Ten thousand I am across the heavens

Wu Yong couldn't discern the weakness of this move in a short time. After all, the sharing and fusion of such concepts was very subtle, and a normal person wouldn't think that this resurrection was achieved through a kind of self-healing ability similar to the body.

But their weaknesses will eventually be discovered, and the wind tunnel is indeed ineffective against them. Even the Great Harmony Wind can only physically destroy a few people at most. As long as the damage doesn't reach a certain level, they can naturally recover.

On the other side, Yuqing Difeng Xiaozhulou faced an attack from the Eighth Legion, the Snowman Legion's two main damage dealers, and the Thirteenth Legion, but managed to hold its own. As the Thirteenth Legion gradually recovers its strength, it might have a chance to gain the upper hand.

If the war can be stalled until the Seventh Legion returns, the tide of battle might turn dramatically. While the Seventh Legion's offensive output is somewhat weak, the activation of its "psychic acceleration mode" has unleashed a terrifying speed beyond its limits, reaching a point where quantitative change leads to qualitative change. Perhaps it still won't be able to break through defenses in many situations, but it already possesses immense strategic significance. Being fast enough to hit the enemy while the enemy cannot hit me—this in itself is the greatest strategic advantage.

However, even as the tide of battle began to turn, the overall situation on the front lines remained far from optimistic. This was primarily evident on the main battlefield, where the East Sea's main force had already closed in. Even though the Icebreaker Alliance possessed formidable firepower, relying on its defensive advantages to launch a devastating bombardment, the East Sea's numerical superiority was overwhelming. After all, they could mobilize the resources of an entire continent, while the Icebreaker Alliance could only mobilize its non-high-ranking members. The true high-level powerhouses, who had amassed their strength through countless years of exploiting the continent's resources, were completely indifferent to their plight.

This resulted in the gap between the two sides not only being reflected in strength, but also in the amount of resources they possessed. Donghai, relying on its own accumulation and foreign trade channels, had accumulated several times more resources than the Icebreaker Alliance. This was reflected on the front lines as super warships thousands of meters long broke through the ice and advanced despite numerous attacks.

Every warship here is at least on par with the ships of a pirate king, with overall strength no less than that of a sixth-rank expert, and even stronger defensive capabilities.

The vast wealth accumulated throughout history has played a crucial role in modern industrial development, at least surpassing the stage of primitive accumulation. Even as a source of raw materials, they still possess abundant natural resources, which can be exchanged for large quantities of industrial products and even a small amount of high-tech equipment.

This is another reason why the East China Sea, besides its geographical advantages, can develop faster than other continents. These warships, specifically built to break through border lines, have undergone extensive reinforcement. The outer armor plating was even manufactured using aviation materials discarded by the Shanhe Republic. More extreme examples even use rudimentary hulls modified from satellites that have fallen from space.

The Republic of Mountains and Rivers launched a massive mechanical city into the sky—a gigantic floating city comparable in size to a planet—to facilitate exploration beyond this world.

As a result, the launch of numerous aircraft has also left debris scattered everywhere.

Unfortunately, no matter how far these wreckages fell, they were unlikely to reach the most remote continent of Beiyuan, so this somewhat over-the-top device was only possessed by the people of Donghai. The people of Beiyuan had almost none of them.

At this moment, these incredibly robust devices had become an impenetrable wall of steel. The invisible outer shield of the warship had long since been shattered. Yet, the seemingly broken and battered armor on the warship's surface withstood round after round of relentless bombardment. It appeared that even legion-level attacks, colliding head-on with the damaged armor, would hardly inflict any effective damage.

The points of light falling from the sky like meteors were ultra-long-range strikes unleashed by legions controlling legion-level weapons on the battlefront. Each meteor's fall inflicted devastating damage on a large surrounding area. However, this devastating damage only affected the surrounding environment. The warships, cutting through the waves, remained remarkably undamaged even when hit and bombarded, tumbling and rolling in the water.

Only a few warships, which were not made of very solid materials, suffered serious damage from being hit by one or two meteors and sank to the bottom of the sea.

Even those remaining objects, though pushed to the seabed by the massive impact of the explosion, could resurface like submarines. In fact, the thick layer of water cushioned their impact.

Fierce firepower can only gradually erode their outer armor; only a large number of hits can completely destroy a warship.

The fact that every warship's forces crossed the blockade line signified that a large number of powerful enemy soldiers had unleashed their power.

Initially, when no one successfully crossed the blockade, the pressure on the defenses wasn't too bad. Without the ability to use lethal attacks, the enemy's ranged attacks were negligible against the legion's defenses, posing virtually no threat to those on the other side of the border. However, as the battle unfolded and the warships drew closer, the situation gradually began to change.

Even under the concentrated fire of countless people, a massive warship, riddled with holes, still managed to break through the blockade. It was a 10,000-meter-long ace warship, far exceeding the legendary pirate emperor's vessel in size. Under the bombardment of countless legion attacks, this ace warship was already riddled with holes, but relying on its incredibly sturdy outer armor, it managed to withstand massive damage and break through the Five Domains Boundary Wall.

As the massive, dilapidated warship slowly passed over the invisible barrier, numerous powerful figures from the East Sea surged forward as if a hornet's nest had been stirred up, pouring out of the wrecked vessel.

Meanwhile, a large number of Icebreaker Alliance warriors had already surrounded the warship. Three regular legions surrounded the warship, and the moment the enemy flew out of the warship, a barrage of cannon fire erupted.

The powerful warriors from the East Sea had just rushed out when they were met with a barrage of fire, their shields flashing incessantly. The light from their defensive attacks, which ignited and then shattered, made them fall from the sky like fireflies in the night.

