Chapter 1286: Taming the Old World - Compulsory Check

It was a steep price...

Selthia weighed the options with a cold, calculating logic she barely managed to sustain without her ancient advisor whispering in her ear.

She had the perfect incubators ready.

The recently emptied elemental mountains, boasting incredibly dense concentrations of ambient mana, served as ideal production nests. There were ten of these dormant volcanoes of power free, now bumped up to twelve thanks to the recent victories clearing out the guardians.

These were secure, highly rich spaces where the corruption could herd its surviving beasts and forcibly accelerate the cannibalization cycle. The concentrated ether would fatten the High-Platinums, pushing them past their natural limits until one finally breached the Diamond threshold.

Yet, the meat exchange was far from a clean trade.

Sacrificing ten elite Platinum 3 for a single Diamond 1 drastically altered her tactical flexibility. It wasted around 65% of the energy and severely compressed the overall power distribution of her swarm.

More importantly, it handed human powerhouses like Ren and Liora massive, glowing targets…

A Diamond mutant was incredibly resilient, devastatingly powerful, and massive in scale. However, that exact size made them distinct liabilities. They were rich, walking prizes of concentrated energy, visible from many more miles away. For a sniper of Ren's caliber, a towering behemoth was significantly easier to track, isolate, and systematically eliminate than dozens of smaller, more agile threats scattered across a vast battlefield.

Selthia ran the arithmetic in her head, mirroring the exact calculations the ancient corruption would have instantly provided.

She currently commanded a swarm of around four hundred units. What would happen if she condensed that force down to forty, no, even fewer? Not every beast in her high ranks was a peak High-Platinum. Many were low or mid-tier, meaning it would take two to four of them just to replace a single high-tier sacrifice. Consequently, the actual number of Diamonds she could realistically produce was less than ten percent of her total Platinum count.

A sprawling tide of scattered beasts was incredibly difficult for the humans to sweep in a single stroke. Liora could effortlessly incinerate dead bodies, but burning hundreds of living, erratic targets moving across a wide perimeter was an entirely different logistical challenge.

Conversely, thirty to forty Diamond-tier titans represented a terrifying, concentrated force, but they were glaringly obvious targets. They were threats Ren could spot from the horizon, allowing him ample time to construct a flawless plan to dismantle them piece by piece.

Quantity versus quality… The eternal, unforgiving scale of war.

As she pondered the variables, Selthia realized she did not have to commit entirely to either extreme.

"Ten…" She murmured to herself, her voice echoing in the cold solitude of her crystal chamber. "Perhaps twenty. No, fifteen tops. Not more than fifteen..."

A Vanguard of ten to fifteen Diamond mutants would be a perfect addition to her arsenal. It would provide her with a devastating elite fist to deploy at strategic bottlenecks, all without draining the full volume of her remaining swarm.

"Yes, that way maybe they can eat faster and even kill the last Dragons faster too…"

She would avoid becoming a collection of isolated targets while retaining the numerical advantage the mutant tide provided.

It was a measured balance... A little bit of both columns.

Ironically, her chronic, paralyzing indecision had inadvertently guided her toward a genuinely sensible military strategy this time.

♢♢♢♢

Half a day had passed since the three-front war concluded…

The battered defenders of the Vanguard finally managed to claw back enough energy to be able to secure the city without relying on Ren's direct intervention in case it was needed. Liora, in particular, had recovered enough of her spiritual fire to maintain a credible deterrent again.

Yet, the garrison was still hovering around sixty percent capacity. It would take more time before they were safely back to full strength.

Ren, on the other hand, was already sitting close to one hundred percent, and rather than sitting idle while his allies recuperated, he decided to visit the star prison with Luna and Larissa.

His plan was simple and highly efficient. He intended to inject his surplus energy directly into the star-shaped dome.

Dropping his own core down to fifty or sixty percent like that meant he would naturally regenerate in tandem with the rest of the Vanguard. This ensured they would all hit maximum capacity at the exact same time for the next major offensive, while simultaneously converting his excess ether into precious structural reinforcement for the prison.

It was a perfect tactical loop…

On their way down to the vault, they crossed paths with Liora. She was walking alongside Taro and Min, both of whom were still recovering but had clearly grown entirely too bored of resting lying down.

"Ren!" Min called out the moment he spotted him. The young commander looked exhausted, with dark circles under his eyes, yet he remained incapable of staying quiet. "You really should have seen the city from above. A glorious disaster! Wei and I were circling the perimeter, handing out explosions like they were candy. Even the queen was holding the line at one point, your accountant mushrooms were popping up out of nowhere to save people, and Wei was losing his mind trying to understand that... And me, of course, standing tall as the undisputed hero of at least seven entire sectors… Maybe eight! I honestly lost count of how many people I saved!"

"There were only four sectors," Taro pointed out, his tone carrying that familiar, gentle warmth.

"THEN I SAVED EVERY SECTOR TWICE!"

"Stop yelling, Min," Taro sighed, still smiling but rubbing his temples. "Your blasts made enough noise yesterday. I still have a ringing in my ears."

Min waved a dismissive hand. "Spoilsports, all of you. The point is, we chased the mutants away with my signature style.. Incredible style! A truly massive amount of style!"

Liora offered Ren a tired but genuine smile. With the immediate adrenaline of the siege finally fading, she filled him in on the less exaggerated reality of the capital's defense. She detailed how dangerously close the city had come to breaking, and how Arturo's massive bluff had ultimately saved them by asking the fire tamers to help her to keep the illusion that her spiritual fire possessed far more energy than it actually did.

Walking beside them, Larissa got closer, asking in genuine confusion if it was true that her mother, that extremely unsociable queen Lutea, had managed to join the fray and even help till the very end.