I take life very seriously 92. Godzilla-Class Monster (2)

One hour later, the instant this Godzilla-scale beast burst from the sea, its momentum far surpassed that of several nuclear submarines surfacing at once.

The moment it encountered a reconnaissance drone from the Battle God squad that had come to scout it out, it glared, and two shafts of white light shot from its eyes, blasting the drone to pieces.

Sure enough, the five-dimensional spatial thought model had been right. This thing still had a trump card.

Yet the five-dimensional spatial thought model said, “From its energy level, I estimate it is equivalent to the combined total of the four demigods you have slain in the past. In simple terms, the high-dimensional energy stored within it can rival four atomic bombs, so there is no way it will only have that much in reserve.”

“That’s absurd! Four demigods... how are we supposed to fight that? This sort of thing should not exist at all,” Zhang Mingjing complained.

“There is no such thing as should or should not. Coding a monster into existence is as easy as molding clay. But in terms of agility, comprehension, cunning, maneuverability, and even superpowers, it still falls far short of the high-intelligence hosts like demigods. So long as you deal with it carefully, total victory is entirely possible.”

“Do I dare deal with it carelessly? When have I ever been careless? That was a load of nonsense! You’d be better off telling me how to bring it down.”

“Gather your Taoist teammates. Once you reach the battlefield, you will know how to fight.”

“But Catherine and Jemmy have only just recovered from their injuries, and Yuhua and Chengxian are still not fully healed. This time, let me, Zhang Yidao, Xiao Nuxia, and the three satellites go in first!”

“I knew you would say that. But have you considered this creature’s enormous size? And look at how fast it moves in the sea. It has already reached the South Sea; I estimate that on land it will move like a gale.”

“Don’t forget, we have the Eight Trigrams Formation. We can weaken it quickly!”

“Heh. Not every time is one so lucky. This time it will not go so smoothly. I have already calculated that it contains far too much energy, which means a vast surplus. For Zhang Yidao and Xiao Nuxia’s Eight Trigrams Formation alone, it will take more than an hour just to drain the excess energy within it. Before that surplus is exhausted, its strength will not be weakened.”

“Damn it! So you mean we have to fight for more than an hour before we can even begin to weaken it?”

“Mm. The road ahead is long and arduous. Although Zhang Yidao and Xiao Nuxia’s Eight Trigrams Formation is founded upon high-dimensional computing power, it still depends on the two of them to maintain the Qian position on the beast at all times while absorbing its energy. This tests the depth of their cultivation. I have calculated that with their current level, they cannot weaken the beast’s combat power in a short time.”

“Then what do you suggest?”

“This time, it would be best to bring Catherine and Jemmy as well. More hands mean more strength. You must find a way to delay the beast’s advance and use the Eight Trigrams Formation repeatedly to drain its energy. Perhaps, in the end, you may still barely win.”

“Damn it! You just said I could win decisively, and now you’re telling me we might only barely manage it? The way you’re talking makes it sound as if we’re doomed to lose.”

“Oh? Did I say just now that you would win decisively?”

“What the hell! You said that less than a minute ago.”

“Ah. I may not have finished the calculation then, so what I said was not accurate enough. Let us simply take it as encouragement.”

“Damn it, when did you become this sloppy? ...Just how much chance do we actually have this time?”

“Hard to say. I haven’t finished calculating it yet. Let us proceed step by step.”

Hearing this, Zhang Mingjing continued to grumble, “Why does it feel especially exhausting to talk to you today? Can’t you just tell me straight what I’m supposed to do in this battle?”

“You must do everything in your power to stop the beast from advancing and buy time for Zhang Yidao, because one round of energy absorption from the Eight Trigrams Formation will not be enough to weaken this beast. You will need to repeatedly clear out the energy you have drawn, then begin another round of absorbing the beast’s power. Only after repeating this many times can its energy be stripped away, until at last it becomes weak enough for you to kill.”

“Oh! I get it. We have to use the Eight Trigrams Formation to strip its energy away round by round!”

“Mm.”

“So how many rounds will it take before the beast becomes weak enough for us to kill?”

At this, the five-dimensional spatial thought model hesitated for a moment before saying, “Three rounds.”

“Three rounds! Damn it, that’s way too fucking difficult.”

“Yes. Whether in attack power, resistance to blows, or speed, this thing is unprecedented. It will certainly be a fierce battle.”

“Mm.” Zhang Mingjing had already activated his battle armor by then, and he notified Zhang Yidao, Xiao Nuxia, Catherine, and Jemmy to prepare for combat while he rushed ahead to the battlefield.

In twenty minutes, the beast would come ashore.

Within those same twenty minutes, Zhang Mingjing would also arrive at its landing point and do everything possible to slow it down, striving to weaken it enough to be killed before it reached the small southern city.

However, Zhang Mingjing did not yet know that when the five-dimensional spatial thought model said the beast would need to be drained three times by the Eight Trigrams Formation, that was actually a rather offhand estimate. Even now, it still did not know the current maximum capacity of the formation, and therefore could not determine exactly how much energy the formation could strip from the beast in one round. It had merely calculated based on the assumption that one round would remove half, and so it said three rounds.

