CHAPTER 518: CHAPTER 174: PLAYER DIVERSION, LORD EMERGES

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Emperor Tomb Mountain Range.

The surging Black Tide halted its expansion, beginning to construct corrupted nodes.

But the footsteps of player expansion did not cease; they continued to push eastward.

In warband mode, the Divine King was conducting battlefield command in the chat channel.

In brain overclocking mode, he seemed divinely assisted, quickly analyzing terrain, player conditions, and a series of factors to make effective decisions.

After extracting a batch of Spirit Plants along the way, the Divine King issued an order:

"Everyone rest, restock at the mall, and recover your state."

With the order given, the advancing player warbands halted and dispersed.

Some players lit campfires to roast fresh Spirit Food, some bought finished Spirit Food from the Trading House to enjoy the taste, and others sat on the ground browsing forums to pass the time.

As the warband commander, the Divine King also sat down on an empty spot, took out a Spirit Meal from his Space Bag, and feasted.

After finishing his Spirit Meal, he looked at the surging Black Tide in the distance, a hint of helplessness in his eyes.

After years of playing games, he has always participated in game conquests as a commander.

In the Land of Sin, he was ranked among the top 20 Human Clan commanders, participating in countless battles large and small, including conflicts within human guilds and with foreign guilds.

In conquest, he was ranked among the top ten Human Clan commanders, involved in numerous official recordings and legendary battles remembered by many veteran players.

Yet for the first time in a game, he felt a strong sense of defeat.

When the Earth Thought Bully first descended, he engaged in combat, organizing player warbands to seize Domain Nodes.

In the initial engagements, the Earth Thought Bully’s understanding of players was zero, allowing him to successfully capture two Domain Nodes.

These were the already contained Cloud Field Domain Node and Demon Fall Pit Domain Node.

But afterward, the Earth Thought Bully’s growth was rapid.

The feeling was that his tactics were completely seen through.

Whatever he wanted to do, the Earth Thought Bully could foresee and set traps waiting for him to walk into.

He realized there was a significant gap between himself and the Earth Thought Bully.

And this gap continued to widen.

In theory, acquiring the Super Soul of Brain Overclocking should have allowed his command ability to advance rapidly.

And indeed, that was the case.

But after gaining brain overclocking, the Earth Thought Bully’s growth was even faster.

Brain overclocking did not narrow the gap in command ability between him and the Earth Thought Bully; instead, it continued to widen over time.

Facing a talent monster like the Earth Thought Bully, what surged in his heart wasn’t anger but an indescribable sense of defeat.

All efforts seemed pale in the face of the Earth Thought Bully’s talent.

He clearly had tried hard to catch up.

Every day he spent 5 hours reading forum strategies.

The detailed performance effects of every Life Soul, the advantages and disadvantages of every Star Vein Combination, the latest Star Vein Combos... including the recently updated Enlightenment Mall with 688 types of buff effects, he had studied them meticulously to utilize the advantages of his players in battle expertly.

In addition to understanding his own faction’s abilities, he also looked through the Evil Spirit Atlas to understand the information on the Earth Thought Bully’s Evil Spirit Soldiers.

As the saying goes, "Know yourself and know your enemy, and you will be victorious in every battle," and he indeed did so.

But effort did not bring a sense of achievement, and in every subsequent confrontation, he could feel the power gap widening.

The sense of defeat washed over him like a tide, submerging the pride in his heart.

Although helpless, he had no thoughts of giving up.

As a player, his future had too many possibilities.

Maybe in the future, there will appear a Super Soul similar to "Brain Overclocking," significantly enhancing his command ability.

More importantly, under his leadership, the Divine Hall Guild was still expanding.

As the Earth Thought Bully’s Black Tide grew, his Divine Hall Guild’s player count increased daily, recruiting elite players.

Additionally, each action saw collaboration from several other big guilds, so overall strength growth had not lagged.

The current only shortcoming was his command ability couldn’t keep up with the Earth Thought Bully, and with the growth in player numbers, the pressure on command intensity increased daily.

If in the future the Monster World completely opens qualifications, it might be millions, tens of millions, or even billions-scale warfare he has to command.

He didn’t dare imagine how to command such large-scale warfare.

He discussed this issue with his mates in the livestream, mocking his ultimately limited ability, fearing he might not keep up with the war scale advancements in the future.

However, a visitor in the livestream gave him a problem-solving idea.

This visitor’s code was "1," evidently the first player without qualifications to log in to the Monster World website as a visitor.

He suggested a command structure with delegations in the livestream.

Break down the warband into several command groups, grant decentralization; higher command officers are responsible for strategic decisions, mid-level commanders for tactical layout, grassroots commanders for specific execution, and pass layer information through broken-down voice channels.

This indeed gave him inspiration.

The modular group command mode he envisioned seemed entirely feasible.

The current size of 50,000 doesn’t need such details, but in future world-level warfare, his Eagle-headed Demon Perception would struggle to cover the whole battlefield, and many unseen areas would rely on decentralized unified command to handle.