Main Plan, Sub Plan

The ecosystem I gained from my victory was similar enough to my own that I only needed to roughly stitch it together, effectively doubling the scale of my territory.

When the world was rendered as a sphere, the polar region near the ceiling became the Nectar Lake zone.

Surrounding that was the desert zone of the northern hemisphere.

Beneath the desert lay the equatorial wetlands and mountainous regions.

Below the mountains, the southern hemisphere consisted of grasslands and mining zones.

And at the opposite pole from the Nectar Lake, on the floor, was the magic zone.

It formed a structure where nectar and syrup flowing from the ceiling reached all the way to the bottom, connecting the entire world.

The terrain’s layout is the core of any ecosystem, but honestly, what’s so impressive about land no bigger than Seoul?

The mountains in my ecosystem don’t even reach a kilometer in height, and the rivers are narrow. To really carve out something magnificent, you’d need the vastness of Siberia, Africa, Australia, or the South American jungle.

Still, even at this size, several unique aspects had emerged.

The biggest difference was the climate. It could still be called the Dessert Desert, but fundamentally, meaningful variations in sunlight and precipitation had begun to appear.

That said, it was a little hard to understand how climate could differ so much across regions in such a tiny world. It wasn’t a natural structure.

It must be because of the events that occur during the prime number rounds.

Anyway, since the enemy ecosystem overlapped with mine in many areas, once I merged them, not many unique terrains remained.

Among the features my world had never possessed before, the most notable was the Cloud Islands. These were the floating lands I had seen above the mountains in Mihun’s world.

The clouds weren’t made of water vapor but of magical energy, so one could walk on them. They also helped mages manipulate the climate and were home to bizarre lifeforms found nowhere else.

There were also underground passages that could merge with the Valleys. The valleys had been obtained very early on but had no real use—until now. They apparently led down to the Great Underworld.

They functioned somewhat like a hunting ground. A few monsters spawned there, and it seemed the previous player had trained their hero units in that place… though I wasn’t entirely sure.

The rest of the magical terrains in the enemy world hadn’t been particularly developed either. Some were swamps that produced special substances, others were mines yielding unusual minerals not found on Earth, and some were high-magic zones where elemental spirits formed naturally. Since I had no idea how to utilize them properly, I simply summoned Shuc-rimmurath and covered everything in cream, linking it all together.

Lifeforms would reproduce and survive on their own in such places anyway.

What pleased me most was how the metal-based lifeforms known as Breads had become far more aggressive and active under Shuc-rimmurath’s influence.

Yogur-tosoth hadn’t received any new territory since he contributed nothing to the battle, but it was encouraging that he had raised the level of the Space-Time Boundary terrain several times and learned some space-time magic as a result.

So far I had managed somehow, but if I won the next ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠round, sixty-four new terrains would appear. Could I even manage all of them? Of course, the opponent would have merged and organized their sixty-four somehow as well…

Ecosystem editing complete.

──The moment I thought that, my consciousness shifted to the main build personality.

It was a technique I had learned while handling my clones. Instead of treating every fragment equally, I designated one as the central personality and treated the rest like subordinates. (In the end I was still manually controlling everything, but it improved efficiency and prevented confusion.)

In the current main plan, the most important terrains were the grasslands and wetlands.

They were for cultivating the weeds that would attack the enemy ecosystem. I combined the genes of those weeds with the genes of desert plants that grew explosively as long as water was present.

I also needed to adjust the livestock, wild animals, and insects from the enemy ecosystem to turn them into natural predators of the weeds. After all, if the weeds were to increase their reproductive power naturally, there had to be organisms that threatened them.

The foundation was desert, and the only wild animals were inferior to Gamchi, but… there were large herbivores similar to cows and medium-sized ones similar to deer. It was a shame there were no small herbivores like rabbits.

In any case, I would remodel these creatures into tough members of the Dessert Legion, just like the camels that had already become monsters in my ecosystem, and make them voraciously devour the weeds.

I also needed to create hippos for the wetlands. Those creatures that tore apart everything in the swamp while happily eating plants would be quite helpful.

The ecosystem still lacked diversity, so the variety of weeds was limited. But the opponent probably only had rocky mountains, steppe grasslands, deserts, and wetlands at this stage anyway. In that sense, this many weeds would suffice.

The main plan was proceeding smoothly. All I had to do was keep working steadily.

──My consciousness moved to the military operations clone.

After the sixth collision came the dropout phase. Even now, the list of players dropping out was being steadily updated.

