The battlefield was a cacophony of guttural roars and the wet tearing of flesh, a symphony of violence that seemed to stretch on for eternity.
On one side of the fray, Ling Feng and Ye Yun were locked in desperate duels with the Demon Apostles, their movements a blur of martial prowess and high-tech weaponry. But the true epicenter of the chaos was Xiao Ke. He was isolated, a solitary figure hemmed in by the towering shadows of two Titan Zombies. Nearby, three more of the behemoths were tearing through the defensive lines, scattering human soldiers like leaves in a gale.
Ling Feng and Ye Yun, both Rank 8 Valiant Generals, were holding their ground. They had the training and the power to stalemate a single Apostle. Xiao Ke, however, was fighting a war of attrition against physics itself.
The Titan Zombies were mountains of necrotic muscle and calcified armor. Facing one was a nightmare; facing two was a death sentence. Xiao Ke was forced into a purely reactive state, his boots skidding over the blood-slicked concrete as he dodged hammer-blows that cratered the earth where he had stood a microsecond before.
Rage, hot and white, began to coil in his gut. The constant retreat was grating on his soul.
One of the Titans lunged, a telegraphed haymaker that carried enough kinetic energy to pulverize a tank. Xiao Ke didn't retreat this time. He ducked low, his center of gravity shifting aggressively as he slipped under the creature's armpit. He was a blur of motion, bypassing the first monster to sprint headlong toward the second.
The second Titan saw the puny human rushing toward it. It didn't feel fear—it felt only the primitive urge to crush. Standing three meters tall, it lifted a right leg the thickness of a concrete piling. It was intended to stomp Xiao Ke into a red smear.
But the Titan's processor brain failed to account for variable acceleration.
Just as the massive foot began its descent, Xiao Ke exploded forward, a secondary burst of speed that defied momentum. By the time the Titan's foot struck the earth, Xiao Ke was already inside its guard, standing directly beneath the towering monstrosity.
At under six feet tall, Xiao Ke looked like a child standing before a mechanized juggernaut. He was insignificant. Tiny.
Deadly.
Both hands clamped around the hilt of Mengjiang—his Fierce General battle blade. He didn't just swing; he torqued his entire body, channeling every ounce of kinetic energy into a horizontal slash aimed at the Titan's planted left leg.
CRACK.
The sound was sickeningly loud, like a gunshot in a canyon. The tiny figure unleashed a force that shouldn't have been possible. The Mengjiang bit through the calcified outer shell, shattered the bone, and sheared through the blackened, steel-like muscle fibers.
The Titan's left leg was severed clean through.
Physics took over. The massive creature, suddenly devoid of support, tipped. It fell like a demolished skyscraper, crashing into the earth with a boom that rattled the teeth of everyone nearby.
It wasn't dead. It had merely lost a foot. But for a creature of that size, mobility was everything. It was now a stationary target, its threat level drastically reduced.
Xiao Ke raised his blade to finish it, but the air behind him shrieked.
"Big Brother! Behind you!" Ling Feng's voice cut through the din.
Xiao Ke didn't need the warning. The displacement of air told him everything he needed to know. The first Titan had recovered and thrown a punch. Xiao Ke spun on his heel, bringing Mengjiang up in a desperate guard.
The fist, the size of a millstone, collided with the blade.
The impact was cataclysmic. Xiao Ke felt the shockwave travel through the steel, up his arms, and rattle his skeleton. It felt less like blocking a punch and more like trying to parry a falling meteor.
But the Titan fared worse.
Xiao Ke's blade was a masterpiece of metallurgy, and his grip was iron. The blade bit into the fist, meeting momentary resistance before slicing through. Three massive fingers and half of the Titan's palm were sheared off, spinning away into the dust.
The Titan roared—not in pain, for it felt none, but in fury. The indignity of the injury triggered a berserker response. It pulled back its maimed hand and loaded up a kick, aiming to launch Xiao Ke into orbit.
Xiao Ke didn't give it a chance.
He screamed, a guttural sound that matched the zombies in ferocity. Igniting the martial vein energy within his core, he launched himself vertically. He rose like a falcon, the Mengjiang held tip-up. As he ascended, he drove the blade into the Titan's abdomen and rode the momentum upward.
The blade carved a vertical line of fire up the creature's torso, splitting it from navel to sternum.
Viscera spilled out in a torrent. The Titan let out one final, gurgling howl of despair before collapsing backward.
