Traveler of the River of Time and Space-Chapter 541 - 25: Capturing the Empress (1)
A strong sense of crisis suddenly erupted.
Without thinking, Su Ziyu acted on the warning brought by his spirituality and soared directly into the air, flying towards an altitude of ten thousand meters.
So far, his spiritual warnings have never been wrong.
Every time a spiritual warning appears, it signifies the arrival of a huge crisis threatening life.
Almost as Su Ziyu reached an altitude of nearly five thousand meters, a dark cyan light orb suddenly flashed through the sky in the distance. As soon as it touched the ground, a violent explosion occurred. However, unlike the previous orbital strikes, the power of these dark cyan light orb explosions wasn’t as strong as the orbital cannon, but only slightly stronger than ordinary plasma cannon shots. Nonetheless, after it exploded, it immediately spread out a swath of dark cyan spores and dust at a remarkable speed, covering the entire battlefield in the blink of an eye.
In just one or two minutes, the ground before them was dyed a blue-purple color.
Meanwhile, in the Empire’s outer troops, those who weren’t equipped with exoskeleton armor started collapsing in droves, and Edward I in the center of the battlefield was noticeably affected to a certain extent, unleashing a spiritual shockwave that directly scattered these spores in the air.
"Parasite spores detected!..."
"Unknown parasites detected!..."
Just as Su Ziyu slightly lowered his altitude, the alarm from the Space-Time Monitor System immediately appeared.
But all this was just the beginning of the swarm’s attack.
Their target was not only Edward I, who had turned into an ancient abomination, but even the Empire legion soldiers were within their attack range.
Suddenly, about ten kilometers away on a high slope, enormous scorpions with bodies approximately five meters in diameter and covered with thick shells emerged. They raised their black tails, aimed at the distant battlefield, and a ghostly blue glow appeared. The next second, cannonballs emitting blue light were launched one after another.
Boom boom boom!
The Empire’s people and the ancient abomination were enveloped by the swarm’s firepower net, as the sound of violent explosions continued one after another, filling the sight with endless artillery barrages.
"Mechanical centipedes have reached the battlefield."
"Prepare to engage in battle."
Su Ziyu suddenly received a peculiar spiritual communication, different from the last encounter and seemingly much weaker, coming from the swarm, a certain insect race unit hidden within the flesh organs.
It was highly likely to be brain insects within the swarm, independent consciousness units belonging to high-tier entities of the swarm, possessing strong spiritual ability levels.
"Mind control waves of the brain insect detected!..."
"Please take protective measures!..."
Very close to the battlefield, giant jellyfish-like insects arrived, descending in a manner reminiscent of the Empire’s airdrop pods. Upon impact with the ground, a large swarm of insects immediately poured out. Most notable were the enormous beasts, and mechanical centipedes with bodies mirrored in silvery gray, armed with additional artillery turrets with formidable firepower, igniting a sea of fire on the ground as cannonballs were launched.
Mechanical Insect Race.
Previously in the Empire’s underground base, Su Ziyu had seen similar mechanical insect races. Now, they were almost entirely dispatched to battle.
The Empire’s armored units, already heavily damaged, were now completely rendered paralyzed.
The swarm directly took over the battle of the Empire Legion.
After a round of saturated artillery bombardment swept across the entire battlefield, hundreds of thousands of swarms wildly rushed towards the distant ancient abomination, resembling a black tide attempting to engulf it completely.
Buzz.
The alien insects approaching Edward I suddenly stiffened in an instant, then rapidly lost signs of life, turning into hollow husks of flesh.
The radiance of spirituality was directly wiped away.
The soul of the insect race is peculiar, not complete; instead of an independent soul, it’s more an ensemble of individual spirits forming a collective consciousness. Though the enormous spirit body behind the ancient abomination could kill them, compared to the overwhelmingly vast numbers of the swarm, these thousands or tens of thousands of casualties were insignificant.
If several hundred Empire Knights died, it would be considered a devastating blow, but for the swarm, losing tens of thousands was simply an appetizer.
"The insect queen prepares for a mind shockwave!"
"Royal insect ready to land."
"Brain insect targeting locked!... Execute dark energy strike plan!..."
"Self-destructive swarm deploy!"
The swarm’s combat methods were far more efficient than the Empire’s.
Su Ziyu had just lowered his altitude slightly when the dense swarm already descended onto the battlefield.
The mind shockwave from the insect queen swiftly spread, while countless unquantifiable self-destructive insects, akin to a swarm of bees, rushed towards the ancient abomination at sight.
At the start.
They couldn’t even reach in front of the ancient abomination; exterminated in large numbers before even approaching.
```
But then, when the spiritual energy of the ancient horror reached a critical threshold, self-destructive insects from all directions could get within fifty meters of it. They didn’t even need to get completely close; as they approached a certain distance, these insects began to self-destruct crazily, and the intense explosions never stopped for a moment, continuously devastating the enemy’s spiritual protective field.
