The People's God: Sacrificing Trillions to Ascend-Chapter 448 - Clash of Might

The war between the locusts and goblins raged on as the two armies clashed repeatedly. By now, the survivors and locusts had all but abandoned their missions to collect resources. Whenever they spotted goblins, they dropped everything to hunt them down. On the other hand, the goblins focused all their efforts on kidnapping female survivors.

With each passing day, the fighting intensified until even killing zombies became secondary.

Han Wu and Huang Shengjun were controlling their forces from afar, and had started to take the conflict seriously.

Over the past few days, Han Wu’s army had slaughtered many goblins, and something about it felt off. The goblins were far too weak; most were Unique life forms, and some were even Common goblins.

The imbalance alarmed Han Wu. Within just a month or two, he had successfully upgraded all his locusts to Unique life forms. How could Huang Shengjun, whose talent rivaled his own, still command such weak units? The only plausible reason was that Huang Shengjun was concealing his true army, keeping his real strength off the battlefield.

Han Wu couldn’t ascertain how much Huang Shengjun was hiding, so he summoned his strongest unit, Dark Locust, to give him a secret mission.

“Dark Locust, I am assigning you the most difficult mission. Locate Huang Shengjun’s main base and report back how many powerful units he has,” Han Wu instructed.

Dark Locust nodded and flew east toward Tanuki Town. After issuing his order, Han Wu turned his attention to strengthening his forces. He sought out the Origin of Mutation and told it to halt its research on the genes responsible for triggering special abilities. For now, he wanted it to focus on nurturing the locusts.

Naturally, the Origin of Mutation agreed. Han Wu had currently summoned only 20 million locusts, which was barely a fraction of his true army. To enhance their power, the Origin of Mutation used Controlled Mutation and sacrificed a portion of their lifespan. Under its direction, the locusts grew exceptionally powerful. Their average strength now matched that of a Heroic life form, but their lifespan had been shortened to one year.

A year was fleeting for a human, but it was more than enough for the final battle. Still, the upgrades didn’t stop there. Han Wu also instructed the Origin of Mutation to create even stronger species of locusts.

Eager to comply, the Origin of Mutation asked Han Wu to capture several living goblins. It then used its most versatile Skill, Gene Recombination, to transfer the goblins’ dexterous hands and graft them onto the locusts.

Soon, Han Wu’s swarm was teeming with bizarre locusts sporting mismatched limbs. They resembled the Radiation Beasts that had consumed nuclear wastewater: grotesque yet powerful. With the grafted hands, the locusts could then use Sixfold Artifact to summon all six weapons at once. Those dexterous limbs gave them better control over their arsenal, turning many into mobile turrets capable of unleashing volleys of arrows within seconds.

Some of the locusts had goblin kidneys grafted into them, which drastically enhanced their reproductive abilities. They could now breed with remarkable ease, but this improvement would take time to reveal its true value. Han Wu still needed time to nurture the newly hatched locusts. 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

Overall, the Origin of Mutation’s hack-like skills had transformed his swarm. More than 1,000 Lord life forms were produced, and the sight filled Han Wu with elation.

Before long, Dark Locust returned with news. He had located Huang Shengjun’s base and determined that he commanded 15 million goblins.

Han Wu drew a sharp breath. His locusts were inexpensive to summon, which allowed him to field 20 million of them. Meanwhile, Huang Shengjun’s goblins cost at least ten times as much to summon. How had he managed to amass 15 million of them?

Dark Locust continued his report, and the answer stunned Han Wu. Huang Shengjun had been using surrogate mothers to expand his forces. His army consisted of various goblin species, but one group stood out for its depravity.

Their strength was mediocre at best, yet they possessed an absurdly powerful Skill known as Cross-Species Reproduction. As the name suggested, they could impregnate females from other species and produce goblin offspring. These offspring sometimes inherited portions of their mothers’ Skills and abilities. For that reason, Huang Shengjun allowed them to mate freely with females of various species in his camp. Those females were giving birth almost nonstop, expanding his army with frightening speed.

Han Wu watched the footage transmitted by Dark Locust and noticed that even female zombies could give birth to goblins. The ability to impregnate technically undead life forms and produce living goblins was nothing short of a BUG-like exploit.

Han Wu also started to understand how Huang Shengjun had managed to expand his goblin army without limit. The answer likely lay in Huang Shengjun’s Divine Talent: Quality in Numbers. Once his army reached a certain scale, he could nurture stronger goblins as easily as bamboo shoots sprouting after rain.

According to Dark Locust’s report, Huang Shengjun commanded 100 goblins as powerful as High Lords, and three Goblin Kings. However, Dark Locust could not confirm whether he possessed a Saint life form.

A chill crept down Han Wu’s spine. Among his powerful units, Dark Locust was his only Saint life form. The second strongest, the Locust Dragon, was only a High Lord. The rest consisted of 1,000 Lord locusts and nearly 20 million Heroic locusts.

While Han Wu held an overwhelming advantage in lower-ranking units, the battle would ultimately be decided by who possessed more powerful units, and he didn’t have enough of them. If they fought now, Han Wu would almost certainly lose.

“No, I cannot fight yet. I need to find a way to improve my army,” Han Wu muttered.

However, Tanuki Town’s resources were scarce. Even if Han Wu used the Fabricator to produce as many weapons as possible, it would only give his locusts a slight boost in strength. They could not grow much stronger unless he found more powerful mutant zombies and allowed the locusts to absorb their crystals.

The other option was to weaken Huang Shengjun’s army. At that thought, a flash of inspiration struck Han Wu, along with a rather nasty idea. If he couldn’t enhance his locust army, he could at least reduce the enemy’s strength. That would still tilt the odds in his favor.

Han Wu quickly made up his mind and turned to the Origin of Mutation for assistance. After hearing his plan, it immediately concurred. Confident in its expertise, it told Han Wu to leave everything to it.

Over the next few days, the Origin of Mutation poured immense energy into creating the second generation of Viral Maggots. This new generation was an improved version of the first and was engineered specifically for the Zombie Civilization. In addition to inheriting the first generation’s fearsome infection rate and rapid reproduction, it also transformed its hosts into mindless zombies.

Han Wu could already picture the chaos that would erupt if the second generation spread through Huang Shengjun’s base. The Origin of Mutation was equally eager, restless to witness the catastrophe its creation would cause!