Elden Ring, building a legion of ashes

Chapter 137 Nine Evils Pulling the Coffin (Two-in-One Chapter)

Seeing Greke so angry and out of control, Xia Tong's lips curled into a cold smile.

He has achieved his goal.

There's a saying that goes: "Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad."

Greck was already short-tempered and stubborn. Now that Xia Tong had publicly exposed his true colors, he was filled with shame and indignation, and his reason had completely vanished.

Right now, he's no different from an enraged pig that just runs amok.

Seeing Grek charging towards her amidst a cloud of dust, Xia Tong immediately took out the Spirit Horse Whistle from her bosom and put it to her lips to blow it.

"Hiss! Hiss!!"

With a clear, melodious neigh, the spirit horse Toret materialized in a cloud of pale blue light.

With practiced ease, Xia Tong lightly leaped onto the back of the spirit horse, her toes barely touching the ground.

"Run! Toretto!"

Xia Tong lightly kicked the horse's belly.

Torret was extremely intelligent and quick-witted, its hooves moving like the wind, instantly unleashing an astonishing speed as it charged off in the opposite direction.

The soldiers of Grik, who had been on high alert, were thrown into chaos when they saw their lord charging at them like a madman and launching an indiscriminate attack.

Fear was spreading, and some weak-willed soldiers had begun to abandon their armor and weapons, wanting to flee this place of trouble.

Therefore, Xia Tong rode the spirit horse Toret at breakneck speed across the inner courtyard square as if it were empty, encountering almost no significant obstacles.

"Stop him! Stop him now!!"

On a high tower, the gaunt military commander in charge watched Xia Tong galloping on horseback and jumped up and down in a panic.

However, his voice stopped abruptly the next moment.

A chill that penetrated to the bone suddenly rose from his back without warning.

A wandering knight wielding two swords appeared behind him like a ghost.

When the steward turned around in horror...

"Pfft—!!"

Two greatswords, imbued with the aura of a storm, had mercilessly pierced his chest and emerged from his body.

He didn't even have time to feel the pain before his body went numb instantly.

The gaunt military commander stared wide-eyed at the expressionless Oreg, making a strange "ho" sound in his throat.

Then, excruciating pain surged forth like a tidal wave.

"Aaaaaah!!"

The piercing scream was interrupted as soon as it began.

Oreg suddenly raised his foot and kicked.

The military commander was kicked off the tower like a rag doll, flailing his arms and legs as he plummeted toward the chaotic inner courtyard below.

"Bang!"

With a muffled thud, he crashed onto the hard stone slab and turned into a bloody mess.

However, his dying shout did have an effect after all.

Several of the fastest-moving descendants of the limbed nobles, with their youthful yet extremely distorted faces, let out sharp screeches and chased after Xia Tong, trying to cut off his path.

On the other side...

Greck has once again unleashed a terrifying storm.

He spun wildly like a top, so fast that only a golden afterimage could be seen.

Anyone who stood in his way was an exiled soldier, a Grek soldier, a demi-human warrior from Xia Tong's side, or even a well-equipped knight from the lost homeland.

Everything was pulverized by that merciless, meat-grinding storm.

In an instant, severed limbs flew everywhere and bits of flesh splattered.

This terrifying aura, which made no distinction between friend and foe, instantly cleared a wide passage in front of him from the originally crowded battlefield.

At this moment, the headless knight Ruthel attempted to intercept them.

She used teleportation to appear directly above Grek, and hurled the Flame Spear, imbued with the aura of death, down with tremendous force.

However, when Grek was spinning at high speed, the weapons carried by his dozens of arms were like an impenetrable wall of copper and iron.

"Clang! Clang! Clang!"

The Flame Spear was thrown several times, but it was blasted away each time, making it impossible to get close.

"In that case—"

Xia Tong glanced back at Grek, who was hot on her heels, and immediately had an idea.

He abruptly turned Torret around.

Instead of fleeing to an open area, they rushed towards a square formation where the Grik soldiers were most concentrated.