One self-destructive insect may cause minor damage, but tens of thousands of them bring terrifying destruction.
Finally.
The spiritual protective field of the ancient horror could no longer protect its flesh; a stream of acid descending from the sky hit its arm, and in the sizzling erosion, created a hole in its tattered robe. The spiky flying dragons had reached the battlefield, spraying a torrent of acid mixed with spiritual beams emitted by both the queen insect and the king insect.
Su Ziyu was already having difficulty observing the battlefield at this moment.
Because the figure of the ancient horror had been completely swallowed by the swarm, the sky and ground were filled with the silhouettes of alien insects. Thousands of spiky flying dragons circled above, diving down and spraying a deluge of dark purple acid with their sharp mandibles. It was a complete 360-degree encirclement without any blind spots, leaving Su Ziyu relying only on the light of spirituality to assess the ancient horror’s condition.
Its life force was still quite resilient.
Each strike took away hundreds of alien insects’ lives; the outermost circle of the swarm had piled up tens of thousands of insect race corpses. Flying dragons continuously plummeted from the sky, and even several queen insects were slain. Blood thoroughly permeated the earth, dyeing everything in dark purple.
Unknown fungi were spreading across the ground, gradually forming what seemed like a layer of fleshy fungus carpet-like substance.
"This is truly like many ants biting an elephant to death..." Su Ziyu murmured.
Within the encirclement, the ancient horror couldn’t even move, as it was engulfed by the densely packed alien insects around it.
This was a brutal war of attrition.
Let’s see whether the swarm couldn’t hold, or the ancient horror was drained to death first.
"If I were to throw a Lightning Storm in here, wouldn’t the situation completely turn around?" Su Ziyu couldn’t help but wonder.
Of course, he couldn’t possibly throw a Lightning Storm here.
To him, the ancient horror was the real enemy. No matter what the swarm’s purpose was, if they could indeed kill the ancient horror, all Su Ziyu needed to do was touch the corpse to harvest a considerable amount of source power value, possibly even some divine power.
Nothing was more delightful than fishing in troubled waters and scoring war trophies.
Now.
Su Ziyu was hoping the swarm would win, because he found that the ancient horror still had plenty of stamina; this monster’s spiritual energy value seemed truly inexhaustible.
Boom!
Outside the swarm on the left side of the encirclement, suddenly a large number of alien insect corpses were blasted away, and Su Ziyu saw a blood-red figure emerge from the overwhelming swarm.
She seemed severely injured, and having broken through the encirclement, she immediately headed towards the direction with the least enemies.
The direction where Su Ziyu was, was the one with the least enemies.
His life-preserving abilities were almost maxed out.
"The Empire’s Empress?" Su Ziyu said in surprise, looking at the scepter in the other party’s hand, which was holding up a ghost energy field, protecting the staggering Empress Isabella as she stumbled out.
"She hasn’t died under such terrifying initial fire coverage?"
Watching the blood-red figure about to break through the encirclement, while the swarm began to stir a little, some insect races wanted to intercept her, but soon received orders to return to battling the ancient horror.
Apparently, the ancient horror was their primary target.
Facing the blood-red figure approaching from the distance, Su Ziyu hesitated slightly, then began descending toward the ground.
When she was less than three hundred meters away from him, he suddenly revealed his figure, raising his hand as a lightning bolt shot forth, immediately followed by a burst of spiritual energy. Mental Shock instantly invaded her brain.
—"Mental Control!"
The staggering figure suddenly stiffened and stopped in place, somewhat muddled.
Did it succeed?
Without a second thought, Su Ziyu quickly approached the battlefield, raising his hand for a Heavy Strike on her neck, simultaneously severing her neural connections with spiritual energy. In the next second, the Empress was directly knocked unconscious.
—"Scepter of the Mind [High Tier Legendary]: A scepter from an unknown mysterious civilization, symbolizing kingly power. It significantly strengthens one’s spiritual energy, enhances spiritual energy recovery rate by 100%, increases spiritual ability limit by 30%, constant dark energy protective shield, 3000 energy points, added attributes: spell penetration (spiritual), higher-level spell penetration (spiritual), legendary spell penetration (spiritual), 3 spiritual shockwaves daily (spiritual spellcasting level 8), constant mind reading (spiritual spellcasting level 6), constant mind telepathy (spiritual spellcasting level 5)."
Whoa!
Su Ziyu was immediately taken aback with astonishment as he snatched the scepter from the opponent’s hand.
Pack it up and take it away.
Together with this captive, Su Ziyu hoisted her up and quickly retreated from the battlefield; he still needed to find a way to strip the interstellar armor from this captive.
.........
