Real Mount and Blade Game

The alarm blared from the eastern walls of Deherim, sounding like the mournful howl of a dying beast, only to be instantly crushed by an even more terrifying pressure.

The mark on Shen Mu's palm, representing the curse of Yenogu and the theft of divinity, suddenly erupted with excruciating pain that tore at his soul, as if countless poisoned jackal fangs were gnawing at his marrow and the core of his will. He endured this inhuman torment, his figure like an ashes shooting up from the shadows, soaring to the top of the crumbling arrow tower.

As far as the eye could see, on the land outside the city walls, saturated with the filth of the putrid swamp, a massive spatial rift, like the single eye of hell opening, was expanding wildly.

Deep within the rift, viscous, surging, purplish-black energy, bearing countless faces of agony, erupted forth and coalesced into form—the ultimate divine abomination, the "Abyss Soul Devourer Lord," had descended!

It was not a physical entity, but rather a constantly writhing, twisting mass of will. A monstrous aggregate of pure malice, vengeful resentment, and desecrated divinity. Indescribably hideous limbs appeared and disappeared, tentacles covered in barbs, a gaping maw dripping with pus and blood, compound eyes gleaming with blasphemous light… At its core, a deep, abyss-like purplish-black light pulsated like a heart, each beat drawing upon the brand on Shen Mu's palm, inflicting an even more intense searing pain in his soul and an endless, whispering temptation—submission! Destruction! Assimilation!
"Target! Lord!" Rezarit's rough roar echoed across the chaotic battlefield. The iron-blooded instructor's commands were as precise as a knife, instantly silencing the soldiers' suffocating fear of facing ultimate terror. "Eye of Judgment! Maximum charge! Target, Divine Abomination Core! Ballistae, crossbowmen, archers! Covert fire! Suppress its domain! Holy Tree Knights! Form ranks! Prepare—melee annihilation!"

A command is a signal!

“Buzz—boom!!!”

At the top of the castle's main tower, the "Eye of Judgment," a war crystallization combining the power of the Vaegir ice winds, the remnants of the Wood Elves' holy light, and the precision engineering of the Rhodok, erupted with unprecedented brilliance. A massive, condensed, almost tangible, dark blue arcane beam tore through the polluted air, carrying the dual power of purification and annihilation, and precisely struck the pulsating core of the Abyss Soul-Devouring Lord! The air was ionized, emitting a piercing shriek, and wherever the beam passed, the remaining foul odor instantly vaporized.

Almost simultaneously, on the middle defensive platform of the city wall, all the medium-sized ballistae roared deafeningly, their specially crafted armor-piercing explosive rune arrows trailing flames, raining down like meteors upon the massive body of the abomination. Rhodok crossbowmen held their breath, the heavy crossbows' bowstrings taut to their limit, their poisoned, armor-piercing black crystal arrows aimed at the twisted joints connecting the limbs, calmly pulling the triggers. Vaegir archers displayed astonishingly rapid-fire skills, unleashing a barrage of icy arrows, attempting to freeze and slow the ever-distorting, weakening corrupted field of energy surrounding the abomination. The Wood Elf survivors, their eyes burning with grief and anger at the destruction of their homeland, fired arrows imbued with the last and purest purifying power, like golden threads, attempting to pierce the thick darkness.

The Abyss Soul Devourer Lord let out a silent roar, its mental impact sweeping across the city walls like a tangible tsunami! Soldiers with weaker wills instantly bled from their mouths and noses, their eyes glazed over, and their weapons fell from their hands. Its massive "body" suddenly shrank, and its purplish-black filthy domain instantly solidified, like the thickest swamp mud.

The azure beam of light from the Eye of Judgment slammed into the domain! A blinding burst of energy annihilation exploded, and a terrifying shockwave ripped away large sections of the city wall's crenellations, sending debris raining down. The beam was forcibly blocked, deflected, and consumed; although it tore through the domain's surface and released a large amount of purplish-black smoke, it failed to penetrate the core! The ballista's explosive arrows detonated around the domain's perimeter, most of the fire and shockwave being absorbed and distorted, significantly reducing their destructive power. The Frost Arrow Barrage was melted by the corrupted energy; only a few Wood Elf arrows imbued with powerful purifying energy and precise Rhodok Black Crystal Armor-Piercing Arrows could inflict any damage.

