signingbooks Chapter 1306 The Opening Melee
Chapter 1306 The Opening Melee
The world profile exudes an unsettling chill.
Lin Yi turned off the light screen, raised his head, and looked at the gray horizon in the distance.
The air of the Beast Continent was filled with an indescribable smell, like the smell of humus fermenting in a humid environment, mixed with a metallic astringency, which made people feel uncomfortable when inhaled.
The number of orcs, humans, and sub-orcs is now small.
Compared to the alien races, the human race in this world is very weak, and their civilization has been almost completely eradicated.
Knowledge of steam, electricity, and other technologies has been largely lost during the long escape. The machines that once powered the factories now rust in the ruins. The technological achievements that humans and orcs were once proud of have been buried layer by layer by the dust of time, and even the memories are almost gone.
The crushing defeat and the sharp decline in population were not the real problems; the truly fatal one was the extinction of civilization.
A civilization of a race is not built in a day; it is accumulated little by little over countless generations.
Each generation builds upon the work of their predecessors, taking a small step forward, and the next generation takes another small step forward. This process repeats itself for thousands of years, until we move from ignorance to enlightenment, from primitiveness to civilization.
When civilization is interrupted, knowledge and memory are disrupted.
If a race fails to inherit the achievements of its predecessors for several generations, its civilization will collapse layer by layer, like a building whose bricks have been removed from the bottom, until only the faint traces of the foundation remain.
The aliens are an intelligent race that has been sleeping in the Earth's core.
When the human and orc populations and technology reach a certain level, the alien species awakens from its slumber, arrives on the surface, and reduces the number of orcs and humans, but does not completely exterminate them, because the alien species needs life energy.
Different species are not wild beasts; they have their own social structure, their own hierarchy, and their own strategies and tactics.
They knew that if they killed all the creatures on the ground, they would lose their food source.
So they have always been in control, controlling the scale of ground life like a farmer controls the crops in a field.
Harvest a batch when it grows to a certain size, leave some for seed, and harvest it again when the next crop grows.
This cycle repeated itself for countless epochs.
Many eras ago, this continent was the territory of the beast race, which is why it was called the Continent of Ten Thousand Beasts.
However, the beastmen were later wiped out because their extraordinary abilities threatened the alien species.
The extraordinary abilities of the beastmen are not something they cultivate later; they are innate talents etched into their bloodline, accompanying them from the moment they are born.
Those abilities are particularly effective against alien species, capable of tearing cracks in their shells and triggering energy tremors within their bodies, allowing monsters that have slumbered underground for countless years to feel long-lost pain.
The aliens would not allow such a threat to exist, so the orcs were wiped out.
With almost no life left on the ground, the alien races knew that things couldn't continue like this, so they chose to slumber, waiting for the next civilization to rise again.
The alien species have a very long lifespan, so long that the history of human civilization is but a fleeting moment in their eyes.
They can wait, wait for lush vegetation to grow back on the ground, wait for the air to be filled with the breath of life again, wait for the races they have wiped out to reproduce and thrive once more.
Then they will awaken again, harvest again, and fall asleep again.
This is their way of surviving, a method that has been repeated for countless ages and has never changed.
As Lin Yi looked at these lines of description, a clear image appeared in his mind.
The alien species allowed humans and orcs to develop freely until they reached a certain point, at which point they eliminated more than 90% of them. Then they began to curb the development of humans and orcs to prevent their rule from being threatened and to ensure that they had prey.
This is not predation, this is aquaculture.
The alien species treated the entire continent as a giant farm, and all the breathing creatures on the ground as livestock kept in enclosures.
They don't need to tear down the fences or kill all the livestock. They just need to open the gate when the livestock are fat enough, go in, pick out a few of the fattest ones to slaughter, and keep the rest to continue raising.
This model has been running for countless epochs, and it is stable, efficient, and virtually risk-free.
But the current situation is that the alien species have gone a bit too far.
The appearance of the sub-beastmen, to some extent, is enough to threaten the alien species.
Subhumans are the offspring of humans and orcs, combining the advantages of both races. They are physically stronger than pure-blooded orcs, more creative than pure-blooded humans, and their extraordinary abilities far surpass those of both their parents.
More importantly, the leadership of the sub-orcs was something the alien races had never faced before.
The first orc was not just a warrior; he was a strategist, a diplomat, and a leader who could unite scattered tribes into a cohesive whole.
He sowed discord among the alien species, exploiting their internal conflicts to create divisions, causing those monsters who were originally united to begin to distrust and attack each other.
