Chapter 1436: Beating Up Kids

“Damn…”

Fran’s face suddenly changed dramatically as he stared intently at the tactical terminal, focusing on the message relayed back from it. After a moment, he finally looked up at Lin Que and Qin Tian.

“There is indeed a variable at the Demon Spirit’s location.”

At this moment, Fran’s expression was grim, yet he did not appear overly tense; faced with Old Man Fran’s emergency intelligence, everyone hastened to look at Fran.

“The Demon Spirit has dispatched the Soul Puppet Legion to launch an attack on the tiered battleground. They’ve already breached the defense line and charged into the heartland of the tiered battleground…”

“So now, those guys are right behind us?”

Lin Que frowned, seeming unable to comprehend why the originally foolproof defense line had been so easily breached.

In response, Fran simply took a deep breath, then pointed into the distance.

“Not behind us, but far behind us!”

“The Soul Puppet Legion dispatched by the Demon Spirit… is assaulting the defense line of District 3…”

Everyone was initially puzzled, then stunned, and finally launched into a tirade of curses.

The Demon Spirit, leveraging the low reactivity of the Soul Puppets to the Level Lock, had devised a shameless tactic of kicking kindergartens and beating up little kids!

…

Sensing the sudden commotion among Fran and the others outside, No. 2, floating in the sky, let out an eerie smile.

The Soul Puppet race, in general, was somewhat special—a byproduct under the professionist system, Soul Puppets differ significantly from professionists.

The most crucial point is, they have no level.

But it’s not to say that the Level Lock has no effect on Soul Puppets; a Soul Puppet with overly strong energy reactions would still be bound by the Level Lock, but this restriction is indeed much weaker than the Level Lock on professionists!

In other words, the Demon Spirit could entirely mobilize a batch of Soul Puppets with power near Peak Level 8 to charge into District 3, District 2, and even District 1, these low-level areas.

And the Demon Spirit indeed did just that…

When Wen Yu initially set up the tiered battleground and the distribution of the Demon Realm’s Gate, each area actually had a Demon Realm’s Gate. The highest level areas naturally stationed the largest army, but even the low-level areas indeed had garrisons.

Like the main battlefield of District 7, it was the defense zone of the Oath Takers.

While District 3…

Was the defense zone of the 333rd Battalion—100,000 Level 8 Peak warriors guarding the Demon Realm’s Gate in District 3. To anyone, there shouldn’t be much of a slip-up, even against a small-scale Soul Puppet Army, the 333rd Battalion was confident of fighting and winning…

But this time, the Demon Spirit truly went all out!

…

The front lines of District 3.

The battlefield, accommodating a million-strong scale, nearly covered an entire mainland bloc, with the sounds of war deafening, and streams of energy rampantly surging.

Yet the battle situation wasn’t one-sided.

The mere 100,000-strong 333rd Battalion had already fully extended the defense line, stretching it long—strategically, this approach was rather unwise because facing an enemy with roughly equal individual strength but vastly superior numbers, holding firm in one place would be the best choice.

However, their enemies were not intent on annihilating the enemy army as their main objective.

On the battlefield, Soul Puppets of various appearances pressed on, enduring the sparse attacks, pushing forward in every direction with frantic momentum. Their objective was exceptionally clear—to escape this mainland bloc and then wantonly massacre in the defense zones far behind.

Engaging the main force wasn’t the goal; beating those ordinary citizens, low-level professionists was what they were supposed to do.

And under such an overall strength disparity, interception became increasingly difficult.

Until the first Soul Puppet broke through the defense line, diving headlong into the Void near the mainland bloc, then, this Soul Puppet instantly accelerated, vanishing in an instant into the endless Void.

This made pursuit impossible—though Yanjing had already developed super-warships capable of deploying defenses within the Void, District 3 had no such configuration.

District 1 had it, District 2 had it, District 8 had it, District 7 had it…

But Districts 3, 4, 5, and 6 truly did not.

Resources are fixed; foundational infrastructure development in the back end consumes a lot of resources, frontline demands more, while the middle areas are the kind of leftovers that can’t go up or down, and indeed suffer a certain degree of deficiency in defensive power.

…

The sieve-like defense line utterly couldn’t withstand the incessantly pouring out Soul Puppet Legion. These Soul Puppets broke through the 333rd Battalion’s defense line one after the other, while the battalion commander of the 333rd could only stand at a high point overlooking the chaotic battlefield. After a moment, he crouched down, covering his face.

This was no battle-related crime. The military wouldn’t carry out strict punishments, but the commander of the 333rd Battalion knew well what a significant threat the enemies he let escape would pose to the back.

Once the enemies disperse, employing disgraceful guerrilla tactics, no restraints could hold them in District 3, and the entire tiered battleground’s low-level zones would very likely fall into uncontrollable panic.

Couple this with the Soul Puppet Legion immediately breaking through the defense line established by the 333rd Battalion; the Third-level Demon Tribe members queued up for slaughter poured forth in a rush, at this moment, the commander of the 333rd Battalion could only watch as his soldiers were overwhelmed by the enemy like a tidal wave, then disappeared entirely out of sight.

…

Fran, Qin Tian, Lin Que all withdrew from the Sequence Member-Ranking Battle…

They no longer participated. Upon receiving the news from District 3, the three quickly brought more Breakthrough Achievers to the main defense line of District 3. But when they arrived, they could only see the sparse Soul Puppets, garrisoned warriors, and still surging tide-like Third-level Demon Fiends…

They were late.

Seeing this scene, Fran sighed immediately, then issued commands.

“Send reinforcements, strengthen the defense lines in other regions, especially those in low-level areas, and draw elites from District 8 to come to District 3 and eradicate the escaped Soul Puppets.”

“By the way, where’s the commander of the 333rd Battalion?”

“Dead… In the end, the commander stood in front of the Demon Realm’s Gate and was torn apart by hundreds of Soul Puppets.”

“Never mind… Can anyone tell me exactly how many Soul Puppets escaped.”

“…”

“How many!!”

“In the millions… along with a larger number of ordinary Demon Tribe members…”

Upon hearing the number, Fran immediately felt a chill run through.

Millions equivalent to Peak Level 8 Soul Puppets, plus more Third-level Demon Fiends—though these Third-level Fiends were merely the ordinary citizens of the Demon Tribe, but their stomachs don’t discern between good and evil, only between hunger or being fed…

If letting these guys wander freely in District 3, while they won’t destroy District 3, the panic they cause couldn’t be measured with data.

“Dispatch more personnel, as many as we have, notify the mutant beast and Soul Puppet Legion, and have all major cities in District 3 initiate a red alert, salvage as much as we can…”