Chapter 355

Chapter 355: The Landing Battle

The landing operation.

This was Midi’s true battle plan.

He never intended to fully destroy the sect headquarters’ fleet.

With his current forces, even combined with Fina’s Magic Beam, achieving complete annihilation would’ve been nearly impossible.

Moreover, sect troops across the Star Ocean kept gathering here—"sinking all warships" simply couldn’t be done.

The real key to victory lay in eliminating the Heart-Seizing Demons controlling the higher-ups. Removing these mental parasites could potentially restore relations between Blood Purification and the headquarters.

To defeat the Heart-Seizing Demons, Midi needed to crush their source—the supreme expert.

Numerous clues connected this century-old supreme expert of the Star Ocean with the demons who’d ruled the Blue Truth Sect for over fifty years.

In Midi’s past life, after the Behemoth’s fall, many scholars concluded the supreme expert actually created these Heart-Seizing Demons.

That’s why Midi’s true target wasn’t the main aerial fleet nor the sect Leader fighting at the frontlines.

His real objective was the hidden supreme expert—a decision made when he first scouted the Behemoth’s defenses through the All-Seeing Demons.

Midi had prepared extensively for this landing operation.

He’d developed entirely new warships—landing craft never seen before in history.

Though monitored by All-Seeing Demons, these two overseers could only glance over each location briefly while surveilling the entire Star Ocean.

The sect headquarters knew Midi mass-produced aerial warships but only tracked quantities—low-level and mid-level ships didn’t concern them.

Emil’s landing ships mimicked low-level warships in size and firepower, escaping closer scrutiny.

Their actual defensive power surpassed even the Wind King-class vessels.

Reinforced against ground defenses and equipped with shock absorption systems and magic shields, these ships were virtually indestructible.

Using intel from All-Seeing Demons, Midi recreated the Behemoth’s entire layout in sand table form.

He mapped weak defensive points, mountain temple approaches, hidden paths, and ambush spots—every tactical detail perfected.

By now, Phase One succeeded flawlessly: five landing craft carrying 800 Hawk Brigade warriors each breached defenses, landing 4,000 troops in the Behemoth’s forested back.

This woodland—later called Treant Jungle by adventurers—contained trees infected with Mind Demon Seeds by the Heart-Seizing Demons, turning them into sentient guardians.

Beyond lay the First Spine foothills, then the mountainous Second Spine where the supreme expert dwelled.

The temples stood merely dozens of kilometers from the landing zone—a trivial distance for Midi with his flying skills.

Even if the sect headquarters had noticed this battle plan, it was already too late to stop it, for the four thousand warriors had already disembarked from the landing ships.

Under Midi’s command, a small portion of the ground force swiftly built a compact base using alchemy mechanics while the main troops gathered like iron fists, rampaging through the Treant Jungle.

Ancient trees towering dozens of meters high were awakened.

The Mind Demon Seeds within them sensed danger, driving their massive forms to attack the invaders.

These ancient trees possessed formidable recovery, their bark as tough as low-level warship armor and fireproof. Their branch-like arms could sweep across astonishing ranges.

Yet Midi was a reincarnator who knew multiple efficient ways to destroy war trees.

Moreover, having inherited the Sea Emperor’s legacy, he exploited their weakness – though immune to psychic attacks themselves, the Mind Demon Seeds within them feared such assaults.

Thus these fearsome war trees that had slaughtered countless adventurers in Midi’s past life now fell like wheat before the Hawk Brigade under his precise command.

Harpoons fired from formations pinned tree after tree to the ground.

Warriors avoided attacking the trunks, instead bombarding the fragile roots beneath.

Midi unleashed psychic explosions to obliterate the Mind Demon Seeds, reducing the trees to ordinary plants or paralyzing them with terror.

Combined with targeted strikes at weak points, the war trees fell rapidly, clearing a broad path through the ancient jungle.

Other magical creatures like magic-resistant treants didn’t dare show themselves before this steel tide, cowering as Midi’s forces carved through their domain.

"Damnation! They’re targeting the supreme expert!" The Leader ground his teeth.

He refused to believe Midi could defeat even a severely weakened supreme expert, especially with the terrifying Guardian present in that temple – an entity as undetectable to the All-Seeing Demon as the supreme expert themselves.

With these two guarding the temple, numbers meant nothing. Yet as sect Leader, he couldn’t let Midi run amok on the Behemoth unchallenged. Even if the Guardian eliminated Midi later, his own position would become precarious – facing dereliction charges at best, being "recycled" as incompetent at worst.

He immediately mobilized six poison needle warships nearest to the First Spine’s hill for aerial suppression.

Normally, warships’ firepower should easily crush ground practitioners. But the Leader forgot Midi had once single-handedly captured eight such warships mid-air.

This time, Fina and Alice joined the fray. Before Midi needed to act, Fina’s Magic Beams pierced two warships consecutively like divine blades.

The remaining four ships scrambled upward like frightened birds, only daring token attacks from safe heights. Most shells missed entirely; those hitting the marching route caused negligible damage.

"Impossible!" The Leader’s face darkened as his Super Heart-Seizing Demon’s six tentacles writhed.

Meanwhile, Reinhardt and Marcel shifted Midi’s fleet to defensive operations – their priority being maintaining an evacuation route rather than attacking. This left the sect headquarters struggling to respond.

"First, Second, Third Temple Heads! Join me in slaughtering these humans!" The Leader roared through the mind network. This king-vs-king approach was logical when outmaneuvered.

But as they prepared to deploy, an authoritative voice interrupted via magical communications: "Stand down. I’ll handle them."

"Yes, Lord Guardian." The Leader hid his wounded pride, relieved to avoid confronting Midi directly.

"Come then, Midi Asreks and Holy Blood heirs." At the mountain temple’s peak, the Guardian smiled coldly at the approaching forces. "Prove yourselves worthy opponents for the Eighth Apostle, Long-Legged Rost."