102: Magic against aliens? Shield: I don't understand this!

Accompanied by Li Qiang's roar filled with personal grievances, a highly asymmetrical "aggro-pulling" operation by a low-dimensional civilization against an unknown high-dimensional civilization officially began.

"Fire! Fire! Use every bit of strength you've got!"

"All Pangu Mechas, main cannons volley! Blast it down for me!"

"Mage Corps, get ready! Once we crack its turtle shell, give it a bath with your biggest Fireball Spells!"

In an instant, hundreds of Gundams powered up simultaneously, their chest energy cores emitting a deafening roar. Shoulder-mounted electromagnetic railguns, arm-mounted Gauss machine guns, and various missile pods wildly modified by players slammed all the fury they could pour out onto the giant diamond-shaped starship in the sky.

Countless dazzling energy beams cut through the sky, and hundreds of missiles trailing long exhaust flames converged like a swarm of dragons swimming upstream, forming a storm of steel and fire that accurately struck the "observer."

Then, a despair-inducing scene occurred.

All attacks, whether physical munitions or energy beams, hit a nearly invisible energy barrier about ten meters before reaching the ship's surface.

There was no earth-shattering explosion, no deafening roar.

The barrier was like an absolutely calm lake surface, gently swallowing all the stones thrown at it without a hint of flare. Missiles were decomposed into basic particles the moment they made contact, while the searing energy beams vanished without a trace, like mud cows entering the sea.

Not even a single ripple appeared on the ship's shield.

[System Notification: Your attack has been absorbed by the target [observer]'s energy shield. Damage dealt: 0.]

[System Notification: Your attack has been... by the target. Damage dealt: 0.]

[System Notification: ...Damage: 0.]

A string of bright red "0" damage notifications flooded everyone's vision like the most vicious mockery.

"Holy shit? What the hell is this? Invincibility frames?"

"This defense... even that Mastermind BOSS in the Celestial Realm wasn't this ridiculous, right?"

"Physical attack immunity? No, it's total absorption! Wang Wei, you tech geek, hurry up and analyze this! What's the principle behind this thing?"

Wang Wei was staring intently at the spectrum analyzer in front of him, the data stream on the screen moving so fast it left trails. His voice sounded somewhat hoarse from excitement and confusion: "I can't analyze it! Its shield technology is beyond my understanding! It's not tanking or deflecting; it's... decomposing! It's directly decomposing and absorbing all the kinetic and thermal energy of the attacks! This violates the Law of conservation of energy! This... this is theology!"

Meanwhile, inside the bridge of the observer, a cold electronic synthesized voice was giving a dispassionate report.

[Low-level kinetic weapon attack detected. Threat level: 0.]

[Plasma energy beam attack detected. Threat level: 0.]

[Shield energy consumption: 0.01%. Siphoning energy from attacks for replenishment... Replenishment complete.]

[Conclusion: This indigenous civilization's attack methods are primitive and simplistic, unable to pose any effective threat to the hull.]

The crystalline aliens inside the ship had no interest in this "firework show." They continued to methodically analyze the [pangu: tyrant model] mecha suspended in mid-air by the tractor beam. In their eyes, this pile of scrap metal was far more valuable for research than the "monkeys" on the ground who only knew how to throw iron chunks.

The attacks from the ground continued, but the players' morale had begun to slip. Facing such an unbreakable "iron turtle" that didn't even bother to fight back, everyone felt a deep sense of powerlessness.

Li Qiang was so anxious he was about to jump out of his skin. His precious Gundam was still being dangled in the sky like a monkey; it was an absolute humiliation.

"Dammit! If physical doesn't work, then bring on the magic! Lin Xiaowan! Is your Mage Corps just here to watch the show?!" Li Qiang roared into the communication channel.

Lin Xiaowan, who had been silently watching the battle, merely raised her hand calmly upon hearing this.

She had actually been observing. She found that the ship's defense System was so perfect it almost resembled a "rule." It followed extreme, cold physical Laws, neutralizing all "materialistic" attacks into nothingness.

So... what if they attacked it with something unreasonable and purely "idealistic"?

"All mages, hear my command," Lin Xiaowan's cool voice rang out in the Mage Corps' exclusive channel. "Abandon all elemental attack Spells. Fireball Spells, Ice Spikes, Chain Lightning—stop them all."

"Huh? Then what do we use?" a mage apprentice asked in confusion.

A mischievous smile, barely perceptible to others, curved the corner of Lin Xiaowan's mouth.

"Everyone, switch to your 'Curse and Transformation' skill tab."

"See that ship in the sky? Don't worry about what it is; just treat it as a BOSS with a massive health pool."

"Everyone... target lock on the 'observer'... [Polymorph: Sheep], get ready!"

"Poly... Polymorph: Sheep?"

All the mages were stunned.

[Polymorph: Sheep], a low-tier Spell that was almost useless in the early game and only used for pranking teammates. Its effect was to turn a non-boss biological unit into a harmless sheep for a certain period.

Using this move to fight a five-hundred-meter-long space battleship?

Was the Guild Leader so angry she'd lost her mind?

"Obey orders!" Lin Xiaowan's tone sharpened.

"Yes!"

Although full of confusion, out of trust for their Guild Leader, the hundreds of mages still raised their staves.

The next second, the most absurd and hilarious scene in gaming history appeared.

Hundreds of pink magic beams, filled with an aura of cuteness and peace, shot out from the tips of the mages' staves. These beams even manifested into adorable sheep phantoms in mid-air, bleating as they scrambled to crash into the observer's cold and ruthless energy shield.

Inside the bridge of the observer, the AI's electronic synthesized voice wavered for the first time.