Xiao Ke landed in a crouch, his chest heaving like a bellows. Behind him, the disemboweled giant hit the ground, the impact sending a cloud of dust washing over his boots. In the span of a few heartbeats, he had crippled one Titan and eviscerated another. It was a performance that pushed the boundaries of human capability.
But he was running on fumes. His lungs burned. His arms felt like lead.
And the true predator had been watching.
The Blade Wolf Knight, a Rank 9 monstrosity mounted on a Hellhound, had been observing from the periphery. Seeing Xiao Ke exhausted, it finally saw an opening worthy of its effort.
It spurred its mount. The Hellhound surged forward, and the Knight became a blur of overlapping afterimages. It raised a bone blade that glistened with malice, closing the distance to Xiao Ke in a heartbeat. It wasn't a charge; it was an execution run.
Ling Feng and Ye Yun saw it happening. Panic surged through them.
Ye Yun didn't think. She acted. She hurled a flying sword technique to force her opponent back, then turned and sprinted. She threw herself into the path of the charging Knight, placing her body between the monster and the exhausted Xiao Ke.
The Blade Wolf Knight saw the obstruction. Its lipless mouth curled into a sneer. "Suicide," it rasped.
It wasn't wrong. Ye Yun was a Rank 8 against a Rank 9. In the brutal mathematics of their world, she was a corpse walking.
But Ye Yun had an ace in the hole. As the Knight descended, she reached into her tunic and withdrew a small, intricate metal device. She depressed a rune on its surface.
Humming with power, the device exploded with stored Origin Force. A blinding white light erupted, knitting together to form a solid, heart-shaped barrier in the air before her.
The Zhuge Aegis.
It was a priceless artifact, engineered by a descendant of the legendary strategist Zhuge Liang. For a month, Ye Yun had poured her own energy into it daily, charging its capacitors. Now, she was releasing thirty days of power in a single millisecond.
The shield shimmered with the density of a fortress wall.
The Blade Wolf Knight brought his bone blade down. He expected to cleave through flesh and bone. Instead, he struck a wall of pure energy.
BOOM.
The backlash was tremendous. The Knight and his Hellhound were blasted backward, skidding several meters across the pavement.
But the cost was absolute. The Zhuge Aegis, having discharged its payload, fractured. With the sound of shattering porcelain, the light splintered and dissolved into motes of fading energy. The device in Ye Yun's hand turned to dust.
The Blade Wolf Knight recovered instantly, shaking off the disorientation. "A parlor trick," it hissed. "Let's see you block this."
It lunged again, faster this time.
Death seemed inevitable. Then, a streak of light cut across the battlefield.
A figure intercepted the Knight mid-charge. A sword of pure light clashed against the bone blade, the impact sounding like a thunderclap. The two combatants bounced off one another, landing in a crouch.
The Blade Wolf Knight stared at the newcomer. A man with a cold, impassive face stood between him and his prey.
"Another insect?" the Knight growled.
Ye Yun's eyes went wide. "Ye Tianlong!"
"Young Mistress," Tianlong said, his voice devoid of emotion. "Forgive my tardiness."
"There is nothing to forgive," Ye Yun said, relief flooding her voice. "We need to clear the field. Kill them all."
"I will handle the Wolf," Tianlong said, his eyes never leaving the monster. "You handle the rest."
"Your arm," Ye Yun noted, seeing blood soaking his left sleeve.
"A minor complication on the road," Tianlong said dismissively. "It will not stop me from mounting this creature's head on a pike."
The Blade Wolf Knight bristled. It could sense the Origin Force radiating off Tianlong—this human was dangerous. But the arrogance of the undead was infinite. "You speak big words for a two-legged sheep. I'll peel you slowly."
Tianlong didn't take the bait. He knew fighting a Rank 9 near his exhausted allies was a tactical error. He engaged, trading two lightning-fast blows with the Knight, and then feigned a retreat to the left flank.
"Come get me, you ugly Triangle Head!" Tianlong shouted.
The insult landed. The Blade Wolf Knight roared in fury, spurring his Hellhound to give chase, abandoning Xiao Ke and Ye Yun.
While Xiao Ke rallied his strength to finish off the crippled Titan and aid the Iron Warriors, the battle between Ye Tianlong and the Knight shifted to the periphery of the combat zone.
Or at least, that was the plan.
Shadow, the assassin known as Yingzi, had been tracking Ye Tianlong for days. He had finally caught up, emerging from the ruins just in time to see Tianlong engaged in a running battle with the Blade Wolf Knight.
