Real Mount and Blade Game

The End Wolf Shadow's enormous, abyssal, blood-diamond-like eyes coldly stared at the Elven Forest fortress. The brief appearance and retreat of the skeletal gnolls was like a silent warning cast before the steel fortress.

The cheers atop the ramparts had long been replaced by a heavy, deathly silence. The soldiers' knuckles were white as they gripped their weapons tightly. The stench of sulfur in the air and the hum of Tallinn's lights intertwined to create an invisible pressure.

Legolas sensed the desperate whispers of the forest's will, and the chilling command echoed in his ears: "The abyss is assessing and drawing... they are preparing for their final devouring."

The soldiers were on edge, every shadow seeming to hold deadly danger.

However, Shen Mu stood atop the watchtower, his mithril heavy armor gleaming with a cold, hard luster under the golden glow of the Holy Light Torch Tower.

His cold, iron-gray eyes pierced through the churning darkness, sweeping over the mountains of wrecked remains piled up outside the fortified walls.

Passive defense? No! The predators of the abyss are digesting the essence of death throughout Long City, and every probe by the Shadow of the End is accelerating its evolution.

If we sit idly by and wait for the monster to complete its transformation, the Elf Forest will be torn apart like paper.

His will was like tempered steel—he had to take the initiative and compress the abyss's living space.

"Pass on the order!" Shen Mu's voice suddenly rang out, breaking the silence of the barrier, like an ice blade slicing through the stagnant air.

"Legolas, immediately select twenty elite Twilight Rangers to accompany me deep into the ruins of Long City! Objective: To scout the new area west of the core Dark Domain and determine the construction sites for the next batch of Holy Light Torch Towers!"

The command was brief and decisive, radiating an unquestionable sharpness. Legolas felt a chill run down his spine; the treacherous behavior of the Abyss wolves was still fresh in his mind, and venturing deep into their lair was tantamount to stepping into a dragon's den or a tiger's lair.

But Shen Mu's will is an ironclad rule.

He bowed with his hand on his chest, a fleeting look of worry in his emerald eyes: "My lord, the dark core of the abyss is extremely dangerous, those jackals..."

“They’ve retreated,” Shen Mu interrupted him, his gaze fixed on the churning fog to the west. “And we have the Light of Tarlin as our shield. The core of the Abyss is 'feeding' with all its might, leaving the outer defenses vulnerable. If we don’t advance now, we’ll have no chance once it’s finished digesting!” He turned to the ancient tree at the core of the fortress and gave the order: “Notify Deherim! Gather engineering resources! Once the coordinates are confirmed, extend the second chain of the ‘Ring of Thorns’ immediately!”

A moment later, a crack squad silently slipped out of the fortress's hidden side door.

Shen Mu took the lead, his mithril cloak fluttering in the gray mist; Legolas followed closely behind, the wood elf hunter blending into the shadows of the ruins like a phantom.

Accompanying them were ten Twilight Rangers, masters of stealth and tactical reconnaissance, each clad in dark green leather armor and carrying an elven longbow.

They did not intend to engage in direct combat, but rather, under the powerful mental aura of Shen Mu, they were like a sharp needle probing into the core of darkness.

However, as soon as one steps into the ruins of Longcheng, where fierce battles once raged, an unprecedented sense of eeriness washes over them.

The lingering stench of sulfur in the air was still strong, with a pungent, putrid smell, but the atmosphere was completely different.

“Something’s not right…” Legolas lowered his voice, his emerald eyes scanning warily the collapsed high-rise buildings and the twisted highway framework.

The surroundings were deathly silent and chillingly cold.

The gray fog was as thin as gauze, and the sunlight struggled to penetrate it, giving the ruins a sickly pale color.

The omnipresent skeletons, wandering zombies, and even the scattered black iron skeleton guards of my memory have all vanished without a trace. The entire city seems to have been emptied of its soul, with only the sound of the wind howling among the broken walls and ruins, like the mournful cries of the dead being forcibly silenced.

A Twilight Ranger climbed onto a broken concrete beam, his hawk-like eyes scanning the distance: "Captain, the abandoned industrial park in the West District... completely deserted! Even the Black Iron skeletons we saw last time have vanished!"

Shen Mu stopped beside a charred wreckage, his cold gaze sweeping across the ground. There were no fresh bone fragments, no signs of battle, only years of accumulated dust and scattered ashes of inferior remains, purified by the Holy Light Tower Forest.

His spiritual power spread out like invisible tentacles, covering an area of ​​several kilometers—in his perception, only a faint aura of necromantic rules was slowly dissipating, like scattered embers, but there was no trace of any "living" undead.

