As soon as Lin En finished speaking, the entire blood-red wasteland erupted in fury.
Centered around the squad, the ground within hundreds of meters trembled violently, and the hardened blood-crusted surface churned like boiling water.
Puchi!
Puchi!
Puchi!
Hundreds and thousands of jet-black tentacles, identical to those before, burst from the earth like bamboo shoots after rain, forming a writhing Death Forest under the dark red sky.
“Roar—!”
Magis let out a thunderous roar, slamming his heavy shield into the ground.
The entire steel Circle Formation tensed instantly.
These tentacles lashed and pierced the Enders’ barrier like frenzied pythons.
Shields rang with deafening crashes, sparks flying; even the sturdy Enchanted Tower Shields showed visible dents and cracks.
The warriors gritted their teeth, thrusting their spears through the gaps in their shields.
But when the spears pierced the tentacles, only viscous, dark green fluid oozed out, soon forced back by writhing flesh.
Even the spearheads were rapidly corroded by that blasphemous tissue.
One warrior’s shield was wrenched away by two tentacles, and a third shot toward his exposed chest like a viper.
“Fall back!”
Magis roared, hurling himself forward.
With his shield, he shoved the warrior back into the formation, then swung his sword in a half-arc, cleaving the attacking tentacle with lethal force.
But the severed tentacle didn’t vanish on the ground—it quickly dissolved into a pool of squirming flesh.
The next second, several intact tentacles lunged, devouring and absorbing it like hungry vultures feeding on carrion, leaving nothing behind.
They grew even thicker.
This terrifying self-circulation system weighed down the warriors’ hearts.
No matter what damage they inflicted, it seemed impossible to weaken the monster.
“Physical cutting is useless!”
Fiona’s voice was tense.
Though her blade was sharp, any tentacle she cut was instantly absorbed, rendering the effort futile.
The Circle Formation was being squeezed tighter, the sea of tentacles threatening to engulf them completely.
At that moment, Lin En’s voice rang out calmly:
“Retreat three steps, tighten the formation!”
Though puzzled, everyone obeyed without hesitation, trusting Lin En.
The steel Circle Formation contracted inward, sheltering Lin En at the center.
Almost simultaneously, Lin En stretched out a hand, fingers splayed.
A surge of violent magical energy burst from him.
“Burn.”
A single icy word.
Hoo—!
A deep crimson ring of fire exploded outward from the squad.
The ring swept forth at lightning speed, instantly igniting all tentacles within thirty meters of the formation.
“Screee—!”
A piercing, inhuman scream echoed across the battlefield.
Tentacles that had shrugged off blades and axes writhed, twisted, and struggled as if their flesh had been doused in acid.
The dark green liquid seeping from their surfaces sizzled in the heat, filling the air with the stench of burning flesh.
But what truly revived everyone’s spirits was that the flame-consumed tentacles turned to charcoal and ash, utterly unusable.
The searing fire destroyed their inner structure, erasing them from the Broodmother’s cycle.
In mere seconds, a ring of smoking charcoal formed around the squad, forcing the tentacle sea to recede temporarily.
Yet, no one relaxed.
In the distance, the blood-red land heaved once more.
Larger, thicker tentacles surged up from the depths, replacing those that had burned, testing the edges of the scorched barrier.
Lin En’s strike was effective, but against the endless tentacle forest, it was only trimming the lawn’s edge.
The Circle Formation was safe for now but trapped.
Within its protection, Lin En observed with calm clarity.
His mind was a quantum processor, rapidly constructing a dynamic three-dimensional model of the battlefield—mapping each tentacle’s path, energy density, and regeneration speed.
The conclusion was instant: point-to-point elimination was primitive and foolish.
He needed absolute overwhelming force to carve an irreversible attack path.
He stepped forward, through the gap in the warriors, standing at the forefront of the formation, facing the writhing sea.
Elaine’s pupils contracted.
“Lord Lin En, it’s dangerous!”
Lin En did not respond.
His eyes closed, the two crystal cores within him spinning furiously.
All twenty-four spiritual circuits surged to their limits—a streamlined magic construction.
He raised his hand, pointing ahead as if conducting a symphony—a symphony of destruction.
At the same instant, within a hundred-meter-wide sector in front of the squad, twenty-four invisible “high-purity oxygen bubbles” materialized under a wind-element separation field.
Then, within each bubble, a highly compressed Fireburst core formed and detonated!
The earth shuddered.
A suffocating wave swept over the squad.
The deafening roar of explosions merged into one continuous blast.
A blinding white arc of destruction swept forward like an invisible scythe.
All tentacles and blood-red earth in its path were vaporized and swept away, clearing a swath of scorched land.
But this was only the beginning.
