Real Mount and Blade Game

A dead end? No, it's the final game.
The moment the final wolf shadow shattered, countless wailing black smoke, carrying fragments of divine remains, surged forth.

The ancestral tomb cracked open its abyssal maw amidst the rhythm of desecration, and the gnoll army, reconstructed from filthy flesh and blood, surged towards the human defenses like a boiling tide.

The Holy Tree Knights struggled to purify themselves in the swamp of flesh, the ballistae were shattered into pieces by the gnoll charge, and the steel defenses were torn apart.

A Khergit scout urgently reports: "Gray fog has blocked our retreat! The undead are coming to retaliate!"

Amidst the mountains of corpses and seas of blood, Shen Mu's lips curled into a smile: "Okay, I understand."

As the undead and the abyss were about to engulf humanity's last ranks, he calmly gave the order: "Activate the Harp Stand."

The enormous "End Wolf Shadow," imbued with the blasphemous will of the abyss and the resentment of the dead, emitted a agonizing scream as if the universe had just begun the moment Shen Mu's rule-based thorn pierced its filthy black core!

That was not a sound, but the collapse of the origin after the rules were torn apart and divinity was desecrated!

Accompanied by this wailing that exceeded the limits of human hearing, the thick, liquid-like filthy black smoke that formed the wolf's shadow exploded with a roar!
Like the shattering of the darkest star, countless twisted shadows, carrying the broken divine remnants of the jackal god Yenogu, were hurled by an overwhelming force of reckoning into every corner of the ancestral tomb space. These fragments slammed against the primordial stone walls, stained with blood and sticky moss, splashing up a nauseating dark green slurry; they struck the boiling swamp of flesh on the ground, hissing and crackling like hot irons, sending up plumes of foul-smelling black smoke carrying the pungent stench of sulfur and decay. Each fragment writhed frantically, like dying insects, attempting to reassemble the shattered, profane core.

"Not good!" Major Kalanzo's face turned deathly pale instantly. He sensed that what was being released from the shattered black core was not decay, but an uncontrolled, spreading, and even more chaotic and violent abyssal will. "Core contamination is spreading! All personnel on high alert! Holy Light Array at full power!" he roared, his voice almost drowned out by the terrifying vibrations and echoes from the ancestral tomb.

The only response to his command was a sickening groan and a cracking sound emanating from the ancestral tomb of the gnolls themselves!

Rumble——!
Those colossal stones, remnants of the primordial era and engraved with primitive totems, were torn apart as if by an invisible giant hand by the primal impact of the shattered Shadow of the End. Vast, bottomless fissures, their edges flowing with dark red, molten lava-like blood, spread menacingly across the ground, dome, and walls of the ancestral tomb space like the claw marks of a demon! These fissures were no longer mere spatial rifts leading to nothingness, but had become the birth canals of the abyss itself, giving birth to evil!

More black smoke, pungent with the acrid smell of sulfur and blood, erupted wildly from the depths of these fissures like a raging torrent of filth. Within this churning, boiling, foul smoke, new abyssal creations were being "printed" at a chilling speed! No longer the various forms of pseudo-divine abominations bearing the characteristics of the dead, but rather a return to the most primal, purest form of gnolls—yet the most blasphemous manifestation of the abyss!
Their skeletons were formed from bones instantly solidified by filthy black smoke, upon which dark red flesh and tendons, resembling rotting viscera, rapidly sprouted; sharp fangs, like inverted bone spurs, dripped corrosive saliva; their murky eyes burned with a pure, destructive desire, devoid of any reason. These gnoll warriors, crawling out of the abyss's rift, were generally larger, their muscles bulging, their skin covered in filthy, scale-like scabs, yet their movements possessed a ferocious, swift speed, forcibly catalyzed by the power of the abyss, defying all reason. In their hands, they gripped crude battleaxes, chain hammers, or bone blades formed from black smoke, their edges constantly crumbling and reforming; the filthy aura emanating from their weapons caused the air to hiss, polluted.

