From the very beginning of Shen Feng’s battles with the World Beast swarms on Earth, he had been continuously wounding them. Every single cannon shell and Kinetic Energy Bullet was already packed with Nanomechanical Clusters.
Even every slice of his Battle Blade left Nanomechanical Clusters behind in the World Beasts’ wounds, which ceaselessly devoured the behemoths’ flesh and spread throughout their entire bodies via their circulatory systems.
At first, this corrosion was slow and insidious. The nanites attacked the nervous system first, completely destroying it before the World Beasts could even feel any pain.
From that foundation, they began to corrode and devour them bit by bit.
Due to the strong electromagnetic environment within the World Beasts’ bodies, this process took a very long time, continuing until the number of Nanomechanical Insects surpassed a certain critical point.
This was why Shen Feng had waited until now to fully summon the Gray Tide.
He was waiting for the perfect moment.
Within the surrounding Meteorite Belt, countless giant meteorites had long ago been turned into nests for the Nanomechanical Insects. Their numbers were in the untold millions, far outnumbering the World Beasts.
The raging Gray Tide writhed and roiled through space, gradually merging into a single mass that completely enveloped the surrounding region before descending upon the Beast Ancestor.
Before this endless Gray Tide, the Beast Ancestor’s body, originally thousands of kilometers long, was reduced to a caged animal.
More than half of the World Beasts near the Beast Ancestor were devoured by the Gray Tide erupting from within their own bodies. They turned into silver versions of themselves, either tumbling through space as they fought the remaining healthy World Beasts, or charging directly at the Beast Ancestor to attack it!
At the same time, silver spots began to appear all over the surface of the Beast Ancestor’s body, gradually spreading to other areas.
It was the Nanomechanical Clusters that had attached to its surface during the battle!
The Beast Ancestor suddenly spewed hundreds of thousands of macro-electron energy masses from its mouth, blasting the assimilated World Beasts. Simultaneously, violent arcs of electricity erupted across its body, and a powerful electromagnetic pulse field washed over its form before radiating outward.
As the violent electromagnetic pulse and current swept over it, much of the Gray Tide on the Beast Ancestor’s surface receded, but it was not completely destroyed.
After all, these Nanomechanical Clusters had absorbed Beast Gold and evolved, greatly enhancing their resilience.
"Despicable human! A trap! This is a trap!" the Beast Ancestor roared through radio waves, venting its fury. It turned and spat out volley after volley of macro-electron energy spheres at the encroaching Gray Tide, trying to blast open an escape route.
Huge holes were blasted into the Gray Tide where the macro-electron spheres hit. The swarm, which had been on the verge of closing, was now riddled with gaps, like a tattered piece of cloth.
But that was all it accomplished.
Though portions of the Gray Tide were vaporized instantly by the energy spheres, the surrounding swarm immediately swirled in to patch the holes.
Meanwhile, on the outer edge of the Meteorite Belt, more and more giant meteorites were being consumed by Nanomechanical Clusters, converted into part of the Gray Tide, and sweeping in to envelop the Beast Ancestor.
To the Beast Ancestor’s horror, more and more of the ordinary World Beasts were becoming infested by the Nanomechanical Clusters. They were gradually consumed, melting into streams of silver metal that then swept toward their kin.
The massive World Beasts were completely helpless against these pervasive, pathogen-like Nanomechanical Insects.
The ionized layer on their bodies had once been a natural barrier, but it was largely ineffective against these Nanomechanical Insects that had incorporated the Beast Gold Element.
Once a Nanomechanical Cluster attached itself to them, they were subjected to an inescapable corrosion until their entire bodies were devoured, assimilated, and they died completely!
The once-invincible World Beasts now let out agonized wails, tumbling and struggling through space. They even began to frantically beat their own bodies with their tentacles and limbs, going so far as to tear off chunks of their own flesh or even turn on each other.
Green blood splattered through space, forming floating green spheres in the low gravity. The sight was both eerily beautiful and bizarre.
Witch Tower and the other human warriors stared at the insane scene, dumbfounded. They could hardly believe their eyes.
They had thought it was all over, had even prepared to die fighting the World Beasts. They never expected such a sudden turn of events. With a single snap of the Commander’s fingers, the World Beasts had just... fallen apart.
And now, those silver tides had appeared and completely enveloped the terrifying Beast Ancestor, throwing the creature—which had seemed like a Demon God from the very start—into a state of panic!
They didn’t know what those silver tides were, but it was clearly a trump card the Commander had been holding.
’Could it be... we can still win!?’