“It’s too quiet,” Legolas said, his voice trembling slightly. “The forest is moaning…it says death is withering, but has been drained by some force…like…a shell with its insides ripped out.”

Shen Mu did not respond, his expression beneath his helmet growing increasingly grave. The Abyssal Corpse had once fiercely fought the Black Iron Skeleton; the depths of the city should have been a chaotic battlefield. The current deathly silence was not a sign of safety—but rather a sign that a deeper layer of devouring was complete. He waved his hand and ordered, "Continue forward! Target: the edge of the core Black Domain!"

The squad navigated the labyrinthine ruins as if walking through the passageways of a giant tomb. The further west they went, the thicker and more pungent the stench of sulfur in the air became, and the light of Tallinn was suppressed by the dense darkness surging from behind.

The light grew dimmer, and the gray fog was gradually replaced by a thicker, more suffocating darkness—not just a simple shadow, but a condensed, abyssal fog that seemed capable of swallowing starlight.

The temperature around them plummeted, becoming icy cold, and the soldiers' breath condensed into frost in the air.

Suddenly, Legolas stopped abruptly, his emerald pupils contracting sharply: "My lord! Ahead... an energy conflict! Mass slaughter!"

As soon as he finished speaking, a faint yet soul-piercing roar and the sound of bones shattering came from the depths of the mist!
The team quickly took cover behind the collapsed overpass piers and looked ahead.

In the center of a huge, abandoned city square shrouded in thick black fog, a horrifying massacre was unfolding!

Countless abyssal skeletons, like a surging dark red tide!
Their bony armor was mottled, their sulfur crystal cores shimmering with a frenzied red light, and they spewed corrosive black smoke from their mouths. Their target was none other than the hundreds of "pure" undead creatures still struggling to resist—the surviving Black Iron Skeleton Guards!

These warriors, who once represented the death order of Longcheng, now have shattered armor and flickering soul flames, and are being frantically surrounded and torn apart by thousands of inferior corpses!
The battle was brutal, or rather, the massacre was horrific.

A black iron skeleton shield-bearer was tackled by three inferior skeletons. The shield was corroded with holes by sulfur claw marks. One of the inferior skeletons dug its bone claws deep into its ribcage, trying to pry out the ghostly green soulfire 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 hordes of inferior skeletons!

The shattered bones were trampled underfoot, and the dark red sulfur sparks ignited the remaining skin membrane, bursting into acrid black smoke!
Further away, several abyssal jackal monsters, like ruthless commanders on a battlefield, hunched over with tall, skeletal bodies, wielding black iron scimitars, the blades emanating a viscous sulfurous aura.

The gnolls didn't charge directly, but paced along the rear edge, their eyes flickering with abyssal fire as they coldly observed the battlefield. Occasionally, they would swing their scimitars, injecting a dark red energy wave into the torrent of undead, making their attacks even more ferocious!
A wrecked creature with its leg bone broken by a black iron spear roared and pounced under the stimulation of energy, detonating the crystal core inside its body and blasting the three black iron spear soldiers into pieces!

“My God…they’re…washing!” A Twilight Ranger covered his mouth, his voice trembling.

This was no longer a battle between evenly matched forces, but a one-sided massacre! The Black Iron Legion was slaughtered like trapped beasts. Every counterattack they made seemed pale and powerless. Their broken bodies and the dissipated essence of death were greedily absorbed by the surrounding black mist and flowed deeper into the darkness.

Legolas's face turned pale: "That's right... The Abyss is harvesting its last 'nutrients'! These native undead... they are feeding their enemies with their own death!" He pointed to the sky, where a faint, eerie green stream of light, brimming with pure death energy, was rising from the center of the battlefield, winding its way into the core of the churning black mist of the Abyss.

That's the energy of a "pure" undead when they die!
Shen Mu stood quietly in the shadows, his expression hidden by his mithril visor.

But beneath the helmet, for the first time, a clear look of shock appeared in those cold, iron-gray eyes!
This was not the sporadic conflict he had anticipated, but a systemic extermination!

The Abyssal Corpses and Jackal Monsters are no longer scattered soldiers; they have become extensions of the Will of the End Wolf Shadow. A precise "purification" operation is underway—eliminating the remaining "fodder" and recovering and purifying all the power of death!
A deafening crash! A precarious billboard at the edge of the plaza was smashed by flying bones from the fierce battle and collapsed with a thunderous roar! The billowing dust and the resounding crack of the breaking steel frame instantly shattered the silence of the area!
Oops!

