“The effect... is actually quite good?”
Lin Miao couldn't help but marvel.
The Great Devourer was no longer just a nameless horde of monsters lurking on the borders.
They had openly seized the competition zones contested by the deities, used them as a springboard, defeated the Goddess of Light Association—which was originally a higher civilization—and completely annexed them.
This meant they had risen to become yet another dangerous force threatening the order of the Divine Net, much like those other infamous Outer Gods.
Consequently, the aftermath of the war they unleashed came faster and more directly than Lin Miao had anticipated.
First of all, within the Divine Net, the Empyrean Council was building a massive united front.
[God of Ten Thousand Circles: Look at the sheer number of troops those monsters have mobilized. Dispatching so many forces at once, there's no way they have any strength left to guard their occupied nests!]
[God of Ten Thousand Circles: Now is our chance. We can reclaim the former territories of the Goddess that they captured.]
The Empyrean Council first persuaded the other deities.
They proposed that even if they didn't know where the Great Devourer's actual home nest was, they could at least attack and reclaim the former territories of the Goddess of Light Association, which had now turned into their production bases.
Although the Empyrean Council's underlying motive was to minimize their own losses by borrowing the strength of others, their reasoning was not entirely far-fetched.
[Witch of Envy: Quite true.]
[Martial God of the Ten Directions: There must be plenty of resources left over there.]
Deities who agreed with their logic began to emerge one after another.
Not much time had passed since the fall of the territories belonging to the Goddess of Light Association.
In fact, many parts of those territories remained undeveloped, and most of the Great Devourer's nests were not yet fully constructed.
In other words, if they attacked and seized them, they could claim them as their own and expand their territories.
“What's more, if the existence of survivors is discovered, they will also try to plunder them,” Lin Miao pondered to himself.
Territories, servants, and things closely tied to a deity's Divine Status itself—these were the most critical resources that could make anyone burn with envy.
'However, for now, everything is still within our expectations.'
To say he was completely calm would be a lie, but Lin Miao wasn't particularly anxious or afraid either.
After all, being targeted by the majority of the deities was something they had already anticipated the moment they decided not to follow the existing order.
The bird that sticks its head out gets shot.
What Lin Miao worried about was the deities' level of vigilance reaching an unbearable threshold, which wasn't the case yet.
In any case, if they wanted to disrupt the system to their liking, this was the inevitable karmic retribution they had to bear.
Indeed, while some deities agreed with the Empyrean Council's united front, others sneered at them. Some deities who had poor relations with the Empyrean Council even took this opportunity to look for weaknesses they could exploit.
“Including Ionia, which took the lead in attacking us last time, there seem to be at least three factions planning to attack us. Are you truly confident in our defensive preparations?”
After confirming the actions of the other deities, Lin Miao voiced his warning to Elise.
In truth, all preparations had been made; he simply wanted confirmation.
“We can handle it,” Elise asserted with absolute confidence.
Balancing both offense and defense was by no means an easy task.
Especially if defense failed, supplies and troop replenishment would be affected, which would naturally weaken their offensive capabilities as well.
But what if it were a race born for combat, capable of freely altering its form and abilities according to the battlefield environment, objective, and continuously evolving technology and power levels?
'It is worth a try.'
Lin Miao looked at the mutants currently awakening in countless nests and whispered in admiration.
If the invading enemies went all out to destroy the Great Devourer, there might be some variables.
But if they just wanted to make an easy profit or seize the opportunity to grab a slice of the pie to expand their territories, then in Lin Miao's view, it was entirely a battle worth fighting.
“Look... they're coming down again!”
“Are those all monsters?!”
However, while the Great Devourer was preparing its defenses for the upcoming enemy offensive, it was playing the role of a harbinger of disaster elsewhere.
Brog, a planet whose orbital defense forces had been wiped out in an instant under a sudden, large-scale preemptive strike.
The Brog people, who had dark brown skin and were classified as dwarves in the Divine Net, were currently staring at the countless monsters falling continuously from the murky, grey sky in shock and despair.
Fortunately, the majority of the Great Devourer's forces controlling the orbit had not participated in the ground assault, having warped elsewhere along with the Abyssal Palace.
In other words, the forces currently participating in the conquest of Brog were mostly those that had arrived via transport vessels, along with a few space species capable of maintaining air superiority, and nothing more.
“There are too many of them!”
“We don't have enough anti-aircraft guns! Even if we modify them on the fly, it's still...”
Of course, the Brog people did not know these facts, which was perhaps for the best.
Otherwise, they would have fallen into even deeper despair, unable to fight to the death as they were doing now.
The Great Devourer was actually far more accustomed to offense than defense. In terms of development speed and the accumulation of experience, attacking and killing enemies accounted for an overwhelmingly large proportion.
“...Launch the orbital drop nests,” Celia, aboard the Chronos as it lowered its altitude, looked down at the devastated ground below and commanded the invasion force.
Celia bit her lip.
Hestia had become highly active after joining the colony, and what she said was undoubtedly correct.
As the colony grew larger, it needed to continuously expand, both externally and internally.
Because the colony did not tolerate anyone slacking off.
This applied to her as well, as the First Legion Commander.
Now that the goddess Hestia had also joined the colony as a Central Officer, she clearly needed greater achievements and results to have her status recognized and secured by the Great Queen, the holder of the highest Divine Status.
'This is an inevitable sacrifice. It is to save even more people.'
Celia watched as the curled-up, pill bug-like body of the massive Chronos unfurled, dropping a colossal object toward the ground, and she made up her mind.
For the conquest of Brog that she envisioned, perfect preemptive suppression and establishing a beachhead were absolutely essential.
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