The Eleventh Collision: Rebellion from Famine

My main plan hasn't changed one bit from before or now. It's to starve the opponent to death.

Umjeory's species are demons that extract negative emotions and pain from living creatures to turn them into food and resources. In that case, I simply need to kill every last living creature.

The method for killing those creatures? Just starve them to death.

Like Nyaltartep said, in about twenty-five years I'll be able to create super weeds that integrate into their ecosystem. If I use those to wipe out the livestock feed, leave the monsters with nothing to eat, and starve them out, the demons will starve right along with them.

The enemy seems immune to physical damage, so I'm assuming they possess the Life is Pain trait. It only blocks physical damage, after all.

In short, if you hit them with an attack that should sever an arm, the body simply refuses to be cut. Not even a scratch appears.

The physical trauma is converted into mental pain, forcing them to endure unimaginable agony.

If the pain grows severe enough, their minds collapse and they die. In other words, it's a trait that deals damage to Mental instead of Stamina.

But what if you drop them in water? They die. Why? Because they can't breathe. That isn't physical damage.

It does prevent death by disease, though. Disease usually kills by damaging ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠organs, but since the organs don't get damaged, that route is blocked.

Still, it depends on the illness. If it's not organ destruction but something like a specific organ shutting down or overproducing substances, they can still die.

For diseases their own trait can't block, Umjeory seems to mobilize herbs and medicine to half-treat them and suppress the aftereffects.

Anyway. The conclusion is that my main plan still works against those bastards. The only difference is that I have to endure until at least the minimum dimension fusion stage, then spread the weeds thoroughly once I reach it. So it just takes a ridiculously long time.

I'm funneling resources to Nyaltartep, but since I need to hold out for the long haul anyway, I gave even more to Yogur-tosoth.

If the enemy attacks right now and destroys the Nectar Well and Creamland, there really will be no answer from that point on.

Even the areas that used to be forest and grassland seem to have collapsed under the plague and turned into desert. The swamps are rotting, the Nectar Well is murky. The only things still thriving are corpse-eating creatures and the wriggling syrups that flow between them.

Syrups reeking of decay squirm across my world. Shuc-rimmurath drinks the stuff, recovers the corpses however she can, and scatters creatures resistant to disease.

We're still in a state of total annihilation. If they open a passage now and the enemy's demon legions pour in, we'll simply wither and die without being able to lift a finger.

So... defense it is for now. Attack might shake the enemy more than defense, but at this moment I have no choice but to grit my teeth and endure, trusting only in Yogur-tosoth and the dairy forces of the Milky Way.

But there's one question nagging at me.

Why aren't they attacking? Shouldn't they have reorganized by now and come charging in?

Biin watched the enemy miss their attack window by a long shot and thought, They must be preparing something huge... while sending out scouts and observing carefully. In truth, there was no need to worry so much.

The reason Umjeory couldn't attack had nothing to do with strategy.

A demon who visited the pain distribution center flew into a rage upon receiving a sack that wasn't even half full of the spiritually manufactured resource.

The clerk narrowed his eyes (a gesture that, to human standards, carried that meaning) and answered the enraged demon politely.

Demon society was no different from human society. When people can't eat, reason collapses.

Especially when it isn't personal greed but their family starving, their minds snap. No civilization, culture, or society is exempt. They only endured because it was the god's command, but that fury simply turned in another direction.

In a way, Umjeory's excellent evacuation efforts had backfired. Of course he couldn't just let the capital's precious manpower die, but could the residents of the Second and Third Cities accept that?

On top of that, rumors mixed with fragments of truth began to spread.

If the capital was the center of culture and politics, the Second City was the center of military and the Third City the center of industry. In other words, while nobles and the wealthy lived in the capital, soldiers gathered in the Second City and laborers in the Third.

Umjeory had originally poured more resources into the capital under the pretext of investing in culture and politics. Even after the capital was completely overrun, he couldn't let them devolve into barbarians without culture, so he had given them slightly larger rations. To the residents of the Second and Third Cities, that was pure rage fuel.

Sudden anti-government, anti-system protests had begun!

From Umjeory's perspective, his insides were turning over. After feeding them their fill all this time, the moment they went a little hungry their reason completely shut down and they started rioting...

But it was inevitable. Those who are usually well-fed don't develop resistance to hunger. On the contrary, even a short period of starvation hits them harder.

He couldn't starve the residents when resources existed, yet the social and political system his regime possessed had broken down under the pressure of the world collision.

Umjeory had to consider himself lucky that a full riot hadn't broken out. Objectively speaking, his regime was quite backward.

The eighth opponent, Ogolraeot.

The ninth opponent, Mitomok.

The tenth opponent, Dindinaron.

All three had ruled using proxies rather than a theocracy where the god decided everything. Why? To avoid exactly this kind of problem.

Commoners will blame the king even if it only rains. If a god rules directly, they must endure being blamed when problems arise.

This was the most vulnerable moment for the Dessert Desert. If he pushed in with the demon legions now, he could at least break the Dessert Legion's momentum until the dimension rift. Yet Umjeory was forced to stop in order to suppress the internal protests.

The Dessert Desert's system was anarchic survival-of-the-fittest anyway, so no matter what disaster struck they simply thought, As expected of the Dessert Desert. Even though the so-called god has reached this state, he doesn't give a damn about us. Biin's ecosystem didn't suffer from this problem.

