123: Chapter 123 The Refining of the Fel Mother River and the Scorched Earth Policy
There was no suspense whatsoever.
High above in the firmament, those thousands of eerie blue spots of light reached their peak brightness at the exact same instant.
Then, the light vanished.
Disappearing along with it was everything within a vast, fan-shaped area directly beneath those thousands of light spots.
There were no earth-shattering explosions, no heart-wrenching wails.
There was only silence.
An absolute, complete, dead silence that devoured all sound and matter.
The demons touched by those eerie blue pillars of light—whether they were hundred-meter-tall Balors or lowly Imps—were decomposed into fundamental particles in less than a thousandth of a second. Their Souls, their resentment, and every trace of their existence were completely erased by an incomprehensible power of Order.
A thick layer of the earth was scooped away, the cut as smooth as a mirror.
Even the flow of lava came to a strange standstill at this moment.
It was a one-sided slaughter.
It couldn't even be called a slaughter.
It was more like a precise, efficient cleanup without any wasted motion.
Immediately after, the carapace on the belly of the Leviathan Mothership, which obscured the entire sky, slowly opened, revealing millions of densely packed launch ports.
They emitted no light; they only cast down death.
Countless dark green "drop pods" detached from the hull, screaming through the air like a torrential rain as they slammed into the remaining demon cities and military formations.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Heavy, fleshy vesicles slammed into the ground, city walls, and demon bodies, their massive impact causing them to burst instantly.
Slimy biomass fluid splashed everywhere, and from within rolled out strange insects only half a meter tall, covered in carapaces and with backs full of pustules.
They had no eyes, yet they accurately locked onto every living thing.
They made no roars, merely crawling rapidly on six appendages, their rolling bodies kicking up trails of dust as they rushed toward the demons frozen in fear.
"Get away! You disgusting bugs!"
A Legendary Rank Six-Armed Marilith finally broke free from the utter horror. Six scimitars burning with fel fire swung down simultaneously, their blades whipping up a storm.
However, those insects known as "Banelings" simply curled their bodies into tight balls the moment they drew near.
BOOM—!!!
Emerald-green strong acid and explosive bodily fluids formed a deadly mushroom cloud.
The Marilith's protective fel barrier was instantly corroded away. Its hard scales hissed in the strong acid, turning into a pool of pus in the blink of an eye.
This was not the end.
This was the beginning of a chain reaction.
Boom boom boom boom boom!
Continuous explosions played a symphony of death within the demon cities and armies. The earth was plowed over and over again; the Firmness of the obsidian walls crumbled under the acid's corrosion, and countless demons were blown to pieces or melted into foul-smelling liquid amidst desperate howls.
Amidst this sea of explosive fire, a massive shadow tore through the clouds, crashing heavily into the lava lake at the center of the city like a falling meteor.
Thunder Beast King Hyperis had descended.
RUMBLE!!!
The viscous lava was struck into giant waves hundreds of meters high, crashing against the ruined city walls. Hyperis's mountain-like colossal frame slowly rose from the magma. Red-hot lava slid off its pitch-black biological heavy armor, unable to leave even the slightest mark on its surface. That thick carapace completely insulated it from temperatures high enough to melt steel.
With every step it took, the earth wailed.
Beneath its feet, swaths of imps were crushed directly into meat paste, unable to even let out a scream.
"Roar!"
An Abyssal Worm, comparable in size to a hill, burrowed out from underground. It opened its massive maw filled with rings of sharp teeth and spat out a destructive dragon breath.
Hyperis didn't even change its stride.
On its back, the muzzles of two giant plasma cannons began to crackle with crazily leaping and converging eerie blue electric arcs.
Hum—
A plasma beam more dazzling than the core of a sun flashed and vanished.
The Abyssal Worm's dragon breath was instantly evaporated; its head and upper body were completely vaporized in that beam of light. Its massive body collapsed powerlessly, the cut as smooth as before.
High in the sky, another Dominator-class unit displayed a completely different method of destruction.
Lumina, the Dominator of Light, hovered there.
She had no physical form, being only a humanoid mass of pure, holy radiance—a miniature sun that purified everything.
An invisible ripple spread out with her as the center.
Holy Light Wave.
Wherever the light wave swept, the demon corpses on the battlefield that had just died and hadn't yet been converted into undead by the Abyssal Law, along with their Souls that were about to dissipate, were decomposed and evaporated together.
Not a single scrap of residue remained.
On this plane, even the qualification to give birth to the undead was stripped away.
Amidst this duet of destruction and purification, a cold, emotionless will crossed through space and descended directly into the Mental Network of every Swarm unit.
It was Su Chen's will.
"No prisoners, no occupation."
This will clearly conveyed the final directive.
"I only want resources."
Scorched Earth Policy.
The moment the command was issued, tens of millions of standby Drones burst out from deep underground. They bypassed the battlefield and accurately bored beneath the ruins of the demon cities.
There flowed the source of all evil power on this plane.
A massive, surging underground energy vein—a branch of the Fel Mother River.
The entire river was composed of liquid fel energy emitting an eerie green glow. A thick aura of chaos and corrosion radiated from it, nourishing every demonic plant and every demon nest on this land.
The Drones plunged their giant needle-like mouthparts into the riverbed without hesitation.
Gurgle gurgle...
An unimaginable extraction began.
Tens of millions of tubes exerted force simultaneously. That green river of energy, which had been surging, began to shrink and dry up at a pace visible to the naked eye.
Along the riverbanks, those clawing demonic plants that relied on fel energy to survive lost all vitality within a few seconds, quickly withering and rotting until they finally turned into a ground of ash.
[Ding! High-purity Fel Energy has been injected into the Mother Nest energy pool!]
[Ding! Beginning reverse-analysis of Fel Energy... Extraction successful!]
[Obtained: High-concentration Chaos Factor (Divine Materials)!]
[Obtained: Fel Gene Sequence!]
In the mental interface that only he could "see," a series of notification messages flashed by rapidly.
Su Chen's consciousness hovered in the core space of the Mother Nest, watching all of this indifferently.
Before him, a double-helix gene chain emitting an ominous dark green light was slowly being parsed and constructed by the Mother Nest's System.
"Chaos, frenzy, extreme instability..."
Su Chen's will touched that gene chain, sensing the primal desire for destruction contained within.
"But at the same time, it is the highest-grade 'stimulant'."
A crazy and bold plan instantly took shape in his mind.
"System, using this gene sequence as a blueprint, establish a new evolution plan."
His voice echoed in his own mental world, carrying the coldness of creating a new nightmare.
"Name it—'Abyssal Demonization'."
"Since the Swarm already represents destruction, then adding the chaos of the Abyss, these insects..."
Su Chen's consciousness "looked" toward that scorched earth being thoroughly purified, seeing an even crazier, darker future.
"...will become the nightmare of all ordered worlds."