Real Mount and Blade Game

Thick, inky smoke mixed with the greyish-white embers purified by holy flames swirled and rose in front of the fortified walls, forming an ugly scar.

The first desperate charge of the Abyssal Undead Gnolls was crushed by the tight defense system under the golden light of Tarlin.

The wreckage, like jagged rocks scattered across the scorched earth, burned with the last flickering flames of sulfur, hissing and crackling.

However, a brief respite on the battlefield is not a declaration of victory.

hum-

An unprecedented, cold and viscous will, like billions of ice needles soaked in putrid stench, suddenly pierced through the smoke screen and fiercely stabbed into the minds of every living being inside and outside the barrier!

Pain, suffocation, despair... indescribable negative emotions surged through the soldiers' nerves like a tidal wave. Several Vaegir archers on the city wall groaned, their faces pale, as they grabbed the crenellations, their arrows falling from their hands.

"Hold on! Soul Barrier!" Legolas roared, runes flashing rapidly in his emerald eyes, a pale green halo barely enveloping the upper layer of the barrier. But the source of the pressure was crystal clear—

The west!

Shen Mu suddenly looked up, and through the gaps in his mithril mask, his cold gaze pierced through the thinning dust, directly targeting the core of the black domain.

There, the enormous phantom of the End Wolf still hovered atop the thick, despair-inducing pillar of black and red light. It did not dissipate or rage at the annihilation of the cannon fodder; instead, its giant eyes, forged from abyssal blood diamonds, became even more solid and cold, locking onto Shen Mu!
The distance seemed to disappear.

In the wolf's eyes, there was no longer merely a desire for destruction. It was a... greedy scrutiny. Like a butcher examining the toughest piece of meat on the chopping block, analyzing how to extract the greatest value. It was assessing Shen Mu, assessing the fortress, assessing the true nature of the golden light's power! Shen Mu clearly "sensed" that his released commands, the power he mobilized, the trajectory of every ray of the Holy Light Tower Forest... were all being scanned, recorded, and analyzed as if by an invisible, cold instrument!
This is not the end! This is just the beginning of something even more terrifying!
"Roar--!!!"

Another earth-shattering, unified roar came from behind the still-smoky curtain! The sound was far more penetrating than before!

“Oh my god…they…” Caranzo’s voice trembled slightly, a tremor he himself was unaware of. It wasn’t a battle cry of fear, but an instinctive shudder stemming from being watched by a higher being on a spiritual level.

The billowing smoke was suddenly torn apart! Abyssal claws, even denser and more frenzied than before, surged out!

It was still a skeletal gnoll burning with dark red abyssal fire, but within the gap in its chest, viscous, magma-like dark red demonic flames burned fiercely, and flames also spilled from the joints of its limbs. The black aura surrounding its body became even more solid—its power was forcibly overdrawn and ignited by the core will, turning into pure destructive bombs!

Behind this horde of fiery demonic soldiers, even more numerous and swifter "Reapers" appeared, wielding burning scythes! Their compound eyes gleamed with an eerie green light, their targets aimed directly at the ranged units suppressing fire on the city walls!
The true tsunami is now revealing its destructive power!

"The Abyss is going to destroy our Towerlin!" Legolas roared, and the will of the forest howled.

"All defensive nodes, hold your positions!" Shen Mu's icy voice shattered the wavering air like a hammer blow. "Swadia reserves, Holy Tree Knights, stand by! Caranzo—lead the First and Second Heavy Cavalry Battalions, follow me—and wipe out their left flank!"

The order was cold and emotionless, yet it instantly ignited the soldiers' fierce determination to survive in their desperation!
Rumble, rumble!

The heavy main city gates roared under their strain, bursting open with a deafening roar under the glow of the Holy Light Tower! Shen Mu charged ahead, his mithril heavy armor leaving a chilling trail of light in the dust! Behind him, Kalanzo roared, and the Swadian heavy cavalry, who could no longer contain themselves, erupted like a long-suppressed volcano!

