Real Mount and Blade Game

Shen Mu's gaze swept over the two men trembling on the ground, his voice piercing the oppressive air in the command post: "Speak."

These calm words sent a shiver down Zhang Song and Zhang Bo's spines more violently than any whipping. Zhang Song's lips trembled, his voice barely audible: "Lord Shen...that underground...the center of the tomb...the converging point...what's buried there isn't ordinary undead power..."

He gasped for breath, his teeth chattering, his eyes bloodshot with terror. "It's from jackals...it's something left behind by Yenogu, the ancestral god of the jackal people!"

Zhang Bo, standing beside him, seemed to be provoked by the power in his words and cried out in despair, "Fragments! Fragments of God's weapon! And... and half of God's hand that was torn off!"

The moment Zhang Bo uttered the three-character name "Yenogu," a name imbued with ancient barbarity, blasphemy, and bloody divinity, the whole world seemed to freeze.

"Om-!"

All the bright crystal lenses on the watchtower, the runic threads of holy light flowing along the edge of the wall, and even the dark inscriptions on the scabbard of Shen Mu's sword all burst forth with extremely dazzling and eerie distorted light at the same time!
The light was no longer a sacred and gentle flow, but transformed into countless wild, writhing, and tearing dark claws that tore at space!

The once sturdy stone fortress groaned under the strain, and tiny but deadly cracks spread along the edges of the stone bricks beneath Shen Mu's feet.

Outside the window, the midday sun, which should have been blazing, was unexpectedly and completely swallowed up.

Like a colossal curtain suddenly descending, a thick, inky fog rose from the depths of the ruins at the very center of Longcheng, billowing and spreading like a raging wave, completely obscuring the sky.

The Holy Light Tower Forest, which had just been shimmering in light outside the barrier, was now compressed into faint, swaying spots of light by the rapidly spreading darkness, like fireflies struggling in a raging sea of ​​ink.

"Awooo!!!"

A wolf howl, unlike any previous roar from the abyss, pierced through layers of fog and walls, carrying an almost joyful tremor, like the final shattering of chains that had been silent for ages!
The whistling sound carried a real impact, slamming hard against the root wall of the barrier, causing the defensive resin layer that had accumulated on the surface of the activated roots to peel off piece by piece.

Inside the fortress, the dark corridors and halls instantly descended into chaos.

The sounds of urgent military whistles, the clanging of metal armor plates, and suppressed gasps from soldiers rose and fell.

The young elf in charge of the watchtower stumbled toward the observation hole, screaming in despair, "I can't see anything! It's all black! The source of the black fog is in the heart of Long City!"

Elder Legolas slammed his withered hand down on the rune-covered wall of the watchtower.

His eyes lost focus, turning a grayish-white, as the elf's perception was linked to the whispers of the forest through ancient roots.

His body swayed, his voice filled with a soul-wrenching pain: "Withering...fear...and...a huge void is forming...right in the center of Long City! The earth is groaning!"

His words confirmed the panic among the sensory soldiers: "To the west... towards the Seventh Dynasty's burial grounds... an energy black hole! It's absorbing all ripples of light and life!"

Before the tremors of the ramparts had completely subsided, another distorted, alarmed shout rang out from the platform outside the watchtower: "To the west! Deep within Long City! Countless will-o'-the-wisps are moving in the black mist! None of them...are coming for us!"

A lookout pressed his eye against the edge of a cold crystal lens, the edge of which was tinged red from the force of his grip.

The eyes of everyone in the command post instantly focused on the blurry image projected by the crystal mirror—in the central area of ​​the ruins of Longcheng, which was shrouded in thick darkness, large swathes of pale green ghostly flames were surging at high speed!
They did not converge at the boundary between light and darkness in front of the fortified defenses, but rather, as if attracted by an invisible giant magnet, they changed direction and surged wildly toward the Seventh Dynasty's mausoleum area in the very center of the city!

That direction is precisely where Zhang Song mentioned the burial site of the Yenogu artifact fragments and half of the divine remains!

"Is the remnant of a god summoning its former kin? Or... is the abyss using that remnant as bait?" Bandak's muffled voice broke the silence, his fingers restlessly rubbing the rough handle of the runic spear.

As a Rhodok warrior, he instinctively sensed the trap.

“Who cares if it’s Yenogu or some monster’s remains! How dare these abyssal beasts disregard the holy light of the elven fortress?” Kalanzo slammed his fist on the stone table, his knuckles turning white. His chest, covered in heavy Swadian armor, heaved violently with rage. “Let my heavy cavalry go out and smash their turning spines! With their backs to us, this is the perfect opportunity!” His fighting spirit boiled.

"No." Shen Mu's voice was not loud, but it was like a cold rock falling, instantly extinguishing Caranzo's fighting spirit.

