Kingdom Bloodline

Chapter 171 The Outcome of the Civil War

Under the night sky, the blood-red markings on Giza's face had turned a deep purple. In the heart of the now-ruined city, she stood on a blackened, "slender" multi-headed serpent covered in jagged spikes, which from a distance resembled a giant, long-legged spider, and smiled alluringly.

“You will no longer have the chance to jeopardize our hopes,” the Air Mage said, his expression still calm and indifferent as he looked at Giza. “I will simply take care of you.”

"Haha," the Blood Mage chuckled softly, a dimple appearing on her face, "Deal with me? How?"

The Qi Mage's eyes flashed, and his face shone with a bright blue light.

"call!"

A powerful gust of air suddenly exploded around Giza!

It scraped the "pet" beneath her so badly that it lost its footing.

The airflow continued to increase, attempting to blow the Blood Mage upwards!

The black monster beneath her was lifted off the ground and floated in the air, with only one spike remaining, still firmly embedded in the ground.

Giza's expression changed drastically.

The Qi Mage then slowly spoke:
"Above the sky, there is an unknown land, a place that even air cannot reach."

"Cold, silent, sometimes bright, sometimes dark."

“There, life is almost impossible to survive, and even gravity loses its meaning. You will not fall, you will not rise, you will just endlessly revolve with the sun, moon and stars without any meaning,” the voice of the Qi Mage was unwavering. “Go there and sleep for thousands of years.”

"Once we have completely won this millennium-long war for the survival of magic users..."

After the mage ascended to the next level, his rational and deep voice trembled slightly at this moment: "You will be in the new world we have built, a world without enemies, without fear, without escape, a world of prosperity and flourishing..."

"Reawaken!"

----

Two faint footsteps echoed through the deathly silent street.

Thales, pulling the little rascal along, "ran" across a block again at a near-walking pace. Both of them were so exhausted that they had to stop and rest their knees for a while.

"Can we—can we escape?" Little Sly's voice trembled as she turned her head away, unwilling to look at the people lying dead on both sides of the road.

"We'll find out... Once you've rested, keep going, don't stop." This was Thales gritting his teeth and persevering.

The little rascal bit his lower lip and shook his head:
"In the year 346 of the End Calendar, during the Third Continental War, the Eastern Continental Allied Forces stormed into Dragon Sky City. From the Shield Zone, Hammer Zone, and Armor Zone, to the Sword Zone, Bow Zone, Arrow Zone, and Spear Zone..."

Thales looked up and glanced at the little rascal.

The little girl trembled and murmured:

"Except for the Axe Quarter and the Hall of Heroes, which held out against the last two gates, the entire city fell to the Nightwing King's army, until Sara raised his black flag in the North..."

“But even then, Dragon City suffered no casualties… But now,” the little rascal said, his eyes red-rimmed, gripping Thales’ arm tightly, unable to bear looking at the corpses strewn across the road, “Dragon City, is Dragon City about to be destroyed…”

“I don’t know,” Thales sighed heavily, “but we’re still alive, and that’s enough.”

Thales straightened up and, without saying a word, pulled the little rascal along.

and.

He stared intently at the ground beneath his feet, carefully avoiding the corpses that lay almost every two steps.

Moreover, Dragon City must have a way to counter the magic masters.

if not……

Thales looked up at the desolate scene on the road and gritted his teeth.

Is this what magic users are, and what their power is?
but……

Thales looked down at a child about his age beside his right foot, who had died clutching a stick in his hand, and felt a pang of sorrow in his heart.

It's likely that no one will survive...

Just then, a weary male voice rang out from the ruins to their left!

"If I were you—kid—"

At the little rascal's startled cry, Thales jumped!
Thales instinctively took a step back, blocking the little rascal behind him, and reached for the JC dagger with his right hand.

Then he stared intently at the location from which the sound came!
how……

Thales frowned, looking incredulously at a corpse that began to move to his left.

A fake—a resurrection of a corpse?
Thales, who had a prior record, immediately felt a chill run down his spine.

The little rascal closed his eyes in fright.

The corpse rolled over, revealing underneath—a hand?

