Ninth Collision: All or Nothing
I figured the moment I saw one of Yogur-tosoth’s eyeballs explode from a slingshot hit that things would play out exactly like this.
The arrogant bastard had that flaw, after all. I knew he’d screw up at least once. This was a fatal wound. The enemy world wasn’t short on talent. This was even the guy taking the promotion exam.
And the projectile they’d fired was a Curse bullet crafted with Level 11 technology. The debuff was probably defense reduction…
This was bad. The greatest strength of high-level monsters was that they couldn’t be swarmed, yet now even regular elite soldiers could deal meaningful damage to Yogur-tosoth.
“Yogur-tosoth! Fall back! There’s no need to settle this right now!”
I said it anyway. I knew he wouldn’t listen.
As expected, he ignored me. He was even forcing the dimensional passage open with Space-Time magic in the early section and fighting inside it. The stamina drain had to be brutal.
I weighed the situation. Was it favorable for me? Or unfavorable?
More importantly, should I forcibly stop this, or should I support it instead?
Yogur-tosoth was already hurling magic. The enemy answered with concentrated fire. Yogur-tosoth overexerted himself to raise a barrier, while the enemy deployed defensive spells even at the cost of damaging their own city.
They had apparently brought several anti-air slingshots meant for Bisyakheets. If I left him there, Yogur-tosoth would really end up riddled with cursed shots and die.
In the worst case, if he lost a few more eyes and took five or six curse stakes to the body, he could actually perish. Even if he survived, if he was shot down the enemy’s Irsan would probably promote to Level 11 on the spot.
Then who would stop that monster? Should I burn one of the old god fragments I’d been saving and create another legendary being? Or should I trust the absolute defense granted by Deity-World Oneness and World Shaping and drag this into a war of attrition?
While I debated, the storm Yogur-tosoth had summoned swept across the enemy world. The enemy seemed to have climate or nature mages capable of weather manipulation and countered it. They must have been able to raise them because they were connected to the Great Firmament.
Since he had revealed himself directly above the enemy capital, Yogur-tosoth was essentially fighting the entire enemy main base by himself…
After thinking it through, I reached a conclusion.
“Time to go insane.”
“Pardon?”
“Dump everything in. We end their world with this one push.”
To let Yogur-tosoth focus solely on combat, I poured every drop of my divine power into maintaining the space-time rift. I opened dimensional passages in front of every Bisyakheet in the Nectar Well, every Caramel monster scattered across the desert, every gum, every Sugar Lump, every Gamchi, every jelly-type—every single creature capable of attacking the enemy world—and rammed a revelation straight into them.
Go. Win and come back.
“Lord Biin? If we do this there won’t be a future left! We’re the invaders! We aren’t the defenders! What are we supposed to do if we send every last life form without leaving even the minimum needed for reproduction?”
“Doesn’t matter. Send them. If we die here, that’s my limit.”
“Hiiiiiiik?!”
This was my answer to the enemy’s spirit.
Take it. If you can endure, you win.
Irsan’s Slingshot Corps VS Yogur-tosoth
Who held the advantage? The answer was obviously Irsan’s side, by a massive margin. Irsan’s personal stats were nothing to scoff at, they had superior equipment, the main army was fighting alongside them, and he had plenty of subordinates. No matter how strong Yogur-tosoth was, he couldn’t destroy an entire enemy capital alone.
Besides, they were still inside the dimensional passage zone. Yogur-tosoth had been forced to spend nearly half his strength just widening the passage.
But Biin used his own divine power to maintain the passage so Yogur-tosoth could conserve strength, then opened dimensional gates like a madman and rained monsters down. The battle entered its next phase.
“What the hell is that guy doing?”
Mitomok was stunned by Biin’s movements. Instead of stopping the fight, he was supporting it? An extremely bold move. Did he think his world’s defenses were so pathetic that he could afford to look down on them?
But what shocked him even more was the sheer volume of monsters. Countless dimensional passages opened across the world like something out of infinity, vomiting forth an indescribable tide of horrors…
“Just how much divine power does he have to pull off something like this?!”
The numbers were enough to make anyone panic. Instead of watching Irsan’s fight in the capital, Mitomok had to dispatch his lesser gods to manage the crisis engulfing the entire world.
Of course the capital was important to Mitomok’s civilization. He had concentrated most of his forces there; holding the capital was the core of his strategy.
Even so, not every resident lived in the capital. They had to scatter—farming, manufacturing rubber bands and slingshots, producing cursed goods and other mystical items. Unlike Ogolraeot, Mitomok did not possess World Shaping.
“Emergency! Pour out every drop of divine power we have!”
From the start, knowing the enemy world was full of monsters (he still thought Sugar Lumps were Biin’s “humans”), Mitomok had created enormous numbers of creatures like “tigers that humans can tame” and “birds that hunt Gamchi.” He believed he could handle a monster legion.
“O God! Please save us!”
When roughly thirty people prayed like that, Mitomok received their divine power and instantly created a tiger before their eyes—powerful life forms capable of defeating even Caramel Camels.
The measure proved fairly effective. Quite a few residents survived thanks to the tigers that appeared out of thin air.
But the enemy had too many.
“???”
Mitomok began to seriously suspect the opponent had a trait like Infinite Divine Power. How could anyone open that many passages?