The alien species are not a monolithic entity. When they slumber underground, the boundaries between them are clear, and they do not invade each other's territories.
But once on the ground, faced with limited resources and vast space, those contradictions that had been dormant began to erupt.
Some alien species want to conquer more territory, some want to obtain more life energy, and some want to strive for a higher status within their race.
The first generation of sub-orcs exploited these contradictions, spreading rumors, creating misunderstandings, and provoking disputes among the different species, causing the monsters who could have joined forces to wipe out the ground resistance to waste their energy on infighting.
The situation on the Beast Continent has turned people's heads into dogs' heads.
The alien species attack the territories of humans, orcs, and sub-orcs, while the alien species are also engaged in internal wars.
The ones that fly in the sky are aliens, the ones that run on the ground are aliens, and the ones that emerge from underground are also aliens.
Human and orc cities were destroyed one after another, and survivors huddled like rats in the cracks of the ruins, trembling in the darkness.
The tribes of the orcs are scattered across the continent, like isolated islands surrounded by a vast ocean of alien species. Every day, tribes are breached, and every day, people die.
The interspecies civil war was equally brutal. Different groups of interspecies fought each other on the plains, in the valleys, and along the banks of rivers. Their blood seeped into the soil, making the land, which was already unsuitable for cultivation, even more barren.
Lin Yi withdrew his gaze, squatted down, and pinched a clump of soil from his feet, rubbing it between his fingertips.
The soil has a very fine texture with gaps between the particles, but it is too light in color and lacks organic matter; it is a barren sandy loam.
He flicked the dirt off his fingers, stood up, and looked around.
The wasteland in this area is quite large, and as far as the eye can see, it is all grayish-yellow sand, with a few scattered clumps of unidentifiable shrubs in the distance.
Just as Lin Yi was pondering where to go, several contractors from the Paradise of Reincarnation suddenly approached him.
The leader was a tall man wearing a dark leather armor with several old knife marks on it, and the scabbard of the short sword at his waist was badly worn.
He walked up to Lin Yi and stopped, lowered his voice and said "doctor," then fell silent.
The other dozen or so people stood behind him, forming a semi-circular defensive formation with Lin Yi at the center.
Lin Yi glanced at them but didn't ask why they had come closer.
On the battlefield, support roles are the core of the team. Protecting the core is everyone's instinct, requiring no explanation or command.
His senses immediately spread outwards, touching the shadows hidden at the edge of the wasteland.
As expected, they were surrounded by dozens of contractors.
Lin Yi's perception swept quickly across those auras, and he counted the exact number of people.
The enemy outnumbered them by more than ten, and they were arranged in an irregular circular formation, surrounding Lin Yi and the dozen or so Reincarnation Paradise Contractors from all directions of the wasteland.
Lin Yi was extremely unlucky this time. The coordinates of their landing overlapped with those of the main force of Holy Light Paradise, which meant that Lin Yi and the dozen or so contractors around him had essentially fallen into the enemy's territory.
The main force of Holy Light Paradise numbered at least 150 people, distributed in all directions of the wasteland, forming a layered encirclement.
The innermost layer consists of melee classes, responsible for engaging enemies head-on and controlling them; the middle layer consists of control classes, responsible for restricting the opponent's movement and skill usage; and the outermost layer consists of ranged classes, responsible for dealing damage from a safe distance.
This is a standard multi-layered encirclement tactic. Once the formation is closed, those inside the circle will need to break through at least three layers of defense to break out.
Lin Yi didn't waste any more words, and a halo of light appeared on the ground beneath his feet.
The bodies of the dozen or so contractors around them trembled simultaneously the moment the halo descended. The tremor was not out of fear, but rather an instinctive reaction to the sudden influx of a large amount of buff energy.
Once their bodies adapted to the buffs, the expressions on everyone's faces changed.
They stared at each other in bewilderment as the buff effects on the Reincarnation Paradise panel kept refreshing. Dozens of buff statuses formed a long list on the panel, ranging from attribute bonuses to skill enhancements, from status resistance to recovery speed, from attack effects to defense bonuses, covering almost every type of buff imaginable.
They couldn't even understand the effects of some buffs, not because the descriptions were complicated, but because the benefits were beyond their comprehension. They had never received so many layers of buffs simultaneously in actual combat.
The tall man at the head of the group twitched his lips. He had been in the Paradise of Reincarnation for so many years and had seen support classes before, but he had never seen a support class of this level.