"Ugh!" A piercing scream, a mixture of pain and rage, echoed from the core of the divine abomination. A gigantic tentacle, entirely composed of filthy energy and covered in suction cups, suddenly shot out from the core of the domain, ignoring spatial distance and carrying a soul-devouring suction force, reaching for Shen Mu atop the arrow tower! Before the claw even arrived, the icy suction force locking onto his soul made Shen Mu feel his life force and willpower draining away frantically, his vision beginning to blacken at the edges, and the brand on his palm burning hot like a hot iron!
Don't dodge! Behind him lies the core of Deherim, countless soldiers and immigrants who trust him! Dodge, and this claw will tear an unhealable wound in the city wall!
At the critical moment! The resolute determination burning in Shen Mu's eyes overwhelmed the excruciating pain tearing his soul apart. Instead of retreating, he took a sudden step forward, his left foot slamming heavily onto the edge of the arrow tower, shattering the rubble! He raised his left hand, the one branded with fragments of Yenogu's divinity, fingers spread wide, neither dodging nor avoiding, actively meeting the filthy giant claw that reached out to grab him!
"Lord!" came the horrified roars of Rezarit and Fatis from below.

"Use their spear against their shield!" Shen Mu's voice was hoarse and low, yet it possessed a strange penetrating power, overwhelming all the clamor of the battlefield. The ash power within his body surged at an unprecedented speed, and the dark purple cracks beneath his skin wriggled and flickered like living things—a manifestation of the fierce conflict between the backlash of Yenogu's divinity and his own power. But at this moment, what Shen Mu was about to do was something even more dangerous—actively guiding and amplifying the power of the brand in his palm!

"Mount & Blade!" Shen Mu roared silently in his heart, and the "Mount & Blade Rule Imprint" in his sea of ​​consciousness, formed from countless battlefield experiences, understanding of rules, and indomitable will, suddenly lit up! It was no longer a passive defense or self-enhancement, but transformed into an invisible bridge, a powerful transformation furnace!

"The mark of the rules—'plunder and exploitation'!"

The moment the tip of that filthy giant claw almost touched Shen Mu's palm, the power of the Mount & Blade rule imprint was fully activated! Shen Mu's left palm seemed to transform into a miniature, violent vortex!

"laugh--!!!"

There was no earth-shattering explosion, only a sickening sound of energy being forcibly torn apart and devoured! The Abyss Soul Devourer Lord's filthy giant claws, capable of crushing mountains and devouring souls, upon touching Shen Mu's palm, contained terrifying energy—the decaying divinity belonging to the origin of Yeno's will, the rules of the abyss necromancy, and the resentment of countless devoured souls—which was frantically and uncontrollably poured into Shen Mu's body through the transformation furnace of the "Mount & Blade Rule Imprint" by the same brand on Shen Mu's palm!

This was not absorption, but forced plunder! Shen Mu used the characteristic that his own imprint and the opponent's power were of the same origin, and used the "Mount & Blade Rules" as a lever to forcibly open an energy channel, drawing in the most core and fundamental power of the opponent's attack like a floodgate being opened!

"Roar! Roar! Roar! Roar!" For the first time, the Abyss Soul Devourer let out a clearly audible roar of pain, filled with immense shock and rage! Its giant claws, made of energy, visibly dimmed and thinned, as if their essence had been drained. And Shen Mu—

"Pfft!" Shen Mu suddenly spat out a mouthful of scalding, dark golden blood, his body trembling violently like a candle flickering in the wind. The skin on his left arm cracked inch by inch, dark purple lines spreading rapidly like a spiderweb, instantly covering half his cheek and neck, even invading the whites of his eyes, causing one of his eyes to flash with an eerie purple light. Inside his body, it was as if boiling magma and an extremely cold ice hell had been thrown in; fragments of Yenogu's purest, most destructive and insane will, mixed with a massive amount of filthy energy, rampaged through his fragile meridians and sea of ​​consciousness!
Excruciating pain! Pain surpassing any previous experience, originating from the brink of annihilation of both soul and body! The Mount & Blade rules imprint spun frantically, attempting to transform and suppress this surging alien energy, but the quantity was too vast, and the quality too terrifying! Shen Mu felt like a balloon about to burst, on the verge of complete annihilation, or being devoured and assimilated by the remaining madness of Yenogu, becoming the next abomination!
However, at this critical moment, when his consciousness was about to be overwhelmed by boundless pain and mad incoherent ramblings, Shen Mu's mouth twitched upwards with extreme difficulty and in a ferocious manner, despite his face being contorted by excruciating pain.

“Fuel… is enough…” he growled in his throat, a hoarse, bellows-like sound.