Most seemed to be those who couldn’t endure the disaster section. In other words, only the bottom ranks were declaring their withdrawal. At this point, the points they had earned weren’t enough to change their lives.

Conversely, the lower ranks without penalty traits still appeared to be pondering cooperative strategies.

Since there was no reason to reject surrender if there was no penalty, they would cooperate if the opponent was weak and surrender ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to cling to the upper ranks if the opponent was strong.

It was a strategically meaningful choice. Even the top ranks would suffer heavy losses if the bottom ranks seriously built up military power and began terrorizing them. As a result, many were heavily investing their resources into military strength to prevent such situations and gain the upper hand in negotiations. (This information came from the consulting clones who were currently working hard to gather intel while earning points.)

In that sense, the brutal and vicious predator strategy was still effective.

This was because most players still preferred to focus on internal development and build cooperative structures rather than investing directly in military power.

In particular, [Candy], who had single-handedly destroyed an enemy world during the fourth collision, still had potential left.

Fundamentally speaking, my military power was already at level 9. The main plan was meant to prepare for the mid-to-late game when strength might wane, but right now I could crush most enemy worlds with military force alone before they even had a chance to starve me out.

Therefore, I inspected my troops.

[Man-Eating Candy]. The star of the fourth collision victory. Its form was almost identical to the legged round candies from back then. In the fifth world, they had been helplessly defeated by the enemy’s mage corps, but things were different now.

They had achieved perfect symbiosis between [Syrup] and [Parasites] within their bodies, along with naturally developed [Poison].

First, their magic resistance had skyrocketed, so they no longer collapsed helplessly to spells. Even if they failed to hunt, the pathogens and parasites would spread and gradually weaken the enemy ecosystem. If that wasn’t enough, they could spray [Syrup] across the enemy world to make follow-up invasions by the Dessert Legion much easier.

Any world with even slightly weak military power would perish just from having these candies scattered across it.

[Carnivorous Bread]. Among the metal-bodied [Breads], these had evolved into mid-sized predatory creatures. Their form resembled six-legged caterpillars, but the legs were thick and muscular. Their heads had spined horns and powerful jaws, and their backs were covered in metallic shells. Since metallic bodies didn’t grow easily, most were the size of wild dogs.

Their “attack power” was probably only at the level of Earth’s wild dogs. Even prehistoric humans could stop them, and Homo sapiens could likely fend them off with raw muscle power alone.

But the key was their “defense.” Their skin was metallic. Syrup flowed through their bodies, granting extremely high magic resistance. Their internal structure was simple; even if their limbs were severed, they kept moving. Even if their head or torso was cut in half, separate ganglia allowed them to continue hunting.

To kill these insane creatures, you’d need to crush at least half their body with something like a heavy hammer. It was incredibly difficult.

[Carnivorous Pudding]. Unlike the [Carnivorous Bread] that only had legs and jaws, these possessed tentacles that functioned as arms. Their size ranged from wild-dog scale all the way up to lion or bear size.

Their thorned or horned tentacles could easily pierce a human body, and the instantaneous speed at which they lashed out made them impossible to catch with normal reflexes.

Their defense itself was low enough that they could be killed with a thrown spear from a distance, but their true strength was mobility. These things were fast enough to catch rats or rabbits on the run, could climb walls, and could fall three meters without injury.

[Eagle Gamchi]. Just as the name suggested, these were eagle-like Gamchi. Having hunted puddings and jellies in the Dessert Desert, they could also hunt and eat humans. They flew through the sky at ridiculous speeds, making them extremely difficult to catch with arrows. Their nasty temperament also made taming them impossible.

[Yogurt]. Direct subordinates of Yogur-tosoth. These troops were created by infusing [Milk] spirits with [Syrup], allowing them to fly and use magic. Their intelligence was very high, but their strong instincts and lack of tool-use concepts prevented them from forming civilizations.

These creatures could attack and destroy the enemy’s spiritual realm, then restructure it to produce more yogurts like themselves. Since a broken spiritual realm made it impossible to properly wield mystery and divinity, they were an essential force.

These were my world’s regular soldiers. They were the units I had focused on raising during the early dimensional gate phase for preemptive strikes. They could tear apart civilians, and even skilled hunters or hero units would die if hundreds swarmed them.

On the other hand, the elite troops created specifically to deal with the enemy’s hero units were somewhat different.

