World Collision - The Eleventh - 2
In truth, Umjeory's creatures, which were little more than a living plague farm, posed no real problem.
Of course, the plague was spreading among my own life forms too. Thanks to the ones I'd sent through the dimensional gate, it was rampaging like crazy, and quite a few creatures had already begun showing signs of infection. But... that alone wouldn't bring my world to an end.
To put it simply, it was impossible to wipe out an opposing world with an infectious disease.
"Oh. Is that so?"
Exactly. A plague apocalypse is no easy feat. That's why I hadn't rushed to evolve one in the first place.
There were several reasons.
First, infectious diseases naturally evolve toward lower lethality. If the host dies, the disease can't spread anymore. No reproduction without transmission. There is no such thing as a disease with 100% fatality and infinite contagiousness.
The countless plagues that once swept across Earth started by slaughtering people outright, but over time they mellowed out... shifting toward lower lethality and wider transmission. The exception would be malaria. Since it's spread by mosquitoes, its lethality never really drops.
Second, diseases often turn out to be extremely toxic only to specific creatures. Swine fever, avian flu. They're powerful enough to wipe out an entire species... yet Homo sapiens remains completely unaffected?
It's because the human gene pool is so narrow that epidemics hit us so hard. With a broader gene pool, even within the same species, some individuals will die from the same illness while others remain perfectly fine.
The same principle applied to the creatures in my ecosystem. Some plagues affected the life forms of the Dessert Desert, while others didn't touch them at all. Some could be endured, others only targeted specific species... Overall, it wasn't as bad as it seemed.
Third, my immune system was surprisingly excellent. I'd always assumed someone would eventually resort to biological terrorism, so I'd created various bacteria in advance and imported infected creatures from other worlds. As a result, I'd built up a decent immune framework within the Dessert Desert.
The life forms there resisted biological threats in a very simple way: through Syrup. This fusion of Gel and Topping was basically the all-purpose life form of my world. It coexisted with the Dessert Legion at the level of mitochondria or chloroplasts.
The evolved Syrup provided the creatures of the Dessert Desert with their own resistance to mystical forces and the ability to harness them, while also eliminating pathogens and parasites inside their bodies.
Parasites that managed to resist would carry other Syrups within them, becoming secret ingredients that made the Dessert Legion even more delicious as they burrowed deeper. Still, any half-baked disease got completely cut off at the Syrup immune system.
In that sense, the plague the enemy world was spreading into mine was the 'real deal'... A truly virulent strain that even the Syrup immune system couldn't handle, one that exploited every biological weakness. He'd probably invested several traits into it.
But I had traits too. The hero trait I'd picked up during the previous collision, Acquired Trait Acquisition, which had been useless because the opponent was too weak. It allowed a species to acquire one naturally inheritable trait once per species. That alone could block about half of any plague.
Even though this was a complex, multi-layered epidemic, it would probably kill around 75% of the Dessert Desert's creatures by population and drive about 50% of its species to extinction.
The numbers looked bad on paper, but even if that happened, the population would recover within a decade or two. The survivors would diversify into even more species, eventually forming an overwhelmingly powerful legion that coexisted with the plague, devoured the enemy's ecosystem, and spread the disease to future collision opponents.
The real problem was whether I'd even get a next collision.
Of course, I might still win... If I just held out until the dimensional fusion phase, I could win on points.
But winning that way would disrupt the momentum of the Meteor Cartel, the group that had climbed the ranks by annihilating every single opponent.
More importantly, it would ruin the anti-civilization, anti-intellectual build I was cultivating. Even if the opponent who became my subordinate god worked hard to develop a demon civilization, the rules would still count it as increasing my contribution score, so there'd be no downside for me.
If that happened, my world would eventually be dominated by demon races based on disease and curses, and the Dessert Desert would be reduced to nothing more than a resource farm supplying them.
That wouldn't be 'me' winning. It would just be my subordinate god's strategy taking over. At that point, I'd have failed. I'd have to drop out at round twelve.
