quiet steps.
They were composed entirely of a pitch-black substance that was neither metal nor stone; their surfaces seemed to flow with solidified night, capable of swallowing all light. Their joints had no mechanical structures but were connected by dense shadow energy, making their movements supple in a way that defied the laws of physics.
These were the Dark Alliance's secret weapon—the Shadow Golems.
Each one was a terminal assassination weapon forged from the fragments of a fallen shadow-type deity's divine kingdom, mixed with the fear and despair of tens of millions of living beings.
Behind them, three thousand assassins wearing black tight-fitting combat suits and masks that blocked all detection followed closely like ghosts.
Their auras merged with the surrounding darkness, and every step was precisely placed on ground that would not make a sound.
This was a death unit sufficient to make any pantheon tremble.
...
"Dominator, the fish have taken the bait."
Upon the supreme throne of the Iron Hive, Su Chen's will transformed into a stream of information, echoing through the entire divine domain network.
He leaned back on the throne composed of living biological tissue and memory metal, his slender fingers gently swirling a glass of crimson liquid that looked like blood.
It wasn't mortal wine, but an energy drink meticulously blended from life essence and the Origin of Divine Power through the Hive's biological conversion pool.
Gods did not need to eat.
But this was a matter of style, a posture of standing above all living beings.
In front of him, a massive biological light screen clearly displayed a topographic map of a canyon.
Thousands of flickering red dots were moving slowly within it; their every movement and every breath were captured by the ubiquitous creep network and presented before Su Chen's eyes without the slightest error.
Possessing full map vision meant that no secrets existed.
"They think they've found a shortcut to victory."
A cold curve hooked at the corner of Su Chen's lips.
"Little do they know, it is a one-way path to Hell."
He did not recall a single inch of the Zerg Swarm currently locked in battle with the Dark Alliance's main forces on the front lines.
He didn't even add a single Ultralisk Divine Guard to those stationed around the core temple.
He simply issued an extremely simple divine oracle.
That oracle crossed space and was imprinted directly into the Soul of a massive existence somewhere in the divine domain.
"Hyperis, go sleep there."
"Remember, sleep like a mountain."
...
The exit of the canyon was right before their eyes.
The leader of the ambush unit, a Seventh-Turn assassin codenamed "Night Owl," gazed through the slits of his special mask at the relatively flat open ground outside the canyon.
As long as they crossed it and passed through a patch of creep swamp, they could reach that Iron Hive radiating heaven-shaking Divine Might!
His heart pounded wildly in his chest, not from fear, but from the supreme glory of soon hunting down a Divine Lord.
"Quick! Full speed ahead!"
He lowered his voice, urging them through the Soul link.
"Cross this canyon, and the Zerg Overlord's core temple is right ahead!"
The five hundred heavy Shadow Golems began to accelerate, rumbling as they led the way, their massive feet crushing the rocks on the ground.
Three thousand assassins followed closely behind, turning into a black torrent of death.
When the entire unit—from the first Shadow Golem to the last assassin—had poured into the narrowest part of the canyon, the final stretch before the exit...
They happened to reach the foot of a towering black barren mountain at the exit.
This mountain was pitch black and devoid of vegetation, resembling a silent giant beast in the night.
But for an ambush unit unfamiliar with the terrain of this divine domain, no one cared about the appearance of an extra mountain.
In their eyes, there was only the core temple ahead, symbolizing supreme glory and military merit.
Suddenly.
An assassin with excellent eyesight walking in the middle of the formation suddenly halted his steps.
He was stunned.
He saw that on the rocky cliffs of the "black barren mountain" in front of him, there seemed to be... a layer of extremely strange patterns.
The patterns were massive and coarse, carrying an indescribable biological texture, and... they were still rising and falling very slightly.
Once.
And again.
Steady and powerful.
Just like... the breathing of some gargantuan creature?
He also noticed that in some of the crevices of the mountain wall, there seemed to be faint electric arcs flickering.
"Wait!"
A thought so absurd it made him tremble exploded in his mind.
"This mountain... is alive?!"
His terrified scream had just burst from his throat, and before it could even spread through the Soul link...
Rumble—!!!
That three-hundred-meter-tall, towering "black barren mountain" suddenly shook violently!
No, that wasn't a collapse!
It was... standing up!
Countless rocks and soil fell like waterfalls, revealing the hideous, terrifying, metallic-glinting steel carapace beneath!
Two massive bone spikes that seemed capable of piercing the firmament suddenly extended upwards from the "mountain Peak," tearing through the night sky!
The Planetary-Grade Ultralisk King, Hyperis, deactivated its [Biological Mimicry] camouflage.
It lowered its head, which was even more massive than a battering ram, and its eyes—not made of flesh but of two spheres of violent lightning energy—looked down upon the tiny, fragile, ant-like ambushers with a hint of almost playful intent.
"Roar—!!!"
A roar exploded from Hyperis's chest!
It wasn't just sound.
It was a physical shockwave mixed with lightning and the will of destruction! Wherever the sound waves passed, visible distortions appeared in space!
Dozens of assassins at the very front didn't even have time to scream before their bodies were directly vibrated into a mist of blood by this terrifying sonic wave!
"It's a trap! It's that monster! Retreat, quickly!"
Night Owl's eyes nearly split from strain as he let out a desperate howl.
"Retreat?"
A cold, indifferent voice, like a god from the Nine Heavens reading a verdict, echoed in every inch of the canyon.
"Too late."
Su Chen's voice fell, carrying the ultimate judgment.
"Hyperis, clear the field."