Doom Wolf Shadow’s giant, abyssal blood-diamond-like eyes coldly watched the Elf Forest Bulwark; the brief appearance and retreat of the Skeleton Gnolls were like a silent warning cast before an iron fortress.
The cheers from atop the bulwark had long been replaced by a heavy, deathly silence; the soldiers’ knuckles, gripping their weapons, turned white, and the sulfurous stench in the air intertwined with the humming of the Holy Light Torch Towers, forming an invisible pressure.
Legolas sensed the desperate whispers transmitted by the forest's will, Shen Mu’s icy command echoing in his ears: “The Abyss is assessing and extracting… they are preparing for the final devour.”
The soldiers’ nerves were taut, every inch of shadow seemingly hiding a deadly killing intent.
However, Shen Mu stood at the pinnacle of the lookout tower, his mithril heavy armor gleaming with a cold, hard luster under the golden glow of the Holy Light Torch Tower.
His icy, iron-gray eyes pierced through the surging darkness, sweeping over the mountains of Abyssal Lesser Undead remnants piled outside the Pangen Bastion.
Passive defense? No! The Abyss’s predators were digesting the death essence of the entire Long City, and every probe by the Doom Wolf Shadow accelerated its evolution.
If they waited passively, until that monster completely transformed, the Elf Forest would be torn apart like thin paper.
His will was like tempered steel—they had to take the initiative and compress the Abyss’s living space.
“Give the order!” Shen Mu’s voice suddenly rang out, breaking the bulwark’s silence, like an ice blade cutting through stagnant air.
“Legolas, immediately select twenty elite Twilight Rangers to follow me deep into the ruins of Long City! Objective: scout the new area west of the core black domain and determine the construction points for the next batch of Holy Light Torch Towers!”
The command was brief and decisive, imbued with an undeniable sharpness. Legolas’s heart tightened; the Abyssal Gnolls’ strange behavior was still fresh in his mind, and venturing deep into the enemy’s lair was akin to stepping into a dragon’s den.
But Shen Mu’s will was iron law.
He bowed, his emerald eyes momentarily flashing with worry: “My Lord, the Abyss’s core dark region is extremely perilous, and those Gnolls…”
“They have retreated,” Shen Mu interrupted him, his gaze fixed on the churning dense fog to the west, “and we have the light of the Holy Light Torch Towers as a shield. The Abyss’s core is fully ‘feeding,’ so its outer defenses must be empty. If we don’t advance now, once it finishes digesting, there will be no more opportunities!” He turned to give instructions to the ancient tree at the bulwark’s core: “Notify Deherim! Gather engineering resources! Once the coordinates are confirmed, the second chain of the ‘Thorn Ring’ will immediately extend!”
Moments later, a small, elite squad silently slipped out of the bulwark’s hidden side door.
Shen Mu led the way, his mithril cloak flapping in the gray mist; Legolas followed closely, the Wood Elf Rangers blending into the ruins’ shadows like phantoms.
Accompanying them were ten of the most skilled Twilight Rangers in stealth and tactical reconnaissance, each clad in dark green leather armor and carrying an Elven longbow.
They were not meant for direct combat but, under the cover of Shen Mu’s powerful mental energy, were like a sharp needle probing into the heart of darkness.
However, as soon as they stepped into the ruins of Long City, once a scene of fierce battles, an unprecedented sense of eeriness washed over them.
The lingering sulfurous stench in the air was still strong, carrying a pungent, putrid smell, but the atmosphere was entirely different.
“Something’s wrong…” Legolas whispered, his emerald eyes vigilantly scanning the collapsed high-rises and twisted highway Skeletons.
A deathly, chilling silence enveloped them.
The gray mist was thin as gauze, sunlight struggling to penetrate, casting a sickly pallor over the ruins.
The Skeleton Soldiers, wandering zombies, and even the sporadic Black Iron Skeleton Guards that were ubiquitous in memory had all vanished. The entire city seemed to have been drained of its soul, leaving only the wind wailing through the broken walls and ruins, like the forcibly stifled lament of the undead.
A Twilight Ranger climbed onto a broken concrete beam, his hawk-like gaze sweeping the distance: “Captain, the abandoned industrial park in the west… it’s empty! Even the remnant Black Iron Skeletons we saw last time are gone!”
Shen Mu stopped beside a charred vehicle wreck, his cold gaze sweeping the ground. There were no fresh Skeleton fragments, no signs of battle, only years of dust and sporadic ashes of Abyssal Lesser Undead that had been purified by the Holy Light Torch Towers.
His mental energy spread out like invisible tendrils, covering several kilometers—in his perception, only a faint death spirit rules aura slowly diffused, like scattering embers, but there was no trace of any “living” undead.
