Chapter 1212: Ocean of People

There was nothing but silence in the auditorium while all the emperors and Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators were calculating the four fictitious wars that Li Yao threw out.

The weapons in the latter two wars, such as supersonic fighters and missiles, which seemed enough to cause damage to the Cultivators, particularly aroused their interest.

A moment later, a Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator asked cautiously, “Fellow Cultivator Li Yao, it has occurred to me that the war system driven by oil, coal, and nuclear energy seems to boast the most damage on the surface of a planet with an atmosphere and that its damage will be significantly reduced when the battlefield is in outer space. Isn’t it so?

“Let’s take the nuclear weapons, the most powerful weapons of all, for example. In the vacuum, most of the ways that they cause damage will lost effect. Their damage will be less than one tenth of the original!”

“Indeed it is!” Li Yao admitted frankly. “Due to my limited computational ability, this is as far as I can go. Perhaps that’s the best the chemical energy and the nuclear energy can do. They are only applicable within the atmosphere and not suitable for wars in the universal level!

“Therefore, such a war system might be barely sufficient to stop the expedition army of the Imperium in the outer space.

“However, it must also be noted that the expedition army of the Imperium is marching to the edge of the cosmos after spending a hundred years covering a distance of millions of lightyears not for nothing. It is not because they are brutal by nature and simply come here to sabotage!

“They are here for the resources and the population!

“But almost all the resources, including the population, the minerals, and the spiritual energy, are concentrated on the planets with atmosphere!

“However advanced the Imperium’s technology is, if they want to steal assets, resources, and people, they will have to land on the ground eventually, won’t they? From what I’ve seen, most of the wars in the Star Ocean Imperium were fought on the surface of planets, too! After all, a planet is often too huge for a starship to suppress!

“The one thing that we should be afraid of is that they don’t land, but if they do, everything will be much easier!

“Imagine this. In a hundred years, in the New Federation, more than fifty planets have been developed, and an atmosphere and ecological system have been established on all of them. On such planets with large populations, countless ‘black hole bombs’ are buried under strategic locations that are mostly likely to be the expedition army of the Imperium’s target. Also, many mobile black hole bomb launching platforms, which can instantly pump away the spiritual energy of a city or an even larger range, are also standing by!

“After the expedition army of the Imperium arrives, they have detected neither too immense spiritual waves from those planets nor too advanced defense rune arrays and magical equipment!

“In the concepts of the Immortal Cultivators, such planets are utterly defenseless, and they can do whatever they want!

“As soon as the expedition army of the Imperium lands within the atmosphere, the black hole bombs will be detonated instantly, and the spiritual energy near the battlefield will be pumped away, turning it into a land without spiritual energy!

“Right then—

“The airports hidden below the ground are opened one after another, from which tens of thousands of supersonic fighters soar to the sky. The artillery and missile formations are activated, too, and will lock onto where the fleet of the Imperium is located. The iron tanks will start roaring. The nuclear submarines lurking in the deep sea will be ready to launch. Every local ordinary citizen of the federation will defend their own homeland with a rocket launcher on their shoulder and an assault rifle in their hands!

“In the most extreme situation, all the tactical and even the strategic nuclear weapons can be used to launch a destructive strike on the garrison of the Imperium’s fleet!

“If all our planets make such preparations of war, and all our citizens are armed with such equipment and devotion, we will really become hard bones that cannot be boiled, chewed, or broken as Fellow Cultivator Jiang described! Magnificent as the expedition army of the Imperium may be, they are still destined to be smashed into pieces!”

Li Yao clenched his fists and smashed down, as if he were really holding a thick, hard bone in his hands and bashing an unparalleled universal fleet that had crossed millions of lightyears!

The picture that Li Yao depicted was appearing in the eyes of many Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators as they calculated the possibility of such a strategy quickly.

The other Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators, however, frowned and thought that Li Yao’s ideas were too simple.

“Fellow Cultivator Li, it is still hard for me to imagine that the ordinary people can cause serious casualties to the Immortal Cultivator by manipulating weapons without spiritual energy.”

A Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator from the federal army said frankly, “The morale and the fighting will of the ordinary people are highly insufficient, and the Immortal Cultivators are unlikely to stand by while the artilleries and missiles bombard them!”

Li Yao nodded and said, “Of course, the Immortal Cultivators will not stand by and do nothing when they are attacked. Besides, for the high-level Immortal Cultivators, they can calculate the trajectories of even the missiles more than five times the speed of sound and dodge the attack!

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“However, both calculating the routes of the missiles and running dozens of kilometers away instantly at a supersonic speed will consume a lot of spiritual energy!

“I believe that a change in quantity will eventually lead to a change in quality. I believe that ants can kill an elephant when there are enough of them! However lowly the weapons are, they will certainly cause serious issues for a high-level Immortal Cultivator as long as enough of them attack the target for a long time!

