Real Mount and Blade Game

Four or five days have passed, and new marks have been etched on New Rivadin, this outpost fortress shrouded in the shadow of death.

Shen Mu precisely converted time and manpower into defensive capabilities.

The two watchtowers, one to the east and one to the north, rise up from the ground like fangs growing from the sand and gravel, overlooking the ever-encroaching gray-yellow desert.

They were completed ahead of schedule under Eleanor's almost demanding supervision, casting long shadows in the sunlight and becoming the extended eyes of the castle.

The city wall itself was also reinforced.

The original somewhat hastily constructed rammed earth and stone structure was now reinforced with more stone blocks and sandbags.

On the outside, the second simple iron gate and horse trap, ordered by Shen Mu, had been set up, their barbs gleaming ominously in the sunlight.

Behind the crenellations of the city wall, the number of people was noticeably greater.

Of particular interest are those figures clad in heavy lamellar armor and wielding composite bows—these are the upgraded Vaegir archers.

They replaced some of the guerrilla archers, their eyes sharp as eagles, their quivers filled with specially made, heavier, and sharper armor-piercing arrows.

Their breathing was steady, carrying the calm and ruthless aura unique to veterans, born from having survived life-or-death trials.

Each breath seemed to gather strength for the impending resounding note.

The entire city of New Rivadin, like a giant beast whose muscles are tense from being stung, lies in a state of wary lurking on the edge of the scorching desert.

Every gaze from the city walls was like an invisible probe, constantly scanning the desolate desert and the enormous subway station entrance that opened up like a wound on the earth.

On the morning of the fifth day, when the defensive fortifications were initially completed and the oppressive calm had almost solidified into a tangible reality, the grassland bandits responsible for monitoring the subway entrance brought about an unusual movement that broke the silence.

A seasoned Khergit archer galloped to the foot of the main city wall, reined in his restless horse, and dismounted with the agility characteristic of a steppe warrior, but his face was full of surprise and uncertainty: "My lord! Lord Eleen!"

His voice was urgent, deliberately lowered, but the tension was hard to hide. "There's movement at the entrance... It's not a skeleton, it's inside the subway tunnel!"

Elaine, who had just finished her morning patrol, was working with Shen Mu on the sand table, discussing the details of the defense. They both looked up at the sound almost simultaneously.

Shen Mu's gaze was sharp as a knife: "Explain in detail."

"Shortly after the change of shifts."

The mounted archer spoke rapidly, pointing towards the subway station: "Deep down there, suddenly there was a noise! ​​At first it was very faint, like rats digging a hole, but it quickly changed... it was the sound of weapons clashing! Clanging and banging, very dense! And... there were also indistinct roars, not the roars of living people, nor the scraping sound of skeletons, but like... the roars of wounded wild beasts! It lasted for about half a pipe's time, the sounds becoming more and more chaotic, like two groups of people fighting to the death deep in the tunnel!"

He licked his chapped lips: "Then the sound went deeper into the tunnel, and now it's silent again, but the smell of blood... you can still faintly smell it from a distance!"

Is a fierce battle taking place deep inside the subway tunnel?
And the description sounds more like a battle between living beings?
This news was like a boulder thrown into stagnant water!

This is nothing like the style of the roaming skeleton riders outside or the hellish demons that might be lurking below.

The undead act coldly and with clear objectives, while hellish demons tend to ambush and wear down their prey.

This intense close-quarters combat, which erupted in the dark tunnel, exuded a completely different, primal, and wild aura.

Shen Mu and Eleanor's eyes met, and they instantly understood the cold, probing intent in each other's eyes.

"Prepare the horses." Shen Mu's voice was unwavering, like the clash of steel: "Aireen, take your men, let's go down and take a look."

"Yes!" Eleanor immediately patted his chest, his eyes burning with the curiosity and wariness that warriors had been aroused: "I will go and gather men immediately, and select the most elite infantry and archers."

A moment later, Shen Mu had already mounted his magnificent Sacred Tree Steed.

Behind him, in addition to the standard ten fifth-tier Holy Tree Knights, Eleon led fifteen elite heavy infantry and ten Vaegir archers who had also been upgraded to sharpshooters.

These archers wielded powerful composite bows, carried heavy crossbows at their waists, and had quivers filled with armor-piercing arrows, clearly indicating that Eleanor was preparing to deal with armored targets they might encounter in the tunnel.

