Come Out and Duel!

A scorching stench and the reek of blood permeated the howling wind. Bloody rain and ashes fell from the heavens, the sea was set ablaze, and fissures opened in the dark clouds above as they burned. Between sea and sky, tree after tree of fire rose from the ground, ringing blossoming Luo Island. A magnificent spectacle was unfurled before everyone's eyes. Even the vindictive, frenzied merfolk froze in their tracks, stiffening, instinctively terrified of drawing closer. Yet behind them, the priests sounded their horns time and again, urging them on! From amid the bloody water, the Azure Jiao's cruel gaze spanned the vast distance, falling upon every slave, silently compelling them onward. There was no retreat, only forward. The closer they got to the enemy positions, the more hesitant the defenders would be to unleash those weapons of mass destruction. Only by storming inside could they avenge their humiliation in blood. The massive, atavistic jiao-kin screeched at the top of their lungs again and again, commanding their kin to cross the burning sea and advance. Merfolk sheathed in stone husks, mingled with heaps of corpses from the herds and Sea Locusts, crawled out of the seawater onto the beach, screeching as they lunged forward. Greatswords formed of seawater slashed down in their hands. Braving the machine gun fire, they smashed the gun turrets before them to pieces, followed immediately by the herds and Sea Locusts behind them driving deep inland. The rock-solid firepower defenses were breached at one weak point, then a second, and a third. At the cost of massive cannon fodder, the fearless merfolk completed their landing. Rampaging through the streets, they clashed in every direction and even broke into the outer factory grounds. Crashing through a wall that tore like paper, a six-armed merfolk didn't even have time to let out an exultant shriek before it saw, amid the torrential rain, silent stretches of bloody fire. And beneath the bloody fire, rows of jet-black, menacing powered exoskeletons, armed to the teeth, leveled their weapons in silence, arrayed in battle readiness. Lined up in a single file like an iron wall. "Yo, everyone—" Right in the center of the iron wall, atop the back of a colossal steel beast, Liang Mo grinned. Taking one final puff, he spat the cigarette butt onto the ground with a smack. Gouzi lifted a foot in disgust, grinding the cigarette butt out in the rainwater. The smile blurred by blue smoke and rain twisted into a sinister grin as Liang Mo extended a heartfelt greeting to the visitors: "Welcome!" BOOM!!! Amid the roar of the colossal steel beast, it charged boldly forward. Lightning crackled across a lance as thick as a utility pole, effortlessly shattering the paltry stone husk and piercing right through the stunned merfolk. Hoisting it high with casual ease, it hurled it down! A tremendous boom reverberated. Iron hooves rose and stomped down. The head was crushed completely into mush. Blood splattered, and flames flared up from the crimson gore. The clanking clash of grinding steel surged like a tide. Massed in formation, the exoskeletons trampled the earth, kicking up torrents of rain as they advanced with overwhelming momentum. Smashing through the walls in their path, they collided head-on with the rampaging merfolk. Like dynamite tossed into a quagmire, an earth-shattering detonation whipped up a furious storm. Blooms of destruction erupted everywhere! Gaps had already been gouged open along the walls of the Haian Industry factory grounds. Under the control and coordination of the Paradise system, nine mobile combat companies, after long endurance, finally broke free of their restraints and plunged into the battlefield. And in even greater numbers were those Riot Cats that had remained silent for so long inside various public buildings—no, it would be more accurate to call them Peace Cats. Having been freed from their former restrictions—no weapons, no lethal harm, no deliberate destruction—the Peace Cats, completely overhauled and upgraded, were loaded with standardized tactics and urban combat experience forged in the mud by their Mid-Continent predecessors. Raising kinetic axes, anchor armor-piercing shotguns, and squad vehicle-mounted machine guns, they unleashed ruthless brutality upon the pests before them! At some point, shattered viscera had ended up draped over the tips of the cat ears that once looked so adorable. The hand-painted graffiti covering their bodies was stained with blood. Bone fragments cracked to splinters beneath their treads, and mangled corpses were charred to cinders under flamethrowers. Even so, these steel monsters—still meowing as they fought—had turned into absolute devils. And what was even more unbelievable... "Holy shit—" Peñarosa, who had just been training his hounds, froze. Unconsciously crushing his wineglass, he leaned close to the screen: "Zoom in! Zoom in for me, right here... zoom in closer!" On the screen were steel monsters cloaked in bloody fire... mobile combat companies wearing gear that looked like exoskeletons, but whose performance actually rivaled—and even subtly exceeded—first-generation power armor! Standard Federation tactics, shockingly proficient covering fire and coordinated advances, and teamwork so seamless they moved as one—these were undeniably elites winnowed from the Federation military's vast sea of trench-filling grunts. Yet who didn't have elites? It wasn't like he'd never seen them before. Decades ago, the Empire's Mountain Land Dragon Army was practically the private army of the Holy Tree family! The crucial thing was the bloody fire cloaking them now, and the aura circulating among them that faintly resonated and linked them into a single whole. So familiar... The tricks and methods he had taught Ji Jue during their lessons just a few days ago were now appearing right before his eyes—in a manner completely beyond