“Imagine this. If you are the Immortal Cultivators who are coming to invade the federation, and you find yourselves on a planet without spiritual energy and yet filled with tanks, artilleries, supersonic stealth fighters, and cruise missiles, which essentially make the planet an iron hedgehog…

“Yes. For you, the tanks without spiritual shields can be torn as easily as a piece of paper, taking the blow of several artillery attacks or missiles may be harmless, and you can clearly see the so-called supersonic ‘stealth’ fighters as soon as you concentrate your spiritual energy on your eyes and calculate the trajectories of the enemies precisely!

“However, which of those does not consume spiritual energy? Before the spiritual energy inside your body runs out, how many tanks can you tear apart, how many blows from the artilleries can you take, and how many supersonic fighters can you shoot down?

“Don’t forget that you are in the Nascent Soul Stage. You would even be among the top Cultivators in the era of the Star Ocean Imperium!

“Strong as the Imperium of True Human Beings may be, they can’t have too many Nascent Soul Stage Immortal Cultivators, can they? It’s impossible that every soldier of the expedition army is in the Nascent Soul Stage, isn’t it?

“I believe that the majority of the Immortal Cultivators are still in the Refinement Stage and the Building Foundation Stage, except that the magical equipment they utilize might be more advanced!

“The supersonic fighters and the cruise missiles may be no match for the Nascent Soul Stage or the Core Formation Stage, but are they even not enough to kill the Immortal Cultivators in the Refinement Stage and the Building Foundation Stage?

“The expedition army of the Imperium is coming to us after a long journey. They do not have supplies or reserves. One casualty will mean one less soldier. If all the soldiers at the bottom level are stalled or killed, the top experts will only be able to run here and there with nobody that they can command!

“Besides, I never said that the army of ordinary people will be fighting the expedition army of the Imperium on their own. We still have so many Cultivators here!”

His lips curled into a brilliance smile while a three-layered structure that looked like a pyramid appeared behind him.

Pointing at the structure, he explained, “The greatest advantage of the backup war system is that it barely consumes our precious crystals!

“The fellow Cultivators have proposed quite a few highly-valuable strategic plans. Some of them are visionary, some are responsive, and some are very creative. But all the plans require Cultivators to implement at the cost of astronomical crystals!

“Both Cultivators and crystals are extremely precious strategic resources whose total quantity is limited. If the investment on one plan is more, the investment on the other plan will be less!

“In comparison, developing the backup war system will consume absolutely no crystals. All it requires are coal, oil, and metal resources!

“Coal and oil are everywhere here, on Iron Plateau, on Spider Den, and in the Blood Demon Sector. They are enough for us to collect at a super high intensity for hundreds of years. The only thing that we need to pay attention to is the pollution to the environment.

“The metal resources are a bit tricky, especially the rare metals. However, as the demons are going to develop resource planets on a large scale, they will not be as scarce as crystals!

“Most importantly of all, this is a plan that does not require the participation of Cultivators from the beginning to the end. Three Sectors combined, there are tens of billions of ordinary people. Their wisdom and strength together will be almost infinite!

“With their effort, and perhaps the guidance of Cultivators regarding the cutting-edge theories if needed, it will be enough to found a planetary war system based on chemical energy and nuclear energy in a hundred years!

“It might be not good enough to be used during battles in outer space, but it will be more than sufficient to build their homes into coldly-shining iron hedgehogs!

“By then, the New Federation will boast three layers of armed forces.

“At the bottom level, and with the largest number, are the ordinary people who use weapons that do not require spiritual energy. They will be sort of the ‘militias’ of the federation. If the country is conquered, and there’s nothing else that they care about, the number of the militias can even surpass ten billion. By then, everybody will be a soldier. The Immortal Cultivators will be drowned in the ocean of the people!

“At the middle level are the regular armies who have received harsh training and who are equipped with spiritual energy weapons, namely the federal army and the coalition army of demons of the present day. Their number might not be much higher than right now. But since the chores can be handled by the militias, they will be able to focus on the frontline. Their combat ability will certainly be improved!

“Above the regular armies, at the peak of the pyramid, there are the most elite forces made of the Cultivators!

“Militias, regular armies, and Cultivators will cooperate with each other in a trinity! When the Immortal Cultivators arrive, we will treat them with a few black hole bombs first. Then, the militias will bombard millions of tons of burning steel on them with the artilleries. After that, the regular armies will hold the battle formation and protect the militias, while the Cultivators will look for opportunities to attack the high-level Immortal Cultivators who have been barraged by the cannons. The supersonic fighters piloted by ordinary people can harass them nearby. The flying swords and the missiles will be launched together, and the crystal cannons will echo with the nuclear weapons. Cultivators will fight side by side with ordinary people to defend our civilization together. This is the battle pattern that I’ve designed!”