Chapter 2293: Chapter 2295: The Healers Are Gone

The True Sage of the Fishing Elder had never thought of acting together with Feng Jun and the others.

This had nothing to do with discrimination, but rather the undeniable gap in power.

Like now, he noticed the Insect Race had split their forces, leaving about ten million combat strength to deal with this fleet. He felt the opportunity had arrived.

Multiple battlefields, stalemated battle situations, chaotic warfare... he thought he could make a move.

The others exchanged a glance, understanding fully in their hearts. To be able to exploit the chaos in such warfare, only a True Sage could do it. Whether they accepted it or not, they had to admit it was almost impossible for them to make a move without exposure.

So they could only sigh inwardly: True Sage indeed lives up to his name.

However, Chen Xi the True Immortal gathered his courage to ask, "Master Ancestor, could you count me in?"

The True Sage of the Fishing Elder glanced at him and straightforwardly shook his head, "You’re easy to expose."

Worthy indeed of being their grand ancestor, he didn’t mock but simply stated the facts.

Chen Xi the True Immortal immediately fell silent, and naturally, Ming Xin the True Immortal didn’t dare speak. As for the others... there was even less need to say.

The True Sage of the Fishing Elder acted very cunningly, for he mastered the Way of Illusion and Reality very well. A shadow, dim and nearly impossible to detect, shuttled through the dark spaces that strong light couldn’t reach, effortlessly harvesting the Insect Race.

He mainly targeted the Golden Core Insect Tribe, as for the Nascent Soul Bug Race... there were mainly too few.

Several thousand ships of the fleet were facing over ten million insects, among them, only a little over twenty were Nascent Soul Bug Race, while the Golden Core Insect Tribe numbered two or three thousand, albeit not all engaged in battle.

In fact, there were already quite a few Nascent Soul Bug Race here, this vast group of insects numbered seven to eight hundred million, and among them, the Nascent Soul Bug Race totaled about one hundred fifty to sixty. Now, there were less than one hundred forty fighting in the star system.

But the total number of insects there still exceeded seven hundred million, on average, there were only two Nascent Soul Bug Race among every ten million.

This goes to show the Insect Race still valued The Seventh Army quite a bit, which aligned with Southgate’s thought—The Seventh Army stationed outside the star system could indeed help the main forces attract some firepower.

The True Sage of the Fishing Elder slayed Golden Core Insect Tribe without causing any reaction, it was practically one at a time, including the Wasp Assassin encountered by Feng Jun. Though discreetly merged into space, it simply couldn’t escape the perception of the True Sage.

Not rushed nor slow, he tackled the insects at a pace of capturing one Golden Core every five or six seconds, basically able to capture ten Golden Cores per minute. If he encountered a cluster of Golden Cores, he could instantaneously take down seven or eight.

So after an hour, he captured over seven hundred Golden Cores. At this rate, he could capture over ten thousand Golden Cores in a day and night. This small collection of the Insect Race really couldn’t withstand his torment.

However, the first to fall short was still the Nascent Soul Bug Race because... the Fishing Elder wasn’t ignoring them either.

The True Sage wouldn’t purposely seek out the Nascent Soul Bug Race, but if a Nascent Soul happened to be in an inconspicuous position, with no kin nearby paying attention... Nascent Soul certainly was more enticing than Golden Core, wasn’t it?

Two hours later, over a thousand Golden Core Insect Tribe had vanished without anyone noticing anything wrong, but three of the Nascent Soul Bug Race had disappeared.

Shortly after the third Nascent Soul Bug Race vanished, a Blade Mantis sensed something amiss.

This Blade Mantis was also a Nascent Soul level, the kind that acts as a nurse, with two Golden Core Blade Mantises nearby as well, they were the caretakers of these over ten million insects.

Among the Insect Race, Nascent Soul-level nurses were indeed rare, there was one here, mainly responsible for looking after these twenty or so Nascent Soul Bug Race—the Golden Core-level Blade Mantis nurses couldn’t manage Nascent Soul-level insects.

Nurses were downward compatible; the Nascent Soul Blade Mantis, besides nursing Nascent Soul, could also care for Golden Core. So at first, it didn’t notice any Nascent Soul Bug Race was missing, but when the third Nascent Soul Bug Race disappeared, it finally noticed: Huh? Where’s the Nascent Soul?

Among the twenty-odd Nascent Souls, losing one or two might go unnoticed, given it was during warfare, but losing three was very evident.

The Nascent Soul nurse carefully discerned but still couldn’t find the missing three; it wanted to scream with an open mouth.

The True Sage of the Fishing Elder had long noticed these three nurses, but usually, there was protection beside the nurses, these three nurses had considerable protection nearby. Although the True Sage could definitely take them down with a move, it would still alarm the insects across from them.

However, he had been monitoring these three, understanding the many reactions of the Nascent Soul nurse and intentionally ambushing nearby Golden Cores. Not only capturing some but also killing some from a distance, pretending they were taken down by disc-shaped spacecraft.

The True Sage’s combat experience was truly abundant, his ability to calculate was first-rate.

Up to now, the guards around the nurses were significantly reduced, but the three nurses stubbornly hadn’t noticed this.

They were located quite far back, whether there were more or fewer insects around, their sense of it wasn’t very strong—as long as the disc-shaped spacecraft hadn’t launched a raid here, the problem wasn’t substantial.

