The black sun hangs high

Chapter 114 Shadows and Waves

The clash between the mountains and the tides continued unabated. Neither the sea monsters crawling out of the icy waters nor the rodents charging into the battlefield would stop their advance because of the death of their own kind or comrades.

The battle lines are expanding.

This coastal cliff, constantly battered and eroded by giant waves, is merely a part of the battlefield.

The bloody clashes between different races have spread along the boundary between land and water. Now, with just a slight turn of his head, Hugh can easily see the battle taking place in the distance. The blessed light from the Earth Mother Goddess swirls around the soldiers and war beasts. Similarly, those terrifying enemies from the boundless dark sea are wantonly displaying the blessings and power from the sea gods.

The blessing of Mother Earth dispelled the fear in the soldiers' hearts and erased the rats' urge to flee when faced with danger and death. Hugh rode the three-tailed giant rat back to the hillside, where he saw that the second line of defense, composed of three-tailed giant rat knights and infantry, had already made contact with the ferocious sea beasts.

In the instant the collision occurred, Hugh saw countless rat riders crash head-on into the fish with their short, thick limbs and enormous mouths.

Faced with the charge of the knights and war beasts, these ugly fish opened their huge mouths, revealing a dense array of teeth and numerous trembling black tentacles.

In the instant of the impact, Hugh saw countless rat-like knights clad in tough armor and wielding sharp spears being pierced by those agile and sharp black tentacles. Often, before these knights could even thrust their spears out, they would be swallowed whole by those terrifying sea beasts. Rows of sharp teeth casually closed and rubbed together, turning these soldiers of the Earth Mother Goddess into unrecognizable flesh and blood.

Without their tamers, the three-tailed giant rats immediately displayed unprecedented frenzy. They rushed towards these opponents, which were much larger than themselves, using their explosive power and agility to climb onto the bodies of these giant fish. Their powerful long tails swayed and twitched, and their incisors, sharper than blades, pried open the hard scales of these enormous sea beasts. Then, their venomous tails pierced these unprotected weak points like scissors.

More soldiers entered the battlefield.

Hughes saw that the rats following closely behind the cavalry, their bodies made extremely large and strong by the blessing of the Earth Mother Goddess, were wielding heavy weapons as they pounced on their targets. Under the blessing of the gods, their dirty gray-black fur seemed to have become as hard as ore, and in the face of the giant fish's sharp teeth and black tentacles, this fur had become a natural armor...

The battle was changing drastically every moment. Whether it was the swarm of rats charging down from the mountains or the terrifying sea beasts constantly crawling out of the sea, they all seemed to be rapidly changing their tactics on the battlefield under the command and control of some invisible will. When a terrifying giant fish swallowed two three-tailed giant rats whole, its body began to transform into a slender and thin shape under the power of the gods. The fish tail that had been dragging behind it like a burden began to become agile and lethal.

The survivors of the battle among the rats also became more ferocious. Hugh even saw that some of the blessed three-tailed giant rat riders had mastered some of the prayer powers similar to those of the rat priests...

"This is not only a battlefield, but also a place for the evolution of living beings."

With this in mind, Hugh and his "kin" launched another attack after a short rest. Now, he was not only a viewer of this dream fragment from ancient times, but also an experiencer personally immersed in the dream.

The brutal fighting inevitably resulted in casualties.

However, the rat swarm is resilient, with new teams and members constantly arriving from afar to fill every front line. When Hugh once again retreated from the battlefield littered with corpses, his comrades had already been replaced twice. The rats now participating in the battle were clearly from other tribes and clans, their armor and weapons were more sophisticated, and there were more priests among them. Even the three-tailed giant rats they rode were equipped with special armor and sharp horns.

However, these unfamiliar fellow beings looked at the one walking at the front with great envy.

Hugh, or rather, the body Hugh is currently using, seems to have gained the favor of the gods through continuous battles. He can clearly feel the power flowing through his body—an incredibly vibrant life force. He feels as if a seed of life that can constantly regenerate has been planted in his body. As long as he breathes and fights, this power will continuously nourish his body.

The same changes also appeared on the three-tailed giant rat.

Despite being badly wounded from the continuous charges, the fearsome war beast became even more frenzied and warlike. Blessed by the Earth Mother, it felt no pain or fatigue. Hugh even noticed that curled horns had grown on the sides of his mount's head, which looked somewhat similar to the white bone helmets worn by the Earth Mother priests and the phantoms of the Earth Mother he had seen before.

The ferocious sea creatures continued to evolve their bodies, while the rodent communities that worshipped the Earth Mother Goddess were constantly merging and reorganizing as the war progressed.

Hughes was surprised to find that he had unknowingly become the leader of this group, which was no longer purely composed of cavalry as it had been initially. Instead, it was a hodgepodge of all sorts of people, from priests to infantrymen with missing arms, to slingers carrying slings and ready to unleash poisonous ore into the enemy at any time...

Of course, there were also several three-tailed giant rat knights from other clans who were wearing metal armor and following him.

They were nothing short of a mob.

However, they had nowhere else to go. Just as the sea beasts could only keep crawling out of the water to launch attacks, all the creatures that believed in the Earth Mother Goddess had only one choice at this moment—to continue to join the battlefield before them, to win the attention and favor of the Earth Mother Goddess in the fighting, and thus prove their worth.

And so the charge, which ended in death, began again.

