The eight eighth-level Octopusmen slowly fanned out, the distance between them almost precisely measured, and in an instant they formed a tight encirclement formation. The expressions on their faces were unprecedentedly grave, their tentacles slightly tensed, as if the air itself was weighed down by the oppressive killing intent. The battle between Viola and the eight eighth-level Octopusmen erupted almost at the same moment Jie Ming was forced to "leave the battlefield" by a group of seventh-level Octopusmen.
The eight eighth-level Octopusmen had clearly completed their tactical coordination during the brief standoff just now.
The next second, dazzling energy radiance flared up from eight directions simultaneously.
Energy beams, spatial cuts, gravitational collapse, high-energy particle streams, Law Oscillations, mental tears, particle secrets, Annihilation Pulses... eight completely different types of attacks blasted out from eight directions at the same time, interweaving and locking together. Not only did they not interfere with each other, but they even mutually amplified while firmly sealing off all possible evasion routes for Viola.
The mere shockwave from the combined strike of eight eighth-level beings violently twisted the spatial structure in the surrounding area. The air in the center of the battlefield was instantly ionized into a plasma state, exploding into a dazzling blue-white radiance that even silhouetted the distant fleet in white outlines.
But Viola didn't even retract the usual smile at the corner of her mouth.
She only saw the gray-white Law-Crystallization Domain at her feet suddenly expand. Originally only covering her surroundings, it spread in an instant into a gray-white domain enveloping the entire space around her.
Within the domain, law runes rotated and interwove like living things, layer upon layer weaving a seemingly thin but astonishingly tough law shield around her body.
The eight attacks almost simultaneously slammed into the shield.
The moment all the energy touched that layer of gray-white light, it was as if an invisible hand directly dismantled it, dispersing it into the most primitive elemental fluctuations. Then these elemental fluctuations were swallowed by the Law of Agony, silently transformed and absorbed.
Viola didn't even frown.
On the contrary, the eight eighth-level Octopusmen all straightened their tentacles at the same moment.
They clearly felt that after devouring their attacks, the aura of that female Apocalypse Apostle actually grew stronger by a notch! This completely exceeded their understanding of normal battle logic.
The leading eighth-level Octopusman let out a low roar, and the eight instantly changed their formation. Four continued attacking, while the energy coating on the armor of the other four switched from deep blue to dark red, clearly preparing to launch some kind of high-level combined attack requiring coordinated charging.
Viola, however, was not in the habit of giving enemies time to charge. Her figure disappeared from the spot.
The next moment, she appeared behind one of the eighth-level Octopusmen.
A gray-white spear condensed in her hand—a weapon built from agony itself.
When that spear thrust out, the targeted Octopusman, though feeling no energy impact, had every single nerve burst into heart-wrenching pain signals at the same instant.
Armor protection, energy shields, law resistance... everything was meaningless before this spear.
Because pain is not an attack.
Pain is pain itself.
That Octopusman let out a sharp scream, his entire body instantly stiffened in place, not even having time to struggle. The other Octopusmen changed color simultaneously, immediately abandoning their charging and pouncing toward Viola.
But the gray-white domain expanded once more, enveloping them all.
Watching the gray-white domain cover himself, the Octopusman Commander's facial tentacles had turned almost translucent white.
He could clearly sense that familiar oppressive force continuously emanating from the enemy, along with the pain beginning to creep over his body.
But compared to the physical pain, what troubled him more was a fear etched into his marrow.
A despair he had spent tens of thousands of years trying to forget but could never shake off.
He had fought Apocalypse Apostles before.
Back then, he was not a commander but a deputy commander of a medium-sized support fleet, responsible for providing fire support on the flank of the main fleet. He had seen with his own eyes the ninth-level ancestor of his tribe—the supreme being once worshipped by the entire Octopusman civilization as a guardian god—surrounded by seven or eight only eighth-level Apocalypse Apostles.
At that moment, he thought it would be a one-sided massacre.
He was right, but also wrong.
The situation on the battlefield was indeed one-sided, only reversed from what he had imagined.
Now, the nightmare that had once kept him awake at night had descended again.
And it was standing above his flagship.
With a casual demeanor, single-handedly suppressing his eight eighth-level kin, like the nightmare replaying in reality.
On Viola's side, in contrast, she felt the battle was much easier than expected.
At first, she had estimated that since the opponent had eight eighth-level beings, even though she wasn't too afraid of being instantly killed thanks to the peculiarity of the Law of Agony, actually suppressing them one by one would require some effort.