Therefore, I had to attack. Not a passive strategy of holding out until dimensional fusion and forcing a surrender, but one that would thoroughly crush the enemy.
The problem was... I had no idea how.
It wasn't that it seemed difficult or hard. I simply didn't know.
Just how the hell was I supposed to take down that world?
∞
Meanwhile, Umjeory, who had been certain of victory at first, quickly realized the situation wasn't nearly as favorable as he'd thought.
"The opposing world... isn't it abnormally vast?"
It was far too wide. He suspected the enemy had one of the mythic-grade traits that expanded territory. Expanding unclaimed land to that degree should have been impossible.
"At first I thought simply spreading the plague would be enough to win, but with this much space, it's going to be troublesome. Even if the plague kills a lot, most will probably survive."
As someone who had majored in biology, he knew that an ecosystem this enormous could not be toppled by disease alone.
It would certainly inflict devastating damage, but the world would recover on its own. Worse, the enemy might even overwhelm him purely on points.
"Hmm... The spiritual realm constructed in the opposing world is also incredibly large and magnificent. It looks like he received advice from that player called Sesaisa and built it."
Umjeory guessed that Biin's score was more than double his own. His own world's total was around twenty million points, so the actual gap was slightly worse than predicted.
That meant if Umjeory did nothing, he would lose by a two-to-one difference in victory points. Of course, even then he would surrender and become a subordinate god, which wasn't bad, but...
The Meteor Cartel were madmen who annihilated every opponent they faced. There was no telling what they might do. They might force him out in the next round, or he might even end up committing suicide.
He couldn't understand the thought process of lunatics. Still, Umjeory had at least confirmed that he 'wouldn't lose.'
There were almost no entities in the enemy world that had entrusted their existence to —in other words, very few spiritual bodies. Since his own main base was unlikely to take damage, he probably wouldn't lose under normal circumstances.
Therefore, rather than being satisfied with that, he would aim for victory. If he could absorb the opponent's ecosystem, he could create a truly colossal and magnificent plague ranch.
Umjeory's task was simple: 'How can I completely destroy Biin's ecosystem?'
Both sides had arrived at the same keyword.
Attack! Nothing but attack!
There was no need to worry about defense. Biin's scale was powerful enough to recover from any beating, and Umjeory appeared completely safe from attack.
Falling into a defensive position would essentially mean defeat. Therefore, the only path to victory was to launch an all-out offensive and crush the enemy world.
Biin, with his limited means of attack.
Umjeory, lacking in overall scale.
In the end, Umjeory seemed to have the advantage over Biin, who couldn't even figure out how to attack.
∞
Dimensional Gate phase. For the first time in eleven world collisions, Biin took a passive stance, sending only small reconnaissance forces instead of actively deploying creatures into the enemy world.
This alone put him at a disadvantage, but there was no helping it. Sending anything into Umjeory's world right now would just result in them catching the plague and dying. The key was to evolve them generation by generation, gradually building powerful disease resistance, then sending them in small numbers to scout.
And so Biin gained a rough understanding of the enemy world's structure.
"Mostly hilly terrain, somewhat murky water, but lush forests... It feels like Manchuria with a bit more Northern Europe mixed in? Most of it has been cultivated, but they've preserved quite a lot of nature so creatures can live there."
There were no cities built by civilized beings on the surface. Every single one was a 'stacked' livestock farm.
The demon patrols wandering those places killed his scouting Gamchi and candy creatures with curses and pain, but Biin trusted in his superior scale and kept sending life forms to search for weaknesses.
"Looking at the big picture, Umjeory's world consists of three parts. First, the wilderness. Second, the livestock farms. Third, the constructs. The wilderness is exactly what it sounds like. The livestock farms are places where 'stacked' livestock suffer endless torment. The constructs seem to be gateways leading to the spiritual realm where their main base is located... It appears they've built their civilization and cities in the spiritual flow realm rather than the material plane. After analyzing it, I believe it's the Great Phantasm. A truly difficult place to attack."