Thales stared wide-eyed in astonishment at the hand that emerged from the ground, watching it shovel through a pile of rubble and wood, and then carve a hole out of the snow.

A head emerged from it.

Thales felt a chill run down his spine.

Not really.

Fortunately, it wasn't what he had imagined.

“If I were you—I wouldn’t go there anymore,” Under the moonlight, a man covered in dirt and blood, his clothes torn and filthy, crawled out of the hole and lay back, panting. “Aishida’s trick wasn’t cleaned up very well… there are still some ‘things’ moving ahead.”

By the moonlight, Thales could see the man's face clearly, and he was startled, staring intently at him.

My God.

he……

he is--

"Black Sword!"

Thales blurted out in disbelief:
"You...you're not dead?"

The little rascal opened his eyes and looked curiously at the man who was dying in the ruins.

"I pulled a little trick and I'm not dead yet," Black Sword, with an ordinary-looking face, lay on his back on the ground, revealing a weak and ugly smile, and patted his left upper arm—which was wrapped tightly in a thick white cloth, but outside the cloth was a shocking patch of blood:
"I'm very resilient."

If his previous escape from Ashida was described as "disheveled," then Black Sword's current state could only be described as "miserable"—the numerous wounds, large and small, on his body alone made Thales frown deeply.

Black Sword struggled to lift his head and looked at the corpses scattered all over the street.

He fell back to the ground and let out a long sigh.

“There’s a patch of… tentacles made up of that stuff… that’s still alive,” Black Sword gritted his teeth, sweating profusely and trembling. In that instant, he seemed to be enduring some kind of pain. Thales even felt something changing deep inside him: “And… it’s… going mad. You’d better… not go there.”

Thales squinted and looked at the straight street. Sure enough, he spotted a blood-red tentacle trembling wildly in the distance.

One of those disgusting little pets in Giza...

He began to worry: Is there another way?

If not...

Just as he pulled up Little Slyhead to see if there was another way, Black Sword's voice rang out behind him again.

"Wait, kid."

Thales hesitated for a moment.

The second prince turned his gaze to Black Sword, who lay on the ground in a pitiful state.

“You,” Black Sword exhaled sharply, as if he had just recovered from a wave of pain. He smirked, his gaze sharp: “Who exactly are you?”

Thales looked at him and frowned.

The little rascal glanced at the prince and bit his lip.

“That trick of Aishida's—withdrawing air or something—was really deadly. Everyone in this neighborhood would probably be dead,” Black Sword gradually calmed his breathing, lay on the ground, and stared at Thales. “I buried myself underground and desperately sucked in the little bit of air between the rocks and the soil. I managed to escape and survive.”

"You're lucky to be alive." Thales shrugged and turned to leave.

“I’m used to racing against death,” Black Sword’s deep voice sounded behind him. “But you, little guy, shouldn’t be alive.”

Thales tightened his grip.

"Even when Ashida unleashed that level of killing intent, indiscriminate in its attacks, it didn't forget to protect you, did it?" Black Sword exhaled a puff of hot white breath. "Are you really that important to him?"

"Who are you anyway?"

Thales froze, his heart starting to race.

Fortunately, Black Sword was severely injured.

I hope he doesn't have the energy to deal with me.

but……

Thales looked up.

“Those two are probably fighting right now,” Thales said coldly. “You’d better run.”

"Otherwise, once they decide the winner, no matter who wins, you will not have a good ending."

Black Sword looked at him without speaking, his eyes gleaming with a sharp light on his filthy face.

Those eyes sent a chill down Thales's spine, as if he already knew what Thales was avoiding talking about.

The little rascal timidly tugged at him.

“You’d better be polite, kid,” Black Sword said in a disturbing way, his eyes gleaming, “because I am now your only hope for survival.”

Upon hearing this, Thales was stunned.

"You should hope that I recover quickly, deal with that tentacle, and then, before anything else catches up, lead you all out of here."

Thales was taken aback.

"what?"

“If the two of them fight,” Black Sword’s burning gaze finally softened, “you hope that Ashida will be the winner, don’t you?”

"You think—at least you still have some use to him?"

"You don't think he'll kill you?"

Thales raised an eyebrow, turned around, and prepared to leave.

