Chapter 3
On the seventh night, the rows of torches on the city wall were extinguished in an instant.
The earth began to convulse violently, and the bluestone bricks cracked inch by inch under my combat boots.
They've arrived.
The abyssal rift that Victor detonated has finally revealed its fangs.
Hundreds of thousands of Shadow Demons roared as they crashed into the city walls like boiling black asphalt, and the entire Radiant City groaned in agony under the impact.
"Form ranks! Fight to the death!" Olivia's silver armor was instantly stained with black blood as she violently cleaved the monster that had climbed the wall with her heavy sword.
But there were too many monsters, and the dark, surging tide instantly overwhelmed the shield formation in front.
"Don't back down! Let them bite!"
I kicked aside a heavily armored knight who was trying to dodge, and shoved him towards the charging Shadow Fiend. My roar drowned out the fighting on the battlefield.
The knight gritted his teeth and closed his eyes, letting the Shadow Demon's sharp teeth pierce through his shoulder armor.
Just as the venom was about to be injected into his heart, holy light exploded in my palm.
"Healing backlash!"
The raging life force surged through the knight's wound, flowing back into the Shadow Demon's body like a flood. The pure light power instantly triggered a devastating rejection reaction within the shadow creature.
The three-meter-tall Shadow Fiend was blasted into pieces from the inside by a blood bag stuffed with explosives!
This suicidal battle tactic , which I created amidst mountains of corpses and seas of blood in my previous life, shattered hundreds of high-level Shadow Demons with their own greed.
The efficiency of the killings skyrocketed, and the morale of the Knights was completely ignited!
But at that moment, all the sounds were suddenly forcibly stripped away.
A terrifying pressure capable of crushing even space itself suddenly descended.
On the city wall, dozens of low-level mages didn't even have time to scream before they bled from all seven orifices and collapsed to the ground.
The Lord of the Abyss has personally arrived.
It was a colossal creature hidden in the black mist; a mere glance at it caused spiderweb-like cracks to spread across Olivia's defensive shield.
"We can't hold on any longer! The barrier is about to shatter!" The soldiers' faces turned pale.
"Shut up! Even if you can't hold on, you'll have to pay with your life!" Olivia shouted!
Like burning meteors, the three teams plunged headlong into the despairing black fog.
The sounds of bones shattering and explosions echoed through the sky, accompanied by the Abyss Monarch's furious roar, which abruptly slowed its crushing advance.
As the first rays of dawn pierced the sky, the Abyss Lord finally let out a roar of resentment and retreated back into the rift with his mangled body.
The Knights suffered more than half their casualties, and severed limbs covered the city walls.
But Radiant City held out.
"We... survived?" Karl collapsed to his knees in the pool of blood, tears mingling with the blood as they fell to the ground.
The cheers had barely formed in their throats when a piercing scream shattered the deathly silence of the morning.
A messenger, covered in blood, stumbled up the city wall: "Lord... the western defense line has collapsed! The Shadow Fiend has entered the city!"
My mind went blank for a moment, and my killing intent exploded instantly.
The West District was the settlement for the families of the soldiers on the front lines! And the team responsible for that defensive line was Raymond's elite squad!
I shoved the messenger aside and rushed towards the west of the city like a madman.
Even before getting close, the strong smell of blood was ironically mixed with the pungent smell of ale and cheap perfume.
More than three hundred mutilated corpses lay amidst the ruins.
Most of them were elderly people and children who hadn't grown tall enough yet.
Meanwhile, Raymond, with his disheveled men, gripped a cross sword untouched by blood, and was making a show of directing the rescue efforts near the ruins.
"These monsters are too cunning... They attacked us while we were taking turns defending..." Raymond was still trying to argue with Olivia, who had just arrived.
I walked over without saying a word.
Anger made me unable to hear anything.
I walked straight through the crowd and grabbed Raymond's meticulously styled hair.
"What are you doing! How dare you—"
I dragged him to the torn-up body of a child.
He struggled to cast the Ice Spike spell, and I swung my fist and slammed it hard into his arrogant face.
I straddled him and punched him again and again until his face swelled up and his pleas for mercy turned into whimpering sobs.
Clang.
Seeing his superior about to be beaten to death, the adjutant behind him drew his sword with bloodshot eyes: "Kill him!"
Before the sword could fall, I grabbed his wrist with my other hand and twisted it outwards.
I slowly stood up, my icy gaze sweeping across the faces of everyone in Raymond's squad like a blade.
"To the front lines, or to the cemetery ? Choose."
A deathly pressure gripped their throats, and they all collapsed into pools of blood, crawling and trembling as they begged for mercy.
Olivia gripped her blood-dripping greatsword tightly, her voice chillingly cold: "Raymond's squad is stripped of its rank and incorporated into the 'Suicide Squad.' For the next three years, you'll be the first to take on all the most dangerous missions."
The surviving family members covered their mouths tightly, their tears mingling with blood as they fell onto the soil, nodding heavily.
The embers of the ruins are still burning.
I stood alone on the dilapidated city wall, gazing at the blood-red setting sun in the distance.
The memories of betrayal and being devoured in my past life intertwined with the corpses of children at my feet, gnawing at my heart like venomous snakes.
"In the midst of catastrophe, the living are often more terrifying than monsters," I murmured to myself.
