Chapter 86 - 85: "Meat Grinder, Phase 1, Activate!
Chapter 86: Chapter 85: "Meat Grinder, Phase 1, Activate!
No more Ghost Objects entered from the canyon.
Furthermore, the remnants of the Ghost Tide on the field were already beginning to retreat.
...
’Trying to run?’
Chen Fan, lying prone at the mouth of his cave, had witnessed the entire defensive battle. Frowning, he scanned the Ghost Tide again. ’I can’t let them leave. I haven’t seen any particularly strong Ghost Objects yet.’
’In other words, the leader hasn’t even joined the fight yet.’
’If they get away now, they’ll be a problem later.’
Besides, he coveted the Exotic Treasures that High Level Ghost Objects dropped upon death.
He immediately shut down the Copper Pipes connected to the altar, the City Wall, and the cannon towers.
Soon, without the altar’s repairs, several Sea Serpents slithered through a rectangular breach and into a Level 5 Cannon Tower embedded in the City Wall. The tower’s core was quickly destroyed, and it fell silent.
In quick succession,
one, then two, then three.
All ten Level 5 Cannon Towers fell silent.
The simple pillbox he had built to excavate the caves upon his arrival, along with the Level 5 Cannon Tower on top of it, had also been utterly destroyed. Without the altar’s repairs, the City Wall finally began to show pockmarks once more.
The Ghost Tide, which had been preparing to retreat, suddenly launched another ferocious assault.
Moreover, another wave of the Ghost Tide surged out from the darkness-shrouded canyon. It contained no fewer than six giant turtle Ghost Objects, along with a large number of Human-faced Ghost Crabs, Mermaid Lady Ghosts, and Sea Serpents. And among this new wave of the Ghost Tide...
...was a gigantic octopus.
It was about three meters tall.
Like a mountain of flesh, its body was a sickly, near-transparent, deathly white. A ghostly Blue energy could be seen faintly flowing beneath its skin.
In the center of its massive torso was a circular maw, constantly opening and closing, lined with spiraling teeth.
It looked like a fleshlight lined with a ring of barbs.
It dripped with a viscous fluid.
Its most striking feature was its eight massive tentacles. The surface of each was densely embedded with countless eyes of varying sizes, all of them closed.
’The big one’s here...’
Lying at the mouth of the cave, Chen Fan carefully averted his gaze from the gigantic octopus. He suspected the creature could sense his stare—after all, it had so many eyes...
With every wave of its tentacles, the Ghost Tide’s assault grew fiercer.
It seemed to be commanding the Ghost Tide with its tentacles.
With the arrival of these reinforcements and the octopus, the destruction of the City Wall began to accelerate.
BOOM!
All the eyes on one of the octopus’s tentacles snapped open. Ghostly Blue energy surged rapidly beneath its pale, transparent skin, flowing to every eye on that tentacle. Dozens of narrow, ghostly Blue beams of light slammed heavily into the City Wall.
Basketball-sized pits instantly appeared on the surface of the City Wall.
The power was immense.
The creature was clearly pleased with its attack.
It waved its eight tentacles excitedly in the air. As the ghostly Blue energy coursed through its body, the eyes on another tentacle snapped open!
...
’That should be about enough.’
Lying at the mouth of the cave, Chen Fan gazed down below, silently calculating. ’Looks like everyone’s here. The leader has joined the battle.’
The next moment—
A spectral outline of a City Wall, composed of white lines, abruptly appeared at the junction of the canyon and the Celestial Pit.
The sudden spectacle froze many of the Ghost Objects that saw it in their tracks.
At the same time, 3,000 Ghost Stones in the Warehouse crumbled to powder. The powder surged up a channel, shot out of the cave entrance, and transformed into a milky-white liquid that jetted toward the spectral City Wall.
The City Wall rapidly solidified.
By the time the Ghost Objects realized what was happening,
a 50-meter-long, 7-meter-high Level 2 City Wall stood like an impassable chasm, completely sealing the junction between the canyon and the Celestial Pit.
It turned the Celestial Pit, which previously had an opening, into a veritable "death trap."
The octopus, having witnessed this firsthand, grew visibly panicked. Perhaps sensing a deep unease, it no longer held back. The eyes on its six remaining tentacles all snapped open, and hundreds of ghostly Blue beams, crackling with terrifying energy, smashed against the City Wall like a swarm of fireflies.
