At the moment when Fiona hailed Lin En as the “Supreme Player” and Elaine was still reeling from the shock of that flawless war system, a sudden change erupted!
***
“ROAR!!!!!!!!!”
A roar that seemed capable of tearing the heavens and shattering souls burst from the rear of the Beast Tide, soaring skyward!
This roar was completely different from all before.
A terrifying pressure far greater than before swept across the field like a tsunami, making even Elaine and Fiona atop the city walls feel their hearts clench and their breath catch.
On the battlefield, the chaos caused by Lin En’s carefully forged “Order of the Beast King” melted like thin ice under the sun beneath this even more terrifying Beast King’s wrathful howl!
The magical beasts, which had been locked in mutual slaughter and frenzied confusion, froze mid-action.
Within seconds, the chaos subsided.
The Beast Tide’s formation reassembled with a scalp-numbing efficiency.
They were no longer confused by earth walls and quagmires. Instead, as one, they locked their gaze on a single target—the direction of Lin En’s camp!
***
“Th-This… how is this possible!”
Fiona exclaimed in shock.
Elaine’s face turned as pale as paper, the hope that had just arisen mercilessly shattered by this overwhelming force.
He muttered, despair saturating his voice,
“Too strong… The Beast King’s will is too powerful! It forcibly covered the entire battlefield with its own Spirit Power, erasing Lin En’s forged order… Before such absolute might, even the most exquisite tactics…”
His words trailed off.
Because that reassembled Beast Tide had already begun its earth-shaking charge, carrying a pressure ten times greater than before, rushing straight toward them!
A perfect chessboard, flipped over by brute force!
***
Yet, just as master and disciple were sinking into despair, that ever-calm figure finally stirred.
Lin En turned his head, as if listening to the distant beastly roar, a hint of contemplation appearing on his tranquil face.
***
“Optimized the order, discarded redundant commands, and emphasized only the target itself?”
He murmured, as though evaluating a student’s homework.
Then he turned, a cold curve appearing at the corner of his mouth.
“Very well, then I’ll give you a target.”
***
Before his words had fully faded, Lin En raised both hands.
This time, what surged from him was no longer a single element, but two: water, representing moisture and flow; and wind, representing change and formlessness.
***
“What… what is he doing?”
Fiona asked anxiously.
Elaine stared unblinkingly, unable to comprehend what hope could remain at a moment when the enemy had locked onto its target and was charging forward.
***
The answer arrived a second later.
Centered before Lin En, a cold mist formed from nothing, spreading across the battlefield at extreme speed, swept along by howling wind like a gray-white curtain.
In just a dozen breaths, a vast fog zone several kilometers wide—so dense that one couldn’t see their own hand—completely enveloped the Beast Tide’s vanguard!
All the charging magical beasts plunged headlong into this chaotic world that cut off sight, sound, even scent.
***
“Creating a fog… to buy time?”
Elaine frowned, but this was only a temporary measure.
Yet Lin En’s actions did not stop.
As the glow at his fingertips shifted, eerie light and shadow began to appear within the dense fog.
Countless twisted, blurry, yet strangely compelling human silhouettes flickered in and out of view.
The neighing of warhorses, human shouts, the clash of swords—phantoms and phantom sounds rose and fell within the fog zone, constructing a false yet uncannily real Mirage!
***
“AWOO!!”
A Giant Wolf driven by the Beast King’s absolute “Target Attack Order” charged into the fog, and, spotting a blurry “human” figure to the side, lunged without hesitation!
But the figure vanished, and the wolf’s claws instead tore viciously into a Magic Leopard also hunting for a target.
Pain and the instinct of being attacked sent the Magic Leopard into a frenzy—it bit down on the Giant Wolf’s throat!
So it was in one place, so it was everywhere.
When vision was deprived and only the death order of “Target Attack Order” remained, any “shadow” moving in the fog became an attack target.
The Beast Horde, unable to distinguish friend from foe, once again plunged into a bloodier, more frenzied slaughter than before!
The unstoppable charge collapsed in the “Phantom Battlefield,” becoming chaotic infighting.
