Once that situation arose, the balance of battle would have been broken.
But what could he do?
Together with him, nine teams of elite special forces soldiers, over forty people, had infiltrated the underground space along with the interstellar warriors; the others were above, guarding the route of retreat, ready to provide support at any moment.
What they could do now was just to use the firepower in their hands to help out a bit, killing off the swarms 'secreted' by the Great Demon.
They hadn't refrained from attempting to use stronger firepower against the Great Demon to assist the interstellar warriors in their attack.
But the effect was minimal.
They had brought down nine rocket launchers, each firing three rounds in volleys, but the power was only slightly better than that of a single high-explosive bomb. Matins' volley of high-explosive bombs hardly had any effect, not to mention the rocket launchers that could only fire one round at a time.
Rather than waste heavy firepower like that, it was better to use it against the ordinary demons.
As for the laser rifles they had on hand, they were even weaker.
No wonder sometimes the enemies of the Empire would jokingly refer to them as 'flashlights.'
Although it was a mockery, when facing the Great Demon, no matter whether the rifle was charged or not, overloaded or not, a blast of a laser beam was indeed not much different from a flashlight—just lighting things up.
Moreover, they had to allocate a significant portion of their firepower to the slowly widening abyssal rift.
Various types of Plague Demons were constantly emerging from there, but fortunately, when they arrived, the enemy numbers were not yet substantial, resulting in only a two to three-meter long rift that could be targeted by gunfire, killing each demon as it came out.
However, even so, Lacroix also felt there was a hidden danger.
As the abyssal rift gradually widened, he noticed that their firepower seemed to be doing less damage to the demons.
In fact, this was due to the Chaotic Abyss's power gradually eroding the real world.
Demons are conceptual monsters; when the chaos corruption in a place is too high, not only can demons draw much stronger power from it, but it also causes the rules of the Chaotic Abyss to replace the physical laws of the real world. Firearms, lasers, and artillery that are founded on physical laws will see their power diminish.
Conversely, all close-combat methods symbolizing human courage will conform to this rule and won't be affected much.
But to ask humans to fight Plague Demons with their flesh and blood...
Of course, Lacroix didn't understand all these notions; he just noticed that a demon that used to be killed with three or four shots now took four or five.
And once the difficulty in killing them increased further, their firepower might no longer ensure that all the demons emerging from the rift could be killed in time.
If a few plague carriers or Benevolent Beasts managed to slip out, tangling up the interstellar warriors for a moment or two, creating a good opportunity for the terrible Great Demon to attack, then the current balance would crumble instantaneously.
Lacroix made up his mind that he had to do something.
He began to take action.
He first set his sights on that Great Unclean One, as he still had thermite bombs in his possession.
But this time, his action failed.
The battle awareness of the Plague Great Demon was still very sharp; it noticed Lacroix's move, identified the high-threat weapon in his hand, and spat a glob of thick phlegm directly at him.
If it weren't for the fact that Lacroix, too, had his level raised by Gu Hang, possessing a superhuman physique and reflexes, he would really have been in trouble this time.
He deftly dodged and watched as the ground was corroded into a large pit, from which a Plague Wraith was crawling out.
He raised the bomb gun in his hand—his physical condition was sufficient to support the use of a bomb gun, making up for the instantaneous lack of firepower in laser weapons—and after blasting it, he abandoned his original plan at the call of Matins.
Matins meant that his actions were very dangerous, and even a thermite bomb wouldn't be enough to kill the Great Demon.
A Great Unclean One was not a Beastman Overlord; a thermite bomb could at most burn off a small part of its body, also failing to be fatal.
But although Lacroix heeded the advice, he still didn't intend to halt his actions.
Blasting the Great Unclean One might not be effective, but it seemed like a viable tactic for other targets.
He then shifted his aim to the Demon Engine positioned behind the Great Unclean One.
That Demon Engine, drawing supernatural powers from the Spiritualized Gas Field beneath and connected to the abyssal rift above, served as the source of power for the expansion of the Chaotic Abyss.
If it could be destroyed, the battle might be turned around.
He led a combat team, circumventing the battlefield from the flank, with the other soldiers providing cover fire to assist in this maneuver.
Matins and the other three interstellar warriors also noticed his action.
This was a smart move, so they too launched corresponding cooperative moves. Matins and Rizzo began to attack more fiercely, even somewhat recklessly, mainly to draw Ge Wajia's attention so as not to let this terrifying creature turn its gaze toward the action squad sneaking up behind the Great Demon.
The Great Unclean One was not easily distracted, but it had no choice.