They had no formation, no tactics, only the most primal, primal hatred and devouring instinct for all life and order! Like a black, flesh-and-blood tsunami driven by destructive intent, they roared, trampling the still-warm corpses of their comrades and enemies beneath their feet, ignoring all obstacles, launching the wildest, most reckless charge towards the human alliance's defensive line, which was still catching its breath from the onslaught of the false gods! At the forefront of the tide were the Abyss Warlord Gnolls, who had struggled to rise again from the filthy swamp, absorbed the power of the fragments of the gods, and swelled to nearly twice their original size. Wielding heavy weapons covered in filthy energy, they let out even more ferocious roars, becoming the sharpest and heaviest arrows of the entire filthy wave!
The battle was fierce! It reached its most brutal peak almost the instant the gnoll warriors, forcibly created by the will of the abyss, stepped out of the rift!
boom! Boom boom boom!
With the technicians' bloodshot, desperate eyes filled with despair, the few remaining heavy Radiant Burst Crossbows of Rhodok fired their last purifying bolts at the forefront of the surging black tide. A blinding radiance exploded, and the annihilating purifying shockwave vaporized over a dozen leading Abyssal gnolls, along with the filthy swamp beneath their feet, into ashes, briefly clearing a small area. But the cost was devastating—under overload, the runic base of one crossbow instantly overloaded and exploded! Scorching metal fragments and exploding purifying crystals swept across the area like the Grim Reaper's scythe, tearing several brave operators and shield infantry into a rain of blood! The air was thick with the smell of gunpowder, the scorching ozone from purifying energy, and an overwhelming stench of blood!
"Hold on! Swadia! Iron Wall!" Commander Bandak's voice was hoarse, like a broken gong. He stood at the forefront of the formation, the massive tower shields slamming heavily into the ground once more. The holy runes on the shields had long since faded, riddled with craters and signs of corrosion. Facing the berserker gnolls charging through the gaps in the ballista bombardment, stepping over the charred corpses of their comrades, the heavy infantry behind him roared like beasts, using their last strength to slam the tower shields together, forcing them to snap shut! Spears thrust fiercely from the gaps in the shields and from above, forming a jungle of steel thorns!
puff!puff!
The dense, piercing sound of flesh being stabbed was chilling. The gnoll vanguard, crashing into the shield wall, was instantly riddled with holes by the dense forest of spears, filthy black blood and shattered entrails splattering onto the shields and the soldiers' visors. However, the number of Abyssal gnolls was overwhelming, and their impact was terrifying! The monsters following behind trampled over the corpses of their fallen comrades, ignoring the spears piercing their bodies, frantically tearing at the shields with their claws, slamming them with their bodies, and smashing them with their filthy weapons! The shield formation shook violently, groaning under the strain. A soldier's arm was ripped off by a gnoll's claws protruding from a gap in the shield; the excruciating pain caused him to scream and kneel. Immediately, the line behind him weakened, and three gnolls burst through the gap, wielding their chain maces and pounding furiously into the formation!

"Ah—!" Screams and the sounds of weapons clashing mingled together.

"Kalanzo! Sacred Tree! Purification Gap!" Bandak's eyes were bloodshot as he pierced through a gnoll that was trying to bite his face with a spear, spraying blood all over his face.

"Holy Tree Knights! Charge with me! Purify the filth!" Kalanzo's armor was already stained dark red with blood, and holy light flickered on his blade. Leading his equally wounded but still determined knights, he plunged like a red-hot dagger into the breach in the shield formation. The gleaming holy light flashed, the purifying power melting snow like sunlight. The filthy flesh of the gnolls squeezing through the gap sizzled and burned under the holy light, billowing black smoke and slowing their movements. The knights' swords followed suit, slaying them. But just as the gap was closed, an even more ferocious surge tore it open from the side! More abyssal gnolls swarmed in like piranhas smelling blood!

The Vaegir Icewind Archers stood on a makeshift slope piled with the corpses of soldiers and broken shields, their fingers already bloodied and mangled from the bowstrings. The net of death formed by their icy arrows constantly exploded vortexes of icy blue vapor amidst the horde of gnolls ahead, freezing and slowing swathes of enemies. However, the filthy swamp of flesh greatly reduced the effectiveness of the freezing vapors; the frozen gnolls were often quickly smashed apart by their surging brethren or violently broke free of the ice. The archers' arrows were being consumed at an alarming rate; their quivers were rapidly drying out. Abyssal spears thrown at tricky angles or filthy acid spewing from the fissures constantly crossed the front lines, landing among the archers, each time accompanied by suppressed screams and casualties.

The most despairing thing was the land beneath their feet, polluted by "Blasphemy Laws - Eternal Calamity of the Filthy Veins." The fallen—whether the valiant remains of human warriors or the shattered carcasses of abyssal gnolls—would "come alive" from the nauseating writhing of flesh if soaked in the filthy blood for even a moment! They twisted and struggled, indiscriminately grabbing and tearing at anything moving around them! The soldiers not only had to face the surging tide of living enemies ahead, but also constantly be wary of the rotting hands that suddenly reached out and grabbed their ankles, or the murky, lifeless eyes of their fallen comrades! The Holy Tree Knights' "Root Purification" aura expanded with all its might, its holy light flickering like a weak candle flame in a raging storm, laboriously purifying small patches of ground, but the effort was immense; the knights were pale and swaying precariously.