The group did not bring Khergit horse archers; in the narrow tunnel, infantry and agile but sustained-fire archers were more suitable.

Like a silent, steel serpent, they moved swiftly and methodically through the east gate, slid down the gentle slope, and arrived at the massive entrance to the collapsed subway station ruins.

The Khergit horse archers responsible for guarding the entrance had already huddled on both sides, their faces showing unprecedented tension.

One of them pointed to the dark abyss below, his voice strained: "Sir, the sound is coming from deep within. We can't tell exactly how far... but it's definitely very deep! After that commotion, it's now eerily quiet down there again."

Below the entrance, silted sand piles up to form a steep slope leading into deeper darkness.

The air flowed here, carrying a faint but real smell, a mixture of rust and...fresh blood.

The darkness itself seemed to contain danger, swallowing light and sound.

The mithril armor worn by the Holy Tree Knights emitted a slightly brighter, softer silver glow, dispelling the darkness several feet around them, but this light seemed like a drop in the ocean in the face of the deep tunnel.

The Vaegir archers lit torches wrapped in grease; the flickering flames barely illuminated the rugged road ahead.

Broken and twisted cement blocks, exposed steel bars like the ribs of a monster, and piles of silted sand and gravel forming a complex ravine terrain, the air filled with thick dust and... that increasingly clear, sweet and pungent smell.

"Shields in front, archers in the middle, infantry on the rear flanks, advance in staggered formations," Shen Mu said in a deep voice after dismounting.

The commands are cold and concise; in this cramped and complex environment, the array is the guarantee of survival.

Three of the most robust Swadian soldiers, each wielding a massive fan-shaped shield, immediately moved to the front, their heavy shields forming a solid wall.

The Holy Tree Knights were scattered on both sides and slightly behind, their armor gleaming as the best warning lights.

Eleanor personally led the archers closely behind the shield wall, his sharp gaze piercing through the darkness.

The remaining infantrymen, armed with spears and swords, vigilantly guarded the flanks and rear.

The team maintained a high level of alert and slowly and heavily advanced down the stairs into the depths of the tunnel.

The sound of footsteps was amplified in the empty, silent tunnel, mixed with the faint scraping sounds of chainmail and armor, making one's nerves tense.

The torchlight cast eerie, flickering shadows on the damp, pitted ground and the moldy, moss-covered walls.

The rails have long been twisted or buried, and the remaining sleepers are rotten and broken, revealing dark holes.

The stench of blood... grew stronger and stronger, like a slaughterhouse where animals had just been gutted. "Stop!" one of the leading Holy Tree Knights suddenly shouted, raising his right fist high, the Holy Tree emblem shimmering slightly in the light.

The line froze instantly, like a solidified sculpture.

The archers behind the shield wall immediately crouched down, arrows nocked, arrowheads pointing steadily into the darkness.

Everyone's gaze followed the Holy Tree Knight's gesture and looked forward.

Beyond a bottleneck area where the tunnel had become extremely narrow and twisted due to a collapse, traces of battle—or rather, remnants of a massacre—appeared.

The torchlight illuminated the scene, which resembled a living hell.

An astonishing number of shattered bones were scattered on the ground of the passage ahead!
These are not the stark white skeletons found outside. These bones have an eerie dark gray color, with even dried, dark brown muscle fibers clinging to them!

The fragments of bone were so numerous and so fine that they almost covered the entire ground within twenty paces ahead.

Clearly, not long ago, more than one skeletal warrior here was torn to pieces by some extremely violent force!

Even more astonishingly, among these dark gray bone fragments were other things—sharp claws stained with a deep blue viscous liquid, broken carapace fragments covered with obsidian-like scales, and even a few clumps of ominous dark purple hair!

This is definitely not from the dead or their known hellish servants.

"Look over there!" Eleanor pointed to a corner of the wall a little further away.

In the firelight, a relatively intact "corpse" was clearly visible. But it was neither human nor elf!
It is about half the height of an adult, crawling, with a structure similar to a reptile, but its body is covered with a broken, obsidian-like, thick, angular carapace, as if formed from cooled lava.

Its limbs are extremely short and thick, and the ends of its forelimbs are huge, broken, dark blue hooks that are still ferocious and terrifying even when broken.