“It’s too quiet,” Legolas’s voice held a subtle tremor, “the forest is wailing… it says death is withering, but it’s been drained by some power… like… a body with its internal organs scooped out.”
Shen Mu did not respond, his expression beneath the visored helmet growing increasingly grim. The Abyssal Lesser Undead and Black Iron Skeletons had fiercely infighting; the city’s depths should have been a chaotic battlefield. The current silence was by no means safe—it was a sign of a deeper devour completion. He waved his hand, ordering: “Keep moving! Target the edge of the core black domain!”
The squad navigated through the labyrinth of ruins, as if walking through the passages of a giant tomb. The further west they went, the more viscous and pungent the sulfurous stench in the air became, and the light of the Holy Light Torch Towers was suppressed by the heavy darkness surging from behind.
The light grew dimmer and dimmer, the gray mist gradually replaced by a heavier, more suffocating darkness—it wasn’t mere shadow, but a condensed Abyss mist, as if capable of devouring starlight.
The surrounding temperature plummeted, piercingly cold, and the soldiers’ breaths condensed into white frost in the air.
Suddenly, Legolas abruptly stopped, his emerald pupils contracting sharply: “My Lord! Ahead… energy conflict! Large-scale slaughter!”
No sooner had he spoken than an extremely faint yet soul-piercing roar and the sound of bones shattering came from deep within the mist!
The squad quickly concealed themselves behind a collapsed overpass pier, looking forward.
In the center of a vast, abandoned city square shrouded in dense black mist, a horrifying slaughter was unfolding!
Countless Abyssal Lesser Undead, like a surging tide of dark red!
Their bone armor was mottled, sulfur crystals glowing with frenzied red light, and they exhaled corrosive black smoke. Their targets were hundreds of “pure” undead creatures still struggling to resist—the remaining Black Iron Skeleton Guards!
These warriors, once representing Long City’s death order, now had shattered armor and flickering soul fires, and were being frantically surrounded and torn apart by thousands of Lesser Undead!
The brutal battle, or rather, massacre, was shocking to behold.
A Black Iron Skeleton Shield Bearer was tackled by three Lesser Undead; its great shield was corroded with holes by sulfurous claw marks, and one Lesser Undead’s bone claw fiercely dug into its chest cavity, trying to gouge out the glowing green soul fire core!
On the other side, a small squad of Black Iron Skeleton Spearmen formed a broken square formation back-to-back, desperately thrusting their spears, but were instantly overwhelmed by the surging Lesser Undead!
Shattered bones were trampled underfoot, and dark red sulfur sparks ignited the remaining membranes, erupting in pungent black smoke!
Further away, several Abyssal Gnoll monsters, like cold commanders on the battlefield, hunched their tall Skeleton bodies, wielding black iron scimitars, sticky sulfurous aura dripping from the blades.
The Gnolls did not charge directly but paced at the rear edge, their abyssal fires leaping in their eyes, coldly observing the battlefield.
Occasionally, they would swing their scimitars, and a dark red energy wave would inject into the Lesser Undead flood, making their attacks even more ferocious!
A Lesser Undead whose leg bone was broken by a Black Iron spear actually roared and pounced under the energy stimulation, detonating the crystal core within its body, blowing three Black Iron Spearmen into pieces!
“My God… they’re… cleansing!” A Twilight Ranger covered his mouth, his voice trembling.
This was no longer an evenly matched struggle, but a one-sided massacre! The Black Iron Legion was being slaughtered like trapped beasts; their every counterattack seemed pale and powerless, their broken bodies and dissipated death essence greedily absorbed by the surrounding black mist, converging deeper.
Legolas’s face was pale: “That’s right… the Abyss is harvesting the last of the ‘nutrients’! These native undead… they are feeding the enemy with their own deaths!” He pointed to the sky, a faint, glowing green stream of pure death energy rising from the center of the battlefield, winding its way into the churning core of the Abyss black mist.
That was the energy of “pure” undead upon death!
Shen Mu stood silently in the shadows, his mithril visor concealing his expression.
But beneath the visored helmet, those icy, iron-gray eyes for the first time clearly reflected a hint of… shock!
This was not the sporadic conflict he had anticipated, but a systematic extermination!
The Abyssal Lesser Undead and Gnoll monsters were no longer scattered forces; they had become an extension of the Doom Wolf Shadow’s will, a precise “purification” operation unfolding—clearing residual “miscellaneous troops,” collecting and refining all death power!
“Boom!” A loud crash! A tottering billboard at the edge of the square was struck and broken by a Skeleton flung from the fierce battle, collapsing with a crash! The rising dust and the loud clang of breaking steel frames instantly shattered the silence of the area!