The entire Ancestral Tomb space had been utterly transformed into an inescapable meat grinder. Swadia's steel fortress, cracked like a dam under repeated assaults, teetered on the brink of collapse with each impact; Rhodok's jungle of spears and lances was overwhelmed and impeded by filthy flesh and the ever-resurrecting corpses; Vaegir's rain of frost arrows proved futile against the endless waves of filth; and the Holy Tree Knights' purifying light struggled to hold on amidst the increasingly dense abyssal aura. Tormented by extreme physical exhaustion and mental terror, the soldiers' eyes grew numb and desperate, their weapon movements stiff and sluggish. The defensive line, like rotten wood gnawed by ants, was being torn apart and crumbled from multiple points!
Just when humanity's defenses were on the verge of complete collapse!
The rapid, piercing sound of horses' hooves and the distinctive, panicked whistles of the Kujit came from the rear of the human alliance's defensive line—from the direction of the passageway they had painstakingly carved out leading to the entrance of the ancestral tomb!
A veteran horse archer, covered in blood, his scimitar broken, his Khergit leather armor tattered by some corrosive aura, practically tumbled and crawled through the chaotic ranks of the rear reserve. Amidst the billowing blood and corpses, he roared with all his might, his voice shrill and distorted with extreme fear:
"Marshal! The rear! The tunnel... the tunnel is blocked!!"

He pointed in the direction he had come from, his face a mixture of blood, sweat, and the ashen face of despair.
“Gray fog! It’s the gray fog of the Seventh Dynasty! So thick it’s impenetrable! Like an iron wall!” He gasped for breath, each inhalation accompanied by the wheezing sound of his lungs working. “Countless… countless undead are crawling out of the fog! Skeleton warriors! Rotting knights! And… and that giant shadow! They… they’ve completely blocked our escape route! They… they’re standing in the gray fog, densely packed, watching us! They want… they want revenge!!”

The final two words—"Revenge!"—were like two cold, massive stones, crashing into the hearts of every soldier in the already stretched-to-the-limit defense line! Despair, like a cold, venomous snake, instantly coiled around everyone's hearts!
Ahead lay the Abyssal Gnolls, their ferocity like a relentless tsunami of flesh and blood, closing in relentlessly.

Then came the undead legion of the Seventh Dynasty, riding the cold gray mist that represented the order of the dead, blocking the only escape route!

Besieged on all sides! A desperate situation! A true death trap!
Bandark's shield lurched, nearly crushed by a gnoll's blow. The surrounding soldiers instantly drained their last vestiges of color from their faces; some even dropped their weapons with a clatter into pools of blood. Kalanzo's sword-wielding motion faltered, a chilling glint of despair flashing in his eyes for the first time. Legolas, the wood elf, trembled slightly on his bowstring. He could clearly sense the overwhelming, chilling aura of the dead behind him, carrying the agonizing curse of Ereen before her death, washing over him like a frigid tide, combining with the scorching filth of the abyss ahead in a deadly pincer attack!
At this moment, the morale of the human alliance was on the verge of complete collapse. The abyssal gnolls seemed to sense their prey's final despair, unleashing an even more bloodthirsty roar and charging with even greater ferocity!

Faced with this devastating news from the rear, faced with the faces of the Khergit scouts filled with despair, faced with the gazes of the frontline commanders, a mixture of the last glimmer of hope and immense fear...

Shen Mu, who had been standing silently like a reef beside the core array node of the Thorn Barrier, observing the entire battle of the flesh and blood millstone, slowly, extremely slowly turned around.

His face, blurred by the smoke and glow of the battlefield, was stained with blood splattered by someone. Yet, in his deep, abyss-like eyes, reflecting the filthy black tide and the annihilation of holy light, there was not a trace of the fear and panic that the scouts and generals shared. Even—

Amidst the deafening sounds of battle, dying cries, and filthy roars surrounding him, and the strained hum of energy emanating from the Thorn Garden magic circle behind him—symbolizing humanity's last bastion—under immense pressure,...

Shen Mu's blood-stained lips curled up slightly, yet with unmistakable clarity.

That wasn't a bitter smile, a desperate self-mockery, or madness.