In the camp, Elaine and Fiona were utterly stupefied, like petrified statues.
***
Th-This…
Fiona’s mind could no longer process what she was seeing.
Elaine sucked in a sharp breath, looking at Lin En’s back with the eyes of one gazing at a monster, his whole body trembling.
He finally understood just how far off he’d been in thinking he’d comprehended all of Lin En’s tactics!
“No… this isn’t the fifth step…”
“…This is still the fourth step!”
He spoke in a dreamlike voice, revealing a terrifying truth:
“When the false command failed, he immediately switched to the second strategy—creating false targets!”
“From beginning to end, he wasn’t attacking the bodies of the Beast Tide…”
“He was attacking the information itself released by the Beast King!!”
Elaine’s words exploded in Fiona’s mind like thunder.
She stared blankly at the “Phantom Battlefield” shrouded in fog, illusions, and the cries of mutual slaughter, finally realizing the true terror of this tactic.
This was not a contest of strength, nor a battle of magic.
This was a… dimensional crushing.
While the Beast King remained on the first layer, Lin En had already jumped to the fifth.
The chaos on the battlefield only intensified.
Within the dense fog, the magical beasts, compelled by the Beast King’s final death order “Target Attack Order,” frantically attacked any moving “shadow” nearby.
Above, Lin En’s storm vortex and roaring explosions continued their relentless harvest, like a merciless pendulum, killing with precision any beasts exposed by mutual slaughter or those trying to escape the fog.
The carnage continued.
The self-slaughter of the Beast Horde raged on.
At that moment, the Beast King’s roar echoed again from afar, each time more frenzied and desperate.
It had clearly realized the collapse of its front lines and was struggling to use even stronger mental force to penetrate the fog and regain control of its army.
But this struggle was futile.
***
Lin En’s other hand rose slowly.
This time, there was no light, no flame, not even a visible magical form.
Buzz—
A terrifying noise swept across the battlefield like a tsunami!
It did not travel through ears, but directly resonated through bone and skull.
It was not a scream, nor thunder, but a chaotic resonance—a blend of countless frequencies, deep and heavy yet sharp and piercing.
The sounds of wind, water, energy friction—countless noises fused by magic—became an insurmountable Sound Wall.
Everyone in the camp—Fiona, Elaine—clutched their heads in agony, but it was useless; the noise threatened to shatter their very souls.
Elaine drew a deep breath and, mustering all his strength, gave Fiona his final verdict:
“He… he has established a perfect, sealed… Information Black Box on this battlefield!”
“Outside this box, none of the Beast King’s orders can enter. Inside, the magical beasts can only receive the false information Lin En wants them to, following his script into self-destruction!”
Elaine shook his head, his face a mix of pain and extreme excitement, as though witnessing the birth of a new realm.
“This… this is no longer a tactic we can comprehend…”
His voice trembled as he struggled to find words for the scene before him:
“This is… a whole new form of warfare!”
“The war we know is a clash of strength, magic, the courage of soldiers, and the wits of commanders. But all of that rests on the effective transmission of military orders.”
“But he… he destroyed that foundation at its very root!”
“He turned the entire battlefield into a chessboard—one he drew himself, with pieces he arranged, and even the rules… he wove them! The Beast King has the power to overturn the board, but can’t even find where the board is!”
He gazed at Lin En’s back, eyes filled with awe for a higher intelligence.
This was no longer student’s reverence for teacher, but the dread of a lesser civilization beholding a greater one—a tremor from the depths of the soul.
Just then, he sensed something was wrong behind him.
The apocalyptic Sound Wall targeted mainly the battlefield ahead, but even its residual waves plunged the entire temporary camp into a pit of agony.
Within the camp, Fiona, Elaine, even the most iron-willed guards outside, all curled up in pain, hands clamped over their ears, faces deathly pale, cold sweat pouring.
But it was useless.
This was not simple sound, but a pollution mingled with magical resonance, acting directly upon mind and soul.
The noise seemed to become countless invisible spikes, violently churning their brains, leaving them dizzy and sick, their insides in turmoil, their spirits on the brink of collapse.
