Monsters Are Coming

Chapter 1423 - 369: If You Shut It, I’ll Open It

At this moment, You Ai’s mental state completely collapsed.It knew that it had already lost this game, and any more struggling would be futile.

Most of the resource output points on the map had been occupied by the opponent, and at this stage, the opponent only needed to easily push for a victory through the resources obtained.

Continuing further held no meaning.

"Don’t give up, what if you win?"

Life Throat encouraged at this moment.

Confronted with Life Throat’s provocation, a fire of anger rose in You Ai’s heart, yet there was nowhere to vent it.

Meanwhile, Life Throat’s army had already advanced to the vicinity of the camp crystal, and the end of this round basically declared its defeat.

A new round began.

Faced with You Ai’s almost giving-up posture, Life Throat suddenly smiled, and reached out with a fingertip to lightly slide over the deck of cards.

After drawing cards for the next round, among the five cards in front of him lay a wide-range Disaster Card, Meteor Shower.

But what left You Ai in disbelief was that this card was proactively shown to it by Life Throat and then casually thrown into the discard pile.

You Ai’s eyes suddenly constricted.

Life Throat ignored its astonishment and leisurely played a one-star "Reconnaissance Soldier," placing it on a wasteland far from the resource points.

That location was isolated without any village or market nearby, guarding neither key routes nor occupying resources—it was purely a wasteful strategic blunder.

Immediately following, Life Throat used the remaining actions to play a "Furious Hurricane" Disaster Card. This card, originally meant to sweep the enemy forces, was intentionally centered on the iron resource point they had just captured, effectively cutting off its own army’s supply line.

The situation on the map suddenly revealed a flaw.

You Ai stared at the iron mine enveloped by the hurricane, then looked at the lone Reconnaissance Soldier on the wasteland, the turmoil of defeat in its chest replaced by confusion.

"Your turn."

In You Ai’s view, Life Throat’s behavior was undoubtedly a blatant humiliation.

But it still suppressed its anger and began to arrange according to the game’s rules.

As the game progressed, scenarios that You Ai hadn’t expected continued to unfold.

In a new round, during the card draw phase, Life Throat deliberately skipped the optimal choice, neglecting the "Technology Breakthrough" that could upgrade the troops and instead played a useless "Nomadic Migration" card, causing two legions on the edge of the map to disappear out of thin air, losing two potential resource points for no reason.

Subsequent actions continued to sever its own limbs.

Surrendering the great advantage.

Watching Life Throat repeatedly commit low-level mistakes, seeing its own reclaimed resource points bit by bit, observing the enemy lines retreat due to supply cuts, the originally impenetrable encirclement revealed gaps due to Life Throat’s deliberate concessions.

When You Ai finally mustered the courage to mobilize the remaining forces to charge at Life Throat’s camp crystal, the expected interception did not occur.

This made You Ai realize that the opponent seemed to want to give it a chance to start over.

And then to humiliate it severely by winning once again.

But such an opportunity was not missed by You Ai.

However, things did not go as it expected. When the situation shifted to an equal footing, Life Throat continued to hold back, continually yielding resource territories.

Until the Siege Hammer landed heavily on the camp crystal in front of Life Throat, accompanied by the crisp sound of shattering, the game ended.

"Not easy, you finally won a round." Life Throat grinned, with undisguised mockery in his eyes.

You Ai stood frozen, looking at the camp crystal dissolving into Liu Guang, but felt not a shred of victory’s joy.

The opponent clearly could have easily won this round, yet toyed with it, pushing the victory step by step toward it.

This kind of charity victory was more humiliating than a complete defeat.

But Life Throat seemed not to notice You Ai’s expression, a playful glint flashing in his silver pupils:

"This strategy game is really boring; let’s start the next round quickly."

Facing You Ai’s embarrassed expression, Life Throat had mixed feelings internally.

And at that moment, in You Ai’s mind, it had already torn Life Throat to pieces countless times.

The next four rounds opened a similar cycle.

The sixth round was Rune Deciphering, where the opponent saw through its nine-layered rune maze but once again held back before victory.

Allowing its rune layout to be penetrated layer by layer, proactively offering hints and flaws, enabling it to achieve victory along a surefire path.

The seventh round was about evolutionary strategy, both sides had to sketch specified life forms with energy for combat.

In this round, the opponent initially sketched a large number of formidable Monsters, but as it was about to win, it started sketching things like birds pecking rice and small snakes coiling... just storing the evolutionary power without using it.

Until it allowed the breakthrough of layers of defenses, achieving a miraculous comeback.

Watching the sketched army achieve a full sweep, You Ai felt as though the Energy Core (heart) in its body was weighed down by a mountain, stifling its heart.

The eighth round, the ninth round... the opponent’s layout was like a scalpel, always able to precisely dissect the layers of defense it had erected but always stopped abruptly when touching victory, instead purposely revealing "flaws" leading to failure.

Just like a beast releasing its captured prey, teasingly letting it go.

You Ai won the game trembling, never having felt so oppressed.

Looking at Life Throat’s calm demeanor, the smile in the eyes seemed to be telling it: our victory or defeat is entirely at my whim.

At the end of the subsequent four rounds, You Ai won a total of five rounds of the strategic game.