His right hand was still tightly gripping the broken sword that had accompanied him in battle until now, a sword covered in cracks and dark bloodstains! At this moment, the brand on the hilt of the broken sword resonated strongly with the brand of the Mount & Blade rules in his sea of ​​consciousness!
He endured the extreme pain of his soul being torn apart and his body being burst open, and poured the violent, conflicting mixed energy within him—the power of his own ashes, the power of the fragments of Yenogu's divinity, the power of the Abyss Soul Devourer Lord's origin that he had just plundered, and the power of the Mount & Blade rules imprint at full power—into that ordinary broken sword without any reservation or hesitation!
"The Mark of Rules—'Battlefield Judgment'! With my blood, I ignite your soul! Condemn! Annihilate!"

There was no dazzling brilliance, no earth-shattering display. The broken sword merely emitted a faint, extremely restrained, and heavy dark red light, like the solidified core of molten lava burned to its limit. The space around the sword began to silently distort and collapse, emanating an aura of annihilation that instilled instinctive fear in all living beings.

The Abyss Soul Devourer Lord sensed a deadly threat! Ignoring the weakness and excruciating pain from Shen Mu's left hand frantically draining its power, it abruptly retracted its tattered giant claw. The purplish-black light at its core flickered wildly, and the remaining foul energy highly condensed, forming an incredibly thick, foul shield on its "chest," etched with countless faces of agony! At the same time, it let out a shrill scream, urging the remaining gnoll-man abominations to rush towards the city wall recklessly, attempting to interrupt Shen Mu's seemingly slow but actually all-encompassing attack!
"Hold them back! Hold them back even if it costs you your lives!" Rezarit, his eyes bloodshot, brandished his sword and charged headlong into the breach in the city wall. The Holy Tree Knights sang ancient and mournful war songs, their bodies radiating a final, purifying light, like moths drawn to a flame, crashing into the twisted monsters! The heavy infantry phalanx raised their thorn-inscribed shields, forming a dam with their flesh and blood! The crossbowmen and archers abandoned all precision, unleashing their last arrows like a deluge!
The city walls and surrounding areas instantly became a bloodbath! The Khergit scouts' bells rang wildly, disrupting the actions of the lower-ranking abominations, but also drawing an even more frenzied attack. Soldiers were constantly being corroded into bones by the corrupted energy, torn apart by the abominations' claws, and accidentally wounded by weapons swung by their fallen comrades… Screams, roars, the cracking of bones, and the annihilation of energy mingled together, playing a desperate yet tragic elegy. Every second, lives were lost, but the Deherim defenses, supported by immense sacrifice, miraculously did not collapse in the abominations' final, frenzied charge!
Shen Mu remained oblivious to the fierce battle around him; his entire focus was on the broken sword in his right hand. The dark red light grew increasingly solid, and the sword emitted a faint cracking sound as if it would crumble completely at any moment. He raised the broken sword high, locking onto the core of the Abyss Soul Devourer Lord and that filthy giant shield!

The dark purple cracks on his arm spread wildly, like a burning fuse, burning his way towards his heart and brain. The purple light in his eyes clashed violently with his own ashes will, his consciousness teetering on the edge of madness. But his sword-wielding movements carried an unwavering determination, a resolute severing of fate!

"Yenogu! Your curse! Your divinity! Your madness! Along with this filthy creation—" Shen Mu, using the last vestige of his clarity, let out a roar that shook the battlefield, his voice hoarse like sandpaper, yet carrying a metallic clang:

"—Return to dust!!!"

The dark red broken sword, carrying Shen Mu's burning life force, will, stolen and plundered power, and the ultimate judgment of the Mount & Blade rules on battlefield killing power, fell silently!

Time seemed to freeze at that moment. There was no earth-shattering explosion, no all-encompassing shockwave.

Only a very thin, very dark red ray of light shot out from the tip of the broken sword, instantly traversing space.

The red line passed easily and without hindrance through the filthy giant shield formed by the Abyss Soul Devourer Lord. It was as if the shield, composed of countless resentments and divine energy, was merely a laughable illusion.

The red line disappeared into the pulsating purplish-black light within the core of the divine abomination.

"Boom."

A very faint sound, like a bubble bursting.

The Abyss Soul Devourer's massive, twisted body stiffened abruptly. The purplish-black light at its core, like a punctured abscess, instantly lost all its luster. Immediately afterward, countless fine, dark red cracks appeared out of thin air, instantly covering the entire "body" of the Divine Abomination, originating from that core.

There was no struggle, no roar. The ultimate monster, formed from Yenogu's last will and corrupted energy, crumbled and annihilated silently and completely before the incredulous eyes of the crowd, like a sand sculpture weathered for billions of years.