The next second, the large group from Holy Light Paradise appeared in Lin Yi's line of sight.
The contractors who had been hiding behind bushes and in the shadows at the edge of the wasteland emerged from their hiding places, no longer concealing their presence.
More than 150 people approached Lin Yi and his group from three directions simultaneously, their steps in unison and their formation tight, like a carefully tuned machine slowly running.
The melee classes at the front held up their shields, with gaps less than a hand's width between them, forming an almost insurmountable iron wall.
Behind the shield were control classes, and in the back row were ranged classes. The bowstrings were drawn, and energy was gathering at the tip of the staff, aiming at every possible dodge direction for Lin Yi and the others.
It's clear that the people from Holy Light Paradise intend to completely annihilate Lin Yi here.
One hundred and fifty people against a dozen or so, a tenfold numerical advantage, coupled with a complete encirclement formation and ample pre-battle preparations, would indeed have been a one-sided battle for any other contractor from the amusement park.
A single volley from 150 ranged classes can turn an area containing a dozen or so people into a sea of fire, while the shield formation of melee classes will cause any attempt to break out to hit an iron wall.
But Lin Yi didn't want to get entangled with these guys here.
He took out a signal flare from his storage space and fired it overhead.
A blinding red light shot out from the tail of the signal flare, leaving a long, thin trail as it shot straight into the sky.
The trail drew a striking red line across the gray sky, like a red sword piercing the heavens.
The signal flare exploded below the clouds, and the blood-red light burst into a huge φ-shaped symbol in the sky. The symbol was particularly eye-catching against the backdrop of the clouds and could be clearly seen even from tens of kilometers away.
This is the gathering signal of the Paradise of Reincarnation. All contractors of the Paradise of Reincarnation who see this symbol will move in this direction.
Lin Yi doesn't need to fight these people head-on; he just needs to hold out until reinforcements arrive.
When the contractors around Lin Yi saw the buff Lin Yi released, they had only one thought in their minds—to rush up and kill them all.
Dozens of shadowy tentacles shot out from the shadow of the tall man at the head of the group. The tentacles moved at an astonishing speed, leaving black afterimages in the air, and instantly traversed the distance of dozens of meters between Lin Yi and the front line of Holy Light Paradise.
Those tentacles are not physical entities, but are formed from pure energy, and cannot be blocked by physical attacks.
They wrapped around the ankles of the front-line shield warriors, slipped through the gaps in the shields, strangled their wrists, and coiled around their necks.
The shield warriors lost their balance the moment they were entangled by the tentacles, their shields slipping from their hands and crashing to the ground with a dull thud.
Some tried to cut off the tentacles with weapons, but the blades passed through them without any resistance, as if cutting through air, while the tentacles remained firmly wrapped around them, tightening their grip.
Another contractor from the Paradise of Reincarnation rushed out from the side. His body gradually became transparent as he ran, transforming from a solid flesh and blood body into a blurry afterimage.
He charged into the flank of the front line of Holy Light Paradise, weaving among the shield warriors entangled by tentacles. He held a short knife in his right hand, the blade slicing across the neck of one of the shield warriors, a line of blood appearing below the man's Adam's apple before starting to seep out a few seconds later.
Without stopping, he lightly touched the ground with his foot, turned his body towards another shield warrior, and thrust his short sword under the enemy's armpit, precisely piercing the enemy's heart.
After the contractors of the Reincarnation Paradise had killed more than a dozen people, the contractors of the Holy Light Paradise finally reacted.
Those control-type classes unleashed their binding skills at the same time, and golden chains of light shot towards the assassin who was weaving through the crowd from all directions.
The light chain was very fast and its angle was tricky, blocking all his possible evasion routes.
But just a second before the light chain touched him, the assassin's body suddenly split into five, and the five identical figures rushed in five different directions. The light chain only hit the afterimages left in the air.
This is not a clone ability, but a visual illusion he creates by using light refraction while moving at high speed. The light chains are chasing the image he leaves in the air, not him.
At the same time, the ranged classes from the Paradise of Reincarnation made their move.
A woman in a magic robe stood beside Lin Yi, and lightning shot out from her palm, not towards the crowd in Holy Light Paradise, but towards the sky.
Lightning exploded in the clouds, transforming into hundreds of tiny arcs of electricity that poured down from the sky, each arc striking precisely the back row ranged classes of Holy Light Paradise.
Those mages who were chanting spells were struck by the electric arcs and their bodies stiffened. Their staffs flew out of their hands, and the spells they were halfway through were backfired on. Some were even blown to pieces by their own spells.