Shen Mu's eyes sharpened. At that very moment—

"Awooo—!" The three Abyssal Gnolls that had been overseeing the battle from the rear suddenly turned their heads! Their two hollow eye sockets, burning with dark flames, acted like hunting searchlights, precisely locking onto the bridge pier where the team was hiding!
They let out a soul-shaking howl, raising their black iron scimitars simultaneously and pointing them in the direction of the reconnaissance team!
The next instant, as if receiving a command, hundreds of inferior skeletons abandoned the last few black iron skeletons they were besieging, turned their heads in unison, and the sulfurous red light converged into a bloodthirsty wave, roaring as it surged toward Shen Mu and the others' location!

The howl of the abyssal jackal was like a chilling death knell: "New... 'energy source' discovered! Devour them!"

Shen Mu clenched his fist tightly, and the runes on his mithril arm armor flashed intensely.

"A trap? Or an inevitable encounter?" A cold thought flashed through my mind like lightning.

exposed!
The reconnaissance mission unexpectedly stumbled upon the final clearing operation of the Abyss!

Shen Mu's cold, iron-gray pupils suddenly contracted beneath his visor! The moment he was exposed, his battle instincts, ingrained in his very bones, instantly overwhelmed any thought.

"withdraw!"

A chilling roar tore through the approaching howls of the monstrous carcasses and the hyenas' shrieks!

It was not just an order, but a crushing force of steel, instantly piercing the nerves of all the Twilight Rangers who were on edge due to the sudden situation.

He gave Legolas and the other elves no chance to hesitate or make a decision.

The moment the word "retreat" left his lips, the mithril knight sword in Shen Mu's hand, which seemed to be integrated with his arm, was already drawn!
The cold blade sliced ​​through the viscous black mist without hesitation, slashing precisely to the diagonal rear—not towards the only escape route behind him, but rather striking the wood elf half a step in front of Legolas, who was trying to draw his bow!

boom!
The violent sword energy, mixed with the cold power of holy light, exploded!

Gravel, dust, and rotten concrete fragments were violently ripped up, carving out a shocking trench!

This not only stopped the wood elf's instinctive counterattack, but also served as a silent, almost brutal warning—do not linger! Do not turn back!

"Dump all loads! Retreat at full speed! Target—the Rooted Barrier!" Shen Mu's voice was like gears grinding steel, every word sharpened with icy shards.

His tall figure was like a silver ghost. He suddenly twisted his body, and his mithril heavy armor even emitted a piercing metallic scraping sound as he turned!
He completely ignored the elves who were slightly stunned by the shockwave, and also disregarded the dark red and black iron torrent surging behind him like an erupting volcano.

He unleashed terrifying speed, as if what was chasing him was not an abyssal monster, but a lava tsunami sweeping across the heavens and earth!
The heavy mithril armor now became a sharp blade that tore through the air; every step it took seemed to make the earth tremble, leaving spiderweb-like cracks on the decaying city tiles.

The target was a massive wooden fortress faintly visible in the distance against the dim sky—the golden spear of the Holy Light Torch Tower stubbornly pierced through the increasingly thick abyssal black mist, guiding the way. One kilometer away!

Legolas was forced back half a step by the sword that was almost slashing at his face. The elegance and decisiveness of the elf were instantly torn apart in the face of that cold and ruthless command and power.

A fleeting look of astonishment and resentment crossed his emerald eyes—to stay behind and cover the retreat, to use his superb archery skills to slow down the pursuers, and to use his life to cover the lord's retreat. This was the elf's mission, and also the thought that flashed through his mind as captain in that instant!

But Shen Mu's undisguised warning and his back, already several feet away, were like the coldest lash.

"But my lord! The pursuers are too fast! They..." Legolas cried out in near despair, his fingertips already gripping three elven arrows tainted with natural poisons.

"At your command!!!"

As Shen Mu ran, he turned back, and two icy gazes from beneath his helmet pierced through space, nailing fiercely into Legolas's eyes.

There was no emotion for the sacrifice in his eyes, only the anger of having his orders disobeyed and a cold, calculating sense of control.

"Your sacrifice is worthless! There are backup ahead! Run!!!"

Before he finished speaking, he had already rushed back ten feet away, his voice carrying a heart-stopping, tearing quality as he moved at high speed.

Legolas felt as if his heart had been gripped by an icy hand, and he instantly understood the meaning of "rescue".

It's the Holy Tree Knight! The Lord had planned this all along!

"Retreat! Abandon everything! Follow the master!" Legolas's voice finally suppressed all emotion, leaving only the resolute determination of a forest hunter carrying out an order. (End of Chapter)