Chapter 396: Blood Debt (2)
Everything happened way too fast. Out of nowhere, a few thousand enemy soldiers exploded into a bloody mist. Then, a white mark — the same one everyone in the Allied army had already seen before — rose from each of them and connected in the sky above.
The blood started moving too. Soon, at the rear of the enemy army, a pulsing crimson sphere appeared, sinisterly sucking up the blood that covered the ground.
Violent spatial fluctuations burst from its core. Everyone knew what that meant: a spatial channel. Faces twisted in dread.
Reinforcements? No. All of the enemy’s strongest were already here. Bringing in soldiers weaker than level nine wasn’t worth sacrificing thousands of powerful figures just to create that thing.
A crushing sense of danger and death made everyone swallow hard.
There was only one reason for it to be built. If it stabilized...
...he would come.
The completely invincible being Darian claimed was injured and weakened: Radiant King Dohans. If he arrived now, everything would flip upside down.
The channel was unstable, and it would take five to ten minutes before it could be used.
"Destroy the passage! We can’t let them succeed!" roared Remira.
The elite soldiers had rested for a few minutes, their armor patched up, their energy back to about eighty percent.
As soon as Remira shouted, Patriarch Aegli, Murral, and the other elders abandoned the defensive line.
"ADVANCE!"
They became a razor-sharp blade, tearing through the enemy formation toward the blood sphere.
Before, they had only defended. Now, they were like an enraged arrow, ripping through the army and heading straight for the spatial channel.
Remira and the others cheered. This was the power of veterans!
When those old warriors joined forces, nothing could stop them. But the cost wasn’t just their energy. Even if they won, none of them would live more than three years.
"You want to take a shortcut? Keep dreaming!" thundered Patriarch Aegli.
He was the first to arrive. His weapon slashed into the sphere.
*BOOM!*
The spatial channel collapsed.
Thunderous cheers echoed.
But the shouts of joy quickly died, replaced by whispers of shock.
The shattered runes were regrouping.
"What?!" Everyone froze.
Aegli struck again. The blow, clearly weaker, only made the channel tremble. It didn’t break.
"Attack together!" Murral roared.
*BOOM!*
With one grand strike, the spatial channel collapsed once again.
"Hahaha! Kids, you see? Old men are still good for something!" Aegli laughed.
But when they heard his laugh, everyone’s hearts sank.
His voice was loud, but it had no strength left. It was already hoarse.
"Patriarch..." His clan members were devastated.
The patriarch was now like a lamp without oil. The others weren’t any better.
Seeing those figures so weakened, the soldiers shouted: "Veterans, fall back! Leave the rest to us!"
They didn’t want to see them burning the last scraps of their lives. The young ones would protect them.
From afar, Darian felt it all and sighed. He had already expected something like this, even told Murral to be ready. But the sect leader and those elders had just smiled during the meeting and told him not to worry, that they’d take care of it.
For Darian, there were only two choices: either burn his true power — cutting his chances of beating the real Boss of this war — or use the sect’s inscription’s power. But if he chose the second option, there’d be no way to kill the entire army at once.
Once Lugxa was dead, the enemy army would scatter in every direction. There’d be no way to hunt them all down. And when they attacked the central city, they’d regroup for another battle... making victory almost impossible.
That’s why Darian could only rely on the elders’ sacrifice. His hope had been to kill Lugxa before this happened, but killing someone that powerful with just his stellar body and weapons wasn’t so easy.
Until... in that instant, a shocking sight appeared.
The ruined spatial channel converged once again.
"How is this even possible?!" Despair spread. The channel was, in fact, indestructible.
Murral sighed. "I get it... This was made with demonic blood runes."
That kind of technique was well-known, used to reinforce inscriptions and all sorts of things. The runes absorbed the blood of freshly killed people, along with death’s Yin, to recover.
"No matter how many times we destroy it, it’ll reform. It’ll only stop once all the energy around it runs out, or..."
Murral trailed off, and everyone looked at the battlefield. The world was soaked in blood. The Yin of death was practically a solid fog, covering every direction. Those runes had an endless supply.
"Maybe only the Boss can destroy this channel."
Faden muttered in panic. This was way beyond their strength. He knew Darian could do it, but he couldn’t come help them.
