World Collision - The Tenth - 6
“The match is already over.”
The opponent’s defensive power had been ambiguously high, so breaking through took time. But their offensive power had been even more ambiguous. Who would have thought that even after reaching round ten, they would have no means whatsoever to pierce a tank-type creation as extreme as Shuc-rimmurath?
I had expected Shuc-rimmurath to rampage for a while, take some hits, and get driven off, but instead it spent ten full years running wild and causing chaos without taking a single blow.
That kind of outcome is impossible unless the opponent truly had zero cards left to play.
Maybe I just got lucky. To be fair, the opponent hadn’t been idle. They developed new mysteries, fired off more powerful siege weapons, and tried all sorts of things. They had also fortified the island fortresses more heavily in case they couldn’t finish the job.
But all those attempts would become meaningless. Once the dimensional rift stage began, all five legion commanders could sortie at once.
The opponent’s defensive forces had grown strong enough to repel even Wafflach-Nacha, yet if the five legion commanders simply blockaded them and kept hurling storms into the sea, the enemy would starve to death within a year from food shortages.
“Congratulations on your victory.”
“Already congratulating me?”
“Hmm~ To be honest, I’m not congratulating you sincerely. After all, the opponent might still have some way to turn things around. But judging from the flow of events, it seems there is no reversal method left for them, just as you predicted, Biin-nim. In short, even if Dindinaron-nim somehow slaughters all five legion commanders with a hidden trump card, he will still starve to death within a year.”
“So I’ve judged the match over. All that remains now is the cleanup phase.”
Exactly. The cleanup phase. Since victory was now certain, the task was to avoid mistakes and methodically starve the enemy out with minimal losses.
That was my current objective. The opponent still had some strength left. An unexpected major loss—say, a legion commander dying because of a careless mistake—would be disastrous.
So the key was to apply steady pressure while starving them out.
“Still, it’s a bit disappointing.”
“Ah. Because you couldn’t deploy the Fourth Legion Commander?”
“Yeah. I went to the trouble of making it… In the end, it’s just another white elephant like the old Yogur-tosoth.”
Anyway, it was better if that one never sortied. Its energy consumption was absurdly high. Leaving it in hibernation was the best state for it.
I simply wanted to slowly starve the opponent to death. That was my only wish right now, so I accelerated the perceived time and waited for the dimensional rift to open.
∞
Meanwhile, someone was decelerating perceived time to the minimum while desperately searching for a way out—Dindinaron and the gods under his command.
Since losing was not an option, half of them were sent to manage the world while the other half frantically discussed and held meetings, trying to find a way to overcome or at least endure this crisis.
But no matter how many times they talked, nothing worked. First of all, there was no way to break through Shuc-rimmurath.
To create a creation strong enough to pierce it, they would need to consume god fragments, but how many resources would that require? Investing that many resources would collapse their civilization’s infrastructure, leading to defeat. That was the conclusion.
Everyone clawed at their heads in despair—tentacles, carapaces, whatever body parts their respective species possessed.
Dindinaron, the one who had driven them all toward ruin, thought to himself:
‘It’s all my fault. I made a huge miscalculation. Why didn’t I account for an opponent who would play in such an extremely malformed way? A tank-type creation that extreme isn’t even that hard to imagine!’
Because Dindinaron had always preferred average, orthodox play in games, he had been trapped by his own framework and lost. He should have expected at least one player who would use such unorthodox strategies… and he should have considered that it might be the malformed Meteor Cartel. Why had he attempted something so reckless?
Dindinaron felt self-loathing. Every basis for his judgments had become an excuse after failure.
‘I can’t even get a feel for how to win. First of all, the opponent has no civilization. No civilization means no home base, and no home base means we have to wipe out all their wild creatures to win. But how the hell…’
While agonizing over this, Dindinaron suddenly realized something strange.
“Hmm?”
“Eh?”
“What is it?”
The subordinate gods reacted, thinking he had come up with something. Their expressions remained listless, however, as they held little expectation.
For the first time since gaining so many subordinate gods, Dindinaron summoned his angel.