[Warning! Unknown attack type detected!]

[Analyzing attack pattern... Analysis failed. The attack possesses no kinetic, thermal, or radiation effects.]

[Attempting to parse logic command... Command parsing in progress...]

[Command content: Convert target entity 'observer' into a biological organism of 'Class Mammalia, Order Artiodactyla, Family Bovidae, Subfamily Caprinae'... ]

[...]

[...Logic error! Paradox detected!]

[Judgment: A non-living aggregate composed of inorganic matter cannot be converted into a single organic lifeform! This command violates Basic Universal Physical Laws 1 through 17!]

[AI core computing unit overloaded! Attempting forced comprehension... Comprehension failed! Restarting logic judgment module...]

"Vroom—!"

That mirror-smooth energy shield flickered wildly at that moment, like a light bulb with a bad connection!

Though it lasted only a brief 0.1 seconds, this change was accurately captured by Wang Wei's analyzer!

"It's working! Magic works!" Wang Wei's voice cracked with excitement. "I get it! Its defensive AI is a pure materialist! It understands atoms and energy, but it can't understand an unreasonable idealistic concept like 'Polymorph: Sheep'! Its processor crashed because it couldn't resolve this logical conflict!"

"It's a logic bomb! We're using magic to perform a DDOS attack on its CPU!"

Wang Wei's "scientific" explanation was like a bolt of lightning, instantly igniting the inspiration of all the players!

"Holy shit! I get it! It's using metaphysics to crush science!"

"Hahaha! Brothers, don't hold back! Bring out all your wildest skills!"

"Let these alien hicks see what the true fourth calamity is!"

The players' eyes instantly shifted from powerlessness to feverish mockery. Fear? Non-existent. When it came to "exploiting bugs," they were professionals!

The next second, a brutal "mental pollution" campaign against the high-tech alien civilization began.

"[Grease Spell]! Make its hull slippery so it falls out of the sky on its own!"

"[Hideous Laughter]! I want to see how a starship laughs!"

"[Slow Spell]! Make its signal transmission lag behind!"

"[Stinking Aura]! Stink those aliens inside to death!"

One Shaman player even started a ritual dance, muttering: "I curse your toilets to clog! I curse you to get food stuck in your teeth! I curse you to trip on flat ground!"

Countless colorful magic lights representing various bizarre curses fell like rain onto the observer's shield. On the shield of that ship, which was filled with Advanced sci-fi quality, there now appeared greasy surfaces, distorted laughing faces, slow-moving turtles, and even pixelated blobs emitting green gas... The observer's AI went completely insane.

[Warning! Warning! Encountering a saturated attack from unknown conceptual weapons!]

[Logic Unit 115 burned out while attempting to analyze the relative relationship between 'slipping' and a 'vacuum environment'.]

[Logic Unit 207 overloaded due to hull structural resonance caused by simulating 'laughter'.]

[Logic Unit 334 stuck in an infinite loop while calculating the entropy increase rate under a 'cursed' state...]

[Shield generator load has reached 300%! Energy leakage! Energy leakage!]

"Bang—!!!"

Accompanied by a crisp crash like shattering glass, that indestructible energy shield finally buckled under the weight of countless "unscientific" Spells. It shattered violently, turning into a sky full of light motes!

"It's broken! The turtle shell is broken!"

"Brothers! Charge! It's our turn to perform a physical exorcism!"

The moment the shield shattered, the [pangu: tyrant model] that had been suspended by the tractor beam lost its restraint due to the power interruption and began falling toward the ground.

But Li Qiang couldn't wait any longer.

He kicked open the cockpit cover of his backup mecha, clutching a massive Power Battle-axe, and let out a final roar into the communicator:

"The shield is down! No time to explain!"

"First and Second Assault Squads! Everyone who can fly! Grab your grappling hook guns!"

"Target! Enemy ship! Prepare for boarding action—!!!"

Before his voice even faded, he was the first to leap from his hundred-meter-tall Gundam. The personal flight pack on his back spewed wild flames as he shot toward the unprotected black ship like a meteor flying upstream.

Behind him were over a hundred elite players also equipped with flight packs. Some held sharp blades, others carried explosives, and their eyes gleamed with a light even more greedy than that of abyss demons.

Like a pack of interstellar pirates smelling blood, they yelped and pounced on the observer, which in their eyes had already become a "lamb for the slaughter."

There were no points of leverage to cling to on the ship's mirror-smooth hull.

But for the players, that was never an issue.

"grappling hook guns! Fire!"

Dozens of cables with alloy grappling hooks shot out from the players below, pinning themselves firmly to the ship's hull and forming a "spider web" leading upward.

Li Qiang was the most agile. Stepping on a cable, he reached the ship's belly in just a few strides. Looking around, he finally spotted a tiny crack at the seam of a polygonal facet, caused by the previous shield overload.

"Found it!"

He grinned and raised his Power Battle-axe high.

"Open up! The community is here to deliver some warmth!"

With a roar, the battle-axe struck the crack with massive force!

"Clang—!!!"

Sparks flew!

The hard alien alloy was forcibly split open, creating a meter-long gap. Accompanied by a "hissing" sound of depressurization, a plume of white gas gushed out from within.

Without a moment's hesitation, Li Qiang put away his battle-axe, waved to the team members behind him, and was the first to jump through the gap.

The elites of the "Also a Ruthless Person" guild followed close behind, entering one by one.

When the last team member had entered the ship, Li Qiang's voice, filled with excitement and a bandit-like air, came clearly through the team channel to every player looking up at the sky:

"Brothers! We're in! Get ready for a good show!"

"Aliens, your grandpa is here... to collect the rent!"