“Too bad,” just as Thales took a step, Black Sword shifted his position, a movement that made Thales grimace. “The winner…”

"It can only be..."

"That disgusting little girl."

Thales finally frowned.

He turned back to the black sword: "Why?"

“I fought that little girl once,” Black Sword sighed with a bitter smile. “I survived.”

“That little girl has a special sensitivity to and… manipulation of living beings with flesh and blood, and perhaps she even has a killing move like Ashida just now,” Black Sword shook his head and moved his injured left arm under Thales’s bewildered gaze: “But that’s not what makes her so terrifying.”

"She seemed crazy, tyrannical, and unreasonable."

Black Sword turned his head, his eyes filled with extreme solemnity.

"Deep down, she's someone who truly understands fighting and knows how to win."

"Compared to her, Ashida is like a strongman who has never fought, possessing only terrifying brute strength."

"In reality, it is extremely vulnerable."

Thales and the little rascal exchanged a glance, both seeing a lot of question marks in each other's eyes.

“How do you know?” Thales shook his head. “You haven’t even seen them fight—and besides, they can’t kill each other.”

“Killing is one thing, winning is another,” Black Sword scoffed. “I’ve known Ashida for a long time. Although I can’t kill him, I’m used to escaping from his clutches time and time again.”

"But that little girl..."

Black Sword's injuries seemed to be improving, and he began to move his right arm: "When I was killed in Ramon just now, I was determined to run away and find a place to recover from my injuries as soon as I rushed towards her."

Thales sighed, "I thought you were really going to stand up for us."

“You don’t need my protection,” Black Sword scoffed. “At that time, Ashida will protect you.”

Thales shrugged and looked away.

"In short, I planned to pretend to be injured by her, and then use a piece of flesh to deceive her," Black Sword took a deep breath, "Unfortunately, I discovered it in the very first strike..."

"I don't need to 'fake' my injury at all."

“This is only our second time fighting,” Black Sword said, cold sweat breaking out on his forehead again. At that moment, Thales felt some strange power surging from his body: “She has completely absorbed the experience from our first fight and completely suppressed me.”

Black Sword gritted his teeth, his eyes filled with fierceness: "It's different from facing Ashida—I have absolutely no chance against her this time."

"That kind of combat awareness and experience..."

“It’s a seemingly powerful but actually safe and harmless air mage, there’s no way to deal with them.” Thales frowned again.

Safe and harmless?

He thought of the people who had been squeezed into round balls, and silently complained in his heart:
You actually gave Aishida this rating? You must be using domestic quality inspection standards.

Just now.

"boom!"

Thales turned around in surprise.

Suddenly, a blood-red shadow rushed towards them down the straight street!

The little rascal gripped his hand tighter: "Ah! It's those... things!"

"Damn it!"

Black Sword stared at the tentacles that were trembling wildly and slithering towards him. Trembling, he tried to move his legs and frowned: "Without its roots, how can it still move?"

In the blink of an eye, the blood-red tentacles were right in front of them.

Thales looked at the Black Sword lying on the ground, unable to move, and felt the little slippery creature on his arm. He was terrified!

----

During the duel between the two mage, Giza burst into maniacal laughter: "A new world? Hahahaha... I suddenly realize that you and Lebla might get along well... Why not consider joining us radicals?"

The Qi Demon Master did not answer.

The wind suddenly picked up!

The Blood Mage no longer hesitated; she suddenly crouched down and touched the giant, spider-like, pitch-black monster beneath her.

The latter shuddered violently, and more black spikes extended from its thorn-covered body, piercing the ground amidst the swaying wind.

A faint tremor came from underground.

As Ashida calmly watched her opponent's move, her expression shifted, and a dazzling blue light flashed across her face once again.

The Blood Mage and her pet swayed in the wind, but the former still smiled and stared at the Air Mage.

A black spike protruded from the ground.

"Crack..."

Then, a miniature, pitch-black monster burst forth from the ground amidst flying dirt and rocks, its sharp edges splitting through the earth at an astonishing speed!

Three steps behind Ashida, he suddenly attacked him!

"boom!"

It crashed into a transparent barrier.

The air mage's expression remained unchanged. The air wall he deployed in time barely blocked the attacking monster from behind his master's head.