The lookout's urgent report still echoed in his ears.

Shen Mu raised his hand and pointed to the raging, green torrent that was rushing wildly toward the mausoleum area in the crystal mirror to the west.

His fingertips seemed to be imbued with an invisible sharpness, enough to slice through space itself. "Look at their paths, so precisely avoiding the lingering vortex of abyssal energy storms within the battlefield ruins,"

His voice was terrifyingly calm, as if he were dissecting a corpse. "This is no unconscious, chaotic charge. Order all troops to completely seal off all external passages within the defensive line. No one is to step outside the fortifications! Anyone who disobeys will be considered a traitor! Khergit Rangers! Immediately! Keep a close watch on the final destination of the Jackal Undead pack!"

The final command transformed into a sharp sword aura, piercing through the stone wall and shooting towards the cavalry camp below the ramparts.

"My lord!" Caranzo's eyes were filled with resentment, and his rugged face flushed red.

Shen Mu whirled around, his sharp gaze piercing Kalanzo's soul, his voice heavy as a thousand pounds: "Those remains were once the gnoll god! The Abyss has entrenched itself in Long City for so long, yet it has allowed it to slumber deep within the tombs until now. Now, at this crucial juncture, it uses the mouths of prisoners to lure us into knowing of its existence, and then incites a million gnoll undead to attack the walls instead of the skeletons… Do you think the Lord of the Abyss, 'The Shadow of the End,' is doing a good deed? It's waiting for our reaction! Stepping into that foggy area, you are offering the lifeblood of Swadia to the Abyss like a fishing hook!"

“Roar…roar…ha…” Zhang Bo, lying on the ground, suddenly let out a strange panting, his face showing a despair as if he had been seen through by the manipulator. “Bait…we are bait…” he admitted in a dreamlike voice.

Thick clouds blocked the last ray of sunlight in its death throes. No, it was no longer clouds at all; it was a viscous chaos, churning with ominous runes, like boiling asphalt.

After the light was completely extinguished, what began to permeate the ruins of Longcheng was no longer just the gloom of the previous battlefield. A new, morbid grayish-white mist was uncontrollably seeping out from the depths of the rubble, beneath the piles of bones, and especially from the cracks in the vast mausoleum that once belonged to the royal family of the Seventh Dynasty.

The mist crawled like a cold slug, carrying a heavy, decaying lead-like texture. Wherever it passed, the scattered skeletons that had not yet been completely eroded by the abyss, whether human warriors or broken statues, began to peel off grayish-white powder.

A suffocating stench of rust and the earthy smell of the grave filled the air.

Two streams of tears flowed from Legolas's tightly closed eyes as his fingers dug deep into the wall. "The silent dead are awakening… not in response to the abyss's call… but more like the dignity of souls slumbering for millennia has been disturbed by the aura of the ancient Yeno god… They… are angry…" His words were strained, as if each word was wearing down his life force. Deep within the fortress, ancient roots connecting to the woodland were channeling the boiling resentment of countless unwilling souls from beneath the earth into his very blood.

In the heart of Longcheng, at the core of the Seventh Dynasty's imperial mausoleum area, which has collapsed yet remains as magnificent as a mountain, a huge, gray-white square formation composed of countless skeletons silently "emerges" from the cracks in the ground and the depths of the dilapidated tomb chambers.

They are arranged with the precision of the coldest instruments.

At the front row stood skeletal soldiers of black iron, clad in tattered bronze heavy armor covered in dust and moss. Deep within their empty eye sockets, the chaotic green flames of the abyssal gnolls no longer burned, but rather clusters of extremely faint, yet incredibly stable and pure, ghostly blue soulfire. These formed a silent, unshakeable wall of bone shields. Behind them, an even taller phalanx of skeletal archers had already raised longbows made of twisted, massive ribs, their surfaces shimmering with a dormant gray light.

What's even more chilling is the gray energy that floats and gathers like dark clouds above the central crack of the imperial tomb. It's highly compressed, and the pressure it emits makes the air freeze.

In the dark ruins directly in front of them, a dark green horde of millions of undead gnolls burning with abyssal fire has turned around and is attacking!
Their scimitars gleamed with a filthy, eerie green, and their howls were filled with a kind of fanaticism born from the desecration of fragments of divine remains!

They did not charge without any tactics. The skeletal gnoll leaders, as robust as bulls, were positioned at the heart of the battle line.

Their gray-black bone armor shimmered with an oily sheen under the chaotic light, and their double-edged scimitars were not physical slashes; each swing of their blades left trails of viscous, foul-smelling abyssal energy.

These trajectories intertwine, weaving a moving, spiritually polluting web that whispers the abyss along the way.

