Chapter 1391: Chapter 1390: Monsters Clashing

According to the deduction by the Goddess of Magic, Milmina, the current state of the entire wasteland is equivalent to an out-of-control and internally closed "abnormal energy field." The massive explosion of the Well of Deep Blue and the aftermath of the past "Pre-tremble of the chaotic wave" are bound to this land, forming a large-scale and unquenchable magic shock. According to the "Unified Wave Theory," the boundary between "reality" and "illusion" in this world is ambiguous and changeable. Therefore, an out-of-control energy field means the material world will also lose control. Some things will spontaneously generate at energy focal points, things that should have vanished will be reorganized and reappear, and those without protection will suffer irreversible harm in such an energy field.

This is the truth of the wasteland—and the Barrier Wall’s "healing" of the wasteland is essentially to "smooth" and "filter" this large-scale abnormal energy field.

A sufficient number of purification devices connect into a long barrier, like building a breakwater in the waves. The magic turbulence, which has resonated for seven hundred years, will gradually weaken in front of this barrier until its intensity and severity drop below the threshold, thus losing its interference and impact on the material world, reverting to normal magic shock. Various strange phenomena and continuously spreading pollution and corruption in the wasteland will quickly end as the source disappears.

But all along, this has merely been a theoretical result. Although nearly everyone who knows the inside story believes Milmina’s calculations cannot go wrong, as Sentinel Towers rise and the battle develops day by day, people can’t help but worry a little—will the Barrier Wall really work? Will the Gondor wasteland, which has dominated this planet for seven centuries, really naturally dissipate because of a few artificially built filtration screens?

Purification devices themselves indeed have an effect, and they can create a "safe environment" similar to the exterior of the wasteland within a certain range. However, to confirm whether the Barrier Wall can truly influence the entire wasteland, the key is to observe if the environment also experiences the predicted chain changes in areas not covered by purification devices.

A seemingly fragile flower trembles gently in the breeze, blooming on this dark and corrupt land, flourishing before the frontline Purification Tower is fully activated—indicating that before the Typhon army advanced here, this resilient plant had already taken root and successfully survived on this land. That might have happened when spring just arrived, when only less than a quarter of the Barrier Wall had been laid...

Its seeds may have come on the southern wind, but for Andresha, the origin of the seeds is unimportant—its blooming can already inspire everyone.

The young female knight named Marianno presented the flower to Andresha, who then bid farewell to the soldiers with a slightly excited mood and returned to her quarters to prepare to write a letter to Aldernon. With the new technologies like image scanning, Magic Web transmission, and remote printing as support, a copy of this letter could appear before Emperor Rosetta Augustus within minutes, along with the "photo" of the small flower.

Andresha picked up the pen, her eyes once again swept over the little flower on the table, then her gaze fell on the white letter paper, her heart filled with countless fluctuating thoughts that surged for ten minutes before she looked up at the silver-haired female adjutant standing beside: "Help me think about how to write it..."

The female adjutant immediately sat down across the table and started writing fluently, mumbling as she wrote: "I thought you were so confident in picking up the pen, you must have thought it through this time..."

Andresha’s tone carried a hint of sigh: "...Everyone has their fields they are not proficient in."

...

A hazy and thick energy shield covered the land, this massive barrier making the entire old imperial capital seem as if sealed within the depths of a faint blue glowing giant egg. At the core of the "giant egg," a bright and magnificent blue light beam was vaguely visible, fiercely burning. Around the light beam were numerous veins extending across the ground, and soldiers and automatic combat mechanisms were moving towards the edges of the "giant egg."

This is the core area of the Gondor wasteland, the former site of the old imperial capital, where the light of the Well of Deep Blue continues to illuminate the land—yet at the boundary of that illumination, the entire surface has been layered with nauseating horror entities.

The Wasteland Legion is gathered here, focusing all the wasteland’s power. The projection of chaotic magic ravages the battlefield, transforming the entire area into an unimaginable state. Aberrations and biological monsters formed black-red tides, indefinable energy surging among them, making these distorted desecrations seem constantly caught between reality and illusion. A fog-like substance floats over the land’s surface, with indistinct limbs and ethereal howls spreading in the mist.

