Final Lord

Chapter 259 The Investigation of the Blood Serpent Servant

“We will take our revenge. But anger will solve nothing.” He suddenly grabbed Salang’s chin, forcing the half-goat to look directly into his burning amber eyes. “Once we catch the one who killed Sutton, I’ll allow you to use the cruelest torture.”

"All troops, march at full speed!" Hank's voice pierced the night like an icy blade. As he mounted his horse, his sable cloak billowed like dark clouds in the moonlight, his gilded spurs digging fiercely into his steed's belly. "We must reach Gru territory before dawn!"

Three hundred iron cavalrymen transformed into a black torrent under the moonlight, the sound of their hooves startling the crows in the treetops along the way.

The panicked crows flew over the city lord's mansion and landed on the flags outside the military camp.

The gates of the shackled army camp were flung open with a loud crash, and the iron chain winches emitted a piercing screech, as if some giant beast were awakening from its slumber.

Four hundred "Silver Thorns" led the way. These elite knights, clad in dark silver scale armor, each wore a chain of battle merits made from the finger bones of their enemies. They, along with the "Black Butcher's Blade" behind Viscount Hank, were among the few elite humans under Hank's command capable of fighting against the half-goat people.

The armor of a thousand human heavy cavalrymen gleamed coldly under the torches. They stood in silent ranks, their warhorses pawing restlessly, their iron hooves striking the stone slabs and sending up a few sparks.

The half-goat legion was much more restless; their deformed hooves shattered the night frost, their bronze shepherd bells jingled in the morning mist, and their murky goat eyes gleamed with a bloodthirsty light.

The human phalanx, a steel torrent, occupied the center, with spears like a forest and shields like a wall; the half-goat scouts and lame sheep roamed the flanks; behind them were supply trains pushing siege equipment, the winches of catapults creaking and grinding.

Except for a few elite troops guarding the border fortress, Viscount Hank sent out almost his entire force.

Closely following them was the "Corruption Warband"—a caster force composed of unclean beings and filthy apostles, whose black robes exuded a foul-smelling slime, and whose presence caused grass to wither and stone slabs to crack.

Viscount Hank himself sat atop his pure black warhorse, his sable cloak billowing like dark clouds in the morning breeze. The shattered ram's horn flute at his waist still dripped a putrid green liquid, each drop scorching a hissing crater in the ground.

"Full speed ahead!" His voice was like an icy blade. "I want to see the walls of the Grul Territory before sunset!"

Iron hooves crushed the bricks in the city, and military boots rolled over the sands of the Gobi Desert.

This torrent of death, a mixture of human desolation and half-goat madness, swept towards the direction of the Gru territory.

The farmers in the villages along the way scrambled out of their beds in terror and hid in their cellars, knowing that when Hank the Silver Shackles bared all his fangs, the earth would be soaked in blood.

……

Even as the morning star still hung in the sky, Viscount Hank's vanguard had already broken through the morning mist of Gruland and stood reined in their horses before the lord's manor.

Ten trembling human soldiers knelt in the center of the courtyard; they were the ragtag soldiers Sutton had left behind to clean up the battlefield.

As Viscount Hank's gilded riding boots rolled past them, the dust kicked up splattered onto the soldiers' pale faces.

"You're saying Sutton just went to the Black Forest six hours ago?" Viscount Hank's icy expression made the morning temperature drop even further.

"Including his travel time, you mean my elite troops and my resourceful brother Sutton all died in the Black Forest in less than an hour?"

"Ah! Lord Sutton is dead?" The soldier's face turned pale. "Viscount, we are telling the truth. There is absolutely nothing we are hiding."

Hank tapped the hilt of his sword lightly with his long, slender fingers, then suddenly turned and ordered the three of them, "I'll trouble you three to scout ahead into the Black Forest."

Three figures immediately emerged from the shadows, draped in black robes soaked in preservative solution, their movements carrying the distinctive stench of decaying matter.

Drops of pus dripped from the bottom of their black robes, then writhed like snakes back onto their cloth shoes—Transcendent Third-Order Blood Serpent Servants, filthy apostles who worshipped the god of filth. Viscount Hank removed the fragments of the ram's horn flute: "I need to know what lurks in the Black Forest that could devour Sutton's life. Be careful, and prioritize your own safety."

Sutton's voice was soft, yet it caused three pairs of eyes, glowing with a yellowish-green light, to simultaneously gleam with a bloodthirsty glint.

"Yes, Your Excellency."

The black-robed man's body underwent a strange transformation, turning into three jet-black snakes that slithered through the shadows of the city.

……

Blood-Pus Serpent Servant
Extraordinary Level 3

Attributes:
Life: 200
Attack: 35
Defense: 20
Speed: 16
Special skill:

Blade of Blood and Pus: Melee attacks have a chance to cause instant death, with the probability increasing as the opponent is more vulnerable, up to a maximum of 10%.

Dirty Journey: Ignores terrain while moving, will not be shaken by being ambushed, and is immune to three attacks when not actively attacking. After taking effect, the immunity effect goes on a 30-second cooldown.

Serpent Transformation (30-minute cooldown): Transforms the body into a giant serpent of pus and blood, gaining +20 Attack, +15 Speed, and a special serpent-based spellcasting ability.

Three blood-sucking serpent servants stepped into the Black Forest, and a bizarre scene immediately unfolded.

The humus of the Black Forest hissed softly beneath their feet. The soil, eroded by mycelium, seemed to have encountered a natural enemy and retreated slightly.

And on the path they traversed, a yellowish-green pustule was always left behind.

The monsters in the Black Forest would stay far away from the smell of pus bubbles and would not want to get close at all.

Relying on these two abilities, the three Blood Serpent Servants arrived at the middle level of the Black Forest without any battles along the way.

Slow down!

The lead snake servant suddenly raised his hand, revealing a scaly arm beneath his black robe. Magic gathered at his fingertips, illuminating the dense footprints on the humus soil.

"The iconic three-toed hoofprints of the Half-Fawn Legion. We're on the right track."

Following the trail deeper, the three quickly discovered the first corpse: a human heavy cavalryman whose chest was pierced by some roots, and wriggling mycelium crawled through the gaps in his armor.

“Something’s not right…” The snake servant on the left crouched down, pus and blood dripping from between his fingers onto the corpse, instantly corroding the fungus. “These wounds… don’t seem to have been inflicted by human troops.”

The three continued onward, and the scene before them grew increasingly horrifying. The entire forest clearing resembled a slaughterhouse, with dozens of corpses lying on the ground in various contorted positions. Some had been sucked dry by spore-eating insects, some had been crushed into a pulp by fungal beasts, and some even had their skin ulcerated, revealing black mycelium entwined around their stark white bones.

Further on, the scene before them became increasingly gruesome. In the misty forest clearing, dozens of corpses lay scattered about, each frozen in an extremely eerie pose at the moment of death.

Most of the dead human soldiers had their backs to the battlefield, arrows shot by their comrades lodged in their backs. Two spearmen stood face to face, their spears deeply embedded in each other's chests, their faces frozen in a frenzied expression as if they had been frozen in time during their battle.

(End of this chapter)