"Despicable human! You think to trap me with mere dust? Dream on!" the Beast Ancestor continued to roar through the radio waves. Its entire body suddenly flared with a blinding light. Arcs of electricity danced along its countless tentacles as it whipped them at the surrounding Gray Tide.
Each strike tore a gash in the Gray Tide, which then swiftly sealed itself shut again.
The Beast Ancestor didn’t try to break out immediately. Instead, it continued to whip its tentacles while spewing out more macro-electron energy spheres.
Witnessing this, Shen Feng remained in the cockpit of the Zero Armor, his gaze icy and unmoved.
’If Nanomechanical Clusters were so easy to deal with, I wouldn’t have had to go to such lengths during the Gray Tide apocalypse.’
’Besides, this is a Gray Tide that has evolved after devouring the Beast Gold Element.’
The Beast Ancestor tore through layer after layer of the Nanomechanical Cluster, only to find more and more layers of the Gray Tide beneath. It could sense how bizarre and powerful this substance was, and it didn’t dare charge into it recklessly. But its hesitation only allowed more meteorites to be consumed and assimilated, feeding a Gray Tide that swept in like an all-consuming flood!
It finally understood. From the very beginning, perhaps even from their first battle on Earth, the human had been setting this trap.
Even his feigned weakness, luring it to the center of this Meteorite Belt—it was all for this final moment!
The surrounding Gray Tide had now completely sealed itself, forming a gigantic metal cocoon spanning tens of thousands of kilometers and completely enclosing this region of space!
Even the light from the Red Supergiant, Shield UY, was blocked out. Only the light emanating from the Beast Ancestor illuminated the space within.
It could now be considered a massive, artificial celestial body.
Having experience controlling the Gray Tide that had once consumed all of Earth, Shen Feng was quite familiar with a scene like this.
He snapped his fingers again. Instantly, the vast Gray Tide surrounding them turned semi-transparent, allowing the light from the Red Supergiant to filter through. The light-gathering effect within instantly made everything as bright as Heaven!
From the inside, it no longer looked like the darkness of space, but a radiant Heaven suspended in the Cosmos.
The Nanomechanical Clusters on the outer layers were accumulating rapidly. The entire Gray Tide became thick and massive, its outer shell already tens of kilometers thick and still growing!
The Beast Ancestor’s tentacles and limbs lashed against the inner wall of the Gray Tide, but they could no longer tear it open. They merely left deep gashes that sealed shut before the appendages could even retract.
Once it reached a certain critical mass, the power of the Nanomechanical Cluster increased exponentially. Here in the Meteorite Belt, with its endless resources, it was an absolute monster in its own right.
Even for a monster like the Beast Ancestor!
By now, the ordinary World Beasts had been completely consumed. All that remained was a huge mass of the Gray Tide floating in the center of the cocoon. It rapidly shifted, taking on the same shape as the Beast Ancestor, only dozens of times smaller.
The Beast Ancestor finally realized that Shen Feng was the key to everything. It stopped its roaring and cursing, turned, and spat out tens of thousands of macro-electron energy masses. Blasting apart the smaller Gray Tide mimic before it, it charged in Shen Feng’s direction!
’No matter what this bizarre Gray Tide is, if I kill that insignificant human, I can still turn this around!’
’I still have a chance!’
Seeing the colossal monster on its death charge, Shen Feng couldn’t help but give a scornful smile.
’Spontaneously formed intelligence truly can’t compare to the accumulated wisdom of a civilization that has evolved over countless years. A beast is still just a beast.’
The cockpit of the Zero Armor opened. Clad in a layer of Nanomechanical Battle Armor, Shen Feng leaped out and floated in the zero-gravity void.
He then raised one hand toward the onrushing Beast Ancestor and abruptly clenched his fist.
In the next instant, Gray Tide tentacles tens of kilometers thick shot out from the surrounding silver cocoon, wrapping around the Beast Ancestor’s own tentacles and limbs with lightning speed!
The gargantuan, tentacled monster was bound tightly by innumerable other tentacles, left suspended in the void!
The Beast Ancestor roared and struggled, but it was completely unable to fight against a Nanomechanical Cluster that had already grown to half the size of Earth!
It had never imagined that the silver-gray dust it had initially ignored could ultimately accumulate to the size of a planet!
A single speck of dust from a new era had fallen upon it, and in the blink of an eye, it had become a Sumeru Mountain!
Following that, the Gray Tide mass—the one about a tenth of the Beast Ancestor’s size—slithered before it. Like a colloidal blob, it adhered to the Beast Ancestor’s surface, flowing along the pathways of its arcing electricity and electromagnetic pulse nodes.
This mass of Gray Tide finally reached the Beast Ancestor’s giant maw, extended tendrils, and burrowed inside...