Chapter 58: The Networked Encirclement
Weng——!
The entire rift rock strata suddenly emitted a low, deep tremor.
In the next second, countless scaled beasts erupted from the dark branching caves in all directions, roaring simultaneously. They no longer suppressed their presence or lurked in hiding. A pitch-black beast tide, like black water from a breached dam, surged out from every rock crevice and every cave, instantly filling the entire rift corridor.
The beams from their headlamps pierced the darkness, illuminating the densely packed, layered silhouettes of the scaled beasts. Their cold, hard scales gleamed with a dead, icy light, and their crimson compound eyes stared fixedly at the intruding human squad.
"Full alert! Beast tide ambush!"
The major's fierce roar was instantly drowned out by the chorus of beast roars. The five squads, which had been advancing in a loose formation, instantly fell into disarray. They hastily raised their knives, lifted their guns, and erected their Sea of Consciousness barriers to fight back against the sudden encirclement.
Unlike the control of a single priest in the past, the pace of this beast tide was perfectly, almost eerily, synchronized.
The scaled beasts from all directions charged in unison, flanked in unison, and sealed off their retreat in unison. Not a single beast charged in disorder, and not a single one fell behind. The beast swarm in the entire rift acted as a single, unified entity. Every advance and every pounce was seamless, precisely cutting off all space for the humans to dodge or break through.
Deep within the rock strata, the psychic wills of multiple Lizardmen priests linked together to form a net.
They shared the computing load and compensated for each other's weaknesses. Some were responsible for coordinating the global dispatch of the beast swarm, some for releasing layered psychic suppression, and some specifically locked onto the human Sea of Consciousness powerhouses for targeted restraint. The command lag and movement stutter that had previously occurred when a single priest overloaded had completely vanished. The psychic network across the entire rift was fluid, stable, and flawless.
"Something's wrong! They are too synchronized!"
A squad member with a second-tier Sea of Consciousness had just erected his barrier when he was hit by a precisely superimposed psychic impact, causing him to groan and spit up blood. The previously scattered psychic pressure had transformed into a progressive tide, continuously crushing everyone's Sea of Consciousness defenses. "Their discipline is ten times stronger than any previous beast tide! This is absolutely not a swarm of alien beasts!"
Before his words even finished, a massive number of scaled beasts poured out from the rock caves on both sides, directly severing the connection between the front and rear of the squad.
The original twenty-man exploration team was instantly forcibly divided into three or four scattered squads by the beast tide. Each was trapped in different sections of the rift, unable to see the head or tail of the others, and unable to support one another. The communication channel was instantly filled with gunfire, roars, the pained cries of the wounded, and chaotic reports, descending into complete chaos.
"Left flank squad is surrounded! Personnel lost contact!"
"Rear passage is sealed! There's no way back!"
"The psychic pressure is too high! The lower-tier Sea of Consciousness members can't hold on!"
The situation collapsed in an instant.
The ordinary squad members had never seen such an orderly and precise beast tide tactic. They were accustomed to the madness, recklessness, and disorder of the scaled beasts. This眼前 (眼前) tactic, with clear division of labor, exquisite encirclement, and an understanding of dividing forces, completely overturned their battlefield cognition.
Lin Yan and the other two quickly formed a triangular defensive formation, standing back-to-back.
Old Chen guarded the front, his long knife sweeping horizontally to forcefully hack back two lunging low-level scaled beasts. The crisp sound of the blade colliding with scales rang out continuously. Su Qing guarded the right flank, her short knife striking vital points with precision, while keeping a close eye on the detector, her fingers swiftly swiping across the screen.
"It's a multi-layered psychic superposition!" Su Qing's voice was urgent, her eyes full of solemnity. "There is more than one psychic source. Underground across the entire rift, there are at least three to four high-tier psychic nodes, evenly sharing the computing power and coordinating the control of the entire beast swarm!"
Lin Yan guarded the left flank. Using flexible ancient martial arts footwork, he maneuvered continuously, his short blade rising and falling to consecutively slay the advancing scaled beasts. At the same time, he sank his mind to the bottom, and several extremely fine mental tentacles quietly sank into the rock strata.
He clearly "saw" the truth underground.
Several cold, calm, emotionless wills were interwoven to form a massive psychic spiderweb covering the entire rift cluster. Each will operated independently, yet they were interconnected, sharing vision and distributing the load.
A single priest had limits.
But a networked cluster of priests had almost completely erased the shortcomings of computing power.
They could simultaneously dispatch over a thousand scaled beasts, precisely control multiple battlefields, and accurately lock onto the position, troop strength, and Sea of Consciousness strength of every human squad, calmly tightening the encirclement and slowly eroding human combat power.
