I created the myth of the Great Old Ones.

With no other options available, Lu Ban felt much more relaxed.

This feeling is like facing a vast number of unfinished assignments and exams, struggling for a while, only to realize that you can never hand them in on time, so you decide to lie down and wait to die—it's easy and pleasant.

With that in mind, Lu Ban immediately set off.

He arrived on the first floor, near the main entrance.

Outside, the winter wolves were scratching frantically at the fortress walls, making a piercing, tooth-grinding sound.

The entire fortress was covered by winter wolves, and the invisible magical barrier had long been frozen and shattered by the ice. The mages on the watchtower were still struggling to hold on, while the rangers who controlled the catapults and crossbows had all been killed or wounded.

Even more serious are the eternal night and the plague.

"Waaaaah!!!"

A crossbowman standing near the window suddenly screamed. He raised his hand and forcefully stabbed his fingers into his eye. The veins on the back of his hand bulged. Without hesitation, he gouged out his eyeball, discarded the lump of flesh, and then his bloody fingers probed into the eye socket. With each forceful thrust, his brain tissue, along with part of his skull, was completely destroyed, and he collapsed.

On the other side, a ranger standing by the window had a creeping shadow beneath his feet. Before he could even cry for help, he was flipped over from the inside out, his bones and flesh bursting open, and blood splattering onto the ceiling of the hall.

These two demonic tides invaded Blackburg using frost and spread rapidly.

A sorcerer quickly arrived. Facing the soldier who was infected with the plague and lunging at the other forest rangers, he did not hesitate. He simply raised his hand and twisted the soldier's neck, thus eradicating the source of infection.

Another mage's palm emitted light, binding the ranger who was entangled by the Night's Clan in the sunlight. With a muffled thud as flesh twisted, the ranger was twisted into a pretzel and collapsed to the ground.

bang——

The fortress gates were struck with tremendous force, but remained completely still.

bang——

Another terrifying crashing sound rang out, followed by the appearance of white frost on the edge of the door.

The white frost continued to spread and freeze, covering the entire door.

Flames ignited in the mage's hands, engaging in a tug-of-war with the white frost.

Anyone could see that if the gate were completely frozen, it would be as fragile as glass and easily destroyed by the winter wolves. At that point, everyone in Blackburg Fortress would become souls lost to the demonic tide.

The chaotic battle continued.

Lu Ban saw Birmingham, a young man holding a crossbow and firing out the window. He may have already killed a dozen or so smaller winter wolves, but that seemed insignificant in the face of the sheer number of demonic hordes.

"Don't wander off. Stay by my side. As long as you don't go near the window and keep a certain distance, you won't get infected by those things."

Birmingham also saw Lu Ban. He tossed a crossbow to Lu Ban, gave him some instructions, and then skillfully fired a bolt, which resulted in the death of a winter wolf.

"Trust me, we can stop them."

This boy, who was probably only sixteen or seventeen years old, seemed to be talking to himself as he repeatedly performed the actions of putting on his arrow, aiming, and firing, as if this could make him forget his despair.

Once you stop thinking, you won't feel fear.

"Ahhh!"

At the next window, a forest ranger, infected with the plague, raised his crossbow, which had been pointing out the window, and aimed it at his chin. Then, with trembling hands, he pulled the trigger.

The crossbow bolt pierced his head precisely, from his jaw to the top of his head, causing his sparse contents to splatter out and stain the wall.

"Go and fill that position."

Birmingham was expressionless, or rather, his expression had long been frozen by the winter chill. He pointed over there, gesturing for Lu Ban to come over.

Lu Ban did not move.

"What are you doing? Hurry up and go!"

Birmingham said another sentence, this time with a clear hint of anger in his tone.

"Your shadow."

Lu Ban pointed to Birmingham's lower body.

Birmingham was taken aback.

He looked down at his feet.

At some point, his shadow began to tremble, like a horsehair worm encountering water, twisting and contorting in a grotesque manner.

"Don't move."

As Lu Ban spoke, he had already materialized his [last words] in his hand.

Without hesitation or a moment's rest, he chose the bullet of the great being's ramblings, striking the shadow of Birmingham.

In an instant, the shadow expanded to its limit, then contracted, twisted, and with a barely perceptible groan, finally stopped writhing.

"You stand back."

Lu Ban grabbed Birmingham's shoulder and only then did he realize that the boy's clothes were soaked with sweat, and Birmingham's shoulders were trembling more than ever before.

His thoughts had come to a standstill. With Lu Ban pulling him, Birmingham instinctively trembled. Then, the muscles in his body that had been tense for too long suddenly collapsed, and he slumped to the ground, tears welling up in his eyes.