It was a kind of... like the most skilled hunter, who, when the meticulously laid trap is finally perfectly closed and the deadly prey has finally stepped into the heart of the predicament, reveals a cold and cruel smile that shows complete control.

He glanced only at the desperate scout before his gaze returned to the enormous rift and filthy black smoke that continuously spewed forth abyssal creations deep within the ancestral tomb. His voice was calm and undisturbed, yet it clearly pierced through the clamor of the battlefield:
"Oh, I see."

These four casually uttered words, like ice water thrown into boiling oil, instantly stunned the generals who heard them! They knew? Merely knew?! Didn't the Marshal understand what this meant?! This was a complete dead end!

However, Shen Mu gave them no explanation, nor did he issue any orders regarding the rear. His gaze, tinged with a cold smile, refocused on the chaos and destruction at the heart of the battlefield, as if the approaching gray mist of the dead was merely a predictable piece on a chessboard, or even a piece he had personally placed there.

He raised his right hand, his index and middle fingers together, and a faint yet extremely concentrated silver light shone from the fingertips. In the space ravaged by filthy energy, that silver light seemed so small, yet it carried a strange rhythm that pierced through all chaos.

His voice suddenly rose, carrying an iron will that cut through all hesitation, like an invisible hammer, slamming into the very depths of the souls of all the soldiers on the verge of collapse:

"Everyone——!!!"

The sound was like thunder, drowning out the roar of the abyss!
"Execute the final command: 'Harp Stand'!!"

As the cold and resolute command fell, Shen Mu's clasped fingertips pointed without hesitation at the core array of the Thorn Barrier—the fragment of the "Yeno Ancient God's Black Core" that was already cracked under the impact of Shen Mu's rule spikes, yet still stubbornly pulsating!
Om-!
A deep and mysterious rumble did not come from the Thorn Barrier, nor from the Abyss Black Core, but seemed to come from space itself, from the depths of the void above the battlefield that were distorted by endless resentment and energy!

The core array of the Thorn Barrier suddenly erupted with unprecedented light! But this light did not spread outward to attack; instead, it abruptly collapsed and condensed inward! The energy veins that constituted the barrier—those threads containing the power of the "Thorn Garden" rules—were like lit fuses, following the path guided by the silver light at Shen Mu's fingertips, ignoring the barrier of spatial distance, and instantly establishing an imperceptible yet real "link" with the filthy core fragment deep within the ancestral tomb! Like an invisible string, it was quietly tightened between the black core of the abyss and the human barrier!

The abyssal source that was rampaging and constantly spawning the gnoll legion was suddenly jerked by an invisible hand! The rhythm of the black smoke spewing from the huge crack deep in the ancestral tomb suddenly became uncontrollably disordered! The abyssal gnolls that were crawling out of the crack froze instantly, as if they had lost part of their source of power.

At the same time, an information disturbance that could not be measured by physical distance, along this special rule link—the string of the "Harp Seat"—penetrated precisely through the thick, impenetrable barrier of cold gray fog behind it, representing the order of the dead of the Seventh Dynasty, at a speed beyond thought!

Deep within the gray fog, the silent, mountain-like "skeleton shadow," embodying the Black Emperor's will and Erien's endless resentment, suddenly and violently flickered in its empty eye sockets, where the ghostly flames of vengeance that had been burning with icy fire.
Inside the colossal shadow, the source of order that underpins the will of the entire undead army and belongs to the core of the Seventh Dynasty seems to have received an extremely brief but specific "resonance pulse".

The pulse was not directed at the human alliance.

But...

Deep within the ancestral tomb lies the filthy black core source that exudes an abhorrent aura that the dead instinctively loathe and that desecrates the rules of death!
The colossal shadow paused almost imperceptibly, yet fatally. Its enormous hand, composed of countless bones, which had been slowly rising, pointing towards the crumbling human ranks behind it, preparing to unleash the devastating torrent of ash... now hovered in mid-air!
Time on the battlefield seemed to have been stolen by an invisible force.

The roar of the abyss continues.

Human breathing is heavy.

But the deadly wall of gray fog behind them, the last straw that was about to break the camel's back, was gently plucked by an unseen "string" at this moment, freezing the trajectory of its fall.

The cold smile on Shen Mu's lips appeared even more profound under the light of the core array of the Thorn Barrier. His gaze seemed to pierce through the churning filth and flesh and the horde of jackals before him, locking onto the black core fragment deep within the ancestral tomb, linked and locked by the "Harp Seat."

The prologue to the final judgment has now truly begun. The bait has taken effect, the trap is fully closed, and the hunter has raised the invisible blade. (End of Chapter)