But once the fight started, she realized she had worried too much.
The concentration of negative emotions emanating from the opponent's leader far exceeded her estimation.
Fear, despair, post-traumatic stress suppressed for tens of thousands of years... these emotions poured out like an erupting volcano, continuously feeding into her Law of Agony.
With each wave she absorbed, her power surged up a notch.
The more she fought, the stronger she became; the stronger she became, the easier it got.
Later on, the eight eighth-level Octopusmen even had difficulty fighting back.
Every attack they launched was effortlessly neutralized by the Law of Agony; and every counterattack from Viola would cause an Octopusman to suffer so much pain that he lost combat ability in a short time.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the battlefield, the fight between the Nest and the Black Giant Legion against the Octopusman main forces was also raging fiercely.
Relying on the Return to Ruins Armor and Trigram Fire Annihilation Divine Light issued to them, the Black Giant Legion held an overwhelming advantage in sixth-level battles. The Return to Ruins Armor absorbed energy attacks and converted them for storage, while the Trigram Fire Annihilation Divine Light fired back the stored energy in highly dense form. This integrated attack and defense mode gave the Octopusman sixth-level units a hard time.
The Nest was like an insurmountable blue sky moat, firmly blocking between the Octopusman main forces and Jie Ming.
Countless attacks landed on it, like stones thrown into the sea—not only failing to cause damage, but making it grow larger with each hit.
By virtue of absolute numerical and equipment superiority, the Black Giant Legion soon suppressed most of the Octopusmen.
As for Jie Ming...
Jie Ming was fleeing for his life.
In the sky, a dark gold stream of light flickered madly among the clouds at nearly light speed.
After activating Light God Transformation, each of Jie Ming's flashes was accompanied by slight tremors in the spatial structure, like a continuously jumping golden lightning bolt. And behind him, over fifty seventh-level Octopusmen were in hot pursuit.
The armor nozzles on their bodies spewed dazzling exhaust flames, and the energy coating on the armor surfaces rubbed into glaring white light during high-speed flight. Over fifty seventh-level Octopusmen split into several pursuit formations, flanking and blocking from different directions, trying to corner Jie Ming.
Without turning his head, Jie Ming raised his hand and flung a Trigram Fire Annihilation Divine Light behind him.
The dark gold beam blasted toward the nearest group of Octopusmen, but that group reacted very quickly. Their joint armor shields activated instantly, and several layers of energy barriers at different frequencies expanded simultaneously.
The beam pierced through the first two layers of shields but exhausted its energy before the third layer, eventually dissipating in the air.
The Octopusmen's pursuit speed did not decrease at all; instead, they took the opportunity to fire dozens of energy beams at him.
Jie Ming executed the Void Step, flashing continuously in the air, barely dodging most of the attacks. However, a few energy beams grazed him. Small sparks exploded on the surface of the Return to Ruins Armor, and his figure staggered in the air for a moment before stabilizing and continuing forward.
After dodging another group trying to block him, Jie Ming looked back at the relentless seventh-level Octopusmen and his face darkened.
To be honest, these Octopusmen were indeed strong—much stronger than other ordinary seventh-level beings of the same rank.
Moreover, they seemed to have some special techniques to stack their strength.
At Jie Ming's level, he estimated that in a frontal fight, he could handle at most seven or eight.
But he wasn't facing seven or eight now.
He was facing over fifty.
Fortunately, the Black Giant Legion and the Nest had previously done their utmost to help intercept nearly half of the seventh-level Octopusmen.
The remaining fifty or so still far exceeded his handling capacity, but at least it was not completely impossible to maneuver.
More importantly, when his body refinement method had previously withstood the fleet's volley, it had already raised his resistance to Octopusman energy weapons to a considerable level. Those energy beams that could vaporize stars, when hitting him, had most of their power absorbed and converted by the Return to Ruins Armor, and the remaining part, after adapting through the body refinement method's self-adaptive defense, could no longer cause major damage.
Thus, the situation became extremely bizarre.
He ran while getting hit.
After getting hit, he could still run faster.
The two sides thus stalemated in the high sky. Jie Ming couldn't shake off the Octopusmen, and the Octopusmen couldn't kill Jie Ming.
The entire chase carved a continuous trajectory of intertwined dark gold and metallic colors spanning tens of thousands of kilometers across the sky.
Viewed from afar, it looked as if someone had cut an ever-expanding wound across the firmament with a knife.