All the beliefs that had previously sustained him vanished, and Birmingham completely collapsed.

"Live well."

Lu Ban patted his shoulder, then stood up and went to the window.

"It seems that even intangible things can be affected by delirium."

He looked out the window at the chaotic monsters, the gusts of green, plague-laden wind, and the shadows that were constantly seeking an opportunity.

"In that case, Frost should also be affected."

Lu Ban made up his mind and climbed onto the window.

"What...what are you going to do..."

Birmingham suppressed the trembling in his body and finally managed to squeeze out a sound.

"Don't worry, I'll go save the world and come right back."

Lu Ban smiled, then flipped over and jumped out of the window.

Chapter 270 The Rebel

"We can't hold out for much longer."

Inside the domed hall, the mage in charge looked at the scenery outside with a solemn expression.

The simultaneous appearance of three demonic tides is an unprecedented situation, and no fortress can withstand these three days of demonic tides.

Moreover, no one knows if this demonic tide will really only last for three days. If it doubles in intensity and there's a nine-day blood moon, then the Night Kingdom will probably be completely destroyed.

No single spirit torch could sustain burning for so many days. Even if the great spirit torch inside the Gray Tower were activated, burning the one great mage among thousands of mages as fuel, it would only slow down the pace of human extinction.

In this situation, even desertion is no longer an option.

The entire fortress was surrounded by monsters like winter wolves. Even mages would be torn to pieces and devoured if they went out now. They could only stay here and either wait for the spirit torches to burn them to death, or stop burning the spirit torches and confront the monsters head-on to annihilate them all, or use the Eternal Blazing Sun to burn away all the monsters around them in one go, and then be devoured by the remaining monsters.

Horizontal, vertical, diagonal—it's all death. The blood moon, a symbol of death, hangs high overhead.

This seemingly hopeless situation ironically prevents people from falling into despair.

Almost no one flinched, showed fear, or went mad. Everyone was doing their own thing, picking up weapons, fighting the monsters, and then dying.

In this environment, only such mechanical, numb actions can make people feel at ease.

But the mage in charge suddenly noticed something was wrong.

"Has someone left the fortress?"

He looked into the raging mass of monsters.

He saw that someone seemed to be walking among the monsters.

Moreover, it wasn't heading in the direction of escape, but rather towards the depths of the Black Forest, towards the direction where the giant winter wolf was.

Beside that person, the monsters seemed to be disturbed in some way, either collapsing to the ground and convulsing, or going berserk and starting to fight each other with their own kind.

Even the wriggling shadows could hardly get close to that person. The mage observed carefully and found that the frost crystals also bypassed him, as if they were avoiding something.

Centered on that person, a small gap actually appeared in the demonic tide.

"Who is he, and what does he want?"

The mage in charge asked a question.

No one answered.

Jonah also came to the window and looked at the guy going against the flow.

"...It was him?"

"You know him? Which unit's mage is he from?"

The mage in charge looked at Jonah.

"No, he's not a mage... he's just a ranger's archer."

Jonah replied that he could not even quite remember the name of this man who was about his age.

"How did he avoid those monsters? Do you know what he's planning to do?"

This situation makes it hard not to suspect that the person heading towards the winter wolf might be related to the demonic tide. After all, in the Night Kingdom's understanding, the demonic tide is absolutely opposed to humanity, and its existence is for the purpose of destroying humanity. It is absolutely impossible for humans to walk in the demonic tide like that.

Even the great mages of the Gray Tower could only stand amidst the demonic tide and resist the monsters for a period of time.

People like Lu Ban, who go against the current and move forward head-on, simply do not exist in the Night Kingdom's understanding.

But Lu Ban was indeed moving forward.

Amidst the wind and snow, Lu Ban uttered endless murmurs.

Any rational being would go mad upon hearing those babblings, be severely corrupted, rapidly eroded, and transformed into a monster.

The faint, scratching sounds of fingernails on a blackboard intertwined with the deep, popping sounds of bubbles, spreading in the wind and causing the monsters around Lu Ban to distort.

Clearly, these monsters do not serve that great being; these ramblings are the strongest form of mental pollution for them.

Lu Ban saw a winter wolf lying on the ground. Something seemed to be wriggling inside its body, trying to break free. As Lu Ban passed by, its abdomen burst open with a popping sound, and from inside, green grass and trees grew vigorously, undaunted by the cold.

The writhing shadows that had been circling around Lu Ban seemed to fear the influence of these murmurs. Most of them fled, while a few twitched and twisted until they finally became motionless and turned into true shadows.

A green wind blew by, and in Lu Ban's [True Vision], the wind contained countless foreign characters. This was the wind of plague; inhaling it would infect one with the plague, control one, and ultimately kill one.