That much was easy to understand. Spirit civilizations needed some kind of medium to anchor themselves to the material plane, and those constructs served exactly that purpose.
The materials seemed to have been mined from god fragments. There was a special holy site that produced substances connecting the world of dreams to reality, and that served as their 'main base' in the material plane.
The terrain level of that main base was a staggering 15. He'd developed it to an abnormal degree, comparable to Biin's Nectar Well. The defenses there were so thorough that even if he sent Yogur-tosoth, Chaltteoggua, and Wafflach-Nacha together, he doubted they could break through.
So attacking the main base directly was off the table for now. While familiarizing himself with the enemy world's structure, Biin pondered ways to kill the plague-ridden beasts and livestock. Since they were living creatures, there had to be a biological way to kill them... or so he thought.
On the other hand, Umjeory had no need for such worries.
"Push! Keep pushing! Bestow plague, pain, curses, and madness upon every single life form in the enemy world!"
The great monsters, beasts, and civilized species from previous worlds, now possessed by demons, crossed over into the Dessert Desert thinking that any hell would be better than the torment of their own world.
When demons possessed them, the diseases were driven out and their pain lessened slightly. That alone was an improvement. They hated lives 'worse than death' so much that they gladly threw themselves into the Dessert Desert in hopes of dying.
And so they madly poured out their mystery, attacking and devouring every life form in sight while spreading plague, curses, madness, poisonous mists, and everything else. The only mystical categories they hadn't learned for weakening enemies were and types.
Their immediate goal was reconnaissance. But they were also thoroughly prepared for total destruction. They crossed through the dimensional gate and unleashed indiscriminate germ and chemical warfare against the grotesque creatures scattered across the grasslands, sweeping them away.
Biin usually preferred to take most attacks head-on, trusting in his superior scale for better odds, but this was different. The current situation was Biin getting unilaterally beaten down. It had to be stopped in advance.
The native Sugar Lumps, Gamchi, and other powerful evil species of the Dessert Desert stepped forward to resist, but the demon monsters sent by the enemy were the world's finest elites. Since Umjeory was pouring everything he had into the dimensional gate phase to seize even the slightest early advantage, the battles were quite evenly matched.
"Kill! Kill! Kill!"
The Sugar Lumps shouted. The political trait Territory Protection, meant for focusing on defense, and the Expulsion Policy that expelled even members of their own species when insufficient, had the side effect of greatly increasing their rejection of other races.
The Dessert Legion, which had raised its stat quite high and chosen many military traits, saw even its wild animals form alliances and resist external life forms with extreme ferocity.
The problem was that Umjeory's soldiers were monsters that only suffered pain but never died. The Life is Pain trait made it 'absolutely' impossible to kill creatures through physical damage.
For Biin, who could inflict almost nothing but physical damage, this was an extremely frustrating situation. To make matters worse, the monsters were 'stacked' thanks to the Material Stacking trait.
It was a rather strange ability. When stacked, they distributed damage equal to the number of layers, but when attacking, they multiplied the damage dealt. A very bizarre trait.
Biin's own traits, Deity-World Oneness and World Shaping, provided powerful internal bonuses but didn't directly increase combat strength.
In reality, the Dessert Legion wasn't losing in combat power, but the enemy demon monsters immediately extracted the pain their creatures suffered and used it as a resource for their mystery. The exchange rate of the battle was completely off.
"Goddamn it."
Biin couldn't help but curse. He'd known the opponent was strong, but not this strong.
But Umjeory wasn't in a good position either. His monster legion had starved to death within days because they couldn't consume any of the Dessert Legion's life forms at all.
Naturally, the elite demons possessing them lost their bodies and wandered until they barely managed to possess the next wave of reinforcements, narrowly avoiding annihilation.
"What! The enemy life forms are poisonous too?"
Then how were they supposed to resupply?
Demon monsters that wouldn't die no matter how much you beat them versus a Dessert Legion that couldn't be eaten even if you killed them.
In a situation where they had to attack to win, both sides that had gone on the offensive found themselves blocked by their existing systems. And so the dimensional gate phase began.