This scene, which may seem like moths flying into a flame, was actually achieved by concentrating a large force.

How many legions are there on the border? Only one enemy warship has emerged; there are so many more to come. If they can't be destroyed in time, even more will rush out from the border. Soldiers from three legions have already charged forward and engaged the enemy in close combat, relying on their powered armor and the bio-engineered devices within it. The technological gap between the two sides has essentially been eliminated. The East China Sea, due to its large imports of foreign industrial goods, was originally ahead in industrial capacity. While its mass-produced powered armor and individual mechs lacked originality and were mostly copied, the copied designs were inherently sophisticated. Being able to completely copy and produce them naturally allowed them to quickly acquire considerable combat power.

In contrast, the Icebreaker Alliance's independent research and development, limited by its industrial resources, has encountered numerous pitfalls. As a result, the weapons currently produced and deployed to the army are technologically inferior to those of the enemy. If it weren't for their leading role in the Firstborn's Catastrophe, serving as the frontline force against the Firstborn, collecting vast amounts of biological data and samples, and inheriting most of the Firstborn's legacy, using biotechnology to partially compensate for their technological gap in mechanical engineering, the exchange ratio on the battlefield would likely be far from even 1:1.

The current high casualty ratio is due in part to the bio-engineering technology that has compensated for some of the shortcomings, and also to the skillful command from the rear and the diligent and rigorous training of the soldiers, who resolutely execute tactics on the battlefield. Outdated equipment can, to a certain extent, be compensated for by superior tactics.

It's like a once-powerful light infantry unit on Earth that, despite using weapons vastly inferior to its enemy and having far less training and equipment, managed to defeat the world's most advanced armed forces through sheer tactics and willpower.

The strategic master also plays a crucial role in this battle. War itself involves dividing and encircling, using superior numbers to create local numerical superiority, and leveraging various environmental conditions to achieve victory.

One of the few advantages the East Sea Icebreaking Alliance possesses compared to the other is its organizational strength. Perhaps in terms of authority, the authority of an eighth-rank expert in the East Sea is no less than that of the Icebreaking Alliance's government agencies. In fact, their prestige among ordinary experts is even higher.

But authority doesn't equate to organizational power. Religious leaders also wield considerable authority over their followers, but this doesn't mean every religion possesses strong organizational capabilities. A rigorous system is needed to structure this, a system that ensures everyone knows their role, and the long-standing tradition of freedom and laxity in the East Sea is not easily broken. The fragmentation among various families also makes it difficult to establish a strict top-down management and command system.

Battles involving over a thousand people are basically chaotic, which gives powerful figures in the martial arts world an opportunity to shine.

After the two sides clashed, the real battle truly began. In terms of total numbers, the Icebreaker Alliance actually held a certain advantage. However, this was because the proportion of cultivators below the second level in their army was far higher than that of their opponents. They were still a newly emerging force and simply couldn't accumulate that many powerful individuals. The vast majority of their army members were completely ordinary people just a few years ago, and some were even considered to have no talent for cultivation at all. They only gradually embarked on the path of cultivation through special development, but their progress was extremely slow. Over the years, they had only barely reached the first or second level.

Those from the East China Sea who were mobilized to participate in this war, even the lower-level members, were all at least at the second rank in strength on average. After all, the resources possessed by our ancestors were completely different from those of ordinary people.

The most typical example here is actually the Yeti Legion. The original members of the Yeti Legion were actually insignificant in the eyes of many immortals. In essence, they were just weak sixth-level immortals raising livestock in their bodies, and occasionally they could be tricked into coming out to do chores when they needed to do something.

For immortals, cultivating an army primarily composed of fourth-tier cultivators doesn't require consuming many of their resources; it can be done with ease.

Therefore, in the mortal realm, only those of the highest caliber can achieve the fourth rank, and reaching the fifth rank makes one a regional overlord. But once inside an immortal's body, the strength of those so-called regional overlords is nothing more than commonplace.

The soldiers dispatched by the East Sea this time were mostly warriors trained by the various immortals themselves. As high-end combat forces, they could easily cultivate a large number of powerful warriors, a resource the Icebreaker Alliance lacked. Most of the resources on their continent were concentrated in the hands of a small group of powerful individuals, particularly the former Golden Clan.

Even though they have now united and gathered a large number of mortals, creating a vast amount of wealth, it is still a drop in the ocean compared to tens of thousands of years of accumulation. Even if they were to spare no expense in nurturing a new generation, it still wouldn't compare to the scraps that the top experts of the East Sea could casually toss through their fingers.

The battle on the front lines was becoming increasingly intense. One after another, massive, battered warships, braving fierce attacks, broke through the border restrictions. Using their sturdy hulls as fortresses, they carved out salient after salient along the border, covering the continuous influx of other warships crossing the blockade. Although their forces outside the blockade were still outnumbered and would suffer heavy casualties from the intense firepower, they could hold off far more troops than they had inside the border. With this shift in balance, the front lines were gradually becoming unsustainable.

But this immense pressure also presents an opportunity for the frontline troops to rise to the challenge and break through their limitations.

The legion system, with its unique approach that unites the spirit and morale of every soldier, is considered by experts in the Republic of Mountains and Rivers to be an exceptionally effective warfare model—one that truly reveals its potential on the battlefield.

In this respect, they have even gone further than the Republic of Shanhe, after all, the Republic of Shanhe has not encountered a worthy opponent for quite some time. Even the Central Plains has only been able to withstand their offensives by relying on its border.

At this moment, the increasing pressure finally caused the regular legions to erupt.

[To be continued]

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