This time, Shen Mu chose not to attack the weak point of the tower base, but the left flank of the huge gnoll horde that was frantically attacking the outer defenses, trying to tear open the right flank and let more "Reapers" break in!

The objective is clear: to cut off their momentum and, within the limited area still illuminated by Tallinn's light, to firmly suppress and grind them down!
Golden holy flames hummed above the charging knights, their mithril armor and Swadian heavy cavalry's steel plate armor gleaming under the light of the Towerin. This was the sacred armor bestowed by order! The light barrier of the Towerin became the hardest sword in their hands!

"For Deherim! For the Light of Order!" Kalanzo's greatsword, with overwhelming force, slashed fiercely at a demonized gnoll that was charging towards a makeshift roadblock, its chest bubbling with magma.

Boom——Crack!
The greatsword, imbued with the immense kinetic energy of the centaur and the power of divine purification, instantly cleaved open the gnoll's forelimbs, along with half of its burning chest, as it attempted to block! Dark red demonic flames and filthy liquid splattered everywhere, but upon touching the aura emanating from the sword, they evaporated and shrank violently as if encountering a natural enemy!
"Kill—!!!" The torrent of steel followed closely behind, crashing into the left flank of the gnolls' formation!

The clash of iron and fire unfolds on a narrow front!

The steel lance pierced the brittle bone armor, suppressed by the holy light, without any fancy moves; the heavy chain hammer slammed down, and the demonized gnoll's head exploded with sparks; the fallen warhorse neighed and overturned, and the rider rolled up the moment he hit the ground, his blood-stained broadsword slashing at the ankle of the charging monster!

Beyond the light barrier lies a bloodthirsty abyss and a despairing darkness. Within the light barrier, the battlefield where Shen Mu and his heavy cavalry reach is a forbidden zone of slaughter, shimmering with the golden light of order!
Shen Mu himself was like a war god burning with platinum holy flames! Every strike of his mithril knight's sword resonated with the Tarin, concise, efficient, and deadly! He didn't chase after those fierce jackal warriors, but instead precisely thrust his sword towards those "bombs" whose chests were burning with the most intense demonic flames and could explode at any moment. The tip of the sword pierced the core of the magic crystal, and the holy flames instantly exploded from within, preemptively neutralizing their threat.

The heavy cavalry's counterattack was like a giant scraper, tearing a large chunk out of the left flank of the jackal legion that surged like a black tide! The torn formation fell into chaos, and the jackals charging afterward were blocked by the wreckage and the scattered comrades, their momentum instantly halted.

The defenders on the city walls were relieved of pressure and were able to direct more firepower towards the incoming Reapers and threats from other directions. The Vaegir rained down arrows with even greater intensity, and Rhodok's heavy crossbows roared with a dull thud, pinning the Reapers who tried to suppress the city walls with their scythe-bladed bone spears back to the ground.

A brief advantage!
Covered in blood, Kalanzo felled a gnoll that lunged at him, then looked up at Shen Mu, his eyes burning with the ferocity of a survivor: "My lord! We can hold out! We can..."

His voice stopped abruptly.

Because those abyssal blood-diamond giant eyes, which had always hung in the sky, coldly watching everything, finally moved.

That was neither an angry roar nor a mocking contempt.

The massive black and red pillar of light supporting the wolf's shadow suddenly twisted and contracted! At the top of the pillar, the enormous, mountain-like jackal head... slowly lowered! The greed and calculation in its blood-diamond pupils instantly transformed into a pure, cold desire for destruction! Its enormous maw opened, aimed directly at the core of the battlefield outside the barrier, where fierce fighting was taking place, gleaming with holy light and the radiance of steel!

A terrifying pressure, far exceeding any previous impact and capable of freezing one's soul, suddenly descended!
Immediately following was not a beam of energy.

Instead, from that gigantic maw, a drop of jet-black blood—more viscous than lava, seemingly imprisoning the wailing of billions of tormented souls, containing the ultimate filth and destructive power—quietly condensed, seemingly heavier than the ruins of the entire city of Long, and silently… dripped down!
The trajectory of the falling blood droplets was crystal clear.

the goal--

That short-lived but glorious counterattack position was being built by Shen Mu and the Swadian heavy cavalry!