So they were in a tragic situation. The Nascent Soul healers sensed something was wrong and were just about to scream and ask where the Nascent Souls went, when a phantom flickered before them, and they lost consciousness.

This time, the True Sage Fisherman directly took down two Nascent Souls and more than thirty Golden Core Insect Tribe.

Actually, the combat strength of the Nascent Soul and Golden Core in the Insect Race is somewhat inferior compared to the equivalent level of Human Cultivators, but this move by True Sage Fisherman, though it seemed effortless, was actually somewhat strenuous.

Meanwhile, the fleet of The Seventh Army in battle also noticed something unusual, "Abnormal energy fluctuation detected! Warning, unknown abnormal energy fluctuation detected!"

Unfortunately, although The Seventh Army knew about the existence of healers in the Insect Race, their perceptive abilities couldn’t detect what was unusual going on with the healers—the numerous Insect Race members blocked their perception paths.

Indeed, the three Insect Race healers didn’t notice the decrease in the number of Golden Core Insect Tribe around them because layers upon layers of Insect Race were blocking them, and they only needed to pay attention to whether the disc-shaped flying objects were approaching.

Does it really matter if there are a few more or fewer bugs around them...? As long as the enemy can’t break through, it’s fine.

After finishing this task, True Sage Fisherman couldn’t help but take a break, though he didn’t need a Spirit Restoration Array, he manifested a giant hand, fished out a handful of High-grade Spirit Stones, and directly absorbed them.

The Seventh Army was startled by the abnormal energy; Captain Garen’s destroyer originally had twenty-three percent energy left but immediately requested a resupply—Insect Race might use a big move, and he definitely needed to replenish some energy.

So far, Garen’s fleet had already suffered significant losses. Although he was the captain of the destroyer, the destroyer itself was not a single ship, but a small fleet.

The fleet, besides the main battleship, consisted of two reconnaissance ships, three fire support ships, one engineering ship, two assault ships, and several single-soldier strike ships.

So this fleet was actually built on a regimental scale, with over thirty various ships, and more than three thousand people.

Now, his ships had already lost a third, with more than eight hundred casualties and over three hundred deaths.

The casualty and death numbers were no joke. In the technological level of space warfare, unless they died on the spot, injured warriors could still extend their lives; for casualties, if there were a few holes in the body, just a shot of a rejuvenation injection... Could that be considered a casualty?

Fang Yingwu had no choice but to agree to his request, as the main battleship’s energy only had twenty-three percent left, making it basically impossible to withstand two concentrated attacks from the enemy, not to mention the possible "abnormal energy," so replenishing energy was indeed necessary.

Garen’s temper was such a handful, yet The Seventh Army still tolerated it. The main reason was that he was both capable and daring to fight, but if he wasn’t given energy and ammunition, no matter how capable, he would swear.

In fact, Garen was not only capable in battle; his battlefield intuition was also strong.

Replenishing energy and ammunition didn’t take long, just over half an hour—the logistics efficiency of space warfare was extremely high.

However, Garen played dead and dragged it out for more than an hour—many ships under his command needed damage control repairs.

Immediately after, he made a major discovery and notified Fang Yingwu via a private channel, "Boss, it looks like the enemy is out of healers."

No healers... how is that possible? Fang Yingwu scoffed at this statement: Who doesn’t know the importance of healers to the Insect Race?

It could be said that in battles against the Insect Race, the two most headache-inducing things for them were the divine descent and healers!

No need to mention the divine descent; once the Insect Race calls upon it, basically, a combat sequence of The Seventh Army’s level could disappear—it’s unlikely to be entirely wiped out, but it’s highly probable that more than half would be annihilated.

This means if The Seventh Army encounters a divine descent, they might as well consider rebuilding.

Fortunately, the event of divine descent is rare. Fang Yingwu roughly understood that the enemy practiced Incense Fire Ascension, and invoking a divine descent would consume a large amount of incense resources, making it possible to win yet still lose; therefore, it’s exceptionally rare.

However, compared to the rarity of divine descent, healers were daily occurrences. The Insect Race’s healers were indeed very annoying. Although the Human Race also had rejuvenation injections and life pods, the efficiency of the two was completely disproportionate.

For instance, if a Human Warrior loses an arm and wants to reattach it, they not only need to find the severed limb but also have to soak in a life pod for at least five days.

But the healer of the Insect Race could handle it in a minute, and even limb regeneration would just take half a day, whereas for a Human Race’s life pod, it would take at least a year—and the cost is also frightening.

Of course, the life pods of the Human Race have their advantages. Although they are a bit expensive, the quantity of life pods is more than that of the Insect Race healers; as long as the economy is sufficient, the Human Race’s loss won’t be much more than the Insect Race.

However, the low treatment efficiency is already a critical problem—on the battlefield, the feeling that the Insect Race can’t be killed no matter what is terribly disheartening.

Of course, there were indeed very few Insect Race healers, and there weren’t many Insect Race members on the battlefield that couldn’t be killed, and the healers’ energy was limited, unable to care for all the Insect Race in time, meaning that those who should die would still die.

Yet again, the immediate treatment is just too strong a feeling—the enemy can be healed in time, but we cannot do so as promptly; it really affects morale.

Going to war... isn’t it all about morale?