[Dark Rim]. Direct bloodline of Shuc-rimmurath. The strongest, most ferocious, and most gigantic. They devoured everything in sight—plants, animals, people, terrain, even the spiritual realm—then covered the surrounding area in cream and syrup.

Rather than raw combat power, their true value lay in how they paved the way for the rest of the Dessert Legion to advance easily.

[Bisyakheet]. The ultimate Gamchi. Attack power, defense, mobility, ferocity—all at the highest level. Their current combat strength could be considered mass-produced hero units. They required absurd maintenance costs, but that burden would fall on the enemy.

[Yanggaeng]. A hybrid of four different jelly types. These creatures showed a tendency to grow progressively larger and now seemed to reach rhinoceros size. They charged at anything they saw, ramming, slicing with tentacles, and devouring.

They possessed unbelievably tough shells. To kill one, you’d need impact force on the level of a catapult at minimum.

Roughly speaking, if I scattered these lifeforms into an enemy ecosystem during the dimensional gate phase, they were powerful enough to ravage both civilization and humanity on their own.

Right now, establishing dominance during the dimensional gate phase was crucial.

For the main plan of slowly destroying the enemy’s farmlands to work, the opponent first had to believe that the “monsters” from my ecosystem posed the greatest threat.

Therefore, I would raise their specs even further here. The biological methods I already knew had limits, but now I had a new approach.

Compared to the Dessert Legion, which had grown stronger through repeated evolution and synergy, the camels that had been continuously pushed out of the survival competition and barely survived by chewing on cacti in the cactus forest were quite pitiful.

They were still strong creatures, but compared to the old days when they used to approach the Nectar Lake to drink nectar, their numbers had clearly decreased and they had fallen behind in the struggle for survival.

I would teach these creatures a new technique. The so-called Yo-su-gong-bop.

The True Immortal Mihun who taught me this had said:

I interpreted it as implanting “magic genes.” Once taught the Yo-su-gong-bop, the creatures would become powerful magical beasts from then on, and could pass those traits to their descendants.

Following True Immortal Mihun’s instructions, I poured divine power into one camel and taught it the Yo-su-gong-bop.

As a powerful flow took root inside its body, the camel’s muscles and bones writhed. Based on its own charm, it formed what Mihun called spiritual roots, which began drawing in the surrounding flow—mana.

The originally large camel grew even taller, and its color changed. Its brown skin and fur transformed into a deep burnt shade, while its teeth, muscles, and everything else underwent a qualitative shift.

The dramatic change in appearance caused by the Yo-su-gong-bop reminded me of caramelization… the process of boiling sugar.

Huh.

“From now on, you are Caramel Camels.”

“W-whoaaaaaaaaah.”

“When a hero unit appears, I’ll have to name it Sweet Camel. Sounds like a Fairy/Ground type.”

“N-no, the name doesn’t really matter…”

Whatever the angel said, the caramelized camel had grown stronger. So strong, in fact, that it no longer paid the slightest attention to man-eating candies.

The desperate body slams that had once mercilessly pierced its flesh were now helplessly bounced away.

The caramel camel had become far too resilient for candies of that size to handle.

It seemed to have forgotten its past life of scraping by in the cactus forest. It now strode confidently toward the Nectar Lake, eating the tough but nutritious gumi trees, picking fights with peaceful yanggaeng to tear apart and devour their bodies, and even boldly drinking from the Nectar Lake itself.

Of course, it still died when the ruler of the Nectar Lake, Bisyakheet, attacked—but it took considerable effort to kill.

Just by size alone, these caramel camels would become a horrific threat.

Herbivores could eat meat, of course, but these seemed particularly aggressive about it.

Camels weren’t small creatures to begin with, but after caramelization their bodies had grown as massive as giraffes. I even saw one using its long neck to snatch and devour gamchi perched on branches.

Perhaps because it had suffered so much from the desert’s monstrosities, it would charge at anything nearby, stomp on it, and even condense something like sunlight at the tips of its hooves before slamming down and exploding it in a magical attack.

Truly excellent. I should select a few more creatures that had fallen behind in the survival race and caramelize them. They would become even stronger.

Once this was finished, this area would be wrapped up.

──My consciousness shifted to the Sesaisa consulting clone.

It was only natural that this guy had wrecked the ecosystem, but since I had also wrecked the spiritual realm, we were even.

“How is it, Biin? I tried imitating your [Syrup] and linked the flows using flesh.”

But I had no idea how to evaluate this grotesque spiritual circuit made by slicing up the brains and nerves of living creatures, clumping them together, and connecting them across the ground and air.