Damn it!
Shen Mu’s eyes narrowed. Just then—
“Awooo—!” Three Abyssal Gnolls, who had been supervising from the rear, suddenly turned their heads! Their hollow eye sockets, burning with dark fire, were like hunting spotlights, precisely locking onto the bridge pier where the squad was hiding!
They let out soul-shaking howls, simultaneously raising their black iron scimitars, pointing towards the reconnaissance team’s direction!
The next instant, as if given a command, hundreds of Lesser Undead abandoned the last few Black Iron Skeletons they were surrounding and slaying, uniformly turning their heads, the sulfurous red light converging into a bloodthirsty wave, roaring and surging towards Shen Mu’s position!
The Abyssal Gnolls’ howl was like a cold death warrant: “New… ‘energy sources’ found! Devour them!”
Shen Mu suddenly clenched his fist, the runes on his mithril arm guard flashing intensely.
“A trap? Or an inevitable encounter?” Cold thoughts flashed through his mind like lightning.
Exposed!
The reconnaissance mission had directly stumbled upon the Abyss’s final cleanup!
Shen Mu’s icy, iron-gray pupils beneath his visored helmet suddenly contracted! The moment of exposure, his battle instincts, already ingrained in his bones, instantly overrode any thought.
“Retreat!”
An icy roar tore through the approaching Lesser Undead’s hisses and the Gnolls’ shrieks!
It was not just a command, but a steel-like will crushing down, instantly piercing the nerves of all Twilight Rangers, taut from the sudden situation.
He gave Legolas and the other elves no chance to hesitate or decide.
As the word “retreat” left his mouth, the mithril knight’s sword in Shen Mu’s hand, which seemed to be one with his arm, was already unsheathed!
The icy blade sliced through the viscous black mist without a hint of hesitation, striking with incredible precision diagonally behind him—not towards the only escape route, but fiercely slashing at the Wood Elf’s feet, half a step in front of Legolas, who was trying to nock an arrow!
Boom!
A violent surge of sword energy mixed with icy Holy Light power exploded!
Rubble, dust, and decaying concrete fragments were violently thrown up, carving a shocking gash!
This not only stopped the Wood Elf’s instinctive counterattack but also served as a silent, almost brutal warning—do not stop! Do not look back!
“Discard all burdens! Full-speed retreat! Target—Pangen Bastion!” Shen Mu’s voice was like gears grinding steel, every word laced with ice shards.
His tall figure was already like a silver phantom, twisting sharply, his mithril heavy armor even emitting a harsh metallic screech as he turned!
He no longer looked at the elves, who were slightly stunned by the shockwave, and completely ignored the dark red and black iron torrent surging behind him like an erupting volcano.
He burst forth with terrifying speed, as if he were not being pursued by Abyssal monsters, but by a world-engulfing lava tsunami!
The heavy mithril armor now became a sharp blade cutting through the air, each step making the ground tremble, leaving spiderweb-like cracks on the decaying city pavement.
His target was directly the massive wooden bulwark faintly visible in the dim sky in the distance—the golden spears of light from the Holy Light Torch Towers stubbornly pierced through the increasingly dense Abyss black mist, guiding the way. The distance was still one kilometer!
Legolas was forced back half a step by the sword that had almost slashed at his face; the elf’s elegance and resolve were instantly torn apart in the face of that cold, ruthless command and power.
A fleeting moment of shock and unwillingness flashed in his emerald eyes—to stay behind, to use his superb archery to delay the pursuers, to cover the lord’s retreat with his life, this was the elf’s mission, and it was the thought that flashed in his mind as captain!
But Shen Mu’s undisguised warning and his figure, already dozens of feet away, were like the cruelest whip.
“But my Lord! The pursuers are too fast! They…” Legolas cried out almost mournfully, his fingertips already gripping three elf arrows imbued with natural poison.
“Obey the order!!!”
Shen Mu looked back while running, two ice-shard-like gazes beneath his visored helmet piercing through space, fiercely pinning Legolas’s eyes.
There was no hint of emotion for sacrifice in that gaze, only the fury of a disobeyed command and a cold calculation that controlled everything.
“Your sacrifice is worthless! There will be support ahead! Run!!!”
Before his words finished, he had already surged another thirty feet, his voice carrying a heart-stopping tearing sensation from his high-speed movement.
Legolas’s heart felt as if it were squeezed by a cold hand, and he instantly understood the meaning of that “support.”
It was the Holy Tree Knights! The Lord had already made arrangements!
“Retreat! Discard everything! Follow the Lord!” Legolas’s voice finally suppressed all emotion, leaving only the resolute execution of a forest hunter’s command. (End of Chapter)
