The moment he threw himself into the dimensional gate, the hero who resembled an iguana quickly crossed to the other side, leaving the storm behind, thanks to the protective shield entwined in space. Seeing the part of the oasis that had evaporated beyond the dimensional gate, he gulped.
[Shikadoz. I have returned]
"H-he survived."
Elguano and the fellow gods sighed in relief. Their ultimate weapon, Shikadoz, had barely escaped with his life.
Although they were called fellow gods, Elguano had essentially become a subordinate god with only the authority to withdraw Shikadoz, having encroached on other players' civilizations and races through the influence of
Still, Elguano managed the operation well, and since they had no particular desire to win, they maintained a close alliance.
"Elguano! The monstrous creatures sent by the enemies are massacring civilians!"
"Let's send Shikadoz to control the situation for now. Meanwhile, we'll hold a strategy meeting!"
Their basic strategy had been distorted from the beginning. Who would have thought that there would be a 'monster' on the opposing side that might be more than twice, or perhaps even more powerful than the legendary symbol Shikadoz…
"Damn it. The opponent blocked me."
"They're refusing to communicate. Damn it, they must be planning to use those charging monsters to harass us early on and then deploy that demon we saw when the rift opens to crush us."
"…What should we do? Can our world's military power handle that demon?"
"It'll be tough… We've been using most of our resources to raise Shikadoz. Although we have many heroic entities that fall short of him, honestly, against a monster of that level…"
Elguano pondered for a moment after hearing those words.
"Wait a minute, isn't it the same for the opponent?"
"Hmm?"
"I mean, isn't the opponent also consuming almost all the resources in their world to raise that demon? 'Monster-type' creations consume an enormous amount of energy."
With those words, the minds of the fellow gods began to spin, and a semblance of logic started to form.
"Indeed. That makes sense."
"I think I understand why they have 30,000 life points. We couldn't see any traces of civilization, right? While we invested heavily in culture for powerful entities, that guy minimized the scale of civilization (they couldn't imagine it being zero) and turned the rest of the world into a food farm to feed that monster."
In fact, the sequence of events was wrong.
It wasn't that there was a powerful creation that overturned the world's civilization and turned it into a life farm.
It was because he had the confidence to create an ecosystem stronger than any other world, he was able to create an abnormally powerful creation.
However, regardless of the error in the basis, the judgment itself was correct.
"Let's use Shikadoze to terrorize the enemy's world."
"Terrorize?"
"In other words, let's destroy all the food that guy will eat. It was a bit of a strange environment, but anyway, that guy will need to eat. And a lot."
In short, Shikadoze is a legendary creation, but it is classified as a 'representation'. What this means is that it is an extremely outstanding genius that came from an existing race, so the maintenance cost itself is like that of an ordinary kin.
Of course, the maintenance cost still isn't small since it is a legendary hero… But since it does the work of a thousand people alone, what's the waste of resources for a hundred people?
In contrast, Yogur-Thoth, which is clearly a unique monster-type creation, had an insanely high energy consumption. It alone consumed nectar, which supports the entire ecosystem of Vein, to the extent that it adversely affected the ecosystem.
This was also a slight misjudgment by Vein. When he first started the game, he thought he had to win 1:1 unconditionally, so he deliberately raised his stats to a precarious level.
However, when the essence of the game was revealed, it became a burden that consumed a lot of maintenance costs and couldn't even properly participate in the battle.
This fact was clearly revealed during the last world collision.
"Unless there is a 'Dimensional Traveler', there is no possibility that that monster will invade our world until the dimensional gate stage and the dimensional passage stage."
"What about the monstrous creatures they pour out?"
"Our military power, excluding Shikadoze, is not very bad. We can defend. We have to try to control it as much as possible."
Elguano immediately gave instructions to his creation.
Shikadoze then clearly understood his creator's instructions.
Right now, he controlled the incoming enemies, but from now on, as a 'Dimensional Traveler', he would have to travel back and forth between the enemy's world and his home world, killing all living creatures. With powerful mysticism, it wasn't difficult.
