Chapter 362 - 4: Pre-War Deployment

Chapter 362: Chapter 4: Pre-War Deployment

Lin Yu once again merged deep within the World Tree, inspecting his territory’s armed forces one by one.

Vast fields of defensive plants thrived at the edges of the territory. Most of them had sprouted in recent years, and since there had been no wars, they hadn’t been able to gain experience by killing enemies, leaving their levels relatively low.

Amidst the thickets, one could occasionally spot giant plants swaying their stems and leaves, tending to the younger defensive plants.

The "Plant-Person" and "Giant Plant" statuses of the defensive plants overlapped. Essentially, by the time a defensive plant grew large enough to devour another and make itself a giant, it would simultaneously become a Plant-Person.

Thus, in most cases, a giant plant was also a Plant-Person, possessing enough intelligence to care for the other defensive plants of its kind.

Under the care of their kin, the defensive plants were far more numerous than Lin Yu had imagined.

The territory’s total area was now 37,378,548 square kilometers. It was an irregular circle with a radius of 3,449 kilometers.

Outside the outermost defensive perimeter was a 100-kilometer-wide buffer zone (the outer layer), with a total area of 2,135,654 square kilometers.

Within this buffer zone, a defensive perimeter formed by the plants was so dense it could be called a defense line. This line was roughly 50 kilometers wide, covering a total area of 1,044,265 square kilometers.

Of course, this didn’t mean the defensive plants were only distributed within these perimeters. After all, they were now true plants, capable of spreading their seeds through various means and taking root elsewhere.

It was just that to be called a "defense line," the plants needed to reach a density of one per square meter. The density at the core of the defense line was far higher than one plant per square meter.

In other words, this outermost defensive perimeter contained at least 1,044.265 billion defensive plants.

If one included the plants scattered both inside and outside the perimeter, the number would be even higher.

’The numbers are sufficient, but their levels are a bit low... I wonder if they’ll be able to hold...’

Since the defensive plants’ levels were low, their attack power was also low, averaging less than 100. To Lin Yu, this seemed rather unimpressive. It would be fine against enemies that were just bags of hit points, but they’d be screwed against foes with high damage reduction.

’No, wait. I remember the defensive plants have another ability—Cooperative Combat.’

([Cooperative Combat] (Defensive Structure): A technology that only affects defensive structures. When multiple defensive structures attack the same target simultaneously, the damage they deal per second is aggregated.)

’Let me do the math. If an enemy were in the middle of the defensive plants...’

The average range of a defensive plant is 200 meters (not including ultra-long-range projectile-throwing types). A circle with a 200-meter radius has an area of 125,663 square meters. This means that at the core of the defense line, there would be at least 120,000 plants within a 200-meter radius of any given point.

Under ideal conditions, they could deal damage equal to 120,000 times the average attack power per second. Assuming they were all standard Pea Shooters, that would be 2.4 million damage. They could absolutely break through an enemy’s defense.

Even if the enemy wasn’t in the very center but just at the edge of the formation, the plants could still deal up to 1.2 million damage.

’Not bad, the attack power is more than enough. And if all the Cat’s Tail Grass hit a single target at the same time, they could deal a maximum of 282.7 billion damage!!!’ (Attack radius: 5,000, Damage: 3,600)

’Hiss... I feel like even the World Tree couldn’t withstand that. Have I been underestimating my defensive plants?’

After running the numbers, even Lin Yu himself was shocked. The bonus from Cooperative Combat was unexpectedly powerful.

Having calculated the strength of his defensive plants, Lin Yu felt much more at ease about the upcoming siege. As long as they could break through enemy defenses, his territory had nothing to fear. When it came to a battle of sheer numbers, he didn’t believe any of the other races could compare to him.

He then observed the arrangement of the plants within the defense line more closely and couldn’t help but frown.

Compared to their neat arrangement during the second phase, the defensive plants within the line now seemed somewhat disorganized.

It couldn’t be helped. For the past few years, the defensive plants in the territory had been left to grow wild.

The Landscape Planning Bureau worked tirelessly every day just to maintain the integrity of the various defense lines. They had at least managed to prevent any gaps from forming and had even expanded the lines considerably to keep up with the territory’s growth.

’Looks like I have my work cut out for me for the next few days...’

It was too late to expect the Landscape Planning Bureau to reorganize the entire defense line. Besides, even with the many Plant-People who had joined their ranks, they were still short-handed.

Therefore, Lin Yu decided to manually reorganize them himself over the next few days. Fortunately, his soul was incredibly strong now, and with his experience and skill using soul avatars, he could easily multitask to an immense degree.

After adding the task of reorganizing the defensive plant layout to his schedule for the next few days, Lin Yu turned his attention to the territory’s recruitment buildings.

The territory currently had a total of eight recruitment buildings.

These included: the Jade Sanctuary, the Druid Temple, the Vein of Life, the Shadow Teleportation Gate, the Wall of Decay, the Steel-backed Porcupine Burrow, the Peak Arena, and the Toxic Hive.

(These were either unique buildings, one-time structures redeemed with universal building fragments, or buildings acquired from the wild. Since he hadn’t unlocked their blueprints, he couldn’t build more of them, which meant he couldn’t use them to mass-produce units.)

During the period of peace, these buildings had all been upgraded to Level 10, and the number of units they could recruit had changed as a result.