Wherever the magic net covered, the remaining metal and bones on the ground quickly decayed into black ash.

On the other flank, hundreds of "Abyss Slayers," nearly ten feet tall and covered in razor-sharp bone spikes, were being advanced under heavy protection. They were not cannon fodder, but mobile meat grinders, tasked with the deadly mission of tearing a breach in the skeletal array at the core of the gray fog.

Countless low-level, inferior skeletons, like carrion-eating hyenas, frantically scurried around the main force, filling the gaps and emitting noisy, ear-piercing hisses and the sound of bones grinding together.

The Black Iron Skeleton Legion of the Seventh Dynasty responded to the clamor of the abyssal tide with utter silence.

When the gnoll necromancers at the forefront, their flames burning with demonic energy, stepped into the ruins of the tomb area, which were shrouded in gray-white mist, the air suddenly erupted with a piercing shriek that seemed to tear at the eardrums!

The skeletal archers released their bone bows, formed from a grey light. These were no ordinary arrows; they were the embodiment of death itself!

The overwhelming barrage of gray-white bone arrows, without any physical sound of breaking through the air, silently carried the power of the law that could freeze souls, precisely piercing through the Abyss Slayers charging at the forefront!
The terrifying gnoll's body, burning with abyssal demonic flames, did not have its flames extinguished the moment it was struck by the gray bone arrow; instead, they instantly turned into a cold, solid gray!

Immediately afterwards, along with their soul cores encased in bone armor, they disintegrated silently into gray dust scattered throughout the sky, like sand statues swept by a gale!

This was a true annihilation of the soul, leaving not even traces or fragments of energy behind.

The momentum of the gnoll horde's charge was abruptly halted by this cold rain of death.

When the Demonic Fire Net encountered those gray arrows, it was like boiling oil being poured onto ice, violently steaming and exploding, emitting a tooth-grinding corrosive sound, but the light of the Demonic Net was rapidly dimming and freezing!

The blue soul fire of the skeletal formation still flickered coldly in the eye sockets of those black iron skeleton soldiers.

On their cracked and moss-covered heavy shields, ancient runes emitted a soft glow nourished by the gray mist energy, completely blocking the remaining impact and scattered corrosive magic fire.

The corrupt magic of the abyss and the silent, lawless power of annihilation of the undead army collided and annihilated each other tragically amidst the ruins of the Seventh Dynasty's tomb!
Shen Mu stood with his back to the enormous crystal window that offered a panoramic view of the entire Purgatory Battlefield.

The energy storm outside the window cast his shadow on the cold ground, elongating and swaying.

On the crystal mirror, the three colors of scarlet, eerie green, and deathly gray-white resembled three violent, venomous dragons, tearing and colliding wildly in the center of the ruins of Longcheng.

Each clash of energies generated a shockwave that could be felt even deep within the barrier, causing a faint tremor beneath one's feet, as if the earth itself were groaning in pain.

Kalanzo stood half a step behind Shen Mu. His heavy Swadian plate armor was covered with mottled marks left by the splashes of energy. His eyes under his helmet were fixed on the battle in the crystal mirror like those of a hawk, as if a magnet had drawn his soul there.

“My lord,” his voice was muffled and hoarse with suppressed killing intent and bewilderment, “they are tearing each other apart and bleeding right before our eyes! The Abyss's main force is entangled in those ancient dead bones! This is…this is the best opportunity we've ever had! Have the Holy Tree Knights follow me; one strike and we'll break through…”

His knuckles were white as he gripped the sword, and he took a step forward. His breathing was heavy, filled with a rusty longing.

The eyes of many officers inside the fortress were also fixed intently on Shen Mu's straight back. The air was thick with tension, filled with a silent will to fight.

Legolas slowly removed his withered fingers from the wall, the pads of his fingers bleeding from the rough stone surface.

His face was ashen, almost like that of a dead man, his eyes were sunken, and only a faint elfin glimmer flickered deep in his pupils.

"Lord," the elven elder's voice seemed to be squeezed out from a broken bellows, each word consuming his last remaining strength, "The Abyss... is 'feeding.' Those gnolls annihilated by the undead legion... their core fragments, haven't dissipated, are being drawn from the direction of the core dark domain..." He gasped for breath, "The core of the black mist... is continuously strengthening... like... a... stomach about to... give birth!"

These words were like ice water poured onto a boiling oil pan. The atmosphere in the command post instantly froze.

Shen Mu did not turn around. He stared at the core of the crystal mirror, at the area where the three-colored energy was most chaotic and explosive.