The archers instinctively jumped backward the instant the electric arc struck, but the arc was much faster than them. Several thick arcs of electricity struck the chests of the first few archers. Their bodies twitched a few times in mid-air, and then fell to the ground like puppets with broken strings, motionless.
The moment the two sides collided, the people of Holy Light Paradise suffered heavy casualties.
Dozens of unprepared contractors were instantly decapitated; some didn't even have time to draw their weapons before their throats were slit.
Those ranged classes on the outermost edge of the encirclement were the first to be attacked. They thought their positions were safe enough and that Lin Yi and the others' attacks couldn't reach them. But the contractors of the Samsara Paradise showed them with their actions that in the Samsara Paradise's combat philosophy, there was no concept of safe distance.
A contractor from the Paradise of Reincarnation, wielding a two-handed greatsword, burst out from the shadows behind the Holy Light Paradise. No one knew when he had circled around to the back.
The greatsword in his hands was like a weightless wooden stick; with each swing, a head flew off.
His fighting style has no fancy techniques; it's just pure violence.
The greatsword struck the shield, sending the shield and the arm holding it flying.
Under his attack, the formation of Holy Light Paradise began to loosen. Gaps appeared in the originally neatly arranged shield walls, and the ranged classes that had maintained their formation began to scatter to both sides.
A Reincarnation Paradise contractor was slashed in the chest by a melee class from Holy Light Paradise. The blade sliced through his leather armor, cut through his skin and muscles, and left a deep gash on his sternum.
He staggered back two steps, blood gushing from the wound and flowing down his clothes.
But in less than three seconds, the wound on his chest began to heal.
Lin Yi's healing spells were no joke. He glanced down at the rapidly healing scar on his chest, grinned, and then raised his weapon again to pounce.
Another contractor from the Samsara Paradise was shot in the shoulder by a ranged arrow. The arrow pierced through the scapula and the arrowhead emerged from the back, with drops of blood dripping down the shaft.
Without even flinching, he reached out, grabbed the arrow shaft, pulled hard, and threw the arrow to the ground.
The moment the arrow was pulled out, a stream of dark red blood gushed from the wound, but the bleeding quickly stopped. New granulation tissue grew wildly inside the wound, filling the cavity and covering the skin, leaving a coin-sized pink scar on the shoulder within seconds.
He moved his shoulders to make sure his arm movements were not affected.
Upon witnessing this scene, the contractors of Holy Light Paradise changed their expressions from confidence to astonishment, and from astonishment to fear.
These contractors in the Paradise of Reincarnation don't seem to be fighting at all; they're more like a pack of mad dogs on stimulants, completely disregarding their own lives.
A female mage from the Holy Light Paradise finally broke down when she saw the Reincarnation Paradise contractor she had shot with fire arrows three times in a row get back up every few seconds.
Her staff fell to the ground, her legs gave way and she collapsed to the floor, tears streaming down her face as she murmured, "Impossible, impossible, impossible."
Her teammates dragged her up from the ground and pulled her backward, but her legs were completely unresponsive, and she hung in her teammates' arms like a lump of mud.
Her teammates had no time to comfort her, as more Contractors of the Reincarnation Paradise were pouring in from all directions.
It must be said that although the sixth-tier contractors of Holy Light Paradise understood their situation, they were still unprepared for a fight to the death right from the start.
The training system of Holy Light Paradise emphasizes teamwork and tactical coordination from the lower levels. Their combat habits are to output damage from a safe distance, using formations and coordination to make up for the lack of individual combat power.
This tactic is indeed effective when facing contractors from other parks, because contractors from other parks are self-preserving in battle, will retreat after being injured, and will look for opportunities when at a disadvantage.
But the contractors in the Paradise of Reincarnation are different; they have no sense of self-preservation, only the instinct to kill.
Injuries won't make them back down; they'll only make them more frenzied.
Disadvantages don't frighten them; they only excite them more.
They didn't care whether they would die or not; they only cared about how many enemies they could kill before they died.
This fighting style is not something that can be trained; it is an instinct honed through countless life-or-death battles.
Every contractor in the Reincarnation Paradise who can climb from the lowest level to the sixth level has crawled out of mountains of corpses and seas of blood.
They have been injured countless times, bled countless times, and teetered on the brink of death countless times.
Therefore, unless the contractors from Holy Light Paradise unleash their ultimate attacks to overwhelm the enemy, it's very easy for them to be outnumbered in this situation. (End of Chapter)