"Don't stubbornly resist the全域 (全域) psychic suppression!" Lin Yan reminded the two in a deep voice. "Shrink your Sea of Consciousness barriers and only guard your cores to conserve stamina! The enemy is using the psychic network to continuously drain us, dragging us until all our Seas of Consciousness are overdrawn!"
The danger of the current battlefield far exceeded the straightforward assault of the Black Mountain battle.
Black Mountain was a single-point deathmatch against the极限 (极限) output of a single priest; this was a全域 (全域) hunt, a precise killing scheme linked by multiple priests. There were no flaws, no stutters, no brief windows of opportunity—only an endless, perfectly coordinated beast tide launching continuous, fierce attacks.
Not far away, a squad completely collapsed.
The Sea of Consciousness barriers of three lower-tier members shattered. Losing their ability to resist, they were instantly overwhelmed by the swarming scaled beasts. The agonizing screams abruptly ceased in a mere instant, leaving only the cold beast roars and the sound of metal clashing.
The major led the remaining squad members in a desperate breakout. The gunfire grew increasingly sparse as ammunition rapidly depleted. More and more people were forced to switch to melee combat with cold weapons, and casualties continued to climb.
"If we keep this up, everyone will die here!" Old Chen hacked off a scaled beast's claw, his tiger's mouth numb from the shock. "The enemy doesn't even rush up to fight to the death. They are just relying on perfect coordination to exhaust us to death!"
Su Qing quickly killed a scaled beast that got close, then immediately observed the surrounding battlefield. "They are eating the divided squads one by one! Weak first, strong later. They are clearing out the scattered combat power first, and finally concentrating their forces to surround and kill us and the main squad!"
Lin Yan's eyes were as calm as still water. As he continued to maneuver and fight, he frantically analyzed the psychic network before him.
The multi-priest network seemed flawless, but there was absolutely no true perfection.
Since it was a network, it required synchronization, transmission, and coordination.
The shortcoming of a single priest was computing power overload. Then the shortcoming of a multi-priest network must be—synchronization delay and node dependency.
All commands needed to flow, synchronize, and be confirmed among multiple priests before being dispatched to the entire beast swarm. Once an intermediate node was disturbed, intercepted, or disrupted, the entire spiderweb would experience a brief, chaotic fracture.
However, this fracture was extremely short and extremely subtle, far more difficult to capture than the lag of a single priest, and it would vanish in a flash.
"I've found the weakness," Lin Yan said in a low voice, his tone absolutely certain.
Through several seconds of extreme perception, he had captured the subtle rhythm of the network's flow. Every time there was a large-scale synchronized dispatch of the beast swarm or a switch in the encirclement formation, the psychic signals of the multiple priests would complete a global synchronization. In that exact instant, all computing power would converge, and the network nodes would experience a one-millisecond brief blind spot.
Extremely short, extremely dangerous, and extremely difficult to grasp.
But it was enough.
"Hold the formation and stall the close-range beast swarm," Lin Yan quickly instructed. "Next, I will attempt to interfere with their network nodes. Once the beast swarm falls into large-scale chaos, immediately notify everyone to concentrate and break out, and link up with the main squad!"
Old Chen and Su Qing nodded simultaneously. They instantly tensed their minds and全力 (全力) blocked the scaled beast impacts from all directions, buying Lin Yan the fleeting window of opportunity to cast his technique.
Deep within the rift, the Lizardmen priests underground had already sensed Lin Yan's intentions.
The cold collective will instantly locked onto this human. They did not understand the human cultivation system, but they knew perfectly well that this second-tier peak human was the only hidden danger capable of touching, peeping into, and even shaking their psychic network.
Thirty percent of the network's computing power was instantly diverted to target and suppress Lin Yan's Sea of Consciousness, attempting to forcefully crush his mental tentacles and eliminate this greatest variable.
A wind-and-rain-like psychic heavy pressure suddenly crashed down solely on Lin Yan.
The outer barrier of his Sea of Consciousness instantly shattered in large areas, and spiderweb-like cracks spread densely once again. Agonizing pain exploded in his skull, and his vision went black in waves.
But Lin Yan's posture remained as steady as a rock.
The outer layer shattered completely, but the core did not move.
Enduring the tearing pain, he compressed all his psychic threads to the extreme, staring fixedly at the moment of the next global synchronization, waiting quietly for that perfect spiderweb to reveal its fleeting, fatal flaw.
Under desperate circumstances, his mental resilience was once again frantically tempered, settled, and sublimated.
The foundation of the second-tier peak, under the heavy pressure of life and death, was infinitely approaching the critical point.
