Chapter 101: The Blood of the Cradle and the Ambush of the Kings (Part 2)
The heavy head of the Ironwood Chameleon Predator, a Stage 9 King, rolled through the jungle mud, its reptilian eyes slowly fading. Kael Morningstar remained standing over the massive decapitated corpse, thick green blood staining his obsidian armor.
The silence that followed the death of the alpha leader was not the cessation of hostilities. It was the exact instant the chain of command of the beastial horde collapsed, replaced by a primal frenzy triggered by the scent of royal blood and the pure Qi emanating from the Golden Generation.
The two Shadow Plague Wolf Kings (Stage 8) did not flee. They let out a guttural howl that made the ears of the weaker beasts bleed. The telepathic order was overridden by blind rage.
The tide of thousands of Grade 1, 2, and 3 beasts—Iron Wolves with razor-sharp fur, massive Elemental Rock Bears, and agile Wind Panthers—surged upon the six Pillars like an ocean of drooling teeth and claws.
—"Break formation!" —Kael roared, leaping down from the beast's corpse—. "Make them bleed!"
Elara (Rank 6) was the first to respond. She spread her hands, and her Frost Mist was used not for camouflage, but as an environmental shredder.
—[Shroud of Vitreous Shards].
The mist condensed within a ten-meter radius. Billions of micro-frost crystals sharpened like microscopic razor blades. When the front line of Iron Wolves plunged into the cloud at full speed, friction did the work. The crystals inhaled by the beasts shredded their lungs from the inside. Their eyes burst under the vitreous cuts. Elara's white mist quickly dyed a sickly pink as dozens of wolves fell to the ground drowning in their own frozen blood, coughing up pieces of lung tissue.
From the canopy of the titanic trees, Varian (Rank 21) watched the incoming tide with the coldness of an executioner.
His emerald eyes glowed with an electric yellow as he activated [Eagle Vision]. He saw the Qi cores of hundreds of packed beasts.
He drew his immense bow forged from the femur of a Calamity Beast. He didn't load an arrow; he loaded a storm.
—[Rain of Green Meteors].
Varian released the string toward the sky. The emerald-green light projectile reached its apex and detonated, fragmenting into hundreds of hyper-compressed wind darts enveloped in corrosive energy.
The area saturation was apocalyptic.
The meteors rained down on the rear of the horde with the force of artillery shells. They didn't kill cleanly; they mutilated. One green dart tore off half the jaw of a Wind Panther; another severed the spine of a Rock Bear, leaving it to drag itself agonizingly through the mud using only its front claws. The shockwave from the impacts launched furry limbs, intestines, and bursts of blood ten meters into the air.
But the sheer number of monsters was overwhelming. Three colossal Elemental Rock Bears, Grade 2 beasts, ignored the rain of arrows and charged like siege tanks straight toward the rear of the group.
Bren (Rank 19) did not retreat. He drove the base of his immense tower shield into the mud and widened his stance.
—[World-Devastating Stomp].
The Iron Mountain giant concentrated his mass and tectonic Qi into his right boot and smashed the ground.
The shockwave traveled through the earth's crust. The damp earth beneath the three colossal bears fractured violently, opening jagged trenches that swallowed the beasts' legs. Before they could react, the fissure snapped shut with the force of a hydraulic press. The sound of dozens of rock femur bones crushing simultaneously was deafening.
The bears roared in pain, immobilized.
Bren dropped his shield. His veins bulged, and he sweated blood from his forehead as he forced his Magma Qi to the limit. He plunged both bare hands into the damp earth.
—[Eruption of Blood and Rock].
The ground erupted. Seven enormous spines of burning obsidian, coated in boiling lava, sprouted directly beneath the trapped bears. The volcanic stalagmites penetrated the soft stomachs of the beasts and erupted through their backs. The creatures were impaled high in the air, cooking alive from the inside out, their intestines spilling and sizzling on the incandescent stone as they let out heart-rending bellows.
Eris (Rank 3) laughed hysterically in the midst of the carnage.
A pack of Wind Panthers surrounded her, attacking in sync. Eris didn't even use her spear. She caught the first panther in mid-air by the snout.
Her hands were engulfed in black, white-cored flame. Ruin Flame.
—[Touch of Ash].
The black fire didn't burn it; it rotted its flesh alive. The panther's jaw turned gray and crumbled like burnt paper in Eris's hands. The beast tried to scream, but it was missing half its face. With sadistic brutality, Eris plunged her black-flamed fist through the beast's ribs, ripping out its heart. The beating organ turned to ash before it hit the ground.