When 'that demon' comes, he would open the dimensional gate and run away immediately. Or, through the application of the 'Dimensional Traveler', move to another space within the same dimension.
If this strategy was repeated, the 'demon' in the enemy's world would starve to death within a few years. This strategy seemed very reasonable, and thanks to the power of the legendary entity, Elguano could become the first player to inflict significant damage on Vein's world.
— — —
There are three situations that can occur in early games.
A cooperative player meets a cooperative player. In this case, both cooperate.
A cooperative player meets an invasive player. In this case, the invasive player exploits the cooperative player, or the cooperative player endures the attack and swallows the invasive civilization.
An invasive player meets an invasive player. They fight until they die and perish together, or they build an inefficient alliance.
From this perspective, Vein was quite unlucky.
The first opponent, Oswald. Was a warmonger who tried to kill his opponent with military power.
The second opponent, Teimong. The same.
The third opponent, Eung. A strong opportunistic invader with perfect cooperation and high military power.
The fourth opponent, So-on. A dictator who also had high military power and forced cooperation in the form of submission to his opponent.
The fifth opponent, Elguano. A generous invader with a stable community of legendary creations and perfectly cooperative gods.
In the beginning, I encountered two high-combat invasion-type players in a row. The third and fourth were mid-upper tier players who achieved perfect cooperation and had no military disadvantage. The fifth one I met now is undeniably a top-tier player.
Others are not so fortunate. For instance, Elkaider, whom Vein last consulted, faced four consecutive invasion-type players. They were all exhausted from fighting wars or couldn't withdraw during the withdrawal phase and forcibly continued, ending up in a miserable internal state, not much different from Vein.
There are many such players, so the lower ranks are surprisingly holding on.
Take Terracion, ranked number one, for example. In the beginning, he met a cooperative type, the second an invasion type, the third a strong invasion type, and the fourth a poor invasion type.
He met four like this. The third opponent was a bit tough, but he met reasonable opponents with average luck.
But Vein, in the most crucial beginning, faced two consecutive invasion types, followed by three consecutive upper-tier players: Eung, So-on, and Elguano. His luck is just too bad.
However…
No matter how unlucky Vein is, he wasn't as unlucky as those who met the 'Master of Mass Extinction.'
— — —
I was horrified to see the creature the opposing player dropped into my world. How can there be a level 5 legendary creature at this stage?
"Indeed, Master Vein who created Yogur-Thoth. How is it possible at this stage?"
Isn't this some kind of matchmaking manipulation? How can I not get an easy world five times in a row? At least once, a useless, trashy world like Elkaider's could come out, right?
"Even if you say that, you who overwhelmingly won over those difficult worlds…"
My shock didn't last long. As soon as I told Yogur-Thoth to handle it, the creature opened a dimensional gate and returned.
Ah, that. It's the [Dimensional Traveler] Of all things, a dimensional traveler? It's a broken trait that allows free teleportation, invincible return, and early-stage dimensional movement. Did he buy it during the last shop phase?
"That's a reasonable guess. A very tricky opponent has appeared."
As if to show off its tricky usage, the iguana-like creature appeared in my freshwater lake area a few days later, exploding the lake with a powerful light ball, massacring the creatures.
Yogur-Thoth hurriedly moved, but my world, which had grown to 160 kilometers squared after four wins, was already too vast. About 13 kilometers in length and width. Even if Yogur-Thoth flew at full speed of 60 km/h, it would take a few minutes to reach the other side.
As soon as Yogur-Thoth got close enough, the creature teleported to the cactus forest and started bombing it with beams again.
"Aaah!"
It massacred the camels in the cactus forest, melted the candies that fiercely charged at the iguana human with beams, and then teleported again, this time appearing in the mountains.
In the mountains, the creatures I had been diligently raising, the Sweet Thooths, and the jellies and puddings that seemed to be evolving into a new species, were mercilessly slaughtered again.