The light curtain was wailing, and the earth was trembling.

The final wolf's counterattack never strayed from Shen Mu. It wanted to personally strangle this rebellious light of order, in the most direct and overwhelming way!
As Shen Mu watched the gnolls, weakened by the holy light, crash against the outside of the barrier like a tidal wave, a sudden change occurred—a drop of thick, black blood, as if it were alive, silently pierced through the veil of holy light and fell straight towards the base of the torch tower at the heart of the barrier!
"Sizzle... sizzle!" The moment the blood droplet touched the runes on the tower base, Shen Mu felt a sudden, sharp pain in his temple!
The tyrannical whispers of the abyss's will pierced the soul like billions of poisonous needles—"Defile...devour...the end!"

However, just as the abyss corruption was about to erupt—[Warning: High-level rule intrusion!]

A chilling system notification exploded in Shen Mu's mind!

Countless pure white data chains burst forth from the void, like billions of chains of order binding the dark blood droplets.

The crimson filth emitted a piercing shriek as it was washed by the data stream, and was forcibly dismantled into the most primitive energy particles!
[Detected "Blood of God (Residual)". In conversion.]

[Gained 12784530 units of Faith Power!]

"What?!" Even with his iron will, Shen Mu's eyes were filled with shock at this moment.

The faith contained in a single drop of blood surpasses the savings accumulated over a month by a hundred Holy Light Towers!
He immediately channeled his surging power into the Tallinn network—"Buzz—!!!"

Twenty torch towers suddenly erupted with a thousand-meter-high beam of blazing white light!
The runes on the tower, which had been dimmed by the black mist, began to swirl wildly, and the golden light curtain surged outwards by three hundred meters as if boiling!

The dozens of gnolls clinging to the revitalized root wall instantly vaporized!

"Awooo!!!"

The demonic pillars within the core of the dark domain twisted wildly!

The illusory shadow of the final wolf, obscuring the sky, convulsed in agony, its two enormous blood-diamond pupils cracking with spiderweb-like black marks. This drop of primordial blood, originally intended to corrupt the core of the Tower Forest, had now become nourishment for its opponent!
The enraged will of the abyss has completely spiraled out of control.

Tens of thousands of sulfurous bone spears suddenly shot out from the surging black mist, carrying self-destructive dark red flames as they slammed into the barrier—"Abandon defense! Tear apart the light barrier!"

The Jackal Legion transformed into pure flesh and blood bombs, crashing headlong into the Holy Light Barrier, each explosion causing the tower to tremble violently!
"They are offering sacrifices!" Legolas exclaimed in shock.

The shattered bones of jackals seeped into the earth like tar, and the scorched soil surged with veins like rotting flesh—the abyss was forcibly corroding the rules of reality by offering its most elite claws as sacrifices!

Shen Mu dug his fingertips deep into the command platform, coldly watching the frantically counterattacking demonic tide.

The data clearly shows that the core energy of the End Wolf Shadow has plummeted by 17%.

"Just hysterical wailing..." A cold laugh, like the scraping of ice blades, rang out from beneath the mithril visor: "Holy Light Tower Forest, heed my command! Activate the 'Faith Overload Protocol'—"

The golden orbs atop the twenty towers suddenly collapsed into incandescent white singularities!
The transformed faith power of tens of millions of people turned into a spear of judgment that spanned the heavens and the earth, piercing fiercely into the core of the churning black mist!

In the midst of the destructive storm, the abyss echoed with its first terrified howl.

The final battle between darkness and light has now truly begun!
The moment the black blood droplets shattered, a piercing shriek that tore through the void erupted from the core black domain!

The final wolf's roar, tearing through the sky, carrying the rage of having its divine blood stolen and the pain of the backlash from the rules, crashed against the formidable barrier.

The abyssal will contained within the sound waves was like billions of cold, poisonous claws, tearing at the nerve barriers of every defender.