The Pillar of Ruin spun on her heels, delivering entropic punches that flayed the wolves alive, leaving in her wake half-rotted creatures that shrieked in agony as their own bodies crumbled into gray dust.
Seeing the horde systematically massacred, the two Stage 8 wolf Kings decided to intervene personally. The immense monsters, exuding a black, corrosive miasma that melted the leaves, leapt from the shadows directly toward Kael and Violeta's position.
From the sky, Varian's emerald eyes marked them.
"I'm clipping their wings," Varian warned over the telepathic link.
He drew his bow again. A shrill, sonic hum tore the air.
—[Arrow of Radiant Void].
Varian didn't aim to kill; he aimed to torture. The arrow of light and wind pierced the dense cloud of acidic miasma, ignoring elemental resistance. It struck directly into the right front leg joint of the first wolf King.
The spinning arrow acted like a void drill. There was no clean cut. The implosion in the arrow's wake twisted and ripped the beast's entire leg off from the scapula. A cascade of black blood sprayed the forest. The Stage 8 King crashed to the ground, skidding and tearing up roots as it howled, mutilated and unable to stand.
Violeta (Rank 2) did not let the opening pass.
She glided through her [Step Between Worlds], her form becoming blurry and intangible, phasing through the last remnants of the beast's venomous miasma unharmed. She reappeared in mid-air, right above the mutilated wolf King.
In her hands, there were no physical swords. She had condensed pure ice and void.
—[Fragmentation of Reality].
Violeta struck the back of the immense Stage 8 wolf with both palms. Space itself above the beast shattered into mirrors of fractal ice. The wolf's flesh became trapped in the two-dimensional cracks. Violeta clenched her fists. The spatial coordinates collapsed in on themselves.
The immense body of the King was "pulled" in forty different directions. The beast was literally dismembered by space, its remains frozen at the cellular level, turning into chunks of black, frost-covered meat that fell to the ground with the sound of broken glass. Not a drop of blood hit the mud; it had all been instantly frozen to absolute zero.
The last wolf King, seeing its mate massacred in seconds and feeling the primal terror of having hunted the wrong predators, stopped dead. Its instinct commanded it to flee. It turned around, digging in its claws to escape.
Kael Morningstar did not allow it.
The King of the Vanguard leaned forward.
—[Ignimbrite Slide].
The ground hissed as Kael skated forward, propelled by the friction of the magma beneath his boots. The speed was atrocious. He left a trail of boiling lava that cleaved two Grade 1 wolves in half in his wake.
He reached the immense Stage 8 wolf in three seconds. Kael did not seek a quick death.
The Whisper of the North shone with [Sword Intent: Combat Clarity]. The world fell silent for Kael, seeing only the weak points of the terrified beast.
—[Sovereign's Slash].
The immense dark blade did not aim for the neck. Kael launched a low, horizontal slash, ignoring the wolf's protective Qi armor. The solid blade sliced through the beast's two hind legs as if they were mist.
The wolf King collapsed, its rear tendons amputated cleanly. The beast dragged itself through the mud whining pathetically, its Shadow Plague smoke dissipating from weakness.
Kael walked slowly until he positioned himself in front of the immense wolf's head. The beast looked at him with bloodshot eyes, baring its fangs in a final, desperate attempt at intimidation.
Kael raised his armored boot and planted it with brutal force onto the wolf's snout, crushing its jaw against the muddy ground.
Without a word, Rank 1 reversed his grip on the Whisper of the North and drove the sword straight into the creature's skull, piercing bone and brain until the tip sank into the earth.
The beast convulsed once and died.
The massacre of the three Kings was the final nail in the horde's coffin. Leaderless, the thousands of Grade 1, 2, and 3 beasts suffered absolute panic. With terrified howls and shrieks, the tide of monsters turned and fled deep into the forest, trampling their own wounded in their desperation to escape the meat grinder of the Golden Generation.
Silence returned to the Sea of Beasts. The smell of burnt flesh, fresh entrails, and ozone permeated the suffocating air.
The six Pillars stood in the center of the slaughterhouse. Hundreds of mutilated corpses surrounded them.
Bren pulled his hands from the earth, his veins returning to normal as he exhaled boiling steam. Eris extinguished the black flames on her arms, chuckling. Elara dispelled the blood-tinted mist, panting slightly, while Varian descended gracefully from the canopy, his femur bow emitting a faint white smoke.
Violeta, wiping a drop of blood from her nose due to dimensional strain, looked at Kael.
