Chapter 2667 - Slaughter Away
Lin Changkong finally finished his thought. Rather than spending time going back to collect the fifty million people of the second branch, they would use the time to refine the morale and faith of the billion of their own to the maximum. Once they were as united as atoms of a metal plate, none of them would fear death, which would ironically result in fewer people dying. Back then, they had solely been fighting using divine astralships, but now they would be fighting using direct infantry. The outcome of a battle of that nature weighed heavily on the willpower of the troops.
Humans weren’t machines. Whether one feared death or had faith made a huge difference. Faith was reinforced by endurance, fearlessness, compassion, legacy, and sacrifice. Not to mention, there was nothing that emboldened those qualities more than protecting one's home and descendants! Lin Changkong's proclamation had stoked the fires in their hearts.
"Ships, ready! Slaughter away!"
"Everyone of the Swordgod Lin Clan, to battle!"
A sight that utterly stumped the pursuing Second Exterminatus Army unfolded. The gigantic sword-ships arranged themselves into formations and launched their first wave of attacks. The formations were v-shaped for maximum coverage, rather than the straight, horizontal line they had initially used. Apart from the sanctuary-class ships that were used to carry cargo, the twenty-odd ether-class ships suddenly split into two all the way from the hilt! Everyone, including those of the second branch and the Dongshen Clan rushed out of the sword-ships! For mobility's sake, the members of the Dongshen Clan didn't deploy their lifebound beasts, leaving the Lin Clan to carry out the brunt of the attack.
There were easily a billion of them! The fact that they could be stuffed into those ships meant that they didn't look like there were that many from the outside. However, they still had two thousand times the enemy's number, with quite a lot of the Lin Clan's top elites mixed in among them. Even some of the elderly and the very young left their ships to join in the attack. The numerical advantage was merely one factor; the willpower of those billion people was the actual terrifying thing. One could only imagine how terrifying a clan that had fighting children and elderly would be. It was as if they were trying to prove to the enemy that they weren’t burdens.
The billion people scattered, all of them with their swordbeasts in their cosmic artifacts. It didn't look too impressive on the surface, yet that very quality was what ensured their mobility and agility. They charged alongside the divine astralships, leaping into the battlefield as one! Their war cry shook the whole battlefield, filling the surrounding astralscape with an aura of bloody brutality.
All five hundred thousand astral gods from the Exterminatus Army also left their ships and widened their eyes in disbelief at the sight. They were going up against a billion people and some three hundred million fighters from the Dongshen Clan! Seeing the fierce and brave fighters of the Lin Clan, the astral gods had forgotten that they were mere normal gods that they usually looked down upon. They were actually the most vulnerable. But it didn't seem to matter when they were surrounded from all directions by enemies, all of whom had tripartite souls that radiated killing intent. It was incredibly hard to tell the normal gods from astral gods that way. The billion people had managed to inspire enough fear to cause quite a number of enemies to crumble. Even if they knew that most of them were normal gods, what if there was an astral god in their midst? Misjudging their strength could get them killed!
It would be easy to tell the normal gods apart if they showed fear and vulnerability, but their unified war cry that echoed the rumble of their ships showed that they had mettle and were determined to kill everyone in the Second Exterminatus Army. Strategically speaking, the Lin Clan had done something utterly unbelievable that required the unwavering faith of those billion people. It was all too easy to mess up, yet they had managed to do it, much to the disbelief of the strategists of the Second Exterminatus Army!
Not every clan could pull off something like that, nor did other clans have the capability of assimilating their lifebound beasts into their swords to accommodate a tactic that fit so well with divine astralships. The billion troops filled with killing intent showed Shenxi Tianxi that their anger could only be quelled with the blood of their foes!
"What’s going on?!"
"Have they gone insane?!"
"Blast them with the ship cannons! They're cannon fodder!"
"They have a lot of people, but they're spread out! All of their lifebound beasts are in their swords!"
"Be careful!"
The formerly confident troops immediately fell into chaos. They had already been dealt a huge mental blow upon hearing about the loss of their comrades on the Sun. No matter how many times they had tried to console themselves, they were only just barely holding on. When a real problem came along, their false confidence had immediately crumbled, to the point that they were going to target tiny people with ship cannons!
"Do they think we're easy pickings?!" The sword-ships of the Lin Clan were much more suitable for a battle at this distance. They had prepared themselves a step earlier and fired the first shot! Unlike the ragtag bunch of the enemy’s ships, the sword-ships used nova source energy formed into a destructive beam that shot towards the enemy forces. The ships of the Second Exterminatus Army weren't even a real threat to the Swordgod Lin Clan. Instead, they were engulfed in sword light that seemed as bright as the radiance of a heliacal-class world. After the blast, the ships were scattered and pushed out of formation! What shocked them even more was that most of the astral gods, apart from those caught up directly in the blast, had been forced to leave their divine astralships to evade it, completely scattering their troop formations! They numbered less than half a million and were completely out of rank and file.
Lin Changkong immediately gave the order when he saw that development. "All divine astralships, begin diverting the enemy ships! Swordpupils of the clan, pay attention to their ship movements while you take out their troops! Cannoneers aboard our sword-ships should take advantage of the chaos to destroy their ships!"
The second tactic was the main point of the strategy. The Lin and Dongshen Clans had a huge advantage in that regard. Swordbeasts were able to enhance the destructive power of cosmic artifacts, making them more effective for attacking divine astralships. In a chaotic battle like this one, sneaky saboteurs that ambushed divine astralships were nightmares to contend with.
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