"Hahaha!" Suddenly, Patriarch Aegli lifted his head and laughed. "Kids, don’t worry. Victory will definitely be ours. Leave this channel to us."
The tone was confident, but everyone felt a terrible premonition.
Murral and the others exchanged looks. That army had nearly thirty thousand figures with one foot already in the grave. Then, they all laughed.
It was laughter filled with joy and the kind of familiarity that comes with the end.
"We’ve fought each other our whole lives, scheming here and there. Now that the end’s here, it’s honestly just one big joke," laughed a clan leader.
"You’re right. I always thought I was a wise man, only acting when victory was certain. Now, I look like such a fool," another agreed.
"I’m the biggest fool of all. So many wrong choices. But I made two right ones: following the hero Darian and the sect’s vice-founder. I was really lucky in this life," Murral said softly.
Everyone froze at those words. Then they quickly glanced toward Remira in the distance. Only then did they swallow hard, realizing some shocking truths.
Everyone knew the legends of the sect’s founders and had heard of a fierce, terrifyingly strong hybrid who was the vice-leader. But then she suddenly vanished, and no one ever knew what happened. Now... Murral had just confirmed she was really back.
"Looks like Leader Murral is the wisest, the one with the clearest vision. It’s a shame we won’t get the chance to learn more from you," sighed another.
"It’s a shame we won’t get to see the kids take that bastard down," said another, a sad light filling his eyes.
"We’ve gotta do what only we can do," Murral replied with a laugh. Then he took a deep breath and roared: "Let’s begin!"
Everyone nodded, their auras flaring up.
"Sect Leader...!"
"Patriarch...!"
"No!"
Cries rang out from the retreating army. At that moment, everyone understood. Countless people wept, begging them to come back.
"Kids, this world belongs to you."
"This is the last thing we can do for you."
Their final words echoed. Then, they all leapt straight into the spatial channel.
It was still unstable, needing minutes before anyone could pass through to the battlefield. Jumping in now was the same as throwing yourself off a cliff.
Suddenly, their soul energy, their life, everything they had, erupted.
They all self-detonated at the same time.
**BOOOOM!!**
It was a strike aimed right inside the channel, destroying the spatial power, not the blood runes. The runes were left untouched, but the channel itself no longer existed.
As a result, everything was destroyed.
"AHH!"
The soldiers let out beast-like roars. "Avenge our veterans! Kill those brutes!"
They charged forward in a frenzy. Flames practically burned in their eyes, their teeth clenched so hard their gums nearly bled. The only thing that could calm them now was killing.
But... before they even reached the enemy, everything changed.
Lugxa’s eyes widened in panic, feeling the destruction of the spatial channel at the rear.
His power was down to less than a third. In front of him, Darian stood untouched, showing no signs of fatigue. But Lugxa still had trump cards. He wasn’t going to lose that easily.
Darian knew that. He noticed the confusion and the sheer terror in Lugxa’s eyes — fear that wasn’t aimed at him.
Suddenly, Lugxa froze.
A chilling, dark premonition struck Darian. Without hesitation, he activated the rune seal of one of his daggers and lunged.
His blade was less than ten meters away...
Then everything stopped. The space around Darian seemed to petrify, locking his body in midair.
Right in front of him, Lugxa started trembling uncontrollably.
*BOOM!*
All of a sudden, his body exploded into a cloud of crimson blood mist.
At the center of the explosion, a single pulsing white mark appeared.
Then...
*BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!*
The sounds of violent, gruesome explosions echoed one after another, all around. An endless rhythm of death.
In that instant, a wave of blood covered the entire battlefield. There was nothing left but red.
The stench was thick, the Yin of Death so heavy that every living being felt their own body corroding, their life slipping away.
Darian turned his gaze aside, forced to witness the horror.
The entire enemy army — nearly a million fighters — all exploded into blood mist together.
At the center of each destroyed body, a single white mark remained.
Those marks flew upward, drawn to the one Lugxa had left behind. They converged in the sky.
The grotesque fusion gave birth to a new spatial channel, infinitely more powerful.
The blood and Yin of Death from a million sacrifices were sucked in, fully powering the colossal portal.
Darian felt the space around him finally stabilize as the channel opened. He looked up.
"There’s no way to destroy this... Radiant King Dohans is coming."