There, enemy soldiers were piled up in layers.

Xia Tong sneered, took out a handful of dried Roja fruit that she had prepared in advance from the package, and stuffed it into Toret's mouth.

After eating the dried fruit from Roja, Torret suddenly felt as if he had divine assistance; his muscles tensed up, and his speed increased once again.

It left a trail of afterimages on the battlefield, charging straight into the crowd of Grik soldiers.

"Stop him! Stop that guy on horseback!"

A slightly overweight military affairs officer pointed at Xia Tong and shouted.

After shouting, he immediately shut his mouth alertly, looking around nervously, afraid that the terrifying dual-sword knight would suddenly appear behind him.

Before a Grek knight could even raise his great shield, he was horrified to find a huge shadow looming before him.

Riding on Toret, Xia Tong, relying on the horse's amazing jumping ability, soared straight over his head.

And following closely behind was that golden storm that destroyed everything.

Grek is very close to Xia Tong now.

The enormous Grik, resembling a mountain of flesh, hurtled towards them at breakneck speed in a tornado radiating an aura of destruction.

In a fit of rage, he didn't care who was blocking his way.

Wielding a giant axe and swords, which appeared especially sharp under the influence of the storm, it truly was a mobile meat grinder.

"Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!"

The Grik soldiers along the way didn't even have time to beg for mercy before they were reduced to pieces amidst screams of agony.

However, the golden storm, carrying the aura of death, has not yet ceased.

The heavy golden axe, spinning at high speed, displayed a despairing power and sharpness.

Whether it was the giant shield that was taller than a man, or the heavy plate armor, it was all part of the Grik Knight's armor.

Once touched by the edge of the storm, it will immediately throw the person and shield away.

The more fragile ones were simply chopped into several pieces.

Limbs and severed bodies flew everywhere, as if a scarlet rain was falling all around.

"He's gone mad—he's gone mad—"

The fat manager looked at the completely insane Grek, his lips trembling as he muttered to himself.

But he quickly realized what was happening and shouted at the top of his lungs, "Stay calm! Stay calm!"

"My lord! Those are our own people! My lord!!"

The soldiers' desperate cries rose and fell, and the hellish scene seemed to finally awaken a sliver of reason in Grek.

The raging storm finally subsided.

At this point, Grek was also panting heavily, his chest heaving violently.

However, Xia Tong still rode the Torret nimbly through the crowd.

Faced with sporadic obstruction, he lightly waved his staff.

They could either unleash the Swift Sword of Kalia or launch the Great Magic Stone of Shining Stone.

The Lingma Torret can also quickly change direction in the air to avoid deadly encirclements.

This extreme flexibility made it virtually impossible for cumbersome ground troops to threaten Xia Tong.

However, this was still enemy territory.

Many exiled soldiers raised their heavy crossbows, and arrows rained down instantly.

"Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!"

In an instant, Xia Tong was also riddled with arrows.

Fortunately, with the protection of the "magic shield", these stray arrows did not cause any fatal damage.

Xia Tong could only let Torret lead her away from the enemy's encirclement as quickly as possible.

At the same time, Xia Tong's allied forces followed closely behind Greke and rushed over.

The mountain demons wielding greatswords and dozens of bloodthirsty Faded Ones all arrived at the heart of the battlefield.

They seemed to have noticed Grek's weakness and exhaustion, and the battle immediately spread to this area.

Xia Tong immediately felt much less pressure and then began to approach Grek at a leisurely pace.

He swung the Kalia Radiant Stone Staff in his hand once more, and one after another, Radiant Stone Great Magic Shards shot out like a barrage of bullets.

Meanwhile, Ingwell and Ruthel had already attacked from the flanks.

Neferi Lou had transformed into a thunderous storm, her twin axes flashing as she wildly hacked at Grek.

This female warrior from the wasteland has always hated evil and has a very violent fighting style.

"Despicable faders!!"

As he saw more and more wounds on his body, Grek suddenly felt somewhat powerless.

