Final Lord

Chapter 267 The Shackles of War
On the smoke-filled battlefield, Wei Yi's figure moved like a white lightning bolt among the corpses. The twin swords in her hands shone with dazzling white sword energy, and each sword light was accompanied by the crisp sound of metal breaking and the muffled sound of blood gushing out.

She leaped lightly over the burning wreckage of the catapult, sparks dancing around her snow-white clothes, illuminating her delicate, doll-like face, serene to the point of being cold.

The morale of the ranged troops had collapsed, and only Yi brandished his sword and charged into the cavalry position!
The cavalry, already struggling to hold on, were further disadvantaged by Wei Yi's charge.

"Third squad, wiped out!" "The left wing has collapsed!"

Amidst the piercing howls, the Silverthorn Knight's tattered armor sizzled as it corroded under the fungal hyphae. Wei Yi's sword grazed a knight's throat, and suddenly, her snow-white eyelashes trembled slightly.

A chill, like a thorn in my back, shot up my spine to the back of my neck.

She looked up sharply, her gaze meeting that of Viscount Hank atop the high ground, beyond the layers of smoke. His amber pupils gleamed with a predatory coldness in the firelight, and the Hydra rings were spewing ominous black mist.

"So, I'm finally going to have to step in myself?" Wei Yi murmured to herself, her breath condensing into frost in the cold air. Her emerald pupils narrowed slightly as she saw the black mist swirling around Hank's slowly raised sword suddenly writhe violently, as if alive—

"The shackles of war—"

Hank's voice, like an ancient beast awakening from the abyss, instantly drowned out all the noise on the battlefield.

The void behind him suddenly distorted, and a pair of gleaming silver shackles appeared out of thin air, each chain link emitting a sickening metallic groan. The moment this epic artifact fully materialized, the air on the entire battlefield seemed to freeze!
Boom! A silver halo, a kilometer in diameter, descended like divine punishment, sweeping across the battlefield with overwhelming force. Wherever the halo passed, fleeing human soldiers froze like puppets, while undead truck riders attempting to maneuver braked screech but could not retreat an inch. Even the drifting smoke seemed to freeze in mid-air, as if the entire world had been put on pause.

The Shackles of War

epic
Health +800
Special Ability: Battlefield Lockdown (3-day cooldown): Locks down the battlefield. No unit from either side can escape the battlefield in any way until one side is completely annihilated or surrenders.

Duel to the Death (2-hour cooldown): Designate any two targets and force them to duel. Once activated, neither side can move away from the other or stay in place; they must approach and duel.

Both sides are immune to the effects of all other units except the other.

The effect ends upon the death of one party or after ten minutes.

Wei Yi suddenly felt a chill on her neck. Looking down, she saw a cold, gleaming chain coiled around her neck like a venomous snake, the other end connected to Hank's neck. The fine barbs on the chain were deeply embedded in her skin, yet not a drop of blood seeped out. This was not a physical shackle, but a constraint imposed by rules.

"Now, let's begin the real duel." Hank's voice was squeezed out from between his teeth, and the moment his gilded riding boots shattered the ground, he transformed into a black lightning bolt. At the same time, Wei Yi felt an irresistible pull from the chains, and her body lurched forward against her will, her long, snow-white hair stretching into a straight silver line behind her.

The moment the two figures collided in the center of the battlefield, time seemed to stretch tenfold.

Wei Yi saw clearly that within the swirling black mist on Hank's blade, countless distorted human faces were wailing. That was clearly also an extraordinary weapon, its quality no less than her twin swords! On Wei Yi's raised twin swords, blinding sparks erupted where the white feather sword energy met the black mist. The moment the three weapons finally clashed—

clang! ! !
A shockwave, visible to the naked eye, exploded in a ring, instantly causing the ground within a ten-meter radius to sink by half a meter. Wei Yi felt a tearing pain in her tiger's mouth; the defense constructed by the white feather sword energy crumbled the moment it made contact. Her body was sent flying uncontrollably, carving a trench more than twenty meters long into the scorched earth before barely coming to a stop.

"Cough..." Blood spilled from the corner of her lips, blooming as a glaring crimson on her snow-white clothes. Wei Yi propped herself up on her trembling arm, her pupils contracting sharply—the aura emanating from Hank was steadily rising, finally settling at a suffocating intensity:
Transcendent Level Six!

"You're about to reach epic level?" Wei Yi asked in shock.

"Surprised?" Hank gracefully twirled his sword, his mink cloak billowing behind him like a cloud hanging from the sky.

He flicked his sword tip, and a cloud of black mist shot out like a venomous snake, pulverizing the sword energy surrounding Wei Yi.

"You think you can stand against me by siding with chaos and stealing some power from evil gods?" His voice suddenly turned cold, his gilded boots crushing the broken bones on the ground. "Before true power, these tricks—"

Swish! A flash of sword light, and suddenly a line of blood spurted from Wei Yi's left arm.

"Not worth mentioning."

Wei Yi staggered back half a step, her own blood finally staining her snow-white swordsman's uniform. She stared at Hank, who was closing in, a look of unprecedented seriousness flashing in her emerald pupils. The chain around her neck continued to shorten, emitting a teeth-grinding metallic scraping sound, forcing her to face that terrifying opponent once more.

On the edge of the battlefield, the surviving Hank soldiers held their breath. In the carnage shrouded in a silver halo, two figures drew ever closer, as if by destiny. Hank's blade trailed a black mist that devoured light, while Wei Yi's twin swords were entwined with dying white feathers. The moment they clashed again, the air on the entire battlefield seemed to freeze!
Under the silvery curtain of war's shackles, the entire battlefield was divided into two distinct worlds.

The soldiers on the perimeter stood frozen in place as if under a spell, only able to watch helplessly as the dueling arena in the center, bound by chains, came into view—there, the fate of the two commanders would determine the life or death of everyone else.

Viscount Hank's mink cloak fluttered in the surging power of the rules, and his Hydra ring emitted dark mists. He slowly raised his sword, shrouded in black mist, and where the blade pointed, even the air itself distorted. "Soldier against soldier, king against king, fair enough, isn't it?"

His voice echoed with a metallic chill, "Let's settle our score in the oldest way possible."

Wei Yi's snow-white eyelashes trembled slightly, and the white feather sword energy on her twin swords flickered like breath. Her slender figure appeared so frail under Hank's overwhelming aura, yet she stood firm like a bamboo shoot in the wind. Everyone thought this would be a closely fought, epic duel.

Logically speaking, this should be a spectacular battle. Hank's formidable foundation at the sixth level of the Extraordinary Realm, versus Wei Yi's exquisite swordsmanship at the fourth level of the Extraordinary Realm, is like the clash of an anvil and a forging hammer, sure to spark the most dazzling fireworks.

But reality always unfolds unexpectedly and illogically.

(End of this chapter)