Fiona felt as if her soul would be torn apart by the noise.
Only then did she realize with terror that she was enduring less than one percent of this magic’s aftershock—already at her limit.
Then what agony were the magical beasts at the battlefield’s heart, fully engulfed by the Sound Wall, enduring?
As her senses blurred, Lin En, as if performing a trivial act, flicked his hand lightly behind him.
Buzz—
The world fell instantly silent.
The mind-shattering noise vanished as if erased by an invisible hand, and the agony suffocating the camp disappeared without a trace.
Yet, on the main battlefield ahead, the Sound Wall remained unbroken, cutting off the Beast King’s roar.
“Haa… haa… haa…”
Everyone collapsed simultaneously, gasping for breath as though rescued from drowning.
The dizziness and nausea lingered—just that brief moment had already thrown their Spirit Power and battle aura into turmoil.
Elaine leaned against a pile of cold stones, his gaze toward Lin En forever changed.
He could unleash such vast, terrifying magic, and still precisely control its boundaries, shielding his own side perfectly.
Such control…
Such ease—like playing ten masters at once while sipping tea—was more fearsome than the magic’s destructive power.
Lin En did not look back.
He spoke quietly:
“Steady yourselves.”
Then he turned his attention back to the “Information Black Box” he now fully commanded.
In his eyes, the Beast Tide’s charge, the Beast King’s roar, the carnage of the battlefield—all were now irrelevant.
This slaughter system, using the entire battlefield as its vessel…
Had finally entered a stable, efficient self-circulation phase.
For the magical beasts, it was a total disaster.
The Beast King’s command roars, within the cataclysmic noise pollution, were like pebbles tossed into a molten steel furnace—unable to make even a ripple before being utterly devoured.
The last pathway of information transmission—was severed.
This wall did not just block information; it was a form of torture.
For magical beasts whose senses far exceeded humans, the Sound Wall was nothing less than a soul-flaying ordeal
A Magic Wolf, proud of its keen hearing, had its ears torn apart, high-frequency noise stabbing into its brain like red-hot steel, driving it to a blood-curdling howl as blood poured from its orifices, slamming its head into the ground in a mad attempt to escape the pain.
An Earth Drake’s massive body writhed violently, its tough scales impervious to blades but helpless against bone-deep vibration. Its innards felt squeezed and twisted by an invisible hand; the agony shattered its sanity, and its dragon’s breath sprayed wildly—not at enemies, but at its former companions.
***
Pain is a force more primal and potent than fear.
Within Lin En’s domain of absolute torment, the magical beasts’ last sanity burned away. Illusions were no longer needed to mislead them, nor forged commands to direct them. The instinct to survive and escape agony drove them to see anything moving as a source of pain—and attack in a frenzy.
***
“ROAR—!”
A Magic Bear, eyes red from agony, abandoned the pursuit of a phantom human, swung its massive claws, and smashed into a nearby Saber-toothed Tiger. In its scrambled senses, it was that tiger’s roar that deepened its suffering.
The Saber-toothed Tiger retaliated, biting the bear’s throat.
The self-slaughter escalated geometrically—no longer sporadic infighting, but indiscriminate attacks driven by maddening pain. The battlefield devolved from war into a blood-soaked meat grinder.
Elaine lowered his hands from his ears.
His shock was replaced by numb awe—an almost religious reverence for a miracle.
He looked at Lin En’s back and hoarsely gave his final annotation to the perfect war:
“I understand now… I’m beginning to understand everything…”
“Step one: forge a command, seize control, spread a false Beast King Order, throw the Beast Tide into chaos.”
“Step two: confuse the targets. When a stronger Beast King Order overwrites the command, create false battlefields and targets; the command is enforced, but the true target is lost.”
“Step three: sever all information flow. Use absolute noise to cut the Beast King off from its army!”
He took a deep breath and gave his final verdict:
“He… he has established a perfect, sealed… Information Black Box on this battlefield!”
At his side, Ella’s feather pen slipped from her trembling grasp.
She did not pick it up.
She only stared at Lin En, her eyes swirling with terror, worship, confusion, awe—until a single tear slid down her cheek.