—"Let's retrieve the Kings' cores. Livia will need them to stabilize the cradle's medicine," —Kael ordered, prying the dark core crystal from the wolf's head with the tip of his sword.
Varian approached the chameleon reptile decapitated at the start and extracted a pulsating emerald-green core with his dagger.
—"If this is the welcome..." —Varian muttered, pocketing the loot—"... I don't want to know what lives in the center of this valley."
—"Bigger monsters," —Kael smiled, wiping his blade—. "More material for us. We move. Tight formation. Leave the corpses; let the scavenger beasts fight over our scraps."
The Purge in the Desert
While the six wolves plunged into the green hell, the night in the civilized world was about to get much darker.
Kilometers away from the besieged mountain, in the luxurious commercial city of Golden Oasis, the Black Marble Inn was locked tight.
In the most exclusive private parlor, protected by dense runic soundproofing arrays, Lord Ye Hao, the Chief Alchemist of the Star Ice Empire, raised a goblet of golden wine. Beside him, three high-ranking beastial emissaries and five Alliance mercenary leaders smiled.
—"By now, the 'Wraiths of the Sand' must have slit the girl's throat and poisoned the Pool of Origin," —Ye Hao toasted, his greedy eyes shining with euphoria—. "To the fall of the Morningstar clan and the new monopoly of the northern trade."
They clinked their goblets.
But the crystal did not emit a joyful sound. The goblets cracked in the hands of everyone present. The golden wine spilled, but before it touched the tablecloth, it solidified into a rancid, black frost.
The lux-runes and oil lanterns in the parlor instantly extinguished. It wasn't a loss of power; it was as if the light was being devoured.
—"What is the meaning of this?" —Ye Hao demanded, alarm shattering his facade of superiority. He tried to ignite an alchemical flame in the palm of his hand. The flame sparked, but it was an icy blue and illuminated nothing beyond his own fingers.
—"It means your time on the Wheel of Samsara has expired."
The voice was not human. It was a hollow, cold echo that emerged from every shadowy corner of the room in unison.
Space itself in the inn became dense as lead. The alchemists and mercenaries, mostly Origin Realm experts, fell face-first against the table, their lungs collapsing. Their connection to the Qi of nature was abruptly severed. The [Veil of the Eclipse] had fallen upon them.
At the head of the table, the darkness condensed into a physical nightmare.
Malak, the Sovereign of the Shadow, rose before them. His body was not flesh; it was an agglomeration of jet-black smoke, dense and boiling. Under the cloth hood that seemed woven from dead stardust, the two blue orbs that served as his eyes blinked, turning a bloody crimson red.
The True Saint of Death raised his immense obsidian scythe. The countless souls trapped in the black crystal edge began to emit a sonic wail that made the conspirators' eardrums bleed.
—"He's a Saint! A True Saint!" —shouted one of the beastial emissaries, wetting himself as terror paralyzed his body and existential pressure crushed his bones.
Lord Ye Hao tried to drag himself toward the reinforced wooden door, his hands trembling violently.
—"Mercy! I will pay you triple! I will give you the Alchemists Guild!" —the merchant sobbed, his arrogance completely pulverized by absolute fear.
Malak did not walk; he floated, his ragged tunic billowing without wind, stopping inches from Ye Hao's back.
—"Death does not accept bribes, alchemist. Only tributes."
Malak swung the scythe in a lazy arc.
—[Harvest of the Purgatory].
There was no bloody dismemberment. There were no screams of physical agony.
The edge of the weapon did not cut the flesh of the nine men in the room; it severed their destinies. A giant, ghostly door of rusted iron manifested behind Malak.
The bodies of Lord Ye Hao and his conspirators remained intact and paralyzed. The scythe passed cleanly through their chests, hooking the "silver thread" of their souls and physically ripping them from their mortal vessels.
The souls—translucent forms twisted by eternal horror—were sucked in by the will-o'-the-wisp fire of the scythe, devoured by the door to the underworld, ensuring that neither Ye Hao nor the emissaries could ever reincarnate into existence.
The nine inert bodies slumped in their chairs, empty.
At dawn, Golden Oasis would awaken to a new legend that would terrify merchants for centuries. The Black Marble Inn remained spotless, but in the private parlor, nine men sat around the table, dead with their eyes open in an expression of cosmic horror, without a single external wound.
On the white marble wall, written with Ye Hao's own blood infused with black ice Qi that would never melt, a message warned the world of the price of treason:
"IF THE DRAGON SLEEPS, THE SHADOW HARVESTS."
The purge had been surgical and absolute. The first blow had been struck, and the era of Morningstar terror had just begun.