Brother, stay calm. When I first heard this news, I felt the same way you do now. But we've already found a way to break the deadlock.

  "Have your followers gather here as well. Let's discuss our strategy together. The alliance now has nearly 60 contestants, with close to 300 million followers."

  "If we don't want to abandon the followers we've invested in the battlefield, our only option is to unite our strength, work together, and become the third major force in the arena."

  "Only then will those two not dare to attack us lightly. Otherwise, if we get isolated, facing them alone would be suicide."

  After speaking, the demigod looked expectantly at Jake, waiting for his response.

  "I'm in." Jake agreed without hesitation, choosing to join the Doomsday Alliance.

  Since the other party had already gathered nearly 60 contestants, there was no reason to deceive him.

  Without delay, Jake mobilized his followers, guiding them toward the designated area.

  Meanwhile, William reviewed the intelligence he had gathered over the past few days using the map in his mind.

  Ten days had passed since the start of the competition. Due to the presence of William and Cedric, the initial chaos had already ended by the fifth day.

  As William had predicted, the free-for-all battle resulted in over 300 contestants’ followers being crippled or wiped out in mutual attacks.

  Of the remaining contestants—less than 300—William leveraged the swarm's superior mobility to eliminate over 120 participants at a pace of more than ten legions per day.

  Cedric, limited by his army’s overall mobility, took down around 60 contestants.

  Some of the remaining participants, realizing the situation was unfavorable, wisely recalled their followers back to their divine domains.

  By doing so, they avoided the complete annihilation of their armies and managed to escape disaster.

  As a result, the remaining follower armies in the battlefield had all gathered in the central plains, forming a massive mixed legion of approximately 300 million.

  These were the unfortunate ones whose escape routes were blocked, preventing them from returning to their divine domains.

  "The time should be about right. Once we clean up the uncertain factors in the center, it will be time for me and that guy to settle this once and for all."

  With real-time updates on his map, William could see everything clearly.

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  Cedric's ever-growing undead army, now surpassing 2.3 billion in number, was converging toward the center of the battlefield.

  Simultaneously, William commanded his scattered swarm to form a surrounding encirclement, tightening it around the central region.

  One day later, the swarm had fully assembled.

  With nearly 1.3 billion units, the insect tide advanced slowly toward the center.

  By observing the controlled pace of the undead army’s advance, William calculated the distances and realized that he and Cedric had seemingly reached a tacit understanding.

  Their armies entered the Doomsday Alliance’s field of vision almost simultaneously.

  Within the alliance, the 60 gathered contestants all turned pale.

  Positioned at the heart of the battlefield, they found themselves trapped in the middle of William and Cedric’s strategic pincer attack.

  On one side stood Cedric’s undead army—layers upon layers of skeletons blanketing the land, turning it completely white. Everywhere they looked, there were only bones.

  Above them, 300 million skeletal bats filled the sky, while on the flanks of the skeletal sea, 400 million skeletal knights marched in formation.

  At the very rear, over 1.5 million corpse mages stood in ranks, with 3,000 forming each unit, creating a total of 500 square formations stretching across the battlefield.

  On the other side, William's swarm army surged forward, with mutated zerglings and hydralisks painting the earth in shades of purple and red.

  In the sky, the signature spiral formations of flying zerglings moved alongside the ground forces.

  Hidden among them were 30 million self-detonating zerglings, concealed within the aerial swarm to mask their presence.

  At the far end of the formation, over 200,000 thunder wyverns, whose numbers had grown over the past ten days, hovered in the rear.

  With William’s entry into the battlefield, his entire extraordinary-level swarm army—numbering nearly 1.3 billion—was now fully assembled.

  Cedric projected his demigod form in the sky, scanning the Doomsday Alliance members in the center with a look of contempt.

  Only when his gaze shifted to the massive insect swarm in the distance did his expression turn serious.

  Over the past ten days, the skeletal bats he sent for reconnaissance had already detected the presence of the swarm.

  These scout units frequently clashed with William’s flying zerglings, engaging in fierce battles over reconnaissance control.

  Through these skirmishes, Cedric had long realized that there was another contestant in the competition using a mass-army strategy like his own.

  At that moment, several demigod projections appeared over the army of 60 contestants in the battlefield center.

  A telepathic message spread across the battlefield:

  "Fellow contestants, as long as you let our followers return to our divine domains, we are willing to surrender and withdraw from the competition."

  Hearing this, Cedric sneered and replied, "Now you want to retreat? Don’t you think it’s a little too late?"

  "Your followers are nothing more than my future resources. Do you really think I’d let you go?"

  The members of the Doomsday Alliance turned pale at his response.

  From Cedric’s words, they could clearly sense that he had no intention of sparing them.

  After a brief moment of silence, they deliberated among themselves and then sent another telepathic message toward William’s advancing swarm:

  "Fellow contestant, the undead army numbers over 2.3 billion. You are at an absolute disadvantage in terms of numbers. Why don’t we work together to fight the undead army?"

  Hearing the alliance’s proposal for cooperation, William remained indifferent, maintaining his swarm’s slow advance.

  Even though William's forces were numerically inferior at 1.3 billion, his followers were all extraordinary-level units.

  In terms of quality, they completely outmatched the undead army, so he had never even considered collaborating with the contestants trapped in the central region.

  Their core goal was to protect their own followers. Once this was established, they would never fully commit to fighting against the undead army.

  No matter how eloquently they phrased their offer, it wouldn’t change their fundamental objective.