Pretending to be a genius starts with the civilization advancement assessment.

Chapter 167 Different Coping Methods

Chen Yu was stunned upon hearing this, his face flushed, and he realized how extravagant and reckless his previous fighting style had been.

He quickly took the opportunity to retreat inside the wall, leaned against the cold wall, took a piece from the energy crystal box in the corner, and tried to absorb the energy within to recover.

Only then did he notice that the thirty Origin Warriors had already spontaneously divided into three groups of ten, taking turns to defend. When one group was clearly exhausted, it would immediately retreat to a safe area to recover fully, and then be replaced by another group of fresh troops.

Meanwhile, the soldiers' firepower maintained effective cross-coverage, focusing their attacks on the abyssal beasts attempting to approach the walls and the ranged units.

The sixth wave, the seventh wave.
Chen Yu has learned his lesson.

He no longer easily left the cover of the walled fortifications and began to consciously control his energy output.

The attacks no longer pursue a grand scale, but strive for precision, aiming at the abyss beast's vitals to inflict effective damage with minimal cost.

He began to abandon his Stardust-level status, picked up the tactics he had previously learned, and tried to cooperate with Source Warriors who were much weaker than him.

For example, he could use his Stardust-level speed and attack power to target tough elite monsters, while other Source Warriors could distract, finish off, or help him defend against attacks from the flanks.

However, the cruelty of Endless Mode lies in the fact that the strength and frequency of enemies will increase endlessly.

In the eighth wave, they encountered a pincer attack from different directions by two leader-level abyssal beasts leading a large number of elites.

Despite the Stardust-class commander displaying formidable strength and taking the initiative to engage one, Chen Yu and several other Source Warriors in relatively good condition worked together, sacrificing two lives, to barely manage to kill the other.

However, the defensive line had been breached in many places, and the casualties among the soldiers began to rise.

At this moment, Chen Yu felt that his source energy was almost depleted, and his arms trembled slightly due to the continuous high-intensity exertion.

He leaned against the wall, clutching a source energy crystal, trying to speed up his recovery, but the ninth wave of attacks followed immediately.

This time, it was no longer a scattered charge, but a mixed formation led by three leader-level abyssal beasts, with a more tightly packed formation and stronger impact.

"Hold on! For the position!" the commander roared, his sword flashing as it formed a curtain of blue light, desperately blocking the strongest frontal assault.

With bloodshot eyes, Chen Yu squeezed out the last bit of source energy and charged to the front line once again.

He barely managed to shatter the head of an elite abyss beast, but was then struck violently from the side by another, causing his protective energy to tremble violently and nearly dissipate.

Before he could adjust his posture, more abyssal beasts surged up from the breach like a flood bursting its banks. Soon, his vision was filled with ferocious beast shadows, and then everything went black.

"Challenge failed. Wave number: 8."

The cold notification sound pulled him back to the pure white space.

It failed.
Chen Yu gasped for breath, his chest heaving violently, his forehead covered in cold sweat; the feeling of virtual death was not pleasant.

However, what made him feel even worse was that he felt his performance was disastrous.

They didn't even see a single Stardust-level Abyss Beast before being piled up and killed.

Chen Yu's cheeks flushed.

He reflected on the events of the game: his overconfident charge at the start wasted precious initial energy; his failure to integrate into the team and rotate effectively in the mid-game led to rapid energy depletion; and in the late game, his inability to recover resulted in an insurmountable loss.
"No, let's try again! We can't fight like this this time!"

He let out a defiant growl and chose to "start over" once again.

Almost at the same time that Chen Yu failed for the first time, Zhou Yuxuan in the virtual cockpit next door also experienced a similar start.

But his process was completely different.

The same scene, the same setup. When the countdown ended and the beast tide surged in, Zhou Yuxuan didn't leap over the wall as impatiently as Chen Yu.

He stood quietly a little behind the Stardust-class commander, his gaze calmly sweeping across the entire battlefield, observing the commander's every command, the soldiers' firepower distribution, and the rotation rhythm of the Source Warrior teams.

When the low-level abyss beasts entered his firing range, he raised his hand, and the source energy flowed from his fingertips, condensing into several thin, sharp-edged, ice-blue source energy shuttles.

He didn't aim for a large number of kills in one go, but instead focused on precise, short bursts of fire.

Each shuttle seemed to possess a life of its own, tracing treacherous arcs and precisely piercing the eyes, joints, and other vulnerable points of the low-level abyss beasts, killing them instantly.

The efficiency may not be as fierce as Chen Yu's at the beginning, but the energy consumption is extremely low.

Furthermore, he remained atop the wall, utilizing his height advantage to launch attacks.

When the elite abyss beast appears, his attacks remain consistent; the icy blue shuttle often hits the gaps in the elite abyss beast's carapace or disrupts its movements.

When he keenly notices a lapse in coordination among certain martial artists, he will promptly deliver a flying shuttle to defuse the crisis.

From the first wave to the fourth, Zhou Yuxuan acted like a calm sniper, efficiently and energy-savingly eliminating the threats while maintaining his own energy at over 80%.

In the fifth wave, a leader-level abyssal beast appeared.

Instead of engaging in a direct confrontation, Zhou Yuxuan quickly moved to the direction of the greatest threat and launched a series of ice-blue shuttles, accurately hitting the eyes and leg joints of the leader-level abyss beast. Although he failed to cause serious damage, he effectively slowed down its charge, creating a valuable opportunity for the commander and other source warriors to focus their fire.

"Good control."

Even the silent Stardust-class commander cast a glance of approval in the gap.

Zhou Yuxuan nodded slightly and continued his precise point-and-click attacks and tactical support.

He was like a sophisticated instrument, calculating the consumption and recovery of source energy, and the priority of each attack target.

His endless mode is more like a simulation of resource management and tactical execution.

However, the difficulty curve of Endless Mode is equally unforgiving towards him.

When the wave increased to the ninth wave, facing multiple leader-level abyssal beasts and a large number of elites at the same time, Zhou Yuxuan's precise but relatively weak attacks began to show some weakness.

His control effect is diluted in the face of sheer numbers and intensity.

Although he avoided being instantly targeted by concentrated fire thanks to his calm judgment and repositioning, the overall defensive line was under immense pressure, and casualties among the energy warriors and soldiers were inevitable.

In the tenth wave, facing an even more ferocious onslaught, Zhou Yuxuan attempted to construct a temporary defensive line using dense ice shuttles to slow the beast tide's impact on the breach in the wall, buying time for the others.

However, he was held back by a defensive, leader-level abyssal beast, and soon, the other lines of defense fell one after another, and he was also overwhelmed by the subsequent tide.

"Challenge failed. Wave number: 9."

The system prompt sounds.

Zhou Yuxuan returned to the pure white space, his expression still calm, but his eyes held a hint of contemplation.

"It seems I need to use the merits I've gained these past two days to exchange for a more offensive technique, and I need to learn it quickly. The ones I learned during the Source Warrior stage are clearly ineffective at the Stardust level."

His failure was different from Chen Yu's. It wasn't due to mismanagement of source energy, but rather his lack of decisive explosive power in the face of absolute strength, which caused him to be delayed for too long by the leader-level abyssal beast.

(End of this chapter)