novelraw Chapter 410: Counterattack
Chapter 410: Counterattack
The battlefield under the cover of night was the Sickle-Skull Clan’s home ground.
These insect-type creatures possessed perception far superior to vision-reliant species in darkness. Their carapaces barely reflected moonlight, and the sounds of their movement blended perfectly into the ambient noise of battle.
Under normal circumstances, night raids were one of their most proficient tactics.
Although their technology had advanced to the point where day and night made little difference, they still habitually operated under cover of darkness.
When the Sickle-Skull vanguard stealthily approached the perimeter of the wizard camp, what they saw was a tightly defended fortress.
Dense formations of cannon-fodder units of every type patrolled back and forth. In just one day, the camp had transformed into a city of steel, blazing with lights while wizards worked through the night to add new defensive structures.
The perfect moment for an assault.
Hidden in the shadows, the Sickle-Skull commander—a sixth-tier “Tactical Calculator”—watched streams of data flash through its compound eyes, reaching a conclusion that completely contradicted the scene before it.
But it had already “experienced” dozens of similar night raids. It knew what would happen next: in three minutes, the wizards would switch the core formation’s energy source, creating a brief window of vulnerability.
Three minutes passed. At the center of the camp, the massive rune tower flickered. The protective formation over the entire camp pulsed like breathing—brightening and dimming.
The instant the energy fluctuation reached its lowest point… now!
“Interference array, activate!” The Tactical Calculator issued the command through its pheromone network.
Tens of thousands of Sickle-Skull hidden in the ruins simultaneously triggered their devices.
An invisible wave swept across the camp. The energy circuits in mid-switch instantly overloaded. The shields flickered several times, then went dark.
Darkness enveloped the wizard camp.
The Sickle-Skull main force, prepared long in advance, surged in from all directions.
Based on intelligence from dozens of previous loops, ground units easily bypassed various traps and advanced directly. Aerial units suppressed from above, while an elite squad struck straight for the central command headquarters.
Tactics flawless, timing precise, force sufficient.
In the Sickle-Skull commander’s calculation, those creatures called wizards were about to suffer severe losses.
But…
The moment the entire Sickle-Skull army entered within three hundred kilometers of the camp perimeter, the ground suddenly lit up.
A colossal, suffocatingly vast composite formation covered the entire area.
Millions upon millions of runes activated simultaneously. Light erupted skyward, turning the night into day.
The Sickle-Skull commander watched the rising radiance, its heart sinking. The formation wasn’t spreading outward from the camp center—it was converging inward from the perimeter.
It had been prepared long ago, waiting for the enemy to step fully inside—this was a trap!
But… how was this possible?!
The Sickle-Skull charge came to an abrupt halt.
Front-line individuals even collided with each other in their sudden stop, causing brief disorder in the formation.
At the center of the camp, illusions receded like a receding tide.
The so-called “steel camp” vanished. In its place stood the fully prepared wizard legion.
Cannon-fodder units were arrayed in neat formations. Rune turrets’ muzzles were already charged to full. Even the “slow-moving” alchemical constructs now glowed with dangerous red light in their eyes.
In the sky, Lord Frost slowly rose.
The seventh-tier wizard’s robe whipped in the night wind. He overlooked the surrounded Sickle-Skull army below, the corners of his mouth curving into an icy arc.
“It seems these creatures have relied on ‘save-scumming’ for far too long. They’ve even forgotten basic battlefield adaptation.” His voice, amplified by witchcraft, spread across the entire battlefield. “Then allow me to teach you… war is not about following a script.”
“Open fire.”
The order was only two words.
Then, destruction descended.
The first volley from the rune turrets tore apart the Sickle-Skull vanguard.
Carapaces that could withstand fourth-tier witchcraft shattered like paper under the concentrated fire of tens of thousands of turrets specialized in life-disintegration spells.
Once the vanguard—strongest against elemental damage—was annihilated, the other prepared attacks followed in unison.
Energy beams, elemental missiles, arcane shockwaves… every kind of assault wove into a net. Thousands upon thousands of Sickle-Skull turned to fragments every second.
In panic, the Sickle-Skull attempted to counterattack.
Their joint casting arrays began charging. Special individuals unleashed psychic interference. Elite squads tried to break through the firepower net to target the turrets.
But the wizards’ responses… were terrifyingly precise.
Whenever the Sickle-Skull prepared a certain tactic, the corresponding countermeasure was already waiting.
Joint casting arrays had barely begun to activate before being disrupted by anti-energy focusing devices. Psychic interference waves were released, only for the wizards to have already switched to physical command mode. The elite squads’ assault routes led straight into pre-placed minefields.
The gap in raw strength between the two sides had always been considerable. Now, with the intelligence disparity so stark, the nature of the battle had fundamentally changed.
It had become a one-sided slaughter built on absolute intelligence superiority.
Jie Ming hovered on a high observation platform at the rear of the battlefield.
Protected by three layers of energy shields, the position offered a perfect overview of the entire field while remaining safely distant from the front line.
“They really… aren’t holding back at all,” he murmured, watching the utterly one-sided battle in the distance and shaking his head helplessly.
Lord Frost had placed him under “protection.”
He was not allowed to approach the front line again. After all, the value of the object inside him that could resist the time loop already far exceeded the combat power of a single fourth-ring wizard.
Jie Ming had no objections.
He was happy to sit back and relax. No effort required, yet military merits still accumulated—who wouldn’t enjoy that?
His divine sense swept through the Inner Cave Heaven, confirming that all black giants had been recovered.
“Can’t afford to lose any more,” Jie Ming thought.
Every loop, units taken out of the Cave Heaven would never return.
The black giant legion had already shrunk from five thousand in the previous loop to two thousand five hundred in this one. If losses continued, he would truly become a commander without an army.
Of course, he wasn’t truly idle.
Once safety was confirmed, Jie Ming took out a specially prepared recording crystal.
He aimed it toward the battlefield and began recording.
Images of both sides’ combat, energy fluctuations, law disturbances… every perceivable piece of data was captured flawlessly.
“The Sickle-Skull night raid tactics.” Jie Ming mentally named the archive. “Employing feint attacks to lure the enemy combined with main force flank breakthroughs, yet the core still relies on preset time nodes.”
He switched perspectives, focusing on the Sickle-Skull command structure.
The sixth-tier Tactical Calculator was frantically adjusting formations, attempting to break out.
But every adjustment was anticipated and blocked in advance by the wizards.
Confusion began to appear in the data streams within its compound eyes—a clear sign of computational overload.
“As expected, once their tactics are completely seen through, their adaptability drops sharply.” Jie Ming recorded the observation. “The loop gives them ‘foresight,’ but it also strips away their creativity when facing the ‘unknown.’ This is a fatal weakness.”
“But it’s strange. Under normal circumstances, with a mechanism like the loop, they shouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice their own lives to open new paths. Yet the opposite is true. It seems my hypothesis from the previous loop was correct—the loop carries a significant cost for these creatures as well…”
The battle lasted less than an hour.
When the last Sickle-Skull was reduced to ash in the cannon fire, the battlefield suddenly fell silent.
Only the buzzing of overloaded energy and the crackling of flames consuming corpses remained.
The wizard legion’s losses were negligible.
Cannon-fodder units suffered less than five percent casualties. Wizard personnel: zero fatalities.