I Arrived At Wizard World While Cultivating Immortality Chapter 695: Annihilation and Division of Forces

Tentacle Tree Civilization, Supreme High Command.

Within the completely sealed spherical chamber of the High Command's conference hall, an onslaught of projection screens adorned every surface. These screens were alive with the frantic scrolling of real-time data streams originating from diverse war zones. Red alert lights pulsed incessantly, resembling countless wounds rent across the surrounding darkness.

At the heart of the hall, a colossal three-dimensional star map, spanning dozens of meters in diameter, floated in silent grandeur. This was a vivid holographic depiction of the entirety of their home star system's outer defense perimeter.

Presently, a grim reality unfolded as more than a third of the established defense nodes had fallen into complete darkness. The encroaching shade of gray, signifying lost connections, was steadily advancing across the map's edges. A suffocatingly oppressive atmosphere continued to thicken.

Members of the highest echelons of leadership began to materialize within the meeting via the virtual network. One by one, holographic projections flickered to life upon the circular conference seating. With the appearance of each tree-like entity, the tentacles atop their crowns would quiver slightly, betraying the profound anger they felt.

Presiding over this somber assembly was the current Supreme Executive. His immense age was evident in the deep brown bark, etched with countless cracks, and the tips of his tentacles, which shimmered with an iron-gray metallic sheen. As his eight crystalline eyes slowly surveyed the gathered figures, the very air seemed to congeal.

“Report on the current situation,” a low-frequency vibration emanated outwards, causing even the edges of the conference seats to resonate.

The Chief of Intelligence stepped forward. With a deliberate tap of one tentacle on the star map, a combat recording, painstakingly extracted from the black box of a surviving warship, suddenly sprang to life. In the inky blackness of the cosmos, a terrifyingly dark tide surged forth. It bore no resemblance to any known living organism, appearing instead as a cataclysm engulfing the sea of stars. The fleet unleashed a furious barrage of cannon fire; hundreds of millions of energy beams sliced through the vacuum. Yet, upon striking the obsidian tide, they failed to elicit even a single ripple. In the immediate aftermath, a colossal, shadowy giant emerged from the void depicted in the footage. It grasped the flagship’s bridge with its bare appendages and tore it asunder with the casual ease of ripping flimsy paper. The recording abruptly ceased at this chilling juncture.

The final, frozen frame captured the operator’s visage, all eight of his crystalline eyes stretched wide in sheer terror.

As the playback concluded, a profound silence descended upon the conference hall. “This recording originates from one of the rare warships that managed to extricate itself following that engagement,” the Chief of Intelligence stated, his voice noticeably subdued. “Upon arrival and docking, the surviving crew member suffered a complete psychological collapse. He repeatedly slammed his tentacles against his own trunk until his bark split open. Only then was the medical team able to forcibly restrain him.” “From the fragmented tapping records he managed to leave before succumbing, we have managed to reconstruct partial intelligence.”

“The invaders exhibit individual combat capabilities that far surpass any conventional standards. Their chosen method of attack is through pure physical force, but the energy output of each individual…” He hesitated, and for the first time, an unmistakable shock contorted his crystalline eyes, as if the intelligence he possessed was almost too much to comprehend. “At least Level Five! And the number of high-caliber combatants… is unknown!” “Mere fourteen minutes after initial contact with our border fleet, their entire force was utterly annihilated!”

For a long moment, the conference hall remained steeped in a heavy silence. Suddenly, a device emitted a sharp beep, shattering the frozen atmosphere.

Bang! Bang! Bang!!!

Simultaneously, all tentacles struck the table with resounding force. Low-frequency vibrations surged through the hall like a tidal wave of pure fury, causing the surrounding screens to flicker erratically.