What made him feel most powerless and terrified was the headless knight Ruthel in front of him, who could not be killed no matter what he did, and the two ghostly, homeless knights.

And that little black girl whose body was wrapped in lightning.

"The coffin is coming!!"

Suddenly, Greck looked up and shouted.

This muffled roar, filled with despair and madness, instantly drowned out the clamor of the battle on the field.

Upon hearing those two words, the chubby manager hiding in the corner immediately perked up, as if grasping at a lifeline, and shouted at the top of his lungs, "The coffin is here—!!"

Those descendants of the aristocratic family who had undergone limb extensions also let out a "ho" roar, as if responding to some kind of summons.

As the fat supervisor shouted, the other exile soldiers and Grik soldiers seemed to receive some kind of instruction and shouted in unison.

"The coffin is here! The coffin is here!!"

The sound waves surged one after another, layer upon layer, and soon reached far into the distance of the battlefield.

"What's going on?"

Xia Tong frowned in confusion, a vague sense of unease creeping into her heart.

The sound of "the coffin is coming" rose and fell, exuding an indescribable eeriness and malevolence.

"Quickly finish this! Don't give him a chance!"

Xia Tong acted decisively and quickly communicated with the three ashes through mental connection.

Instantly, the air around the three ashes became frigid, filled with murderous intent.

The black and gold flames on Rutil's Flame Spear suddenly surged up.

If it was originally just a dim flame, now the fiercely burning flames leaped up to almost half a person's height, exuding a terrifying aura.

As the flames intensified, Xia Tong could clearly sense that Ruthel's spiritual strength was decreasing at an alarming rate.

Clearly, she is currently overdrawing her spiritual energy to unleash a burst of power.

However, the intense energy consumption resulted in a surge in attack power.

Ruthel, wielding a large shield with eclipse patterns, charged forward with a fierce momentum.

Combat Technique - Shield Charge!

"Bang!"

The shield bash was so powerful that it sent the massive Grik staggering backward.

Immediately afterwards, the spear pierced his chest and abdomen like a venomous snake.

The densely packed, splintered arms tried to grasp Ruthel's Flame Spear, but were scalded and twisted wildly by the black flames of death clinging to the spear.

"Sizzle! Sizzle!"

The sound of flesh burning was teeth-grinding, and could be heard clearly even from dozens of feet away.

Greck was immediately horrified.

He already knew that this headless knight was extremely troublesome, but the power he was unleashing at this moment was even more terrifying.

As the spear pierced his body, he felt a chilling sensation that penetrated to the very marrow of his body.

Then, to his horror, he discovered that the veins on the back of his hand, which were originally bluish, were rapidly turning into an eerie purplish-black color.

Those blood vessels seemed to come alive, writhing and bulging wildly like tiny snakes under the skin.

"A death curse?!"

Greck was, after all, a demigod, and was very knowledgeable.

He suddenly understood the source of these powers!

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Xia Tong went to Neferi's side and shouted loudly, "Neferi! Quickly deal with him! I have a feeling something bad is about to happen!"

"Um!"

Neferi nodded heavily.

Then, thunder roared in the storm surrounding her, flashing dazzling lightning even in broad daylight.

Each axe strike carried the force of a thunderbolt.

When the blades were slashed at Grik's bulky limbs, a plume of burnt blue smoke would often rise, leaving the wounds charred black and difficult to heal.

Meanwhile, Oreg and Ingwell quickly launched their offensive, their greatswords and halberds working in perfect harmony as they began to attack like madmen.

Due to excessive injury and blood loss, Grek felt his strength rapidly diminishing.

The faded ones, who had been watching intently from the sidelines, became incredibly excited upon seeing this scene, as if they had been injected with adrenaline.

"Kill him! Kill him!!"

"Steal his Great Rune!!"

Immediately, thirty or forty of the faded individuals began to shout excitedly.

They quickly abandoned their opponents and greedily charged towards Grek, eager to seize the final spoils of victory.

