Sanctuary Paradise

Chapter 831 The Legion's 'Cannon Fodder'

Boom——! !

On the sea surface, as a colossal black thorn tree, a spectacle in itself, burst forth from the slug whale's body, the abyssal behemoth's enormous body, as massive as a landmass, began to crash uncontrollably into the sea, violently lifting the entire surface of the ocean into the air.

The terrifying impact transformed into layers of tsunamis tens of thousands of meters high, rolling down from the sea surface, dispersing the mountains of corpses and seas of blood piled up on the battlefield, and submerging the entire land into a seawater kingdom.

"Tsk, this guy, whose mere slamming down could cause such a huge commotion, was taken down in an instant..."

In mid-air, Randy, who was evading with Yamu and the others, looked down at the land submerged by the sea and the colossal beast carcass in the distance that still gave people a sense of being able to cover the sky even though it was submerged in the sea. He clicked his tongue and a look of indescribable shock flashed in his eyes.

one strike.

A behemoth of the size of a slug whale could be instantly killed by a single strike from a legion of three thousand men. This power is completely unmatched by any individual of the same rank.

More importantly, for an army of this caliber, the Blackthorn Legion alone could produce at least two more. And if we expand this scope to the entire Watchtower Park, then within the Tier 3 alone, we could find at least two more legions of the same caliber as the Blackthorn Legion.

"Luckily, our amusement park was wise enough, otherwise, if we really had to fight a world war with this kind of thing, we might as well just commit suicide on the spot."

Randy said, clicking his tongue in amazement, that for contractors who have never witnessed a legion taking action, there might be some dissatisfaction with the fact that various Paradise factions tacitly allow Watch Paradise to have priority in choosing the world. However, anyone who has ever seen a legion action involving more than a hundred people can only feel grateful that they live in an era where they don't have to confront the other side head-on.

"LAaaaa——!!" "Roar roar roar——!!"

Suddenly, a series of shrill screams and roars broke the silence, bringing the group back to their senses from the shock of the legion's attack. They then noticed that with the tsunami's engulfment, a significant portion of the abyssal creatures that had been following the whale had been washed ashore.

Not only that, but in the distance, a massive 'black cloud' composed of flying abyssal creatures finally approached. Driven by instinct, it shrieked and swooped down towards Xin Lailai, who was carrying the abyssal suppression device alone. Its terrifying aura was like a natural disaster, filled with oppression and the aura of death.

This time, however, neither Xin Lailai, nor Randy and the Deathbringers on the other side reacted to the abyssal creatures about to attack. Instead, they silently adjusted the vision module of their expeditionary combat suits to bright light adaptation mode, and looked down at the dark mass of abyssal creatures charging towards them with a mixture of pity and curiosity. The next second—

boom! ! !
In an instant, a dazzling light burst forth, enough to turn the entire world before them into a white expanse. A massive elemental beam, hundreds of meters thick, suddenly pierced through the abyssal energy layer in the sky, which had been riddled with holes by the abyssal suppression device. It crashed heavily onto the sea surface, instantly transforming into intense elemental ripples that spread rapidly along the surfaces of everything they could reach, just like a flame touching fuel.

In an instant, the sky, the ocean, the earth... everything in sight was covered by the dazzling, almost blinding, elemental light. When it dissipated, a huge hole tens of thousands of meters wide appeared in the abyssal energy layer that had barely covered the sky. The groups of abyssal creatures in the sky and on the earth were like firewood in a raging fire, turning into ashes amidst screams and wails.

Not only that……

[WARNING: Attention all personnel in this area. Blackthorn Legion standard combat units will soon be deployed to this area. Those not of special class are prohibited from moving outside the Abyss Suppression Device at a distance of 1000m!]

A piercing warning sounded, and the next second, one after another, enormous spatial portals, as black and deep as an abyss, unfolded without warning from the area above the Blackthorn army in the distance, instantly covering the sky over an area of ​​tens of kilometers in radius. Then...

— Millions of dark, ferocious beasts roared as they rushed out of the spatial portal, appearing like waterfalls cascading from the sky and surging towards the ground in a magnificent display!
"Roar--!!!"

A deafening roar resounded, and the ferocious beasts covered in black scales landed, shook their heads, and then all looked toward the army of abyssal creatures that had luckily avoided the elemental light bombardment due to the distance. Their pupils shone with a brutal crimson light, and without hesitation, they leaped into the air and charged toward the abyssal army in groups.