“Angel? Are you there right now?”
Then an angel appeared—one that, by Dindinaron’s species’ aesthetic standards, was exceptionally handsome, with multiple legs, a long torso, and numerous tentacles.
“Yes. What is the matter?”
Since Dindinaron’s species’ appearance was uncommon from a cosmic perspective, the other subordinate gods stared blankly at him and the angel.
Pointing out someone’s appearance would be rude, and honestly, they were simply born that way—pointing it out would likely just seem absurd rather than racist. While entertaining such foolish thoughts…
“How do we beat that world over there?”
Dindinaron’s angel answered with difficulty.
“Even if you ask me that…”
“No, this isn’t a question of strategy. It’s a question of the rules. In this game, you win by occupying the opponent’s world, right? There might be surviving species after occupation, but still.”
“That is correct.”
“Then what is the current domination status of that world? It doesn’t look like there’s any civilization at all.”
“I cannot answer whether the opponent’s world has a civilization or not.”
“Ah. Right. Let’s assume there’s no civilization. If it’s just a wild region, how exactly are we supposed to defeat their world? They don’t even have a home base. If trees and grass count as ‘being dominated,’ then I wouldn’t lose either.”
Dindinaron’s angel answered simply.
“That is simple. If you hold the power of life and death over the absolute majority of living beings in the opponent’s world, that counts as a state of ‘domination.’”
“What does ‘absolute majority’ mean?”
“Hmm. Bacteria and microorganisms don’t count. Even slightly larger creatures don’t count if they cannot interfere with your terrain or activities at all. For example, if you’ve occupied all the land, you don’t need to hold the power of life and death over fish in the sea.”
“……”
“To put it more precisely, if there is a marine species that has built a palace beneath the sea… then you must go occupy that palace. Because they are still exerting their civilization’s influence from there. However, such entrenched play likely won’t yield high world scores. In that case, when the dimensional fusion stage arrives, the twofold score difference will trigger a ‘defeat judgment.’ The loser may then become a subordinate god of the opponent.”
“……”
“And since the winner has already received a defeat judgment on the opponent, even if the opponent does not ‘enter’ as their subordinate god, they are still considered to be in a cooperative state… and the game continues as normal. In other words, a protection period begins, and they can operate their world as if the collision had ended normally. This measure prevents players from building only a few communities in hard-to-reach places and acting smug.”
“I see. I see…! Understood.”
And then Dindinaron had a flash of insight.
All his experience as a gamer and every bold investment he had made as a businessman flashed through his mind in an instant!
Though it would normally be considered ‘defeat,’ he had found a way to create a situation that could still be called ‘victory’ under the rules!
“Everyone. I have good news. We can win.”
“?!”
“Of course, I mean we can win, not that we will win. More precisely, I’ve found a way to lose with minimal damage.”
“……?”
“Listen carefully. This is a truly insane strategy. But since we’re going to lose if we stay like this anyway, we might as well try it. Now, listen well…”
Dindinaron slowly explained his strategy. Even the subordinate gods were shocked beyond words, and even the angel thought, ‘Wow. That kind of method?’ It was the craziest idea among crazy ideas.
But there was real possibility in it. It was an ultra-high-level strategy that could truly overcome this absurd crisis.
Normally it would be impossible against a civilization, but because the opponent was a madman, this truly ridiculous strategy became viable!
∞
‘Ah~ I’ve won~’
Now all that remained was the cleanup phase. Thinking this, Biin waited for the dimensional rift stage.
Finally, the dimensional passages riddled throughout the enemy world merged into one, expanding into a massive hole that connected Biin’s world to the opponent’s—the dimensional rift.
There were no longer any restrictions on what creations could cross over. No dimensional pressure either.
Twenty-some years later, they would enter the dimensional fusion stage, but the opponent would likely starve to death long before that, and the Dessert Desert would have easily devoured them without issue.
“Alright then, Yogur-tosoth. Sortie and—”
【Yes! I shall depart at once! This Yogur-tosoth shall restore my honor and spread the ruler’s majesty across the world once more!!!】
“Ah. Right.”