However, the sacred domain constructed by the Holy Light Tower Forest after being filled with tens of millions of transformed faith powers is no longer a simple energy barrier, but rather an indestructible iron wall woven from pure rules of order!
Om-!
The scorching white singularity at the top of the twenty torch towers, which had collapsed to the extreme, suddenly expanded, bursting out with an unprecedentedly brilliant stream of light.

It is no longer a gentle purification and dissociation, but a near-material divine torrent driven by the power of faith!
“Zizizizi——boom!!!”

Countless abyssal jackals, crashing into the golden light barrier like flesh bombs, didn't even have a chance to self-destruct.

The blazing torrent of holy flames instantly engulfed and evaporated them. Even the rain of sulfurous bone spears, strong enough to corrode fine steel, melted away instantly upon touching the materialized wave of faith power, like snowflakes thrown into a furnace.

The scorched earth hissed as the light swept across it, and the remaining dark red veins writhed, shrank, and turned into ashen embers, like burning grease.

The abyss's most frenzied and reckless sacrificial charge crashed into a more powerful shield forged from their "divine blood," futilely stirring up ripples of destruction, yet unable to shake the re-anchored foundation of order!
On top of the ramparts, the soldiers stared in disbelief at the magnificent sight.

The despairing battlefield, which was just moments before illuminated by the demonic flames of the gnolls, was instantly dominated by a pure, blinding holy white.

However, Shen Mu on the watchtower, his head covered by a mithril mask, was slightly turned to the west. His gaze did not relax in the slightest due to this temporary suppression. Instead, it pierced through the energy storm of the intense collision between the light of faith and the black mist of the abyss, and fell on the side and rear of the core black domain—the western part of the ruins of Long City, which was shrouded in the enormous shadow of the End Wolf and should have been completely corrupted by the power of the abyss as well.

“Legolas.” The icy voice pierced through the roar of holy light, landing precisely in the ears of the wood elf captain. “Focus your senses. To the west… towards Ash Hills. An energy… ‘reverse flow’.”

Legolas was working hard to stabilize the natural barrier protecting the soldiers' souls when he heard this. He immediately closed his eyes and focused his mind, and natural runes flowed rapidly in the depths of his emerald eyes.

The message conveyed by the forest's will was chaotic and painful, mixed with the stench of the abyss and the scorching heat of holy light.

He strained his eyes and finally detected a faint, unusual groan…

"My lord! It's...it's that old city dead zone that was swallowed up by the abyss?" Legolas's voice trembled with disbelief. "There...there is an extremely vast, yet long-dormant, necromantic power...was...awakening? Like...the undercurrents surging beneath a dried-up riverbed suddenly finding an outlet!"

Shen Mu's lips, hidden beneath his helmet, tightened even more almost imperceptibly.

Boom——!
It was not the loud noise of a physical explosion, but a terrifying sound as if ice that had been frozen for millions of years had suddenly cracked open, and an endless silence had been abruptly broken!
The sound reverberated through the medium of the soul, even briefly drowning out the collision between the holy light and the abyss!

Behind the core black domain on the west side, deep within the ruins of the central square, which Shen Mu had personally witnessed being turned into a "food" slaughterhouse, a thick, grayish-white mist, as if volcanic ash that had been dormant for millions of years had been violently ripped open, suddenly shot into the sky!

This gray fog was completely different from the churning black fog of the abyss.

It lacked any stickiness or dark red veins, was stagnant and cold, carrying the decaying dust of an ancient tomb, yet it contained a vast power that shared the same origin as the death rules of the entire Longcheng land—the last echo buried deep here after the complete silence of the native undead legion of the old Longcheng!
Within this billowing wall of gray-white dust, like a giant coffin lid being lifted, a massive, silent legion of skeletons... revealed itself!

The rotten and dilapidated black iron armor, which still gleamed with a cold, eerie green light, covered the grim skeleton, and the empty eye sockets flickered with eerie green soul fire that was no longer fervent, but as cold as ice.