In an instant, a spray of dark green blood erupted from the battlefield. It could be seen that when the tens of thousands of black-scaled war beasts at the forefront clashed with the army of various abyssal creatures, they were like well-trained troops, coordinating with a tacit understanding that was almost artistic. They launched a full-force attack on the abyssal creatures they collided with, and then leaped back in unison, allowing the black-thorned war beasts that took their place to perfectly connect the next attack.

Sizzle—!

The ear-piercing sound of flesh being torn apart rang out. In just a short moment, the once-mighty army of abyssal creatures was torn apart by the incredibly coordinated Blackthorn Warbeast army. The Blackthorn Warbeasts, which had shattered the abyssal creatures' ranks, showed no signs of chaos. Instead, the moment they passed through the abyssal creature ranks, they all turned around in unison, like meat grinders, and together with the warbeasts behind them, they tore the abyssal creatures trapped in their encirclement into pieces.

"Roar...!" "Awooo...!"

In an instant, various cries of agony abruptly ceased from the battlefield, and a large amount of blood rained down from the sky. With such excellent and pleasing coordination, in just a few breaths, the abyssal creatures had suffered tens of thousands of casualties, while the Blackthorn Warbeasts, whose individual strength was significantly lower than that of the abyssal creatures, had casualties of less than four figures.

"Holy crap, is this thing really just cannon fodder for the legion...?"

In mid-air, Randy looked down at the one-sided battle below and couldn't help but complain. The Deathbringer and the White Demon beside him just stared solemnly at the scene of slaughter below without saying a word.

Just as Randy said, although in terms of individual strength, those Blackthorn Warbeasts below are weaker than the regular first-tier contractors and have a lifespan of only 72 hours, making them definitely cannon fodder, their strength in actual combat makes it impossible to associate them with the word "cannon fodder".

Although it only has four simple unit types, the blade-type war beasts' continuous attacks, which are like a perpetual motion machine, the shield-type and dragon-type war beasts' perfect timing for shielding and artillery fire, and the command-and-control war beasts' obedience, have all far exceeded the word 'cannon fodder'.

Previously, since they were not on the same battlefield, they didn't have much of a feeling about this. But after witnessing the performance of these Blackthorn Warbeasts, they suddenly realized that these combat units, which were used as cannon fodder by the legion, actually performed far more than just as 'cannon fodder' in actual combat.

"So, replacing low-quality contractor groups with mass-produced units is indeed the most correct approach..." Above the battlefield, Xin Lailai gazed at the distant scene, watching the abyssal creature army being utterly defeated by the Blackthorn Warbeast's aerial legion, a strange light flickering in her dark pupils.

cannon fodder.

Before the Legion Era initiated by the Military Lord, the definition of cannon fodder was always those relatively weak second or even first-tier contractors. In the Abyss Wars that broke out during the White Night Era, the Paradise faction did indeed have a habit of using ninth-tier or extremely strong contractors as cannon fodder on the battlefields of supreme or even peak beings.

However, this practice was basically abolished after the rise of the military lord. As for the reason for the abolition? It was not because the other party cared about the lives of those weak contractors, but simply because they felt that the past practices of Paradise and the Void forces were too 'stupid'.

Yes, you idiot.

This is the most direct evaluation of the old version of Paradise and the major forces of the Void by the military leader. The other party even bluntly cursed his own Paradise, saying the classic line, "You deserve to die if you can come up with such stupid tactics."

"—Using summoned creatures perfectly suited for cannon fodder as treasures, and contractors capable of generating spacetime power as cannon fodder—no wonder you bunch of useless trash couldn't even defend your own paradise before I arrived, and even managed to reduce it to a near-death state!"

"—Contribute a little? If you really want to contribute, then get back to the derivative and original worlds and get to work. Do you know how little your cheap life is worth on the battlefield? 300 soul coins. That's the value of a ninth-tier contractor on the battlefield, as you call it. For just 300 soul coins, you can produce a summon that lasts longer and contributes more than you on the battlefield!!"

"—A dead end? Forced to go? Heh, guess how many ninth-tier contractors there are in the entire astral plane? And how many ninth-tier war beasts does a single ninth-tier war factory produce every day?! If a war has to degenerate to the point where you guys, who don't even make 0.01% of the total summoned creatures, are used as cannon fodder, then you'd better hurry up and go kowtow to the Abyss races, begging them to spare your lives!"

