Chapter 289: Know Thyself and Thy Enemy
The two Armored Trolls were already trapped by Jiang Li’s Dragon Imprisoning Lock, although they could not be killed in a short period of time.
However, it was wishful thinking to escape.
Jiang Li temporarily paid no further attention to them and looked towards the other places on the battlefield.
Not far from him, two Golden Core cultivators of Benevolent Travel Temple were attacking a Armored Troll.
A golden fist the size of a clay pot smashed into the Troll like rain.
The layer of tough scales was broken, but the Troll acted as if it could not sense anything and attacked unaffected.
Its attack pattern was different from the previous two Trolls.
Its body was obviously much larger than the other Trolls. The head covered in armor had a sharp horn that was curved backward. Every time it pulled some distance away, it would use the horn to charge towards the enemy with unstoppable momentum.
If one was hit by that horn, even a mountain would have a hole.
Jiang Li discovered that other than the uniform bone armor, the appearance, size, combat style, and habits of these Trolls were vastly different.
It was as if they had not evolved from the same species.
One had to know that 90% of intelligent creatures’ recognition mechanisms for individual characteristics were targeted at their own kind.
For example, when humans of different races interacted, it was very common to be unable to recognize and differentiate some facial traits.
There was no need to talk about other species.
If Jiang Li looked at a hundred Scaled Demons, he would most likely feel that they looked almost identical.
This was because when humans conducted cross-species identification, they would usually first identify racial characteristics, not individual characteristics.
However, this group of Armored Trolls gave Jiang Li a strange feeling, as if they were evolved from different ancestors.
They grew in all shapes and sizes as they pleased.
Before he could think about it, another change occurred.
“Wait, what’s that sound?”
Jiang Li was just about to quickly deal with the two Trolls and reinforce his companions.
From the distant shore, the sound of liquid surging suddenly sounded.
He stepped on the air a few times. After rising a little, he looked at the distant shore.
In his vision, a white line was advancing rapidly in their direction.
“Damn it! It’s a tsunami! They can actually trigger a tsunami!”
“Everyone return to the city to defend!”
Jiang Li did not believe that this tsunami was a coincidence. This group of Armored Trolls had left too deep an impression on him.
He roared down. If it was only a tsunami, it would be fine, but along with the tsunami, there were countless ferocious sea beasts.
If they continued to fight outside the city, the lives of the Great Mountain Alliance cultivators would be wasted on these damned sea beasts.
This was clearly something that Jiang Li could not accept.
“Stop fighting. The disciples can’t defend the Mechanism City!”
After reminding the higher-ups that were pursuing the Armored Troll again, Jiang Li dragged the Dragon Imprisoning Chain Ball and landed on the city wall of the Mechanism City.
“This group of damned Trolls. No wonder so many Eastern Region sects were defeated by them. What a group of terrifying monsters!”
If they wanted to resist such a sea beast tsunami, just relying on the cultivators present would exhaust them to death.
He hoped that the Mechanism City under his feet could be more reliable.
Jiang Li flipped his palm, and a pure white spiritual ball that outsiders were unable to see appeared in his hand.
Thousand Mechanisms Sphere, go!
Jiang Li took out the original city core, Thousand Mechanisms Sphere, and then directly sent it into the core location of the Mechanism City.
Originally, it would have required 9,000 Mystic Gate cultivators to control it together in order to unleash its power. However, after the Thousand Mechanisms Sphere entered the core, the entire city seemed to come alive.
All the defensive mechanisms no longer needed to be controlled and were activated automatically. After accurately aiming at the white tsunami, they began to launch fierce long-range attacks.
The attacks like Sea King Fork, Flood Dragon Lightning, and Spirit Qi bombs landed on the white wave, causing a large amount of blood-colored waves to appear at the point of impact. This was because a large number of sea beasts had been torn apart by the long-range mechanisms.
Fifty nautical miles from the tsunami line, a strange mechanism suddenly rose on the muddy beach.
It was a simple mechanism that was shaped like a fan shell and opened at a 45-degree angle.