However, more and more rustling and cracking sounds came from around the air mage.

"Crack...crack..."

Dozens of black, spiky monsters, resembling spiders, swiftly and nimbly burst from the ground, swarming towards Ashida with almost no blind spots!

The Qi Demon Master gently clenched his fist, and countless visible water vapors immediately rose from a ten-meter radius around him!

Dozens of monsters trembled in unison.

But the trembling lasted only a moment before the monsters regained their fluidity and charged forward.

The Qi Demon Master raised an eyebrow.

“Even stripping away all the air won’t help,” the Blood Mage, looking down at Ashida from above in the raging wind, said with amusement. “They’re such adorable creatures that they can survive in a vacuum.”

Finally, the Qi Mage frowned slightly.

But just a second later, he released his fist.

"boom!"

Amidst the sounds of countless houses crumbling, a surge of air pressure rushed in, engulfing the vacuum space within a ten-meter radius, and forcefully crushing dozens of monsters!
The next moment, crack-like blue light rippled across the seemingly extremely calm face of the Qi Mage.

An invisible stream of energy bursts outward from the center of Aishida with astonishing force.

Snow dust flew up, and soil and stones flew everywhere. A circle made of dust could be seen, which suddenly expanded from its small center.

"boom!"

The violent airflow transforms into an unstoppable whirlwind, swirling and clearing away everything around it!
The Qi Mage calmly observed everything within this vortex of energy.

However, before the incredibly powerful cloud of energy could fully erupt, the Qi Mage suddenly turned his head and looked in a direction from the dust.

There, a small, jet-black monster, seemingly ignoring the violent and immense air resistance, pounced towards him at an undiminished speed!
In Ashida's eyes, all she saw was it swaying precariously in the storm, forcefully raising one of its forward-pointing spikes, retracting its other limbs behind it, and kicking back and forth, charging forward in a strange posture like an octopus in the ocean.

A hint of seriousness finally appeared on the seemingly emotionless face of the Qi Mage.

This posture and movement...

That's how Black Sword dealt with things on the cliff top just now...

More and more pitch-black monsters, with strange postures and movements, passed through his terrifying air currents and shot towards the magic master from all directions!

In that instant, Ashida hooked her left index finger, and her whole body shot up into the air!
But it was too late.

A monster leaped into the air, shooting out an extremely long, thin thorn from its abdomen that pierced Aishida's left shoulder blade!

Pull him down.

The mage reacted swiftly with a snap of his fingers, and an invisible mass of energy condensed into a sharp blade under high pressure, suddenly bursting forth in a planar shape and severing the thin thorn.

But more and more monsters either shoot out thin spikes or kick off the bodies of their own kind to pounce.

A monster pounced on his back.

The other one gripped his ankle.

One of them shot out a tiny thorn that pierced his left eye.

Another one landed on his head.

Countless others of the same kind followed one after another, coming in succession with a clear division of labor.

In that instant in mid-air, dozens of pitch-black monsters pounced on the Qi Mage, completely covering his blue light.

The next instant, their sharp, segmented limbs trembled back and forth like a loosened bowstring.

"Swoosh!" "Whoosh!" "Pfft!"

The sounds of blood and flesh being scraped and bruised continued one after another.

The next moment, under the cutting, pulling, piercing, and biting of countless monsters, Ashida in the air turned into countless fragments!
Fingers, elbows, arms, chest, head, thighs, ankles... the mage's shattered body fell from the sky and scattered all over the ground.

The violent air currents finally subsided.

The Blood Mage and her dark monster landed on the ground.

"I told you, life is precious," the Blood Mage said seductively, raising her index finger to smear a wildly spreading purple mark on her face behind her ear—like scolding a naughty kitten—before her smile turned chilling.
"For these little cuties, their innate mission is to rely on their slender yet dense bodies and their sensitivity to air to navigate your abnormal air pressure and cyclones..."

"Begin the hunt," the Blood Mage chuckled.

Aishida's remains turned into specks of blue light, which slowly coalesced into a luminous human-shaped silhouette.

“Those moves, those… those were all used by the Black Sword when it fought me,” a voice came from the blue-glowing silhouette. “You witnessed my battle with him and imitated him with the life you created.”