According to the biography, when a group of remnants of the old-era Guardian Paradise Contractors found the Military Lord and expressed their willingness to risk their lives for him, after discussing their views on war, the Military Lord verbally abused them in front of everyone present.

The job of cannon fodder should be left to real cannon fodder that can be produced quickly with just an investment of resources, instead of being given to a group of ordinary contractors who take ten or twenty years to cultivate, have a variety of systems, and lack any coordination in their abilities.

If things really come to a standstill, to the point where even second-tier or even non-top-tier contractors need to go to the battlefield, then what the other side should do is risk their lives to produce resources and create mass-produced summons that are hundreds or thousands of times more useful and numerous than their own, instead of rushing into the battlefield with a burst of enthusiasm and then giving away their lives in three minutes.

"The strong forge weapons, the weak stockpile provisions; in this way, the war can last a long time."

This is the concept the other side wrote in "Abyss War: Protracted War Chapter". And as it turns out, in terms of efficiency, sending low- to mid-level contractors into ordinary worlds to produce resources, and then using those resources to mass-produce war-specialized cannon fodder that is hundreds or thousands of times more useful than the other side, is indeed far superior to the approach of indiscriminately throwing a ninth-level contractor, which requires a lot of time and resources to cultivate, onto the battlefield of top-level powerhouses as cannon fodder.

Just look at the Blackthorn Warbeast army before you, and you'll know. With the same top-tier attributes and abilities, this army of hundreds of thousands of units has exactly the same skills, perfect synchronization, and no fear, hesitation, tension, or excitement. In terms of combat intensity, it can be said to completely crush any contractor team of the same scale.

Such an army costs less than 1/100th of a similarly sized contractor team in terms of production cost, and can produce a new batch in just half a day. Furthermore, its 72-hour lifespan ensures that there is no need to consider issues such as recovery or compensation for those who die in battle. From any perspective, it completely surpasses the option of using contractors as cannon fodder.

It can be said that the military leader's concept has truly and thoroughly changed the astral forces... especially the Paradise faction's inability to sustain a war, which even led the Apocalypse Paradise and Holy Light Paradise, two of the six major Paradise factions, to decisively abandon the high-end combat power route and embark on the path of specializing in production and logistics.

If there's any downside, it's probably that it makes the career path for summoners a bit awkward. After all, the Legion's approach is basically to set up production lines and use mass production technology, which integrates Zerg, Undead, Alchemy, and Tech, to mass-produce designated combat units, rather than having to painstakingly create them by hand like the summoners.

This leads to the situation where, in the later stages, conventional mass-market summoners either have to obediently switch careers and work for the legion, becoming part of the assembly line, or they have to stick to the elite route, specializing in cultivating one or a few powerful summons. At the same time, they also have to consider whether their summons, which they have carefully nurtured for several years or even decades, are as durable as the abyss-specific war beasts produced by the legion's factory if they actually enter the abyss.

Of course, this dilemma of "where should the contemporary summoning system go?" is not something a mage like him needs to consider. It can only be said that the summoning system is unlucky. It just so happens that in this era, it ran into a military leader who caused a cross-dimensional blow to its own system, and successfully experienced the value of the saying "what kills one industry is often another industry you never expected".

As for what they should do now...

"Here, I'll leave this to you for now. I'm going to investigate something with the slugs."

After observing the situation for a while in mid-air and confirming that the war on Planet Sinking Reef 1 was over, Xin Lailai came to Randy and the others. She threw the abyss suppression device, which was hundreds of meters high and was being held by her crystal arm, to them for safekeeping, and then flew towards the direction of the abyss behemoth's corpse without hesitation.

"Investigation? Old Black, you're kidding me... Oh my god, why is this thing so damn heavy? Can any of you help me carry it?"

"I'll carry it myself."

"Not interested in."

"Well~ I saw Captain Black carrying it quite easily? Randy, you shouldn't be expending much magic power holding this thing, so I won't help you~!"

"No way, can my mana reserves compare to a monster like Old Black? He fires cannons without even taking a breath, okay? Hey! What are you three doing?! Don't go! I'm going to…!"

……

(End of this chapter)