“Mobilize the army,” the Supreme Executive finally declared, his voice cutting through the agitated murmurs, delivering the ultimate decree. Thus, the civilization’s entire war machine was instantly set into motion. The Tentacle Tree Civilization commanded a vast, universe-like plane. Due to the highly active wind elements prevalent within this domain, the space it encompassed was extraordinarily immense. By the Tentacle Tree Civilization's own estimations, their plane contained approximately five hundred billion stars. Given this staggering number, and even after accounting for unsuitable star systems, the Tentacle Tree Civilization possessed an innumerable quantity of colonial planets. Even on desolate celestial bodies deemed unfit for habitation, permanent military outposts and crucial recruitment bases had been systematically established. Now, every war system was activated concurrently. Conscription orders were disseminated instantaneously via the quantum communication network, reaching every star system, every colony planet, and every city. Recruitment stations became thronged with summoned citizens as warships in the orbital shipyards reignited their dormant engines, one after another. The mechanical arms within the shipyards operated without rest, twenty-four hours a day, their fiery output from the furnaces even casting light upon entire industrial continents.

The swiftness of the governors' responses was quite remarkable.

Naturally, none would relinquish their most elite forces entirely, each secretly maintaining a private military within their own domains for ultimate control.

Regardless, the sheer quantity of warships that amassed in orbit around their homeworld was still an overwhelming number.

It was a veritable steel legion, numbering in the trillions.

The afterburners of these countless vessels merged into a luminous river that stretched across the orbital plane, transforming the void’s deep darkness into brilliant daylight.

“The enemy has maintained its position,” the Chief of Intelligence conveyed via the secure channel.

“Ever since their invasion force pierced the planar barrier, they have lingered near the breach, making no further advance. Their deployment coordinates remain unchanged.”

The Supreme Executive paused, a moment of profound silence.

Then, slowly, all his tentacles unfurled, revealing the crystalline eyes nestled at their bases.

This was their species’ expression of a “grim sort of amusement.”

“Such arrogance!”

He transmitted the thought with a cold vibration.

“Mobilize all elite forces and advance directly! I intend to uncover whatever stratagem they are employing!”

The main fleet’s departure was a magnificent spectacle.

Trillions of warships initiated their spatial jump drives in waves. Above the logistical planets, bursts of jump radiance flickered on and off in rapid succession, each flash signifying the disappearance of an entire fleet segment from its original location.

The logistical fleet dwarfed the combat fleet; transport ships laden with ordnance, power cores, and stasis pods formed immense convoys stretching for tens of thousands of units, crawling through the starfield.

Concurrently.

A sense of ease permeated the Supreme High Command’s chambers.

From their perspective, given the enemy’s apparent capabilities and numbers, the mobilization of such a colossal war machine guaranteed their absolute superiority. Defeat was simply inconceivable!

Within the holographic conference room, high-ranking officers had already commenced discussions regarding the spoils of victory.

Several governors of military districts engaged in heated debates over the preferential research rights to “Level Six biological specimens,” their appendages even becoming entwined in their fervor. Meanwhile, in a quiet alcove.

Two ancient arboreal beings discreetly opened a private channel, murmuring about repurposing those colossal obsidian constructs into instruments of war.

“Should we succeed in deciphering their energy absorption methods…”

The Technological Executive gestured with his tentacles, projecting an ambitious schematic into the air.

“Our civilization’s progress will be unshackled. We might even achieve the breakthrough to Level Seven.”

A resonant rustling filled the conference hall—the distinctive laughter of their kind.

But abruptly, all sound ceased.

The Chief of Intelligence’s holographic form jerked upright from his seat. His tentacles flailed frantically, striking the control interfaces with urgency.

The data feeds displayed within his crystal eyes were collapsing at an alarming pace.

All frontline communications were vanishing with frightening speed. The fleet’s responses fell entirely silent.

Across the tactical map, vast sections filled with fleet indicators shifted to a muted gray hue simultaneously.

The Chief of Intelligence’s tentacles froze mid-motion. His entire frame began to shudder uncontrollably.

“The army… has been utterly annihilated.”

“Every formation, every jump wave. All of them…”

He was unable to articulate the rest, his panicked appendages producing only discordant static.

Yet, every attendee understood his unspoken words.

For a stark moment, the entire chamber was submerged in absolute silence.

The ancient being who had been contemplating biological weapon schematics still held his tentacles poised in the air.

