Chapter : 497
The effect was imdiate, and spectacular. The slis, whose simple, amoebic consciousness could process only two things—‘bounce’ and ‘move away from the scary, crackling thing’—reacted instantly. The ones at the outer edge of Fang Fairy’s path turned, bouncing frantically away from her, crashing into their fellow slis, creating a ripple effect that spread inwards. The entire, vast section of the plain began to move, to flow, a river of translucent, jiggling bodies, all being driven, channeled, condensed towards a single, central point.
It was a beautiful, almost hypnotic, display of crowd control. Within minutes, Fang Fairy had successfully herded a massive horde of several hundred slis into a single, densely packed, and very confused, quivering mound of gelatinous despair. They were packed so tightly they could barely bounce, their individual inner lights rging into a single, large, pulsating blue-white glow.
“Perfect,” Lloyd murmured, watching from a safe distance. He had his target. Contained. Concentrated. Now, for the delivery system.
He raised his hands. He could have used the Spear of Justice, yes. But that was still a high-cost, single-target weapon, ill-suited for this kind of area-of-effect work. He needed sothing different. Sothing broader. Sothing that leveraged the sheer, destructive potential of his B-Rank Steel Blood in a new, more efficient, way.
He focused his will, not on delicate, binding wires, but on raw, brutal mass. The air around him shimred, and a single, massive chain of gleaming Ferrum steel erupted from the void before him. It was thicker, heavier, more nacing than any he had created before, each link the size of his head, the entire chain easily a hundred feet long.
But he didn't send it out to bind. He had a different, more brutal, purpose in mind for it. He focused again, pouring his Void power into the steel, not just to shape it, but to control it. The massive chain rose into the air, hovering, coiling and uncoiling like a monstrous, tallic serpent.
Then, he began to spin it.
Slowly at first, then faster, and faster, and faster. The massive, hundred-foot-long steel chain beca a blur, a shimring, horizontal vortex of pure, kinetic death. The air shrieked as it was displaced by the spinning tal, the sound a rising, terrifying, high-pitched whine, like a jet engine preparing for takeoff. It was a man-made hurricane, a whirlwind of solid, unstoppable, crushing steel.
He looked at the densely packed, quivering mound of slis. They pulsed, their single, collective consciousness perhaps sensing the new, terrifying, screaming threat in the air.
“Now, Fang Fairy,” Lloyd’s voice was a calm command amidst the rising shriek of the spinning chain. “The final ingredient.”
He held the spinning, horizontal vortex of steel steady. And he felt Fang Fairy, who had been watching from a safe distance, channel her power. Not into him. But directly into the spinning chain itself.
A brilliant, azure arc of pure lightning leaped from her outstretched hand and connected with the shimring, spinning vortex of steel. The effect was instantaneous. The entire, massive, spinning chain beca a conductor, erupting in a blinding, crackling, and utterly, comprehensively, terrifying aura of pure, high-voltage lightning.
He had created a super-weapon. A hundred-foot-long, multi-ton, spinning, lightning-wreathed, steel chain of absolute, indiscriminate, and very, very ssy, annihilation.
A slow, cold, and deeply, scientifically, satisfying smile spread across his face beneath his mask. This, he thought, is efficiency.
He took a single step forward, and with a grunt of pure, focused effort, he unleashed his creation. The spinning, lightning-wreathed vortex of death shot forward, not with the piercing speed of the spear, but with the inexorable, all-consuming montum of a tidal wave, directly into the heart of the densely packed, terrified, and about-to-be-comprehensively-liquidated, sli horde.
The result was not a battle. It was an industrial-scale, electrically charged, mulching operation. The grind had just beco beautiful.
The aural assault of the spinning, lightning-wreathed chain of death was a symphony of industrial-scale annihilation. It was a testant to Lloyd’s core strengths: the fusion of his analytical Earth mind with the raw, magical potential of his new world. The strategy was flawless, the execution brutal, and the result… imdiate. The densely packed horde of glistening slis, which had seed like an insurmountable, jiggly ocean of tedious work, was simply erased, mulched into a vast, steaming puddle of bluish goo that slled faintly of ozone and boiled gelatin.