"Hehehe————hehehehe————"

Looking at the swarm of ants, Greck suddenly let out a low laugh.

The laughter, mixed with dry heaving, sounded extremely eerie.

"I am the king of gold—I will never lose to you lowly faded ones!!"

Greck frantically groped around in his arms.

Then, the trembling dominant hand suddenly pulled out a strange object.

Xia Tong could see it clearly thanks to her excellent eyesight.

It was a statue wrapped in luxurious fabric, resembling a lump of flesh.

The statue depicts a baby sleeping soundly in swaddling clothes.

However, the baby's hands were tightly bound to its sides, its eyes were closed, and its face, though seemingly peaceful, exuded an eerie stillness.

It resembled the corpse of an ominous infant.

What is most alarming is that the surface of this child statue is covered with more than a dozen shocking circular cuts.

These cuts are a dark red, like dried blood, scars left after the hard corners were cut off.

Xia Tong's brain quickly searched his memory, and suddenly, he remembered what it was.

An ominous image of a young child!

The broken edge on the statue was clearly visible.

Those were scars left by the deformed, hard horns that had been cruelly removed from the body of the child of the ominous sign.

With great effort, Grek straightened his back.

He closed his eyes tightly, gripped the resentful statue with both hands, and muttered incantations.

Immediately afterwards, clumps of illusory spirits, displaying a mixture of black and yellow hues, gushed out from the broken corners of the wounds like a burst dam.

They twisted and stretched in the air, eventually transforming into distorted faces of crying babies.

One after another, wave after wave.

Soon, hundreds of vengeful spirits of the ominous infants began to swarm around Greck.

As the wronged soul flew out, an extremely subtle, yet penetrating, infant cry began to echo in the air.

It was a demonic sound mixed with whispered prayers and vicious curses.

Please don't resent me—please don't curse me—

With a sudden swing of his arm, Greck activated the ominous infant statue.

The ominous vengeful spirits that hovered in the air, emitting shrill laughter, instantly locked onto the enemies in front of them and pounced on them relentlessly.

"Cry! Cry!!"

"Make way for your king!!"

Greck let out a piercing roar, then burst into wild laughter, his laughter filled with boundless madness.

The first to be hit were the enormous mountain trolls.

These colossal creatures, wielding massive golden swords, though thick-skinned and able to withstand blades and spears, proved utterly vulnerable to this intangible and intangible mental attack.

These wronged souls, like a leech, gnawed fiercely at the rough faces of the giants, frantically drilling into their eye sockets and ear canals.

"roar--!!"

Several mountain demons let out extremely painful cries.

They dropped their giant swords and frantically scratched their faces, their nails tearing through their flesh and drawing blood, as if trying to dig out the cries that had seeped into their brains, but all in vain.

The pain inflicted by these vengeful spirits reaches the depths of the soul and cannot be relieved through physical means.

Next to suffer were the short, demi-humans and the black-robed soldiers from Moen City.

The vengeful spirits pierced through their armor and exploded inside the soldiers' bodies.

The black-robed soldiers knelt down instantly, like wheat being cut down.

They were writhing on the ground in extreme pain, almost completely incapacitated.

"Damn it! How could that bastard Greck be so vicious?!"

Kenneth Hyde, who was watching from a distance, broke out in a cold sweat.

As a member of the orthodox nobility, he had never seen such a despicable and insidious tactic.

"You despicable scum! How dare you resort to such a cursed method!!"

Neferi Lou let out a furious roar.

Her twin eagle-patterned battle axes swung wildly in front of her, carrying explosive thunderous power.

With each axe strike, the accompanying thunderous power shattered the oncoming vengeful spirits into dust, turning them into black smoke and dissipating.

Fortunately, these vengeful spirits did not pose any real harm to Xia Tong's three ashes generals.

They are already in a spirit state, so these malevolent spirits targeting the souls of the living cannot effectively suppress them.

Oreg and Ingwell wielded their twin swords and halberds with lightning speed.