His wrist-mounted chronometer suddenly blared an urgent alarm, signaling critically high emotional levels and nutrient circulation overload.

Two alternate governors appeared utterly depleted, their appendages hanging limp, the vibrant hues of their crowns fading swiftly from deep umber to a sickly gray-green.

One directly retracted all its tentacles, contorting itself into a tightly sealed sphere.

An emotion unseen among the civilization’s leadership for centuries began to spread like a contagion: dread!

The supreme executive’s iron-gray tentacle tips even started to develop a pallor—a physiological manifestation of extreme terror.

He, however, was ultimately the first to regain composure.

*Crack!*

His tentacles slammed down onto the conference table with immense force, shattering its surface instantly.

“Mobilize all forces!!!”

His vibrational frequency had spiraled out of control. Interspersed within the high-frequency oscillations was a low-frequency infrasound, akin to a mournful cry.

“Recall all colonial detachments! Unlock all stockpiles of strategic-grade armaments!”

“Initiate a full-scale bombardment!”

“Annihilate them, along with that entire sector of space, from the void itself!!”

From a side position, a junior executive managed to respond, his voice strained.

“Your Excellency… deploying strategic weaponry necessitates a two-thirds affirmative vote from the Supreme Council.”

“Furthermore…”

“If all colonial garrisons are withdrawn, the control over subordinate star systems will directly collapse.”

“Those conquered races have not been fully assimilated. Once the garrisons are pulled out…”

“Then let them rebel!”

The Supreme Executive whirled around, all eight crystal eyes blazing with fierce golden light.

“Do you truly believe…”

“That the enemy appearing this time only aims to conquer a few planets?”

The young executive immediately froze.

The conference hall once again fell into silence.

After a significant pause, an elderly executive spoke deliberately.

“I approve the activation of strategic weapons, but their deployment will require time.”

“Unsealing, orbital adjustments, recalibration of parameters… this will take at least two days.”

The Supreme Executive slowly closed his crystal eyes.

In that moment, he appeared to age considerably.

“Two days…”

“Then two days it shall be!”

Elsewhere.

Jie Ming remained seated cross-legged in the vastness of space, just as he had been from the start.

An immensely colossal nest obscured the majority of the cosmic background radiation.

A distant star only revealed a sliver of its form. Its orange-yellow stellar light filtered through the translucent azure gelatin, casting dynamic ripples across his robes. An endless expanse of wreckage surrounded him.

Fragments of warships, shattered cannons, broken engine compartments, and drifting armor plates…

Countless metallic ruins floated silently in the void, stretching beyond the visible horizon.

Some debris still radiated intense heat, emitting a faint red afterglow detectable in the infrared spectrum.

Most had entirely succumbed to the cold, becoming mere cosmic debris.

The nest was in the process of consuming them.

The nest’s total mass and volume had now expanded to far surpass that of Jupiter.

Its enormous, gelatinous azure body slowly extended outwards in all directions, resembling a colossal net cast across the sea of stars, enveloping vast swathes of wreckage.

Once engulfed within its mass, the wreckage was instantly broken down into its informational state and subsequently rewoven into the nest’s very structure.

With each segment of wreckage it absorbed, its dimensions continued to grow.

Behind it, even more warship debris was gradually drawn in by its own gravitational pull.

Occasionally, when encountering particularly massive hull sections, the nest would extend a singular tentacle, gently encircle it, and slowly draw it back, akin to casually plucking a ripe piece of fruit.

Adjacent to Jie Ming, the Black Giant Legion had reformed its formations. One hundred billion black giants stood in orderly phalanxes within the void.

The vertical slits on their chests opened and closed intermittently, their low, collective resonance producing a singular, continuous sound.

Aside from a select few unfortunate individuals lost in battle, the Black Giant Legion had sustained virtually no losses.

The Level Seven large-scale elemental pool situated within the Infernal Sulfur Plane provided them with an almost inexhaustible energy supply.

From their demise to their repair and subsequent return to the fray, many black giants required less time than it takes to consume a cup of tea.

The spoils of this conflict were equally remarkable.