Towards the direction of the Well of Deep Blue, a silver-gray sentinel tower stands at the edge of the defense line. A flash of white light descends from the top of the tower, and a glaring light ball roars into the center of the tide formed by aberrations. Amidst the massive explosion impact, a huge gap is torn at the center of the dark tide. However, the nearby fog instantly gathers again—the black-red arc surges in the mist, indistinct flesh and vague whispers emerge in the air, and new monsters rise from it, charging towards the direction of the energy field screen.

Tall Iron Soldiers rushed from the channel under the shield, those man-made warriors almost identical to human appearance fiercely battled enemies several times their number. They waved light blades or continuously projected powerful magical missiles into the distance, fearless of pain and not easily perishing. Even if they suffer injuries fatal to ordinary people, most can calmly retreat to the recovery channel near the shield under ally cover, returning via the high-speed running transport tracks to the factories in the depths of the earth for repairs.

This is no longer the typical concept of a "battlefield" for humans; both the combatants and the battlefield have undergone serious transformations and distortions within the frenzied and out-of-control magic shock.

The soldiers of the Iron Soldier Corps battle the aberrations along the edge of the real world, while behind the aberrations, the invisible tide of chaotic magic engages in constant mutual erosion with the immense energy released by the Great Shield of the Well of Deep Blue. Destroyed monsters repeatedly "return to the world" as projections, and the freshly repaired artificial soldiers cycle back to the battlefield through deployment channels embedded throughout the underground. Amidst this fierce battle, the boundary between reality and illusion trembles violently like a soon-to-break water surface reflection, and the precarious balance seems on the verge of shattering.

And behind the warring corps, the commanders of both sides confront each other from afar, allocating vast resources with cold calculations to maintain this feast of slaughter on the battlefield of shattered reality and illusion.

Deep within the underground bunker surrounded by layers of reinforced armor, internal field stabilizers, and a steel-cement complex defense line lies the control center illuminated by bright lights within the Well of Deep Blue. In this vast room, over ten processing nodes of the Ophelia Matrix emitted a low humming sound, vast amounts of data pouring through one node after another, cube-like in appearance. Between these processing nodes hovered clear holographic projections.

Those projections are real-time images collected by composite sensors from the edges of the battlefield, representing several of the most intense combat zones across the entire battlefield.

"...K-3 Shield Generator group damaged offline, redundant units activated, overload level, shield pressure rebalancing..."

"The 126th Combat Squadron was completely lost, the machinery failed to autonomously recover... recovery teams are on their way to retrieve the machinery... T-226 transit route is broken, the recovery team path is being re-planned..."

"Warning, mental core reserves insufficient, Iron Soldier maintenance array efficiency declining... resetting production line priority, mental core reserves expected to recover to threshold in seventy-two hours..."

"Warning, signal anomaly on Defensive Wall No. 26, barrier suspected breach, deploying the nearest patrol unit... encountering enemy, our troops are engaged with the enemy... battle over, on alert, barrier recovery estimated in twelve minutes."

Veronica/Ophelia’s voice echoed in this empty, deserted hall among the processing nodes; it sounded particularly mechanical and cold, almost devoid of the warmth a human should have. At this moment, the holographic projection in the center of the hall suddenly flashed, switching to a distant scene—

In the center of that scene, a terrifying entity of immense scale rested on the earth, seemingly composed of countless twisted vines, amorphous flesh, and distorted bone shards piled together. It resembled a forest growing on the back of a flesh beast, or a twisted forest birthing flesh. This horrific entity, entirely defying biological classification, covered an entire hill like a composite of various nightmares, with countless dark red glimmers flowing and converging inside. At this moment, some structure atop it was rapidly rising, and a translucent, cyst-like thing was budding there, with intense light pulsing inside, as if containing terrible energy.

"Unknown biological megastructure is active again, confirmed high-energy reaction... reallocating Well of Deep Blue energy to shield systems, target launch countdown, three, two, one..."