After the surging current washed over, the edge of the fan shell was forcefully closed under the pressure of the current.
The closed mechanical fan shell automatically opened under the effect of the elastic device and then closed again under the effect of the current.
In this region of 50 nautical miles, there were such mechanisms everywhere. If one looked down from the sky, they could only see countless scallops that were constantly opening and closing.
These mechanisms did not have offensive or defensive effects.
However, under the effect of these scallops, the speed of the tsunami that entered this range clearly slowed down. The waves decreased more and more. When they approached the Black Reef Island, the tsunami was only left with a small wave of more than ten meters that slapped the hard rock.
That kind of mechanical fan shell was actually called a tide energy accumulator. It was a basic device that could borrow the power of the tide to accumulate energy for the entire mechanical city.
As the mechanical fan shell opened and closed, every foot that the tsunami advanced, its energy would be absorbed a little. After crossing the 50 nautical miles, the waves on the island no longer posed any threat.
This was a magical mechanism created by Ink Sect’s previous Ink Child in this desert terrain, under the circumstances that they were unable to borrow the power of the earth vein.
Normally, it could be used to accumulate energy. In critical situations, it could also be used to resist the tsunami like now.
As a result, the mechanical city that had accumulated a large amount of energy roared fiercely at those who were swept close by the waves.
However, there were still too many sea beasts rushing over like waves. The higher-ups of the Great Mountain Alliance, who were fighting in the air, could only put down their opponents and release large-scale killing techniques at the sea beasts below to reduce the pressure on the city.
However, this also gave the Armored Trolls a chance to catch their breath. They did not engage in battle and fled into the sea without a trace.
Clearly, the beast tide this time was cast by the Armored Troll hiding in the distance to help his companions escape.
As for the Great Mountain Alliance, who was stuck in the city by the tide of the sea beasts, they did not dare to pursue them at all. If they were lured away again, their base that had yet to be warmed up would really be finished.
Fortunately, the Armored Trolls had control over the beast tide.
Two hours later, the sea beast was no longer so determined and fearless.
Four hours later, more sea beasts only surrounded the city and watched. From time to time, there would be internal conflicts.
Six hours later, the sea beasts that could easily devour a country dispersed.
After a long time, the higher-ups of the Great Mountain Alliance who had gone out to pursue the enemy finally arrived.
After knowing what happened later, they were extremely afraid and apologized to Jiang Li and the others.
“Everyone, don’t blame yourself. The difficulty of dealing with the Armored Trolls far exceeds our imagination.”
“In the future, you must be extremely careful. Don’t let your guard down.”
“I’ve transferred the city core of Thousand Sieve City to this place. The defense ability of the mechanical city has greatly increased. I’ll temporarily guard the base and plan for the future.”
Now that they had just arrived, not to mention their understanding of the Armored Trolls, they did not even know the situation in the surrounding territory. Attacking rashly at this time was simply courting death.
“What should we do next? The Armored Trolls have the ability to control sea beasts in a large area. No matter how sturdy the City of Traps is, we will be exhausted to death by those sea beasts sooner or later.”
The other higher-ups were clearly still quite negative.
After all, this sudden encounter had caused the Great Mountain Alliance to suffer considerable losses. However, in terms of results, besides a large amount of smelly and useless sea beast meat, they had only killed 17 Armored Trolls and captured two Trolls because of Jiang Li.
One had to know that they were still 270,000 Armored Trolls short of one million merit points. If this continued, when would it end?
At this moment, they also deeply felt the helplessness of the other sects struggling on this battlefield.
If the other party continued to control the sea beasts to attack and exhaust them, the situation would fall into a very passive situation.
“Know yourself and your enemy, and you will never be defeated. Let’s study these monsters first.”
At this moment, they could only find a breakthrough in this group of Armored Trolls.
If he could discover any fatal weakness of this race or obtain their gathering place through torture, it could be considered a major breakthrough.
In the alliance, a rare ice-attribute cultivator cast spell techniques and froze the sea mud beside the Black Reef Island, turning it into a flat and solid piece of frozen soil.