The purplish-black energy that constituted its body, like embers after a fire, turned into countless grayish-white specks of light, rapidly dissipating and disappearing in the polluted air. Along with it vanished the suffocating, terrifying pressure and the whispers of souls.

A moment of deathly silence fell over the battlefield.

The remaining gnoll-human abominations, having lost the will and power of their master, instantly became stiff and sluggish, like puppets with broken strings. The violent, foul energy emanating from their bodies began to dissipate uncontrollably, and their forms became unstable.

"Kill!" Rezarit was the first to react, his hoarse roar shattering the silence, filled with the rage of those who had survived the catastrophe and the flames of revenge. "Leave no one alive! Purify them!"

The surviving soldiers erupted in a deafening roar, unleashing all their fear, sorrow, and rage upon the abominations who had lost their leader. Deprived of a unified will and the protection of their domain, these lesser abominations were swiftly divided, surrounded, and annihilated by the remaining forces of the Deherim garrison. The purifying aura of the Tree Knights, the icy winds of the Vaegirs, the armor-piercing arrows of the Rhodok… finally landed squarely on them.

On the city wall, at the top of the arrow tower.

Shen Mu remained motionless, his sword poised to strike. His entire body resembled a cracked porcelain vase, dense, dark purple lines covering almost every inch of his exposed skin, even seeping out from beneath his tattered robes. The brand on his left hand no longer glowed, but instead left a terrifying wound deep enough to expose bone, its edges charred black—a mark left from the forced plundering of divine energy. His right hand, wielding the broken sword, finally succumbed to the earth-shattering blow, shattering inch by inch below the tip into fine black crystalline powder that fell away, leaving only a bare, cracked hilt clutched tightly in his hand.

"Hah...hah..." He gasped for breath, each breath carrying the heavy stench of blood, like a broken bellows. Dark golden blood spilled from the corners of his mouth, dripping onto the cold stone slabs of the arrow tower. His vision was blurred, filled only with endless darkness and flickering purple spots of light. Inside his body, it felt as if it had been completely hollowed out and then forcibly filled with scorching hot irons. His ash power was nearly exhausted, and although the fragments of Yenogu's divinity had subsided, the damage they had caused was horrifying. Even more terrifying was that the fragments of the Abyss Soul Devourer's will that had been forcibly plundered and not fully transformed, like maggots clinging to his bones, continued to frantically surge and shriek within his collapsing sea of ​​consciousness, attempting to drag him into an eternal abyss of madness.

He heard the roars of the soldiers fighting back below the city walls, the dying cries of the god-like creature, and the anxious calls of Rezarit and Fatis calling his name from afar.

But he was unable to respond.

All his strength and will had been completely burned away in that desperate, life-risking strike. Now, what kept him from falling was only an almost instinctive, bone-deep indomitable spirit.

With his last ounce of strength, he slowly and heavily pressed his right hand, which was also covered in cracks and gripping the hilt of the broken sword, onto the cold crenellations of the arrow tower. Using the hilt as a fulcrum, he supported his swaying body.

Then, he looked up.

The only remaining eye, not completely tainted by the purple, struggled to turn, gazing eastward.

In the direction of the Corruption Swamp, the purplish-black pillar of light that had previously collided with the Eye of Judgment had long since vanished, but the pervasive black clouds were now thicker and more viscous, churning and surging, faintly emitting a darker, more ominous crimson light than before. In the sky towards the Ancestral Tomb, the enormous vortex-shaped wound still remained, like an ancient, unchanging scar. Now, it seemed to have been stimulated, its rotation speed subtly increasing slightly, emitting a cold and ancient suction force, echoing the anomaly in the Corruption Swamp.

The storm is not over.

The final roar of Yenogu may have been severed, but on this land corrupted by the rules of the abyss necromancy, a deeper and more terrifying wave of darkness is brewing. The walls of Deherim are gasping for breath, while the true, sweeping clouds of war are only just beginning to gather on the horizon.

Shen Mu's cracked face showed no joy of victory, only endless exhaustion and a heavy sense of knowing the future. Before his vision completely disappeared into darkness, he seemed to see the broken sword stuck in the crenellation, only the hilt remaining, standing stubbornly on the corpses and ashes like a bloodstained tombstone in the dim light piercing through the dark clouds, silently telling the story of the price of this brutal battle and the crisis that was not yet over.

Consciousness sank into the boundless darkness and the shrill cries of the remaining divine will. The body, however, remained upright, leaning against the unyielding sword hilt. (End of Chapter)