Biin felt no excitement whatsoever. This was the same enemy world that Shuc-rimmurath couldn’t even break through. He didn’t believe for a second that they could withstand Yogur-tosoth’s destructive magic.
Now over dozens of meters in diameter, Yogur-tosoth soared through the air with a body of bubbles and tentacles, filled with the will to rampage across the enemy world.
The only thing that slightly bothered him was the ritual the opponent had been preparing before the dimensional rift opened.
But it didn’t matter… No matter what mystery it was, there was a limit to what rituals could accomplish. That was precisely why he was sending Yogur-tosoth as the vanguard.
While Shuc-rimmurath was tougher, if it died, the ecosystem’s recovery would be unmanageable. Yogur-tosoth, on the other hand, could die without immediately dooming the world, even if it caused some trouble.
Besides, Yogur-tosoth had plenty of defensive techniques and would manage to endure any crises that arose.
Biin, his angel, Yogur-tosoth, and even Nyaltartep and Wafflach-Nacha all thought the same.
This fight was already over. No matter how much the enemy struggled, they could never defeat their world.
But they were wrong…
Twitch—! Twitch—! Twitch—!
“Hmm?”
BOOOOOOOOM!
That sound was Yogur-tosoth being struck and slammed from the sky to the ground.
Twitch—! Twitch—! Twitch—!
Twitch—! Twitch—! Twitch—!
Twitch—! Twitch—! Twitch—!
A monstrous creature with multiple legs, a long torso, two large tentacles, and dozens more branching from them—residing in the enemy world.
It resembled Dindinaron’s species yet took the form of a giant from their ancient myths. A bizarre lifeform.
Estimated level 13. Estimated stats over 6 million points. Height over 30 meters.
“Huh?”
Even Biin was flustered. Yogur-tosoth, at best level 12 with 3 million stats, was also flustered. No one remained calm.
“Wait a second, what the hell is that thing. So basically…”
A madman.
Biin realized it. That bastard had sacrificed every species and living being in his world as offerings, sucked up the experience from all 512 god fragments, and created that monster.
Then he had placed the remaining 512 fragments and the remaining lifeforms into a ‘tidal flat’ fragment, birthing an abnormal slime monster modeled after the now-barren tidal flats.
That creature, like Shuc-rimmurath, produced mud spirits inside its body while creating crude intelligent beings that seemed to emphasize, ‘We are dominating this world.’
Biin finally understood the trap in the victory conditions.
“Ah?”
In the end, if you held the power of life and death over every living being in the opponent’s ecosystem and could freely manipulate any part of their world’s terrain, that counted as ‘occupation.’
Normally, worlds had ‘civilizations,’ so even if such a powerful monster appeared and conquered the world, surviving members of the civilization could continue through guerrilla warfare and maintain their civilization, preventing an occupation judgment.
Then such an overwhelmingly powerful creature would eventually die from maintenance costs.
But Biin’s world was different… There was no civilization. If that giant spider-tentacle monster simply slaughtered all of Biin’s dessert legion commanders and killed Abhojuth, it would be over.
Because no matter how vicious the remaining lifeforms were, they would be treated as ‘harmless creatures’ before overwhelming power. In the end, it was the same as the opponent being able to do whatever they wanted with Biin’s world.
Of course, the occupation judgment might not trigger. But unless Biin could kill the enemy’s mud monster—which was even more extremely specialized in durability than Shuc-rimmurath—the occupation judgment wouldn’t trigger either.
If they could hold out for twenty years with the two strongest monsters in the world, the match would simply end in surrender! They had poured every world point into creating these monsters, but did that even matter?
No matter how messed up their world score was, as long as they secured domination over their own world, and if they got lucky and defeated all the monsters in the opponent’s world, they would win via occupation judgment.
“Aaaaaaaaah?!”
“How about that, you rotten anti-intellectualist! You never imagined this kind of method, did you!”
The opponent’s boldness in grinding down their own civilization to fight back because the enemy had none.
Biin blinked. Then he muttered.
“The Fourth Legion Commander turned out pretty well. Sortie immediately.”