"Oh dear, this little bit..." Giza's body slowly descended.

"That guy is amazing. He actually managed to fool me with a piece of useless flesh..."

"Such an amazing guy is definitely someone I should learn from."

“After all, I was once a witch,” the Blood Mage said, stepping off the back of the giant, dark monster and chuckling softly. “Studying and researching were my former profession.”

The girl, her face trembling with purplish-red cracks, gently bent down and picked up a black, spider-like monster that had been "severely injured" in the cyclone. Her eyes were as tender as if she were stroking a neighbor's kitten.

But the next moment, the Blood Mage's eyes sharpened, and the little monster in his hand leaped out and pounced on the Qi Mage's still-forming blue light!
As if receiving a command, countless small, pitch-black monsters rushed into the blue light, some of them exploding into limbs and blood, causing the blue light, which was forming a human shape, to fluctuate.

"Magic interference?" The glowing silhouette asked, its tone filled with doubt. "You know this won't work."

"At most, it can only delay my rebirth."

But Giza's next answer silenced it: "That's enough."

"boom!"

Suddenly, a giant, blood-red tentacle burst forth from the ground beneath the blue light, splitting into countless smaller tentacles that firmly bound other monsters within the blue light.

“Giza, you…” The glowing humanoid silhouette spoke amidst the ripples, seemingly somewhat surprised.

“You tell me, how much air would be left hundreds of feet, hundreds of meters, thousands of meters underground,” the Blood Demon Master laughed, “?

"How long will it take you to get back to the ground with that meager amount of air?"

"That should be enough for me to kill that boy."

The glowing outline remained silent, but its formation was clearly accelerating.

They seemed to be getting very anxious.

Unfortunately, each black monster that explodes upon entering the blue light disperses a portion of the blue light, greatly reducing its recovery rate.

“Of course, you can ascend to a higher level to enhance your control and range,” the Blood Mage sighed, “but I think, in that kind of underground, if you want to return immediately, the power you would need…”

"So, we have to 'knock on the door' to get it done?"

The glowing outline flashed suddenly!
"Come on, is it to protect that boy, even if it means knocking on the door?" the Blood Mage said with a seductive smile, "or is it for your own safety, that you'd rather watch that boy die?"

The glowing outline flickered more and more rapidly.

"Look, this is the tragedy of never having been on the battlefield," the Blood Mage scoffed, smoothing his hair, which had turned blood red from his ascension.

"You bunch of people who've never been in a civil war..."

"Newbie".

A few seconds later, the glowing humanoid silhouette finally spoke:
"I don't know."

"This isn't your style."

"Your so-called reasons are all invalid."

"Why would you be willing to pay such a high price, risking being sealed away by the legendary anti-magic forces and discovered by Black Orchid?" The still-forming Ashida's voice sounded ethereal: "Just to..."

"Kill that boy?"

"Just because, so-called 'I don't want him to suffer'?"

For a moment, the two magic users fell silent.

"You wouldn't understand," the Blood Mage finally replied calmly, "except for me."

"None of us understand."

The next moment, the enormous, blood-red tentacles dragged the pitch-black monster within the blue light's outline, along with the still-forming blue light, into the bottomless depths of the earth.

Countless rocks and soil rolled down again, filling the collapsed hole that the tentacles had broken through the ground once more.

The tremors lasted for a long time.

Until it gets smaller and smaller.

Until it disappears.

Giza was left alone, silently watching the ground where Ashida had disappeared.

His eyes held a complex and intriguing look.

The enormous, black monster behind her climbed forward, extending its head or spiky limbs toward her hand and nuzzling the Blood Mage affectionately.

“Yes.” The purplish-red marks on Giza’s face gradually faded, and her emotions returned to normal.

She gently stroked the monster beside her and whispered:

"At least I still have you."

"Kilika".

I've graduated.

The future is unknown.

My mind is completely blank.

Fortunately, the savings I've accumulated over the years are enough to last for a while longer.

P.S. Hey hey hey, to all you readers who suspect I'm abandoning my books the moment I stop updating, where's your integrity? Where's your integrity?
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(End of this chapter)