They are shattered black iron shields, a forest of rusted spears, and countless, open longbows of skeletons!
What flows through them is no longer the violence and chaos of the abyss, but pure hatred and coldness accumulated over countless years after being plundered, devoured, and trampled!

This undead legion did not utter any war cries.

Their very existence is a silent indictment of the abyss's destructive origins.

The leading giant skeleton commanders, whose forms were more complete and whose skulls were branded with the mark of a twisted crown, all stared with their dark eye sockets toward the front—the flanks and backs of the army of abyssal wrecks that was desperately colliding with the light of the fortified wall!

Their target was crystal clear—the Abyssal Gnolls! These were the culprits who had crushed and devoured their comrades, trampling the last vestiges of dignity of the undead in Long City!
The Abyssal Gnolls' offensive was briefly suppressed by the blazing stream of faith light, forcing their formation to stagnate. A large number of Burning Life Demon Soldiers and self-destructing gnolls were vaporized, and the rear ranks were thrown into brief chaos.

All their attention was focused on the barrier and the apocalyptic wolf shadow hanging above, completely unaware of what was behind them!
They will strike the most deadly spear from the abandoned ruins they have long regarded as nourishment!
hum-

Countless skeletal bowstrings were silently drawn to the full moon.

The ghostly green soulfire of the skeletal archers in the gray fog suddenly solidified, their arrows pointing directly at the most densely packed ribs exposed by the army of undead from the abyss!

*Pfft—* *Whoosh whoosh whoosh whoosh whoosh—!*
It's not a rainstorm, it's not a swarm of locusts!
That was the silent Grim Reaper wielding a massive scythe! A destructive torrent composed of skeletal arrows condensed from pure death rules and enveloped in eerie green soul flames suddenly tore through the thick gray fog! They were silent, yet carried an extreme chilling killing intent that could freeze the soul, like a green meteor shower streaking across the sky!

The densely packed rear formation of abyssal wrecks instantly became a firing range for purgatory!
*Sizzle!* *Crack!* *Pfft!*
The arrow, imbued with pure necromantic resentment, easily pierced the not-so-thick bone plates on the gnoll's back! The ghostly green flames burning on the arrowhead invaded the Abyssal Corpse's body, colliding and annihilating with the dark red Abyssal demonic flames as if they were natural enemies!
Each annihilation unleashed a small-scale soul-corroding impact, tearing apart the gnoll's skeletal core!

Large swathes of jackals fell silently, like harvested wheat stalks.

Their self-destruction was interrupted prematurely, before they even had time to let out a complete wail.

The rain of skeletal arrows was like a cold, steel torrent that pierced through the rear of the army of abyssal skeletal warriors, abruptly cutting off their surging offensive and causing unimaginable heavy losses!

The stalemate was broken instantly.

The light of faith still shines brightly before the formidable barriers, as insurmountable as a natural chasm.

The vanguard of the Abyssal Corpse army burned and evaporated before the light barrier. The rear ranks, however, were ripped open by this fatal "backstab," leaving a gaping, bloody wound!
The fury mixed with the roar of the End Wolf Shadow abruptly stopped, and its two blood-diamond pupils, riddled with cracks, contracted violently, revealing for the first time... a trace of astonishment and doubt.

The abyss's absolute dominance has shown its first crack under this cold rain of vengeance!
The battlefield instantly descended into a stalemate of three-way fighting.

The abyss was besieged on all sides, and the fortified walls... became the only steadfast beacon.

Shen Mu's icy voice rang out abruptly, without any hesitation, like the most sophisticated war machine issuing orders: "Kalanzo, the left flank heavy cavalry reserve advances, driving the chaotic gnolls toward their... friendly forces! Bandak, concentrate ballista fire to suppress the main Abyss force directly ahead! Legolas—lock on those... 'friendly forces,' and tell our archers to prioritize clearing out any wrecks that dare to approach the edge of Tarlin! Don't waste arrows on that 'gray fog'!"

His gaze swept over the silent and deadly legion of skeletons; beneath his mithril visor lay a knowing understanding that saw through everything. (End of Chapter)