There was no obvious head; the front of the torso had only a ferocious, round slit filled with sharp teeth, several thick fangs were violently broken off, and the blue mucus that flowed out had not yet solidified.

His entire body was covered with huge lacerations and dents caused by violent impacts—the wounds from the shattered dark gray skeletal spear tip!
“What the hell… what is this?” Elaine’s voice was filled with shock and deep vigilance.

He had served in the military for many years, from the Vaegir Icefield to the Twilight Zone of Balihe, and had never seen such a twisted creature.

A Vaegir marksman carefully picked out a small piece of what appeared to be metal from the pile of bones, with some tattered strips of cloth and... dark purple hair stuck to it.

“Sir, this…this looks like a fragment of some kind of badge?” He handed the fragment to Eleanor.

The fragment was small, twisted and dirty, with broken edges, and could only be barely discerned as having some kind of arched abstract lines resembling thorns or animal claws.

The fabric is of very high quality, and the purple fur appears extremely durable.

Elaine couldn't recognize it either, and frowned as she handed it to Shen Mu.

Shen Mu did not catch the sticky fragments; his gaze, like a cold probe, swept over the horrific battlefield inch by inch.

Two completely different monsters perished together here? Or was it an unknown third party?

He bent down and picked up an object much larger than the other fragments from the edge of a pile of dark gray bone fragments—a broken spear with its tip dyed dark blue.

The spear shaft was made of that strange, dark gray bone material, heavy and with a cold, metallic feel.

The broken point of the spearhead, stained with a dark blue slime, emitted an extremely faint odor, similar to a mixture of ozone and putridity.

"Residual power..." Shen Mu sensed the faint yet exceptionally pure destructive energy, a cold glint flashing in his eyes.

This energy has a slightly different nature from the black light that the bone armor cavalry unleashed before, but it is also a powerful external force amplification!

These dark gray skeletal warriors clearly possess similar or even stronger extraordinary powers!

“My lord,” another Holy Tree Knight pointed to the dark blue slime fragments and purple fur on the ground, “these…are 'melting'?”

Under the astonished gazes of the crowd, those undead objects—deep blue claw fragments, scale-covered carapaces, and purple fur—were melting and vaporizing at a visible speed, as if they had been thrown into strong acid!
It was as if their very existence was strongly rejected by the rules of this plane!
On the contrary, the dark gray skeletons and the obsidian shell of the monster's remains, although they also exuded death energy, did not show this abnormal change.

“Creations from the spirit realm…” Shen Mu slowly uttered the word, his eyes as deep as an abyss, “Those that do not belong to this place will eventually dissipate.”

This explains why they suddenly appeared deep in the tunnel and engaged in a fierce battle with the mysterious skeletal warriors.

Were they swept up by the turbulent currents of the spirit world?

Or are they chasing after skeletons?

He then looked at the relatively intact obsidian-shelled monster's corpse on the ground—its shell seemed more "stable" and did not disappear quickly.

"Target: the carapace." Shen Mu pointed to the monster's remains: "Collect the most representative complete parts and take them away for research. As for these bones..." He coldly looked at the disappearing fragments on the ground: "Just record their morphological characteristics. This place is not safe to stay for long."

This brief but impactful expedition has yielded far more crucial information than expected.

An unknown, powerful undead monster, and an equally powerful and hostile non-undead otherworldly monster that entered this place due to spatial disturbances.

The secrets and dangers lurking deep within the tunnel far exceeded our initial expectations when we were only facing hellish demons.

"Notify the higher-ups," Shen Mu's voice was icy. "Strengthen security at the subway entrances, especially at night! Increase the number of Holy Tree Knights on duty. Eleanor, have your Vaegir archers equipped with rockets during nighttime patrols. If any large-scale abnormal energy reaction or unusual activity is detected below, immediately sound the alarm!"

He took one last look at the devastated battlefield that was "cleaning itself up."

At the end of the deep, dark tunnel, it seemed as if countless eyes were peering into the darkness, or like a giant monster devouring all the uninvited guests who had intruded.

"Withdraw!" Shen Mu ordered without hesitation.

The trials for New Rivadin have only just begun.

The secrets deep underground, and the dangers that accompany them, have already opened their fangs wide to him.

We can't stay here any longer!

In any case, as long as we occupy New Rivadin and firmly guard our castle, it's like we're nailed to the ground.

They control this place! (End of Chapter)