Yogur-Thoth tried to create a massive wind spell and sent a storm from a distance, but the creature dispelled Yogur-Thoth's clumsy storm with its own magic.
Damn. My weakness has been exposed. I can't deal with teleportation… There's nothing I can do at this point. Yogur-Thoth, as a legendary creature, had a flaw.
Yogur-Thoth's precision was low compared to its power. It was good at large-scale massacres and destruction, but it couldn't fight a single extremely strong opponent, in other words, it couldn't duel.
It's an inevitable drawback since it can't be competent in all aspects. I thought it was okay since I could push through with overwhelming numbers using monstrous creatures if the opponent didn't teleport, but it's troublesome when a maniac like this does teleportation terrorism.
Realizing Yogur-Thoth's weakness, the iguana human freely emitted light, and as soon as it reached Yogur-Thoth's range, it opened a dimensional gate and returned to its home world.
Yeah. Three terror attacks a day. That's your limit. Even a dimensional traveler can't teleport without any restrictions.
It takes a massive amount of magic power to open a dimensional gate and move through space. Considering the magic power needed for destruction, three terror attacks a day would deplete all its magic power.
But with those three terror attacks, my life score suffered nearly 300 points of damage. A 1% life loss is an enormous amount.
My score is around 30,000 points, so if I get hit exactly 100 times, I'll be completely devastated. Isn't my ecosystem resilient enough? They're not fools.
If you persistently destroy only the key species of the ecosystem, any ecosystem will be destroyed in an instant.
In short, it's like pouring that beam on Abhojuice every day at the Nectar Spring.
But if you only keep Yogur-Thoth near the Nectar Spring, that guy will destroy other places one by one, so you can't help but move Yogur-Thoth to chase him.
"This is quite a difficult situation."
That's right. They can just open a dimensional gate every day, or maybe once a week? Cross over, pour out their magic, go back, pour out their magic again, and just repeat. Even that would cause terrible damage to my ecosystem.
If given time, they would eventually grind the entire ecosystem during the dimensional gate phase.
"Okay. So, is there a way to deal with that incredibly despicable yet effective method?"
No.
"What? There's no way?"
"Of course not… Probably the vast majority of players can't deal with that at this point. To be honest, how can you stop a level 5 hero who shoots beams, destroys everything, terrorizes, teleports, and if things go wrong, escapes back to their home world?"
In the early stages, legendary entities are not something you can deal with.
Just as Yogur-Thoth, a legendary entity, cannot be dealt with in direct confrontation and destruction, the opposing world must have gathered all their resources to create this 'unmanageable power'. In other words, 'asymmetric power'.
In fact, the opposing world seemed to have an incredibly high level of
"But it doesn't seem like you've admitted defeat. What are you planning to do now?"
It's simple. This should be approached with game logic rather than ecological logic.
The『Divine Unity』I obtained in the last shop phase allows me to merge my consciousness with the world to accurately identify the attacked points, and to quickly restore the destroyed ecosystem by dispersing my consciousness. It also has another effect.
It exponentially increases my divine power in proportion to my
Divine power is a force that only applies to my world, so I can't kill enemy hero units with something like divine punishment from the sky. With the current divine power, I can't even open a dimensional rift to throw Yogur-Thoth into the enemy world… But a completely different kind of action is possible.
Just open a lot of dimensional gates and shove creatures in like crazy.
"Simple-minded. But… effective."
Dimensional gates opened in front of the most ferocious, vicious, and extremely evolved predators of the dessert army and the freshwater jellies specialized in sucking up the nutrients of the land in every place of my world. They were sucked through the dimensional gates into the opposing world, either irresistibly or by instinct.
You destroy 300 points of my ecosystem at once? Strong. But my
In return, I'll shove a hundred times. Let's see if you can completely control the 300 points worth of invasive species that will endlessly enter your ecosystem every day.
Let's see who gets hit and falls first.
"That's literally a play where you cut off your own flesh and throw it. Honestly, I don't know who will win, but let's see how the opponent responds."
— — — — —