Chapter : 498
For a fleeting, triumphant mont, Lloyd felt the intoxicating rush of a general who has just broken the enemy’s main line with a single, brilliant, overwhelming cavalry charge. A progress notification flashed in his mind, a testant to the sheer efficiency of his new technique. He allowed the massive steel chain, its montum bleeding away, to dissolve back into the latent Void energy within him. The terrifying, high-pitched shriek of spinning tal subsided, leaving a profound, almost ringing, silence in its wake, broken only by the soft, sizzling pops of the evaporating sli puddle.
That, his internal monologue declared with a smug satisfaction, is how you deal with a pest infestation. Work smarter, not harder. He felt a surge of pride, looking at Fang Fairy, whose ethereal form still crackled with a faint, residual aura of azure lightning. They were a perfect team, a fusion of mind and storm, of steel and thunder. This grind, which had seed so daunting, would be over in a matter of hours.
But then, the cost of that single, spectacular attack made itself known.
A wave of profound, bone-deep weariness washed over him, so sudden and so potent it almost made him stumble. His Void reserves, which had felt comfortably full monts before, now felt scraped raw, a dull, aching emptiness at the core of his being. The creation and kinetic animation of a chain that size, imbued with enough power to maintain its integrity while spinning at incredible speeds, had been a massive expenditure.
He glanced at Fang Fairy. The brilliant, almost divine, luminescence of her Transcended form had dimd perceptibly. The crackling lightning aura was gone, replaced by a faint, almost apologetic, shimr. She was panting softly, her golden eyes, while still sharp and loyal, holding a new, deep exhaustion. The amount of raw power she had channeled into the chain, transforming it from a simple kinetic weapon into an electrified instrunt of mass destruction, had drained a significant portion of their shared spiritual energy pool.
Lloyd did a quick, grim ntal calculation. That single attack, which had cleared perhaps three hundred slis, had consud nearly a third of their total combat-ready energy. He could maybe, if he pushed it, execute two more such attacks before they were both completely, utterly, spent.
He looked out across the vast, teeming plains. The patch they had cleared was already being filled, a slow, inexorable tide of bouncing, gurgling blue blobs, moving in from the periphery to fill the empty space. His grand, decisive victory had been against a single, insignificant wave in an endless ocean.
The smug satisfaction curdled into a familiar, frustrating reality. His super-weapon was a cannon that cost a fortune to fire, and he was facing an army of ants that stretched to the horizon. This was not a war he could win with overwhelming force. The initial triumph was an illusion. The grind was not just real; it was the only path forward.
"Well," he muttered to the still air of the Farm, a wry, humorless smile twisting his lips. "So much for the 'work smarter, not harder' approach. It seems we have to work smarter and harder. And for a very, very, long ti."
He looked at Fang Fairy, whose golden eyes t his with a quiet, unwavering understanding. The path is the path, Master, her silent thought was a calm, steadying presence in his own turbulent mind.
He let out a long, weary sigh. "Right. Back to basics, then." He pushed aside the temptation to unleash another glorious, but ultimately unsustainable, whirlwind of death. Efficiency was not about the speed of a single kill; it was about the sustainability of the hunt. They needed a low-cost, repeatable, and deeply, profoundly, monotonous solution.
He returned to the tactic he had first devised, but with a new, grim sense of purpose. This was no longer an experint; this was labor. He extended his will, his B-Rank Steel Blood answering his call, but not with a single, massive chain. He manifested a dozen smaller, thinner chains, each one a swift, silent serpent of gleaming steel. It was less draining, requiring finesse over raw power.
He cast his net. The chains shot out, weaving through the oblivious, bouncing slis, ensnaring a cluster of ten. "Fang Fairy," he commanded, his voice now flat, devoid of its earlier excitent. "Low-level current. As efficiently as possible."
A single, thin tendril of azure lightning leaped from her fingertip, connecting with the steel web. There was a brief, almost pathetic, chorus of sizzling pops, and ten more slis dissolved into goo. A progress bar, stark and unforgiving, appeared in his vision.
[Slis Killed: 310/1000]
The number ticked upward, a tiny, almost insulting, incrent. And so, the true grind began.
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