With just a few casual slashes accompanied by a storm, the two instantly shattered the vengeful spirits that tried to approach.

As for Ruthel, she was even more terrifying.

She was surrounded by half-person-high black and gold death flames.

The evil spirits of the infants around her seemed to have encountered their natural enemy, screaming and retreating in all directions, with no one daring to approach her even a little.

As for the other faded ones, more than half of them had practiced holy prayer.

Some of the weapons gleamed with a golden, holy light.

Xia Tong recognized that it was the effect of the Prayer Holy Law Sword Blade.

Other faded individuals, who lacked the power to control these wronged souls, also wisely kept their distance and were not affected.

But Greck has already achieved his goal.

With the help of the immense chaos created by the vengeful spirit of the ominous infant, he was finally able to catch his breath. He then clutched his severed arm and ran frantically toward the other side of the battlefield.

And at this very moment.

"Boom—!!"

The earth began to tremble violently.

It was as if an ancient behemoth was charging from the depths of Stoneville.

In the distance, a cloud of dust rose into the sky, and something incredibly heavy was rapidly approaching.

Xia Tong squinted, gazing into the distance from Torret's horse.

Then, his pupils dilated suddenly.

From the smoke and dust emerged nine enormous figures, each as large as a moving mountain of flesh.

They dragged massive black iron chains, charging from the edge of the battlefield toward Grek with an unstoppable, savage force.

He could see it clearly; it was a son of nine ominous signs!

Xia Tong was startled.

When he first entered Stoneville, he had only seen three or four of these monsters.

When the war started, he wondered why there weren't any of these tough-skinned guys on the battlefield.

Unexpectedly, Grek hid them all away as his last trump card.

Each of these ominous children has a huge, obese body.

Their grayish skin was covered with dense, disgusting, deformed hard horns, like tree burls.

These monsters, considered unclean by the Golden Law, were now spewing murky white breath as they charged towards them like mad bulls.

Behind them, nine thick iron chains secured a huge black hearse.

On the hearse was a giant coffin made of black wood.

"roar!!"

Although the coffin was incredibly heavy, it moved at an astonishing speed under the combined pull of the nine evil omen children, and no one could stop it.

Any Allied soldiers who stood in their way, whether demi-human or human, were knocked away and trampled flat.

Each of the Omens' Sons wields the heavy Omen Great Curved Sword in both hands.

They instantly broke through the defensive lines that the allied forces were trying to hold back.

The mountain demons and giants who could have stood up to them were still shaken by the ghosts they had just encountered, and they held their heads in their hands, too afraid to go forward.

Seeing the nine-headed ominous child charging towards him, Greck let out a joyful shout and ran towards it without hesitation.

"Stop him! Stop him!!"

Xia Tong shouted, her unease growing stronger.

However, the son of the ominous sign was running too fast and soon arrived in front of Grek.

Then, they all swung their swords and severed the chains behind them, leaving the huge coffin in place. Then, roaring, they surrounded Grek, forming an impenetrable defense.

Just as Oreg's twin swords were about to strike Grek, they were fiercely blocked by two sweeping Ominous Greatswords.

"when--!!"

Sparks flew everywhere, and Oreg was actually knocked back half a step.

Neferi and the others were the same; the nine-headed son of ominous signs guarded Grek's perimeter tightly, preventing anyone from getting an inch closer.

Upon seeing the defensive line erected by the nine sons of ominous signs, Grek burst into maniacal laughter.

He stumbled and lunged toward the stopped black coffin, forcefully ripping open the heavy lid with his right hand.

"Bang!"

A muffled thud.

A strong smell of old pine resin and the damp stench of a corpse instantly filled the entire inner courtyard square.

Xia Tong suddenly realized something and thought to herself that something was wrong.

Just as he had guessed.

The coffin contained the corpse of a huge dragon.

"—O dragon, a fellow descendant!"

"Your power is beyond question!!"

"Come on! Push me to even greater heights!!"