This issue had bought Biin priceless time to reorganize.

When the attack window passed one year and entered the second year, he became certain.

Those guys must have run into some massive internal problem.

"I don't know the exact reason, but it seems the enemy world has circumstances that prevent them from attacking?"

He had been nervous they might pull off one huge strike, but too much time had passed. By now his side had finished all preparations and recovery was quite advanced.

He didn't know how big a move they were planning, but in the current situation even a fairly large strike probably wouldn't cause any real problems for his ecosystem.

"That does seem likely. Lord Biin. Then what will you do now?"

There were about nine years? Ten years? left in the dimension passage period. It was a bit ambiguous. During this time when both sides ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠could move freely, rather than focusing on recovering his own ecosystem, he would slowly seize the enemy world.

He would invade with the Dark Rim that spread Creamland and the bread legion, connecting the enemy world and his own ecosystem through Creamland. Before the enemy's demon monster legions could attack, he would seize a significant portion of their world and slowly but surely take territory so they couldn't suck up even a single drop of pain.

"Compared to how aggressively you've pushed until now, this is an extremely passive policy, isn't it?"

"They say a true master isn't someone who wins every fight, but someone who attacks when they should attack and defends when they should defend. Now is the time to defend."

Wafflach-Nacha had achieved the feat of entering enemy lines and destroying an entire city. It was quite an impressive result, and the possibility that the enemy couldn't attack this side was very likely thanks to that accomplishment.

However, the one currently performing the most in Biin's ecosystem wasn't Wafflach-Nacha who had achieved that great feat, nor even Shuc-rimmurath who was restoring the ecosystem, nor Nyaltartep who carried the main plan. It was Yogur-tosoth. Even if you combined the other four legion commanders, what they were doing wasn't more important than what Yogur-tosoth was doing right now.

At first glance the guy looked like he was just sitting on his ass in the Milky Way increasing his dairy legion like some useless freeloader, but in reality that plain-sounding task was the most crucial one.

First, he had opened multiple dimension passages on the Milky Way side and was completely blocking the enemy demon legions composed of pure spiritual bodies.

In the current situation where failure to protect Creamland would cause the Nectar Well to explode along with it, he was literally an iron wall. The highest being in the enemy world was only level 11, so Yogur-tosoth could never be breached.

Second, the yogurt elementals he created attached themselves to all sorts of creatures throughout Biin's ecosystem, driving out the diseases, curses, and natural illnesses that clung to them, or granting them the stamina to overcome those afflictions and helping them prosper even more.

He might not be the main pillar of internal affairs, but he was a special-class contributor.

Third, the yogurts created by absorbing disease, curses, poison, madness and the like then transforming them into syrup were being trained as new forces capable of confronting the enemy's demon legions.

With Wafflach-Nacha fallen, this was the only offensive means Biin could present.

In other words, this guy was handling defense, internal affairs, and attack all by himself. Even though he was just holing up in his own territory doing internal work. He didn't even seem to dislike it...

"You're doing very well, Yogur-tosoth. Unlike usual, you're hiding your dignity and power from the enemy world. Is that all right?"

Right. Even though he was arrogant, he wasn't stupid. Yogur-tosoth clearly understood that if he rashly launched an attack and suffered a counterattack, it would lead straight to game over.

On the other hand, he also seemed to understand that by simply sitting still and handling internal affairs he could become the protagonist of victory.

With that, defense was secured. Since the enemy had already missed their attack timing once, they probably wouldn't collapse easily from now on.

The problem was victory. In the end, it was a game you couldn't win without striking the enemy.

But how exactly was he supposed to strike them? Thanks to Wafflach-Nacha's sacrifice, he had learned that their main base was underground.

But how was he supposed to get there? The underground passages weren't connected through material means.

Strange mineral constructs were ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠embedded throughout the enemy's surface world. Using those unique constructs that connected the Great Phantasm and reality, they teleported between the surface and underground.

At first glance it looked like the sucked-out pain and emotions were rising into the sky, but that was a fake. In reality the main base was underground... But no matter how much he thought about it, no matter how many times he pondered it, there was simply no way to dig his way underground.

Since the enemy wasn't idiots, they would have defensive measures. From the look of it they seemed armed with considerably high-level mysteries... Even if he poured in the entire yogurt legion, it felt like he wouldn't be able to break through. Fundamentally, defense held the advantage in this game. Once they switched to ironclad defense, there was no method. He'd just have to accept them as a lower god.

In the end. Once it reached this point, for victory it wasn't him but the enemy who had to do one of two things.

Either the enemy would suffer a major accident.

Or they would commit a blunder.

And that blunder would most likely occur if they chose attack instead of defense. Biin slowly pressured the enemy world and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠waited for change to happen.

Defense alone was enough not to lose, so why force them to take risks?

Umjeory's teeth ground together, but it wasn't the first or second time his creations had acted this way. In the end, gods didn't handle their creations; they had to make them as happy as possible.

Umjeory, who had been holed up, instead switched to the offensive as his creations threatened riot.

Rather than 'certain but safe defeat,' he was aiming for 'risky but highly rewarding victory.'

Being pushed into it would be putting the cart before the horse, so he seriously prepared a strategy for victory through attack and gathered the residents' voluntary support.

Certainly, with this they had escaped certain defeat and obtained a chance of victory.

But at the same time, they had taken one step closer to defeat.

It was the opportunity Biin had been waiting for so long—the change.