expectation. Peñarosa was utterly dumbfounded. This was the unadulterated essence of the Swarm, the deployment and coordination methods of the Path of Domination! Even if the details had changed, the flavor, the style, the habit—he could spot it in a single glance; he'd recognize it even if it were burned to ashes! Wait, bro, you actually know how to do this?! At this moment, the nine companies used the nine colossal beasts as nodes, sharing this blessing from the Sacrificial Lord through the Swarm's bloody fire... And those nine mechanical behemoths were also integrated into one under the coordination of the same matrix. So much so that the combat companies composed of over nine hundred exoskeleton-clad soldiers had transformed into temporary Celestial Chosen blessed by the Swarm. And the grantor of this power... The Mycelium of the Red Nation! Peñarosa felt his entire world spinning. Rubbing his face, he wondered if he had drunk bootleg liquor. If not for the timing, he would have loved to charge into the Haian factory grounds, grab Ji Jue by the collar, and demand to know how on earth he had pulled this off! You've even got your hands on the Priest-King's deepest foundation?! That was the orthodox heritage of the Knights of Homecoming, an army of the Swarm handed down from the era of the Eternal Empire, yet now it was reappearing before his eyes in such a guise. Across the nine companies, there were only nine Celestial Chosen—or rather, they couldn't even be counted as Celestial Chosen... Because right now, the ones blessed by the Sacrificial Lord and favored by the Swarm weren't knights at all. They were those nine grotesquely distinct, terrifying steel behemoths! Following the Riot Cat series, Ji Jue had augmented and elevated the concept, referencing Little Niuma's Dragon Mountain form to complete these Titan-class autonomous combat units! Swarm modules loaded. Hydra combat system update complete. Amid the chaotic battlefield of Luo Island, the colossal steel beasts roared and howled as bloody fire gushed forth. Atop their frames, the faint phantom of a nine-headed serpent emerged, greedily devouring flesh, plundering life, and presenting offerings to the Sacrificial Lord. —Matrix Relic: Hydra! The composite matrix from the Chopra family had been radically modified by Ji Jue until it was unrecognizable. Like top-tier Federation armor, yet requiring no knight to pilot it, it transformed the tool into its own user. The eight Hydra matrices were originally linked as one; thus, he simply merged them into a unified whole, taking Gouzi—whose spirituality was currently the most developed—as the core, and using the remaining eight mechanical behemoths as extensions of the matrix. Each individual steel beast was merely a part of the greater matrix, and only when all nine behemoths gathered together could it truly be called a complete Matrix Relic! Spiritus was supplied by Ji Jue, offerings were collected by the Mycelium, and backed by the Heritage Burnt Offering, the nine behemoths and the nine companies along with them had truly become a bona fide army of conquest! Or rather, the Coast Guard. If you were to ask whether the Swarm acknowledged such a chimeric, stitched-together creation... the Swarm didn't give a damn about any of that! Cats? Good! Love cats! The Swarm didn't care whether you were a human or a cat, or whether the dead were bugs or beasts. The Swarm only wanted to see rivers of blood! BOOM!!! Amid the downpour of ashes and blood, thunder cracked across the sky. At the end of the chaotic street, a dozens-of-meters-long jiao-kin merfolk gripped a thunderous hammer and slammed it down with all its might, smashing and flipping all the Peace Cats blocking its way! Raising its head, it roared in ravenous hunger. From the start until now, casualties had been countless, yet they hadn't found a single living human. That grotesque face, half-man and half-fish, was full of malice as it glared straight at the mechanical behemoth opposite it, seemingly scenting the sweet reek of blood wafting its way. Thus, it raised the hammer of thunder. A silent challenge to battle! Yet under the gaze of those savage eyes, the blood-soaked Titan behemoth Gouzi slowly took a step back, and then another. As if it sensed a terrifying threat—or perhaps simply... shuffling back a bit so that the other guy's blood wouldn't splash onto it. In that instant, Liang Mo's request for fire support finished uploading. Blazing light plunged from the heavens! BOOM!!! Among the thunderclouds in the sky, amid flashes of lightning, the sharp silhouette of a mountainous hull faintly emerged. Across the vast distance to the ground, it locked on through the coordination of Paradise. And then... The Prosperity opened fire! A greeting of 115mm caliber, accompanied by alchemical shells, plummeted from the sky! A silver storm like a tornado surged up from the earth, completely engulfing the overweening atavistic jiao-kin along with the Peace Cats pinning it down! Yet before the saturation strike hit, the Peace Cats had already completed their upload through the Veil and returned to Paradise. Within seconds, they had downloaded into new chassis, excitedly discussing their latest ways of dying and new tricks. Regrettably, the merfolk didn't seem to have a comparable mechanism... And so, riddled by countless quicksilver shrapnel fragments, the giant merfolk that had just been roaring at the sky was blown evenly across the entire street. A charred, shattered skull dropped from the sky, tumbling onto the ground right in front of Gouzi, sizzling in the rainwater. Upon its stiff face, remnants of terror and rancor seemed to linger, and even... utter confusion. [What era do you think this is, still trying to duel?] Gouzi tilted its head, seemingly spitting in contempt. It snapped a photo and posted it to the internal Lord of the Flies chat group in Paradise, offhandedly adding a caption: [Dumbass.]