Chapter 498

Chapter 498: All Tactics

Lin Qingliu’s plan proceeded smoothly until the final step. Meanwhile, what was Clotho, the opponent, doing?

Clotho was engaged in meticulous control.

This wasn’t because Clotho wished to excessively interfere with her offspring on the front lines, but as one Fifth Level Extraordinary Beast after another fell or disconnected, the attacks from the ordinary extraordinary beasts began to lose their initial order and reverted to chaos.

Overall, the battlefield situation was favorable for Clotho, and upon learning that Lachesis had launched an attack from the side battlefield, Clotho chose to personally focus her main consciousness on that battleground to prevent humanity from turning the tide.

At the same time, regarding the death of her offspring, Clotho sensed a new emotion emerging within her.

Although she was the mother of all extraordinary beasts, and in principle could produce extraordinary beasts infinitely without constraints of biomass, the reason rare specimens were valuable lay in their high worth and irreplicable attributes.

As Clotho’s humanity deepened, she began to feel a sense of care for her true creations.

Therefore, when they died, instead of just anger and disappointment, sadness gradually mingled with Clotho’s emotions.

Due to these influences, she failed to notice Lin Qingliu’s arrival immediately.

However, she reacted as quickly as possible; even though the delay was less than a second, the outcome of the battle behind was entirely determined by this brief pause.

The wildly writhing Giant Tree could not stop the enemy; the offspring that had yet to grow simply could not hinder them, and the dozens of meters of surface strata provided no effective resistance against the foes.

Trees shattered into pieces under the cutting blade of space, while the offspring of extraordinary beasts rapidly perished in the realm of decay. The rock layers, faced with phasing, were like a layer of rotten paper. Clotho’s vast biological field could not interfere with Lin Qingliu, who had reached the peak of individual power.

With unimaginable speed, Lin Qingliu almost instantaneously destroyed all defensive forces along Clotho’s path, sending that small sun to just one meter above the true core—the human brain matrix.

At that moment, Lin Qingliu heard Clotho’s wail in his mind:

“No!”

“I don’t care what you are concerned about.”

Lin Qingliu released his restraints on the energy block from the spaceship, causing it to explode and self-destruct within one hundredth of a second.

As for himself, he pushed [Slow Time] to the limit, calmly slicing open a spatial rift to leave the Misty Forest, which was about to turn to white ground.

The spatial door closed, and as [Slow Time] was lifted, Clotho witnessed the longest zero-point zero-one seconds since her consciousness awakened, followed by an explosion powerful enough to make the entire planet tremble, as if the sun had fallen here.

In that moment, the white thick fog that had hovered over the forest for decades completely dissipated, replaced by a massive mushroom cloud that almost broke through the planet’s atmosphere.

—

Hope City, Inner City Wall.

People could not tell whether the ground began to shake first or the shockwave in the air struck first; they only knew that after a blinding flash, which dimmed all light appeared on the horizon, the world felt wrong.

Vision? After the flash, everyone fell into a moment of temporary blindness.

Hearing? The terrifying shockwave left them feeling nothing but ringing in their ears.

As for touch, all the senses able to perceive the outside world became ineffective at that moment.

But soon, everyone quickly recovered from this state; led by the warriors of the Extinction Legion, then followed by the trained soldiers, and finally the logistics personnel and regular citizens of Hope City, their various senses began to gradually regain function.

Then they witnessed a shocking scene:

At the horizon’s end, a massive mushroom cloud shot into the sky, as if the Misty Forest had been dug out by a giant spoon.

And in the nearby battlefield, extraordinary beasts of all levels fell into inexplicable chaos.

As mutated animals, they still possessed some ability to predict earthquakes or other natural disasters.

But now, the sudden massive explosion completely disrupted their original actions. Coupled with the fact that Clotho’s human brain matrix had turned to dust, the extraordinary beasts could no longer sustain even the most basic attacks.

The bindings placed on them by Clotho began to loosen, and the extraordinary beasts suddenly lost their desire to attack the humans above the city walls. Instead, they began to trample over each other in retreat, spurred on by the sight of their comrades’ corpses and blood.

In several key battlefields, powerful extraordinary beasts held back by superpowered individuals let out a collective roar, filled with sorrow that far outweighed their anger.

Grayish-white extraordinary beasts broke free from the giant beast’s heads, entirely disregarding the still-disoriented humans, and raced towards the site of the explosion, towards the mushroom cloud as fast as they could.

Mother! They were going to save their mother!

Above the city walls, just as everyone was astonished by everything happening and still felt shaken, the voice of [Skydome] transmitted through speakers around the city walls and every communicator worn by individuals:

“The time has come; begin the counterattack!”

“The time has come; begin the counterattack!”

“The time has come; begin the counterattack!”

[Skydome] repeated the most important command in the simplest language. The warriors and soldiers did not need to know the entirety of the plan; they only needed to understand that this was humanity’s last chance.

Seize this opportunity to thoroughly kill extraordinary beasts and mycelium life, and humanity would achieve true victory!

Listening to this uplifting command and watching as the beast tide that had persisted for nearly ten days began to recede, the morale within Hope City reached an unprecedented peak.

At first, the Skydome kept repeating this command, then the soldiers and warriors on the battlefield echoed it, and finally, along with the voices and broadcasts, this simple order began to flood into the city like a tidal wave.

The sound surged against everyone, and everyone in turn became part of that sound wave.

In just a short time, Hope City was completely engulfed by excitement.

The superpowered individuals had already opened new battlefields at the first moment, guiding their fellow citizens to direction.

The warriors of the Extinction Legion shouted excitedly as they leaped down from the city walls, driving their vibrating swords into the walls, controlling their descent with propulsion devices at their waist, and ultimately landing on a mountain of extraordinary beast corpses below, taking a brief breath before forming their teams to launch an attack.

The city defense army on the walls were equally elated; under their officers’ leadership, they formed ranks, charged down the city walls, passed through the gates that had never opened for an attack, and began to sweep the battlefield behind the Extinction Legion.

Meanwhile, in the rear of Hope City, the high spirits remained robust. Those undergoing training, the reserve soldiers, and the legion fighters were also graduating on the spot, picking up weapons under their instructors’ guidance, donning protective gear, and following the city defense army as the third wave surged towards the Misty Forest.

The apocalypse for the extraordinary beasts had arrived.