It attempted to shatter the wall in a single blow and utterly conquer the Ghost Fire camp that so unsettled it.
However, the altar was now reconnected to the City Wall. It didn’t just repair the previous damage; as this terrifying barrage landed on the wall, the holes from the first impacts were repaired before the next ones could even arrive.
Those ten disabled cannon towers...
...were also quickly repaired and returned to the fight.
"Heh..."
Chen Fan grinned as he watched the scene unfold below.
’Trying to run? On my turf?’
An expanded camp radius didn’t just mean he could place more buildings. It meant that as long as a location was within his camp’s range, he could build there, no matter how distant, provided he could see it.
The Celestial Pit had now become a death trap.
But he had to admit, the octopus possessed some intelligence. Seeing that the Level 3 City Wall before it was now impossible to breach, it changed tactics. The ghostly Blue energy surged beneath its pale, transparent skin as the eyes on its tentacles opened once more, their target shifting to the Level 2 City Wall blocking the canyon.
It had given up on conquering the Ghost Fire camp and was once again focused on retreating.
After forcing out so many attacks in quick succession, their intensity was clearly much weaker.
But they were still plenty powerful.
Under the assault, the newly constructed Level 2 City Wall sprayed brick dust into the air, and a noticeable crater had already appeared in one section.
This City Wall had been built on the fly.
It wasn’t yet connected to the altar via Copper Pipes, so it wouldn’t be long before the creature could demolish this wall and escape.
What a shame, though...
Chen Fan smiled as he looked down upon the Ghost Tide, which was already falling into disarray. The octopus had clearly lost the heart to command them. He whispered softly.
"Meat Grinder, phase one, activate!"
On the rock walls surrounding the Celestial Pit, the sections of City Wall covering the seventeen other cave entrances suddenly retracted into the mountainside, revealing pitch-black openings. One by one, Level 5 Cannon Towers were slowly lit by their Copper Pipes.
Ghostly Blue energy patterns spread out from their cores, covering the surfaces of the towers.
The bottomless Celestial Pit was like a giant stone coffin, and the eighteen dark, gaping holes high up on the surrounding rock walls resembled the cells of a hornet’s nest.
At the bottom of the pit,
countless Ghosts writhed. Their low snarls echoed and overlapped between the pit’s walls, merging with the sounds of wind and rain to create a skin-crawling background din.
Without any warning.
VMMMM—!
The eighteen cannon towers activated in unison!
The next moment!
Eighteen beams of destructive energy, fired from different heights and angles, formed a crossfire that tore through the rainy night and plunged into the bottom of the Celestial Pit, engulfing the Ghost Tide below.
It was a waterfall of death.
If any Ghost Object had the presence of mind to look up, it would have witnessed a scene of breathtaking beauty, like a divine punishment sent down from the heavens. The light was so intense that the twisted face of every Ghost Object at the bottom of the Deep Pit was laid bare, with nowhere to hide.
At the same time!
The ten Level 5 Cannon Towers on the City Wall also joined the fray in unison.
A total of 28 beams of light fired continuously.
They slaughtered the Ghost Objects in the Celestial Pit from multiple angles.
The completely sealed Celestial Pit had now become a slaughterhouse. Each chain reaction from the beams sent arcs of lightning splashing across the pit’s floor.
...
"Magnificent. Absolutely magnificent."
Lying at the entrance to his cave more than forty meters above the ground, Chen Fan watched the scene below. He reveled in it, a wide grin on his face. It was like watching a blockbuster movie in immersive 3D.
A sense of satisfaction welled up inside him.
This place!
This was the camp he had built, piece by piece, over the past several days.
This was the "Meat Grinder" he had spent so many resources to meticulously construct!
Once activated,
it would slaughter any Ghost Objects that dared to invade his territory, reaping their lives from all angles.
And this was only the first phase of its activation.
His Meat Grinder was only a prototype; it had yet to reach Great Success.
A few minutes later,
the light suddenly died.
The cannon towers slowly ground to a halt. The world seemed to fall deaf for a moment, and only the usual PITTER-PATTER of the rain remained.
Countless twisted limbs and shredded corpses bobbed like wooden boats on the floor of the Celestial Pit. A foul stench rose, mingling with the earthy smell of the rain-soaked ground.
It was over.
The gigantic octopus lay in several pieces, buried among the shredded remains.
The night grew quiet. The assault of the Ghost Objects had ended.