Vast quantities of energy-based weaponry and innumerable warship components had been devoured and absorbed by the black giants.

Leveraging the innate capabilities of the black giants, the number of Level Six black giants had surged tenfold since before the war, escalating from one million to over ten million!

As for Level Seven black giants, there was no longer only Molten Mountain.

Behind Jie Ming, four titanic figures, each ten thousand meters tall, stood sentinel-like, forming a dark bulwark that spanned the cosmos.

Molten Mountain occupied the central position. His physical stature was notably greater than the other three. His body, resembling liquid metal, even emanated a dark crimson luster—a consequence of having absorbed an excessive amount of superweapon energy that remained partially undigested.

While the other three newly ascended Level Sevens were marginally shorter, their combined presence standing together completely blotted out the starfield behind them.

Jie Ming slowly opened his eyes. Immense fragments of memory were continuously integrating within his spiritual sea.

With the capture of numerous prisoners and intelligence repositories, increasingly comprehensive data gradually coalesced to form a complete understanding of the entirety of the Tentacle Tree Civilization.

It was a super-vast plane, possessing an internal structure akin to a universe.

A scale encompassing five hundred billion stars would be regarded as a galaxy even in Jie Ming’s prior existence.

The multitude of colonial worlds contributed to the shockingly immense industrial capacity of the Tentacle Tree Civilization.

It was precisely due to this capacity that the opposing side could muster a fleet on the trillion scale in such a compressed timeframe.

Furthermore, even the forces that were annihilated at this time were far from a crippling blow to the civilization as a whole.

Provided the industrial infrastructure and population remained intact, they could rapidly produce even more fleets.

The sole issue was… they were simply too weak!!

So weak that Jie Ming experienced a degree of disappointment.

The so-called Level Six warships, theoretically on par with Level Six energy levels, yet their actual combat effectiveness… was utterly lamentable.

The firepower of a single vessel was utterly insufficient when compared to the might of a Level Five black giant's full frontal assault; their shields shattered like brittle paper.

Even their so-called "ultimate weapon volley" could barely inflict a scratch on a Level Six black giant.

He had harbored a sliver of doubt, wondering if the enemy possessed some hidden, ultimate trump card.

However, after delving into the memories of numerous high-ranking figures, Jie Ming's suspicions were definitively erased.

There were no more hidden aces.

That had been their absolute strongest conventional military might.

Furthermore, according to the intel gleaned from these beings' memories, apart from a select few central planets, any single Level Five black giant was more than capable of single-handedly annihilating an ordinary colonial planet!

With this realization dawning upon him, Jie Ming gradually rose to his feet.

His gaze pierced the distant expanse of the cosmos as a new, comprehensive strategic blueprint solidified within his mind.

If each black giant possessed the inherent capability to independently subjugate a colonial planet, then what was the point of keeping the entire legion concentrated as a single, monolithic force?

Such an approach was far too inefficient.

Moreover, while this plane's spatial dimensions were indeed vast, its actual substance and energy resources were not particularly abundant.

To achieve a more efficient conquest of this plane, the truly strategic maneuver would be to disperse the entire legion across its breadth!

Jie Ming pivoted, his back to the starlit view.

"Molten Mountain," he commanded.

His tranquil voice resonated directly within the consciousness of his subordinate.

"Relay this order forthwith."

"All black giants are to be deployed in squads of five, operating independently. Initiate simultaneous assaults on all non-core planets."

"Priority will be given to deploying Level Six individuals within densely populated, highly developed star sectors. Level Seven individuals shall serve as regional mobile task forces. The specific targets for planetary conquest, along with their precise coordinates, will be provided separately through the Incense Fire Divine Dao system."

"As for the core planets... they are to be left undisturbed for the present time."

Molten Mountain's chest cavity expanded and contracted with vigor. A deep, resonant rumble echoed outwards: "Understood! Your command shall be obeyed!"

Thus, the colossal phalanx, comprising a hundred billion black giants, began its slow, deliberate disintegration.

Forming countless smaller black units, the squads of five activated their teleportation arrays, their destinations set for the myriad stars scattered throughout the universe!