They first took out the 17 Armored Troll corpses and placed them on the ground, arranging them neatly.
Just as Jiang Li had discovered earlier, this group of Trolls had very different personalities. They had different forms and characteristics.
After being dissected by beast controlling cultivators who specialized in raising spiritual beasts, they discovered that there was a considerable difference in the organs in their bodies.
From the perspective of the organ and physiological structure, some of these dozen Trolls matched the characteristics of carnivores, some matched the characteristics of herbivores, and some were even aquatic creatures.
If they removed the armor, no one would think that they were of the same species. It would not be an exaggeration to say that they were unrelated.
It was really hard to imagine that they were the same species.
He used a sharp rune knife to cut around the connection below their face armor. It took a lot of effort to remove this face armor that represented the characteristics of a Troll.
Jiang Li took the mask in his hand and squeezed it. It was unexpectedly thick and hard.
His right hand grabbed the mask, and his left hand grabbed the owner’s head. His two hands slowly increased their strength.
A moment later, with a bang, the head could not withstand it first. After a few breaths, cracks finally appeared on the face armor.
This armor was actually much tougher and thicker than a skull.
Humans were at most thick-skinned. These Armored Trolls had actually evolved their faces to the hardest part of their bodies.
No wonder this race was so powerful. Wasn’t this just like the old saying, “Thick-skinned people will rule the world…”
“How did you feel when you fought these Armored Trolls?”
Jiang Li observed the injuries on the Armored Trolls on the ground and asked the higher-ups beside him.
“These monsters are very resistant to attacks and are not easy to kill.”
A higher-up thought for a moment before coming to this conclusion.
“Yes, their abilities are very strange. Moreover, their injuries recovered extremely quickly. They’re very difficult to deal with.”
The other higher-ups also had similar feelings.
Jiang Li sighed and nodded. It was as expected.
He noticed that there were often more than 20 wounds on these Troll corpses, and the bodily destruction rate was more than 50%.
It was as if these monsters had no vital points. They would only die after more than half of their bodies were shattered.
Under such circumstances, the disadvantage of a human cultivator of the same level colliding with the other party was too great.
“A snake’s weakness is seven-inch below its head and a dragon has reverse scales. Everything must have its weakness. This is the law of nature. I don’t believe that this group of Armored Trolls can be an exception.”
But how should they deal with the Armored Trolls effectively?
In this aspect, the Divine Judgment Hall that had fought with it for a thousand years definitely had quite a bit of research.
However, the situation of the war was constantly changing. The other party was also a powerful race with extremely high intelligence. They would think of ways to shrink and make up for any flaws.
If they really believed in some “specially effective method”, the only outcome would be to send themselves into danger. Therefore, the Divine Judgment Hall did not teach everyone “proper methods” to deal with these Armored Trolls.
The Great Mountain Alliance could only slowly figure it out on their own.
Alliance Leader Jiang raised his hand and beckoned. The black chain ball that had already shrunk to only about twenty feet in diameter flew over.
Due to the shrinking of the space, the two Trolls inside could only bend their bodies, looking like two wild beasts.
Jiang Li controlled the Dragon Imprisoning Lock to enlarge the gap in one of the chains and beckoned to the Sharp Claw Armored Troll inside.
“Come out and fight me one-on-one. If you can defeat me, I’ll let you go.”
Hearing Jiang Li’s words, the Sharp Claw Armored Troll was indifferent, but the other Barrier Armored Troll clearly had a slight reaction.
The two completely black eyes under the mask turned and made a strange sound. It actually translated for its companion.
This Armored Troll, who was obviously mentally superior, understood human language.
After hearing the translation, the mouth under the Sharp Claw Armored Troll’s mask opened in a long arc, revealing a row of curved fangs that were like eagle claws.
In the world of the Armored Trolls, this upward arc represented a smile. This Sharp Claw Armored Troll was mocking Jiang Li for overestimating himself.
It rushed out from the gap Jiang Li opened.
It stretched its burly body wantonly. How could a short and thin human who was not even as big as its claws be its match?