The monitoring screen flashed brightly, exploding from the top of the ’mountain’ formed by flesh and vines in the distance, as the translucent swollen thing burst apart, and a blinding ball of light emerged, plummeting straight toward the Well of Deep Blue.

"Confirm target launch, impact readiness, landing countdown, three, two, one..."

Almost all images were disrupted in this instant, the energy shields over the Well of Deep Blue flickered violently, and a frightening ripple nearly covered the entire barrier. A low, muffled noise echoed underground after a brief delay, half of the passages and shafts roared, and the control hall slightly trembled. Veronica/Ophelia’s voice carried a trace of interference: "...impact confirmed, calculating damage... severe damage to shield generator group K-6 through K-12, localized barrier breach, beginning repair of shield systems... hostile units have invaded the interior of the defense wall, deploying the Imperial Guards Corps for clearance..."

...

The surface of the luminous "giant egg" in the distance flickered harshly following a terrifying annihilation process, transforming the ’Calamity Magic Bullet’ into a countless torrent of flames, cascading and falling upon the layer of shields like a torrential rain.

The impact from launching the Calamity Magic Bullet reverberated through the massive ’body,’ waves rising between the amorphous flesh, with resilient ’blood vessels’ and ’nerves’ snapping on launch, but quickly regenerating to their original state after a brief process. Several organs dedicated to energy provision overheated in a short time, fluids boiled inside chambers, turning into blood-red steam spewing from the edge of this twisted forest, while more standby organs quickly took over the overheated parts, gathering vast magic power for the next launch.

During this process, the ’body’ continued to grow, with the last priests executing assimilation deep within this mass of flesh, their fervent and tainted powers continuously merging, making Balken, the mastermind behind it all, feel as though his mind was a bit dazed.

At the heart of this ’twisted forest’ intertwined with flesh, bone, and plant growth, a dome-like hall formed from resilient biomass, with a vaguely human-shaped ’tree’ rooted in the gently undulating, glowing ground, sensing the complex neural feedback from all parts of the ’body.’ Balken opened his eyes slightly, his face older than before, his body more twisted, and his brown-yellow irises in a semi-dreamlike state, appearing caught between sleep and wakefulness as he slightly twitched his stiff limbs—in an instant, the whole twisted forest perched on the hill rumbled like an earthquake.

"Failed to breach... the shield..." Balken murmured quietly to himself, "Recharge..."

Footsteps sounded from nearby, the Elven Twins’ figures appeared in the "hall"—essentially, this "hall" was an organ within Balken’s body at the moment, his "Brain Chamber"—they came to the center before the Treants rooted in the hall, the dim light in the hall making their faces appear blurred as if hidden in dreams.

"Archbishop, we just returned from the deep zone, the last batch of compatriots has merged into your body," Lelena said, "Now you should feel the influx of power—after a few days, the integration will be complete."

"I can... feel it..." Balken’s muddled eyes fell upon the Elven Twins, his voice hesitated, taking a moment to recognize who stood before him, and another moment to recall how to communicate, "The power is surging within me... to destroy that fortress... it’s only a matter of time..."

"Indeed, you are very powerful now—but don’t forget our original objective, we’re not here to destroy that fortress. What we need is the massive energy inside," Fyrna spoke softly, "Embed your roots into those Energy Conduits, use the Rune Stones we pre-positioned to control this energy. This is more important than destroying the fort."

"Yes, to control it..." Balken said in a low voice, then grimaced in apparent pain, "chaotic thoughts are flooding my mind, I’m finding it difficult to concentrate..."

"It’s normal, Archbishop," Lelena laughed, "You are merging the power and will of the entire evil-cult into yourself, ascending to a being as powerful as a god; it’s not easy... Before the integration completes, those wills think independently, naturally interfering with your thoughts. But don’t worry, this will soon ease; once those chaotic wills vanish... you’ll only hear one voice."

"This... is good." Balken whispered softly.

"Yes, it is good." Lelena and Fyrna smiled radiantly.

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