That was the center of the mausoleum, the place where the remains of the god Yenogu were buried. His voice remained steady, yet it carried clearly to everyone's ears: "Kalanzo, look at the direction of the gnolls' attack, their eyes fixed on that crack in the ground in the center of the mausoleum, like a swarm of moths drawn to a flame? The remains of Yenogu are the firewood, the undead legion is the furnace wall, and the main force of the Abyss is the furnace fire about to ignite. Do you want to throw my Holy Tree Knights into the furnace, to stir the flames for the Abyss, making them burn brighter and faster?"

Caranzo's burly body trembled violently, as if struck by an invisible whip. The surge of adrenaline instantly turned cold.

Cold sweat trickled silently down his temples, which were red from being rubbed against the edge of the helmet.

Bandak stepped forward, his typically Rhodok-like face grim. "My lord, how do we break this deadlock? Should we let the Abyss use this chaos to build up its strength?" His hand involuntarily tightened around the heavy crossbow covered in runes at his waist.

Shen Mu slowly raised his hand and pointed to the crystal mirror. His fingertip was not aimed at the chaotic core of the battlefield, but deviated in direction, precisely landing on the edge of the churning, surging abyssal black mist, in a relatively dim corner of the ruins, shrouded by chaotic energy—right in front of the faint imprints of the three energy detection runes projected onto the core of Longcheng by the western defensive node of the fortress!
"Wait." Shen Mu's voice was resolute, carrying the texture of iron and ice.

The air inside the fortress seemed to freeze, and the fervent desire to fight was instantly suppressed.

His sharp gaze swept across the deployment map of each defensive node of the fortress: "Bandark, withdraw a quarter of your men for rotation and rest, and replenish the 'Spellbreaker Frost Iron Arrows' reserved at the bottom of the arrow arsenal. Tell the Vaegir Arrow Tower commander that the use of the Frost Energy stored in the Runebase is permitted, but the use of the last 30% of the Holy Light reserves is prohibited! Double the number of all Khergit scouts, halve their rotation time, and replace all their whistling arrowheads with silver-plated cross-shaped engravings!"

“Legolas,” Shen Mu’s gaze fell on the elven elder’s nearly exhausted body, “contract the resonance with the forest, preserve the core of perception. I need you to firmly lock onto that moment when the abyss’s ‘stomach’ is about to burst. That’s not the end of its feeding, but the ‘critical point’ when it finally ‘feeds’ and its power form completes its transformation! Only at that moment will the power of the abyss briefly leave those jackal cannon fodder, complete its true metamorphosis at its core, leaving a fatal flaw—an excessively concentrated weakness!”

The elven elder, using his last ounce of strength, bowed deeply to accept the order.

Shen Mu's finger finally landed on the western core of the huge city defense map—symbolizing the hub where the most powerful defense and offense of the Pan Gen Wall combined, representing the rune array point that was dormant deep within the Pan Gen Wall and connected to the core of the living fossil wall.

"Carlanzo".

The heavy cavalry commander who was called out suddenly straightened his back, his armor screeching.

Shen Mu's voice, like tempered ice, carried a heavy killing intent that had been dormant for a thousand years: "The entire Holy Tree Knights, leave the Torch Tower base and immediately enter the 'Thorn Roots' reserve positions on the second underground level of the Rooted Barrier. That is the core war engine of the barrier, connected to the depths of the earth's roots. I need your spiritual energy, the pure will in your blood, and the magic-breaking laws inscribed on your mithril armor, to become the 'Soul Blades' of the second attack chain of the Thorn Ring!"

The resentment in Caranzo's eyes was replaced by a solemn, almost pilgrimage-like weight.

The Ring of Thorns is synonymous with the ultimate defense of the barrier and the reverse strangulation force; it is the most secret mission of these Holy Tree Knights.

He slammed one knee into the ground with a resounding crash, the steel striking the stone with a clang: "In the name of the knight! Your will is the blade's edge!"

The commands were issued with the precision of meshing gears. Under Shen Mu's will, the massive war machine within the fortress underwent a complete transformation in its operation.

The defense level has been raised to an unprecedented peak, with all forces gathering and compressing, pointing towards a clear future node.

Shen Mu turned his gaze back to the apocalyptic scroll reflected in the crystal mirror.

The chaotic demonic flames of the abyss, the gray annihilation of the undead legion, and something even grander, older, and more ferocious, faintly appearing deep within the constantly battered ancient imperial tomb... all formed a continuously spinning vortex of death. He stood with his back to everyone standing solemnly in the command post, his left hand silently gripping the hilt of his sword at his waist.

The ancient longsword that had accompanied him through countless tears of darkness began to tremble and hum, as if excited by the impending ultimate collision.

Looking out the window, beneath the churning, chaotic sky, the meat grinder in the heart of the ruins of Longcheng continued to devour the dead with frenzied abandon.

But behind the heavily fortified battlements lies a place colder than steel and safer than holy light. (End of Chapter)