But the five-dimensional spatial thought model had no real choice in the matter. It could not fully comprehend this Eight Trigrams Formation either. In order to be truthful without casting too large a shadow over Zhang Mingjing’s mind, it had no choice but to say for the time being that three rounds would be needed.

...

Twenty minutes later, the beast finally came ashore.

As expected, the moment it landed, it began charging at full tilt toward the small southern city. After one minute, its average speed had already reached four hundred kilometers per hour; after two minutes, it had surged past six hundred.

When such a colossal creature moved at that speed, it practically blazed a path through mountains and barriers alike, with no resistance whatsoever. The scale of destruction was easy to imagine.

Zhang Mingjing watched, sighing in endless amazement, and muttered, “It’s nothing like wind. It’s more like a huge mass of phantoms rushing past.”

By then Catherine and Jemmy had not yet arrived, so Zhang Mingjing threw himself at the beast alone, pouring every ounce of power into the Star-Sucking Fist technique. Though each strike landed true, the beast seemed to ignore them entirely.

From the battlefield holographic imagery sent back to him, Zhang Yidao had already laid out his own Eight Trigrams Formation and placed the Qian trigram upon the beast’s position, moving with it. Then he helped Xiao Nuxia set up her formation as well, and the two formations began to absorb the beast’s energy side by side.

Ten minutes later, Catherine and Jemmy also arrived. Working together with Zhang Mingjing, they launched their attack on the Godzilla-scale beast before them, doing everything they could to slow its advance.

This time, to stop the beast, they focused their attacks on its four limbs. But clearly the beast was not only defending through the miraculous relocation power of a temporal monster; it had also specifically optimized the skin, muscle, and bones of its limbs, making them even more resistant to blows than the rest of its body.

After seventeen minutes of fierce struggle, they had indeed disrupted its advance and even slowed it somewhat, yet Zhang Mingjing and the others still felt utterly strained, the pressure on them immense.

“This thing is too damn tough!” Jemmy complained.

“Is there any other way to make it stop? Fighting it like this...” Catherine asked Zhang Mingjing.

“Any ideas?” Zhang Mingjing asked the five-dimensional spatial thought model.

“Not for now!” it replied.

...And so Zhang Mingjing and the others could only keep fighting with all their might.

About five minutes later, the energy in every trigram position of the two formations finally became saturated.

Zhang Mingjing had Zhang Yidao begin clearing the energy from each trigram, but because the energy was immense and the process of discharge was nearly instantaneous, it could not be released within three-dimensional space; otherwise, certain atomic nuclei would be torn apart in an instant, causing a catastrophic nuclear disaster. In the end, with the help of the five-dimensional spatial thought model, the energy was discharged into four-dimensional space.

Once the energy had been emptied, the formations returned light and nimble to the field and began the next round of the energy-draining plan.

At this point, the five-dimensional spatial thought model finally obtained the storage-limit data of the Eight Trigrams Formation and calculated that a total of six rounds of energy draining would be required to weaken the beast to a level where it could be killed.

“Six rounds! Why is it six rounds? Damn it!” Zhang Mingjing cried in horror. “Didn’t you say three?”

“The earlier number was a budget estimate. This is an exact calculation,” the five-dimensional spatial thought model explained awkwardly.

“Damn it, today you’re just too fucking unreliable! Before six rounds are up... I’m guessing this thing will already have gotten its energy orb, right?!”

“Yes. So we must find a way to stop it.”

“Easy for you to say! ...God, I wish a single spit could stick this bastard’s legs together.” Zhang Mingjing muttered in frustration.

The moment he finished speaking, almost simultaneously, he and the five-dimensional spatial thought model hit upon the same solution, and said in unison, “Find something sticky and glue its legs shut.”

Zhang Mingjing smiled. “Even if it can’t be fully stuck, we can at least slow it down completely.”

“Exactly. We’ll have to leave this to real people.”

Zhang Mingjing immediately had the real people search among their contacts for someone capable.

Sure enough, three seconds later it reported, “About two hundred and twenty kilometers from here, there are many factories producing engineering materials. Those materials have a certain degree of stickiness.”

It turned out that the roads leading to the southern small city where the energy orb was located, along with the surrounding cities, had been badly damaged over the past year by the passage of monsters and beasts. Extensive civil engineering and infrastructure work was needed to rebuild them, so a large number of construction material production and supply projects had gathered around these roads and cities. There were vast quantities of cement, asphalt, paint, and the like.

Hearing this, Zhang Mingjing immediately felt hope. He finally found a lower-lying stretch along the beast’s route as an ambush area, about two hundred and ten kilometers from here and only an average of ten kilometers from those construction material production bases.

This ambush stretch was not long, only about two kilometers, but if used properly, it might well trap the beast there for a while. So Zhang Mingjing immediately began planning.

But that place was only about two hundred kilometers from the southern small city. If the beast could not be trapped there, then it would be far more difficult to stop it afterward. Unfortunately, there was no better choice.

While formulating his strategic plan, Zhang Mingjing had already had the real people find a way to transport those construction materials with a certain degree of stickiness to the ambush area.

Thanks to its powerful network of contacts, the real people sprang into action almost three seconds after receiving the order.

The “capable figures” within its network began mobilizing local land transport to haul all kinds of sticky construction materials toward the ambush route.