As the light from the first explosion faded, Lin En’s spirit was already deploying the second wave.
His crystal cores were like an unfailing server—while one batch of magic executed, the next set loaded.
Along the edge of the first scorched zone, another twenty-four overpressure points detonated in a broader, advancing sector.
A third wave, then a fourth…
All present witnessed a divine punishment—a memory that would never fade.
Starting from Lin En, overpressure blasts surged forward in unstoppable waves, each precisely linked to the last, forging a path of annihilation.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
It wasn’t a single explosion—it was a moving, unrelenting storm of destruction powered by Lin En.
The earth groaned under the rhythmic shockwaves, as if an invisible divine plow was gouging a deep scar.
The dense forest of tentacles was erased and vaporized like stalks thrown into a furnace.
Even the elite Dark Elf warriors gripped their weapons in a daze.
This wasn’t battle—it was a one-sided, merciless purge.
Lin En’s figure flickered in the continuous explosions, like a god wielding the authority of destruction.
In just over ten seconds, the horrific overpressure advance halted.
Before the squad, a sector-shaped “Death Channel” more than a hundred meters wide and stretching four to five hundred meters ahead was blasted open.
Within the channel, the ground was melted into molten, dark red magma by the sudden heat.
Above, the air was twisted by waves of heat, blurring all vision.
No sign of life remained—no corpses, nothing—everything was utterly vaporized.
Beyond the channel, the surviving tentacles writhed, covered in blistering burns, shrieking in agony.
Yet, they instinctively recoiled from the scorched earth, as if the boundary of magma and warped air was an uncrossable abyss.
No monster dared step over.
Lin En stared expressionlessly at his handiwork.
The path cleared obstacles for the forces behind him, but was impassable for now.
He slowly raised his other hand, palm down.
This time, a force of opposite nature surged—absolute frost.
Bone-chilling cold swept out even faster than the heat, freezing the very air with a crisp “crack”.
The flowing magma solidified.
The dark red glow cooled and hardened.
A thick, crystal-clear layer of frost formed over the magma, spreading inward.
Within a few breaths, the searing path of destruction turned into a wide, level avenue of semi-transparent black crystal—a Glaze Avenue.
The solid Glaze effectively blocked the tentacles from burrowing through.
“Move.”
Lin En spoke two words and stepped onto the scorched path he had forged.
Magis was the first to recover.
He looked at Lin En’s back, the last trace of doubt in his eyes replaced by awe and conviction.
He raised his arm and shouted:
“Follow Lord Lin En! Forward!”
The entire squad shifted from desperate defense to a spearhead surging down the safe corridor.
However, the Broodmother revealed an intelligence beyond imagination.
Sensing its physical tactics crushed, it instantly altered its attack.
“Careful!”
Elena, who had been sustaining the Sanctuary Veil, suddenly let out a stifled cry of pain, her face turning deathly pale.
In that instant, an incredibly condensed, malevolent mental force formed an invisible spear, bypassing the Sanctuary Veil’s broad defense to strike directly at Elena—the core of the formation.
It was the Broodmother’s Spiritual Spike.
Abandoning widespread Mental Contamination, it concentrated its power on a pinpoint strike against the highest threat.
The Sanctuary Veil shuddered violently, like a lake struck by a boulder.
Blood trickled from Elena’s nostrils.
As her mind faltered, the squad’s mental barrier wavered.
Countless insane whispers, bloody visions, and primal fears flooded into everyone’s minds.
Fiona even saw her parents, devoured by monsters, smiling and beckoning to her.
Her vision blurred, almost succumbing to the illusion.
“Steady your mind!”
Elena bit her tongue, using the pain to force herself awake.
She reinforced the Sanctuary Veil, pushing the madness back.
But her body trembled, showing the immense strain.
Everyone broke out in cold sweat, instantly understanding their peril.
Elaine hurried to Lin En’s side, voice low and grim.
“It’s found our weakness! Lord Lin En, Lady Elena’s Sanctuary Veil is our only mental shield. She is the core. The Broodmother is focusing its attacks on her!”
Magis glanced around anxiously, unable to see the enemy.
The feeling of being battered by invisible blows filled him with rage.
Lin En’s eyes sharpened, fixed on the end of the scorched path.
There, the ground bulged—a mountainous mass of writhing flesh visible on the horizon.
He knew—it was the Broodmother’s main body.
A mental assault.
Top-priority threat.
He understood that if this continued, Elena’s mind would collapse first.
Once the Sanctuary Veil broke, they would face the Broodmother’s mental tide unprotected, and all would become prey.
“Passive defense has failed.”
Lin En’s voice was cold and decisive.
He made a new tactical call, his words reaching everyone:
“All units—initiate decapitation phase. Before our shield falls, charge and destroy it!”