This state was incredibly strange for Hugh. He was indulging in the killing instincts and impulses within his rodent body, "enjoying" the terrible blessing bestowed by the Earth Mother Goddess. At the same time, he was also pondering everything about the war that took place in the lost era.

"From this perspective, the magical ritual set up by the Black Sun Society under Ernst Manor is essentially an imitation of the power of the Earth Mother Goddess... They may have modified many details of the ritual, or due to time and ability constraints, they could only recreate a very small part of this ritual power."

As Hugh felt the terrifying life force surging within him, he roared and plunged his spear into the mouth of a giant sea beast. Stimulated by the pain, the sea beast snapped its sharp teeth shut, instantly shredding Hugh's right arm into minced meat.

However, the intense pain lasted only a moment. Amidst the chanting of the priests behind him and the divine blessing within his body, waves of intense tingling and itching sensations gathered at the broken part of his arm.

Amidst the envious gazes of countless rodents, Hugh's arm began to heal at an astonishing speed. In just a few breaths, his bones, muscles, and fur were rewoven back together by the divine power. Hugh then picked up a spear that had fallen to the ground and threw himself back into battle. "The Earth Mother Goddess... a deity who can possess such a title is often associated with abundance and reproduction in human society. Many details in this dream certainly support this conclusion!"

The body that Hugh was attached to had completely fallen into a state of madness. At this moment, any attempt to control the body was futile, because it had been completely captured by the will of the god. Driven by the power and stimulated by the frenzied emotions, Hugh found that his body was rushing towards a huge creature slowly crawling out of the sea.

Based on Hugh's understanding of living things, this thing should be a turtle.

Or at least they were the ancestors of the turtle-like magical creatures that later appeared in Vaan.

It was so enormous that it looked more like a giant reef or rock to any other creature. This behemoth had an incredibly sharp beak, and its head was covered with hard keratin on both sides, with two rows of eyes growing from the grooves in the keratin...

Hugh successfully climbed onto the back of the giant tortoise, where he saw countless black tentacles that he recognized all too well. They grew directly on the tortoise's shell like plants, and now, as if they had caught the scent of blood from the battlefield, they began to sway excitedly.

"The touch of Calron is a manifestation of the will of the sea god; wherever the tentacles reach, that is the boundary of the sea."

Looking at these incredibly familiar tentacles, Hugh felt a strange sense of emotion welling up inside him.

Hugh had already encountered traces of the participants in this ancient war within the Dream Sanctuary. However, both the Earth Mother Goddess and the "Sea God," whose exact name was still unknown, had vanished without a trace. All that remained of them was a tiny trace within the Dream Sanctuary.

The tentacles of Karron growing on the giant tortoise's back showed no mercy to Hugh. Their form was even more ferocious and terrifying than the black tentacles Hugh had summoned himself. Their surfaces were not only covered with keratin and suckers, but also with countless dark red pupils of all sizes. As the tentacles swayed, these pupils moved constantly, as if trying to see through the thoughts and ideas of all the prey before them...

The knight to whom Hugh's will resides is undoubtedly brave. Facing these terrifying opponents, it shows no fear whatsoever. Instead, it roars and charges forward, attempting to use its claws and weapons to sever them all.

The arrogant rat darted swiftly through the tentacles of Karron, constantly damaging them, while the ever-moving tentacles were completely unable to touch the incredibly fast figure.

The divine grace within me has grown even stronger...

Hugh quietly sensed the changes in this power. He was eager to know what kind of effect would ultimately result when the power of the Earth Mother Goddess was continuously accumulated on a single living being.

However, a figure that suddenly appeared at the edge of the giant tortoise's shell interrupted Hugh's train of thought.

Because it was a human figure.

Or rather, it is a figure that is basically the same shape as a human.

This was the first time Hugh had seen definite traces of humanity since entering this dream.

It was a pale blue figure, seemingly female. Hugh couldn't see clearly, only that her body looked as if it were constructed from shimmering ice crystals and clear water. Amidst the constantly swaying Kalron's Touch, this figure appeared so...

Magnificent?

A bone-chilling cold suddenly arrived, pressing down on the valiant rat knight like shackles. In this brief pause, the tentacles of Karron immediately swept across, directly applying immense power beyond the limits of ordinary living beings to their target.

The spear snapped instantly, the armor on its body shattered on the spot, fragments mixed with blood, flesh, and fur. Then one of its tentacles quickly followed, piercing through the arrogant rat's strong body and throwing it far away.

After a muffled thud, Hugh felt his "own" body crash into a pile of corpses.

As the pain in his body subsided, his fanatical and warlike emotions began to fade rapidly, and as he lay dying, he finally regained control of his body.

"..."

But now, Hugh had no time to pay attention to the condition of his own body; he focused all his attention on the human figure standing on the giant tortoise's shell.

He saw intricate patterns appearing near the figure, followed by a wave of invisible power forming from these patterns and surging across the entire battlefield.

This translucent wave seemed to act as a switch on the battlefield.

The Earth Mother ritual, originally conducted by the rodent priests to provide strength to the warriors, was severely disrupted at this moment. Hugh saw the priests scream in a series of screams as they covered their heads with their hands, but it was of no use at all. In just a few breaths, the heads of these priests exploded, along with their white bone helmets that imitated the shape of the Earth Mother, which were also reduced to wreckage.

(End of this chapter)