The entire rift rock strata suddenly emitted a low, deep tremor.
In the next second, countless scaled beasts erupted from the dark branching caves in all directions, roaring simultaneously. They no longer suppressed their presence or lurked in hiding. A pitch-black beast tide, like black water from a breached dam, surged out from every rock crevice and every cave, instantly filling the entire rift corridor.
The beams from their headlamps pierced the darkness, illuminating the densely packed, layered silhouettes of the scaled beasts. Their cold, hard scales gleamed with a dead, icy light, and their crimson compound eyes stared fixedly at the intruding human squad.
"Full alert! Beast tide ambush!"
The major's fierce roar was instantly drowned out by the chorus of beast roars. The five squads, which had been advancing in a loose formation, instantly fell into disarray. They hastily raised their knives, lifted their guns, and erected their Sea of Consciousness barriers to fight back against the sudden encirclement.
Unlike the control of a single priest in the past, the pace of this beast tide was perfectly, almost eerily, synchronized.
The scaled beasts from all directions charged in unison, flanked in unison, and sealed off their retreat in unison. Not a single beast charged in disorder, and not a single one fell behind. The beast swarm in the entire rift acted as a single, unified entity. Every advance and every pounce was seamless, precisely cutting off all space for the humans to dodge or break through.
Deep within the rock strata, the psychic wills of multiple Lizardmen priests linked together to form a net.
They shared the computing load and compensated for each other's weaknesses. Some were responsible for coordinating the global dispatch of the beast swarm, some for releasing layered psychic suppression, and some specifically locked onto the human Sea of Consciousness powerhouses for targeted restraint. The command lag and movement stutter that had previously occurred when a single priest overloaded had completely vanished. The psychic network across the entire rift was fluid, stable, and flawless.
"Something's wrong! They are too synchronized!"
A squad member with a second-tier Sea of Consciousness had just erected his barrier when he was hit by a precisely superimposed psychic impact, causing him to groan and spit up blood. The previously scattered psychic pressure had transformed into a progressive tide, continuously crushing everyone's Sea of Consciousness defenses. "Their discipline is ten times stronger than any previous beast tide! This is absolutely not a swarm of alien beasts!"
Before his words even finished, a massive number of scaled beasts poured out from the rock caves on both sides, directly severing the connection between the front and rear of the squad.
The original twenty-man exploration team was instantly forcibly divided into three or four scattered squads by the beast tide. Each was trapped in different sections of the rift, unable to see the head or tail of the others, and unable to support one another. The communication channel was instantly filled with gunfire, roars, the pained cries of the wounded, and chaotic reports, descending into complete chaos.
"Left flank squad is surrounded! Personnel lost contact!"
"Rear passage is sealed! There's no way back!"
"The psychic pressure is too high! The lower-tier Sea of Consciousness members can't hold on!"
The situation collapsed in an instant.
The ordinary squad members had never seen such an orderly and precise beast tide tactic. They were accustomed to the madness, recklessness, and disorder of the scaled beasts. This眼前 (眼前) tactic, with clear division of labor, exquisite encirclement, and an understanding of dividing forces, completely overturned their battlefield cognition.
Lin Yan and the other two quickly formed a triangular defensive formation, standing back-to-back.
Old Chen guarded the front, his long knife sweeping horizontally to forcefully hack back two lunging low-level scaled beasts. The crisp sound of the blade colliding with scales rang out continuously. Su Qing guarded the right flank, her short knife striking vital points with precision, while keeping a close eye on the detector, her fingers swiftly swiping across the screen.
"It's a multi-layered psychic superposition!" Su Qing's voice was urgent, her eyes full of solemnity. "There is more than one psychic source. Underground across the entire rift, there are at least three to four high-tier psychic nodes, evenly sharing the computing power and coordinating the control of the entire beast swarm!"
Lin Yan guarded the left flank. Using flexible ancient martial arts footwork, he maneuvered continuously, his short blade rising and falling to consecutively slay the advancing scaled beasts. At the same time, he sank his mind to the bottom, and several extremely fine mental tentacles quietly sank into the rock strata.
He clearly "saw" the truth underground.
Several cold, calm, emotionless wills were interwoven to form a massive psychic spiderweb covering the entire rift cluster. Each will operated independently, yet they were interconnected, sharing vision and distributing the load.
A single priest had limits.
But a networked cluster of priests had almost completely erased the shortcomings of computing power.
They could simultaneously dispatch over a thousand scaled beasts, precisely control multiple battlefields, and accurately lock onto the position, troop strength, and Sea of Consciousness strength of every human squad, calmly tightening the encirclement and slowly eroding human combat power.