She had witnessed a miracle.
A cold arc curled on Lin En’s lips; only now did his war system feel truly complete.
He issued a steady stream of contradictory forged commands, combining them with the Mirage, driving the Beast Tide’s internal strife to ever greater heights.
For those unfortunate enough to be squeezed out of the maze, he delivered a cycle of slaughter—Thermobaric Art to clear the field, Storm Meat Grinder to follow up—erasing them with ruthless efficiency.
***
The Beast Kings in the distance watched in horror as they lost all control of their armies.
Their orders drowned in the chaotic noise and thunder Lin En had unleashed.
They watched, powerless, as their once-proud hosts tore themselves apart in a man-made labyrinth or were swept away by fire and storm conjured by a mere human.
It was a helplessness deeper than defeat.
When the will of the Beast Tide finally broke and dissolved into a full, disordered rout, Lin En stood in the battlefield’s heart, not a drop of blood on his robes.
At the same time, within Lin En’s Spirit Power perception, the vast and violent mental link controlling the Beast Tide from behind—like a puppet master’s string—snapped back in panic, recoiling as if burned.
***
The Beast King behind the scenes—retreated.
Not out of defeat, but fear.
Fear of the unknown.
It could not comprehend this war. Its army had not been crushed by greater force, but manipulated by rules it had never known, could not fathom, driven to destruction.
It was as if a chess player, blindfolded and deafened, found its own pieces running wild, attacking each other—without ever knowing who the opponent was, or what moves they used.
Helplessness and humiliation deeper than defeat.
Rage, confusion, fury—all curdled into a soul-chilling dread of that ghostly enemy. It never even glimpsed its foe; instead, its own claws had turned upon it.
And so, it fled.
Retreating from the battlefield, cutting all ties, withdrawing its gaze from the darkness—overwhelmed by terror for that human mage.
***
The fog gradually lifted.
The earth slowly returned to silence.
Those in the camp could finally see the whole battlefield.
Then, a chill that seemed to freeze the soul gripped every heart.
What they saw was not the aftermath of war, but a true mountain of corpses and sea of blood.
The land was no longer recognizable.
Shattered into uneven, jagged plates by Lin En’s Earth Magic—Terrain Reshaping—and the trampling of mad beasts, it resembled a broken labyrinth pieced together in chaos.
The “walls” and “floors” of this maze were strewn with the shredded bodies of magical beasts.
No intact, identifiable remains could be found.
They looked like refuse spewed from a giant meat grinder—limbs and viscera jumbled together, piled in every corner.
Thick blood gathered in rivulets, soaking the upturned soil into dark red mires that glistened with a sickly sheen beneath the blood-red sunset.
Between the mires, vast patches of scorched earth bore the blackened stench of beast corpses, burned by Thermobaric Art.
This land had undergone a complete Death Baptism in the shortest span.
Silence. Deathly silence.
None of the survivors could smile as they gazed at this slaughterhouse.
Terror—deeper than when the Beast Tide first threatened—clutched their hearts.
“Urgh…”
Fiona turned deathly pale, clapping a hand over her mouth as her stomach roiled.
As a veteran knight, she’d seen real battlefield carnage, sword wounds, magical burns.
But this was different.
There was no glory here, only one-sided, overwhelming slaughter.
The psychological impact of such internal destruction was far more terrifying than any external attack.
She forced down her nausea, but her body trembled.
At her side, Ella lacked such willpower. The moment she saw the bloody mire, she gagged and vomited violently onto a stone, as if trying to expel her very organs.
Brian hurriedly supported her, patting her back, but he too bit his lip, face ashen, unable to look at the battlefield.
In the inferno that broke the spirit of all witnesses, the culprit—Lin En—remained calm, as if an outsider.
When all was finally still, Lin En slowly turned, his face a touch pale.
He regarded the petrified “audience” behind him, rubbing his temples.
Then, with a tone as if nothing had happened, he resumed the interrupted conversation, eyes settling on Master Elaine, who sat collapsed on the ground.
“Master Elaine, can we continue now?”
“This secret war—the Kingdom—just how long has it been fighting alone?”