Tianlong, sensing the arrival, smiled grimly. He had been waiting for this.
As the Wolf Knight chased him, Tianlong suddenly pivoted, sprinting directly toward where Shadow was hiding.
"Two-legged sheep! Stop running!" the Knight bellowed behind him.
Shadow, confused by Tianlong's sudden charge toward him, instinctively dropped into a defensive stance. But Tianlong didn't attack. He blurred past Shadow, moving like a phantom.
As he passed, he whispered a single sentence that froze Shadow's blood.
"Good brother, tag—you're it."
Shadow stood stunned for a fraction of a second. Then he looked up. The Blade Wolf Knight was barreling toward him like a runaway train.
The Knight didn't care who was who. The human in front of him had swapped, but meat was meat.
"Die!"
The Knight lashed out with a tentacle, a whip-crack of motion aimed at Shadow's head. Shadow, a creature of reflex, twisted his body. The tentacle snapped past his ear. Instinct took over. Shadow raised his left wrist, firing two sleeve arrows into the Knight's chest.
Thud. Thud.
The arrows, designed to pierce human armor and deliver lethal neurotoxins, barely scratched the zombie's hide. They stuck harmlessly in the tough, necrotic skin.
Shadow cursed. This wasn't an assassination target; it was a tank.
He drew his blade, channeling his Origin Force until the steel glowed with a lethal hum. He had no choice. He had to fight a straight-up brawl against a superior opponent—something an assassin hated more than anything.
From the shadows of a nearby ruin, Ye Tianlong watched. He allowed himself a small, rare smile.
Shadow was a master of the ambush, the knife in the dark. But in a confrontation? Against a berserking Rank 9? He was out of his depth. Furthermore, Shadow was nursing a chest wound from their previous encounter. Every parry, every dodge was tearing his stitches.
Clang!
Shadow's light sword met the bone blade. The force of the blow nearly dislocated his shoulder. They broke apart, circling.
The Blade Wolf Knight's eyes narrowed. He saw the blood seeping through Shadow's tunic. The monster grinned, a horrific stretching of dead skin. It ran a long, green tongue along the edge of its bone blade, coating the weapon in a glistening, viscous sludge.
Shadow went pale. The virus.
One scratch. One drop of that sludge entering his open wound, and it was game over. Infection meant turning. Infection meant death.
The Knight didn't wait. He spat a glob of toxic phlegm directly at Shadow's injured chest. Shadow threw himself to the side, rolling across the debris, but the Knight was already airborne. He leaped from the Hellhound's back, bringing the poisoned blade down in a vertical cleave.
Shadow scrambled, forced to block with his sword in his right hand while clutching his chest wound with his left, terrified of contamination.
He was fighting one-handed, injured, and terrified.
He blocked the Knight's strike, sparks flying, but he had forgotten the mount. The three-headed Hellhound, ownerless for a moment, saw the opening. It lunged, three maws wide open, aiming to rip Shadow's throat out.
Shadow was extended. He couldn't block. He couldn't dodge. He stared into the abyss of the beast's throat, waiting for the end.
Snnkt.
A sound like silk tearing.
A silhouette flashed between Shadow and the beast. A horizontal beam of light severed the air.
The Hellhound's three heads detached from its body simultaneously, hanging in the air for a surreal moment before tumbling to the ground. The body collapsed a second later.
Shadow stumbled back, looking up. The Blade Wolf Knight froze, shocked.
Ye Tianlong stood over the carcass of the hound, flicking gore from his light sword. He had returned.
He looked down at Shadow. The assassin's face was a mask of confusion, shock, and lingering fear.
"I've wanted to kill you for days," Ye Tianlong said, his voice calm, cutting through the heavy breathing of the battlefield. "And you, me."
He turned his gaze to the Blade Wolf Knight.
"But I cannot watch a human be butchered by these things. It doesn't matter what flag we fly or what grudges we hold. When we face the horde, we are just humans." Tianlong stepped forward, positioning himself shoulder-to-shoulder with the assassin he had just set up. "If we don't understand that, we are already extinct."
He raised his sword, pointing it at the enraged Knight.
"I came back. Now, let's finish this."
Shadow looked at the man beside him. The betrayal, the rescue, the philosophy—it was a lot to process. But as the Wolf Knight roared and charged, Shadow tightened his grip on his sword. Politics could wait. Survival came first.