191: Chapter 191 A New Opponent, the Subterranean Giants

Xu Qin closed his eyes and carefully sensed for a moment.

"Very good, there is no discomfort at all."

He opened his eyes and found Tian Ming on the second row of the list.

"Enchantment, initiate!"

Buzz, buzz, buzz!

Savage Bull, Blade Guard, Jackal Hunter...

One hero after another finished their enchantments successively.

[Remaining: 3,000 pieces]

Xu Qin looked at the remaining materials.

"After this wave ends, I'll enchant Winter as well."

"In the future, when promoting new heroes, we can directly enchant them too."

He closed the list,

and casually opened the additional information of the combat settlement.

As expected.

At the very bottom of the settlement panel,

rows of golden text were flickering.

[Talent "Undead Immortality" has been triggered!]

[Casualties in this battle: Necro-Beetles × 223,760]

[Resurrection trigger probability: 55%]

[Successful resurrection: Necro-Beetles × 123,068]

[Automatically incorporated into the establishment!]

Looking at this string of numbers, Xu Qin chuckled.

Two hundred twenty-three thousand died in battle.

One hundred twenty-three thousand were resurrected again.

The actual net loss was just over one hundred thousand.

Besides, not a single one of his main forces had fallen.

"No rush. When the vassals' production capacity increases in the future, this bit of battle loss will be a piece of cake."

The positive cycle of supporting war with war

operated perfectly once again.

Xu Qin stretched lazily and walked back to the Watchtower.

"A Level 2 Star Lord... is not enough to fight."

He looked towards the depths of the void.

Those specks of light were still drifting slowly.

Some were approaching, and some were moving away.

"It would only be interesting if a Level 3 one comes..."

As soon as his voice fell,

Beep!

A new warning prompt popped up on the command panel.

[Territory Collision Warning!]

[Collision Direction: Southeast]

[Opponent Continent Area: Approx. 6,800 square kilometers]

[Opponent Star Lord Level: Level 2]

[Estimated Collision Time: 47 minutes]

Seeing the continent's area, Xu Qin's spirits perked up.

"6,800? It's much larger than that Treant's territory just now!"

He raised his head and looked towards the southeast.

Sure enough,

a grayish-brown giant continent was slowly approaching in the void.

Unlike the lush green Treant continent from before,

the surface of this continent was entirely covered with exposed rock layers and huge stone pillars.

Viewed from afar, it was a hazy grey expanse.

Xu Qin directly opened the command panel and gave orders.

"Tian Ming, the northern front remains unchanged."

"Jiafeng, take your 26,000 vanguard troops and immediately redeploy to the southeast to assemble!"

"All 670,000 beetles of the eastern beetle cluster, move towards the collision prediction line!"

"Dragon Bone! Bring the bone dragon formation over and stand by below the Floating City!"

"Shadow, you will act together with Dragon Bone and await my orders at any time."

"..."

Shadow did not reply,

but Xu Qin knew it had received it.

There was no help for it; it was normal for heroes obtained from opening treasure chests to have a bit of personality.

After the orders were issued,

Xu Qin returned to the Watchtower

and stared at the approaching continent.

There were still forty minutes of preparation time, which could be said to be very ample.

Xu Qin stroked his chin and began to estimate the opponent's strength.

"This time it's still a Level 2 Star Lord... And the previous Treant had about 150,000 troops."

"This one has a larger area, which means stronger strength."

"Judging by the looks of it, the troop strength is at least over 200,000."

"But no matter what, Level 2 is still Level 2 after all."

Xu Qin turned around and walked toward the bone throne.

"I hope it's not an elemental type like the Treant."

...

Forty-three minutes later.

Boom!!!

A vibration even more intense than the first collision came from the southeast.

Xu Qin immediately opened the command panel.

[Territory Barrier · Reinforcement Activated!]

[Duration: 3 minutes]

The translucent purple light screen rose once again.

He walked quickly to the Watchtower and looked toward the southeastern collision zone,

rows of grayish-brown, massive figures stood tall on the fractured rock layers.

Judging by their height, each of them was about six meters tall.

Xu Qin narrowed his eyes and clicked on the reconnaissance report of the Sand Rat.

[Rock-Skin Giant (Tier 3)]

[Attack Power: 890]

[Defense: 2,120]

[HP: 68,000 / 68,000]

[Movement Speed: Extremely Slow]

[Characteristic: Petrochemical Body (Passive, when receiving physical attacks, damage is reduced by 35%)]

After reading it, Xu Qin laughed out loud.

"Good grief, two thousand defense?"

The reason he laughed was because the self-detonation damage of the +40 Necro-Beetles was 156,600.

This was true damage, ignoring defense.

"If your defense was only two hundred, I'd still have to seriously think about how to fight."

"But over two thousand?"

"Then I can only continue playing the self-detonation build."

He opened the vulture's reconnaissance perspective and looked behind the collision line.

He saw a large number of giants whose skin was covered with rocks slowly assembling,

behind them, there were actually elite units with even larger sizes.

Xu Qin made a rough count.

The front row had at least twenty thousand Rock-Skin Giants.

The elite models in the back were taller, visually estimated to be seven or eight meters, with a small number exceeding ten meters.

Total troops... conservatively estimated to exceed 120,000.

Moreover, the movement speeds of both troop types were [Extremely Slow].

"High defense, low speed, large size."

Xu Qin stroked his chin and evaluated,

"simply a perfect sandbag."

At this moment, a new piece of reconnaissance information was transmitted back.

The Skeleton Vulture found the enemy lord's location in the north-central part of the continent,

which was about 29 kilometers away from the collision line.

[Lord Name: Grum].

[Race: Core Earth Giant Race].

"Core Earth Giants, huh?"

Xu Qin flipped through the troop list.

[Iron Rock Heavy Guard (Tier 4)]

[Attack Power: 1,340]

[Defense: 3,150]

[HP: 112,000 / 112,000]

[Movement Speed: Extremely Slow]

[Deep Rock Warlord (Tier 5)]

[Attack Power: 2,100]

[Defense: 4,800]

[HP: 195,000 / 195,000]

[Movement Speed: Extremely Slow]

"Good grief, nearly five thousand defense."

The smile on Xu Qin's face disappeared, turning solemn.

He opened the command panel.

"The Soul-Eater Battle Skeleton would probably only do double-digit damage hitting that."

"If a normal lord encountered this kind of opponent, they'd probably have a headache to death."

"But it just so happens..."

Xu Qin raised his hand and clicked on the icon of the Necro-Beetles.

"It just so happened to meet me."

...

When there was one minute left for the barrier,

Xu Qin's orders had all been fully issued.

The 670,000 eastern beetles and Jiafeng's 26,000 vanguard troops had already arrived at the collision line.

But they did not form arrays on the surface.

Instead, they all burrowed underground.

This time, Xu Qin did not plan to charge head-on.

Although the giants' attack power was not as exaggerated as their defense,

an 890 stat panel coupled with a six-meter-tall physique

meant the beetles couldn't endure many stomps.

More importantly, the giants' attack method was an area-of-effect stomp.

Charging straight up, the beetles would be stepped into smithereens before they even had time to self-detonate.

Of course, being stepped into smithereens would also trigger "Wraith Fury".

But what Xu Qin wanted was not chaotic consumption.

What he wanted was precision demolition.

"Savage Bull, Jackal Hunter, War Rhino, you lead the Soul-Eater Battle Skeleton to pin them down from the front."