Life Creation consumed an enormous amount of divine power. Thirty praying residents could produce one tiger, but that was obviously the limit—for both residents and gods.
Realistically it was far less efficient than waiting several years for natural breeding. Otherwise every god would simply spam Life Creation to generate infinite food, wouldn’t they?
Yet no matter how he looked at it, the number of monsters the opponent was spitting out far exceeded what Mitomok could create even if he burned every last ounce of his divine power. At this rate, more than half his residents would certainly die.
On top of that, the enemy had far too many different species.
“The tigers are being killed by the enemy world’s humans (Sugar Lumps)!”
“Create leopards to devour them!”
“The leopards are being killed by creatures with long blade-tipped necks (rice cakes) that swing and pierce!”
“Then make crocodiles that eat those!”
“The crocodiles are being hunted by giant shelled tentacle monsters (Puddings)!”
“Damn it, send the slingshot soldiers!”
“Oh no… The slingshot soldiers are being pierced and killed by unidentified round things (candies)…!”
“Uwaaaaaagh!”
It was a food-chain problem. There was no way to create an invincible life form capable of countering every single branch of the Dessert Legion. Even a legendary trait couldn’t achieve that.
So you had to create life forms with a specific purpose—to hunt only one type of creature—but then they became vulnerable to the other predators in the Dessert Legion.
In short, they had been forced into a survival competition. Although Mitomok could create the most ideal and perfect life form for any given purpose, nature had no guaranteed winning strategy.
In other words, Mitomok’s creations and the Dessert Legion were now competing for survival on equal footing. Which meant the side with greater numbers would win.
And Biin’s numbers were far greater. Of course more than half the Dessert Legion had died as well, but Mitomok’s creatures were being driven to the brink of total annihilation.
When the outskirts were being overrun like this, the central capital had to produce results. In other words, they had to shoot down Yogur-tosoth.
Of course, with hundreds of Bisyakheets already descending and going berserk, that had become nearly impossible.
“Just how are those bastards raising so many of these horrific monsters!”
The maintenance costs alone should have made it impossible. He wondered, but there was no answer. Irsan poured out their stored curse bullets without reservation, focusing solely on Yogur-tosoth while the other thirty members of the Slingshot Corps targeted the Bisyakheets.
It was only possible because the Slingshot Corps were super-elites whose stats surpassed the Bisyakheets, but even then the numbers were overwhelming. Gamchis poured down like a living curtain, blocking the bullets with their bodies. Very few shots actually reached the Bisyakheets.
“All residents, come out and fight! Use your slingshots to reduce their numbers as much as possible!”
They had never imagined creatures capable of aerial tanking. The spirited residents hurled stones and personally prepared cursed items into the sky, knocking the Gamchis down.
Rain made of Gamchis fell from the heavens. It was an absurd sight—rain made of corpses. And rain made of Bisyakheets plunging madly downward.
Thud.
The rubber band on someone’s slingshot snapped. The broken band whipped back and slapped the shooter’s cheek hard. In that dazed moment other Gamchis swarmed in, tearing the victim apart with beaks and fangs.
“Bullets! We’re out of bullets…!”
The Slingshot Corps had exhausted their curse ammunition. Without them they couldn’t take down Bisyakheets in a single hit… They tried grabbing nearby stones, but the rubber bands kept snapping and the Bisyakheets simply endured stone impacts with their bodies.
And the most critical duel: Irsan versus Yogur-tosoth.
Irsan had landed five curse bullets in rapid succession. That meant five of Yogur-tosoth’s eleven eyes had burst, leaving the legendary creature one-eyed with only six remaining.
Because they were special bullets packed with curses, Yogur-tosoth could no longer swing his tentacles properly. His body had grown sluggish, the magic he could use was restricted, his physical durability had dropped, and even his magical attack power was pathetic.
Yet the problem was that he was still strong.
Kwaaaaaaaaang!
Hundreds of lightning bolts crashed down from the thunderclouds he had created in the sky, slaughtering both the Dessert Legion and the enemy residents without distinction.
Irsan was forcing magic into his slingshot’s rubber band that looked ready to snap at any moment. Should he shoot at the clouds? Or aim at the monster again?
This bold champion took a deep breath and drew his slingshot.
Yogur-tosoth was not foolish enough to fall for the same tactic six times.
“Found you!”
The thunderclouds converged, locking onto Irsan with perfect accuracy. Panicking, Irsan aimed at the clouds instead of Yogur-tosoth.
Kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa-kwang!
With a sound like the sky itself tearing apart, lightning fell. Irsan’s slingshot bullet sliced through the bolt and pierced the cloud. One precious curse bullet wasted.
The more tragic part was that while Irsan’s bullet had weakened the lightning, it had not fully blocked it.
“Gwaaaaaaaaagh!”
Irsan, charred by the lightning, had his slingshot rubber burn and snap completely.
He trembled as if paralyzed, but he didn’t seem to be dead.
Before Yogur-tosoth could attack again, he staggered on burning legs, searching for a new slingshot and ammunition.
Dozens of Bisyakheets pounced on him at once.
“No! Someone—anyone—stop them!”
There was no divine power left. No reinforcements nearby. Irsan beat the Bisyakheets back with his fists despite his injuries while Yogur-tosoth cackled maniacally and prepared a wide-area destruction spell to annihilate the city.
Mitomok’s vision slowly blurred.