"Don't stubbornly resist the全域 (全域) psychic suppression!" Lin Yan reminded the two in a deep voice. "Shrink your Sea of Consciousness barriers and only guard your cores to conserve stamina! The enemy is using the psychic network to continuously drain us, dragging us until all our Seas of Consciousness are overdrawn!"
The danger of the current battlefield far exceeded the straightforward assault of the Black Mountain battle.
Black Mountain was a single-point deathmatch against the极限 (极限) output of a single priest; this was a全域 (全域) hunt, a precise killing scheme linked by multiple priests. There were no flaws, no stutters, no brief windows of opportunity—only an endless, perfectly coordinated beast tide launching continuous, fierce attacks.
Not far away, a squad completely collapsed.
The Sea of Consciousness barriers of three lower-tier members shattered. Losing their ability to resist, they were instantly overwhelmed by the swarming scaled beasts. The agonizing screams abruptly ceased in a mere instant, leaving only the cold beast roars and the sound of metal clashing.
The major led the remaining squad members in a desperate breakout. The gunfire grew increasingly sparse as ammunition rapidly depleted. More and more people were forced to switch to melee combat with cold weapons, and casualties continued to climb.
"If we keep this up, everyone will die here!" Old Chen hacked off a scaled beast's claw, his tiger's mouth numb from the shock. "The enemy doesn't even rush up to fight to the death. They are just relying on perfect coordination to exhaust us to death!"
Su Qing quickly killed a scaled beast that got close, then immediately observed the surrounding battlefield. "They are eating the divided squads one by one! Weak first, strong later. They are clearing out the scattered combat power first, and finally concentrating their forces to surround and kill us and the main squad!"
Lin Yan's eyes were as calm as still water. As he continued to maneuver and fight, he frantically analyzed the psychic network before him.
The multi-priest network seemed flawless, but there was absolutely no true perfection.
Since it was a network, it required synchronization, transmission, and coordination.
The shortcoming of a single priest was computing power overload. Then the shortcoming of a multi-priest network must be—synchronization delay and node dependency.
All commands needed to flow, synchronize, and be confirmed among multiple priests before being dispatched to the entire beast swarm. Once an intermediate node was disturbed, intercepted, or disrupted, the entire spiderweb would experience a brief, chaotic fracture.
However, this fracture was extremely short and extremely subtle, far more difficult to capture than the lag of a single priest, and it would vanish in a flash.
"I've found the weakness," Lin Yan said in a low voice, his tone absolutely certain.
Through several seconds of extreme perception, he had captured the subtle rhythm of the network's flow. Every time there was a large-scale synchronized dispatch of the beast swarm or a switch in the encirclement formation, the psychic signals of the multiple priests would complete a global synchronization. In that exact instant, all computing power would converge, and the network nodes would experience a one-millisecond brief blind spot.
Extremely short, extremely dangerous, and extremely difficult to grasp.
But it was enough.
"Hold the formation and stall the close-range beast swarm," Lin Yan quickly instructed. "Next, I will attempt to interfere with their network nodes. Once the beast swarm falls into large-scale chaos, immediately notify everyone to concentrate and break out, and link up with the main squad!"
Old Chen and Su Qing nodded simultaneously. They instantly tensed their minds and全力 (全力) blocked the scaled beast impacts from all directions, buying Lin Yan the fleeting window of opportunity to cast his technique.
Deep within the rift, the Lizardmen priests underground had already sensed Lin Yan's intentions.
The cold collective will instantly locked onto this human. They did not understand the human cultivation system, but they knew perfectly well that this second-tier peak human was the only hidden danger capable of touching, peeping into, and even shaking their psychic network.
Thirty percent of the network's computing power was instantly diverted to target and suppress Lin Yan's Sea of Consciousness, attempting to forcefully crush his mental tentacles and eliminate this greatest variable.
A wind-and-rain-like psychic heavy pressure suddenly crashed down solely on Lin Yan.
The outer barrier of his Sea of Consciousness instantly shattered in large areas, and spiderweb-like cracks spread densely once again. Agonizing pain exploded in his skull, and his vision went black in waves.
But Lin Yan's posture remained as steady as a rock.
The outer layer shattered completely, but the core did not move.
Enduring the tearing pain, he compressed all his psychic threads to the extreme, staring fixedly at the moment of the next global synchronization, waiting quietly for that perfect spiderweb to reveal its fleeting, fatal flaw.
Under desperate circumstances, his mental resilience was once again frantically tempered, settled, and sublimated.
The foundation of the second-tier peak, under the heavy pressure of life and death, was infinitely approaching the critical point.