The temporary authority granted to him by 【Trial of Blood (3)】 changed the requirement for maintaining the Blood Demons' existence from consuming his magic essence to consuming a certain amount of flesh and blood.
Furthermore, it allowed him to summon even more Blood Demons by consuming that same flesh and blood.
The Sea of Blood surged.
A thick, bloody aura spread out from beneath Jiang Lin's feet like a massive, ever-expanding crimson carpet, covering every inch of the battlefield below.
The remains of fallen Blood Demons, the mangled corpses of Aberrants, and the black pus and dark red blood flowing through the ruins—everything was swallowed, transformed, and reshaped the moment it touched the Sea of Blood.
The Sea of Blood churned.
Countless bubbles rose from its depths, bursting to release a crimson mist.
Within the mist, figure after figure began to take shape.
First were the crimson claw-wings.
They struggled out of the Sea of Blood, their bone wings unfurling as they let out piercing screeches.
One, two, ten, fifty, a hundred...
Next were the cursed blood bone dolls.
Small bones floated up from the Sea of Blood, automatically snapping together and assembling as blood-colored runes appeared on their surfaces.
They drifted into the air, crimson soul-fires igniting within their hollow eye sockets.
Fifty, a hundred, two hundred...
Finally, the Bloodblade Butchers appeared.
A massive rift opened in the center of the Sea of Blood, and three-meter-tall crimson giants crawled out, their four arms swinging as the bone spikes on their backs glinted with a dangerous light.
Ten, twenty, thirty...
In just ten breaths of time, three hundred and eighty brand-new Blood Demons were born from the Sea of Blood!
The crimson claw-wings and cursed blood bone dolls hovered in the air, packed so densely they blotted out the sun.
The Bloodblade Butchers stood like mobile tanks of terror.
Their crimson eyes were like a burning sea of stars, painting the entire sky in the color of blood.
The corners of Jiang Lin's mouth curled slightly.
“Go!”
He lowered his right hand.
Three hundred and eighty Blood Demons surged toward the Aberrants on the streets like a pouring crimson torrent.
This time, the situation was completely reversed.
With three hundred and eighty new Blood Demons joined by the seventy-plus still fighting below, the army of over four hundred and fifty Blood Demons instantly tore through the Aberrants' defensive line.
At the same time, Jiang Lin began attempting to command these Blood Demons, ensuring they no longer fought as isolated individuals.
Instead, they began to coordinate on a large scale.
The crimson claw-wings formed several assault formations, moving like a well-trained army.
Fifty crimson claw-wings dove simultaneously, their bone wings tucked tight to their sides, turning into fifty crimson meteors that slammed into the most densely packed area of Aberrants!
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The consecutive impacts carved dozens of deep craters into the ground, and the resulting shockwaves sent everything nearby flying.
Before the Aberrants could react, the crimson claw-wings that had slammed into the ground stood up, their bone claws tearing through the nearest targets and their bone wings slicing through any enemies that pounced.
They formed circular arrays back-to-back, covering each other like precision-engineered killing machines.
Hovering in the air, the cursed blood bone dolls no longer released their curses sporadically; they began to synchronize.
One hundred cursed blood bone dolls raised their right claws simultaneously, their small skeletal fingers tracing the same path in the air.
A second later, a massive blood-colored rune over thirty meters in diameter manifested above the densest cluster of Aberrants.
The rune rotated, its light flaring brilliantly.
Vroom!!!
Amidst an eerie humming sound, dozens of Aberrants below froze at once, their bodies becoming covered in dense, blood-colored lines.
The lines spread and interlaced until they finally merged into a single pattern.
Pfft!
The bodies of those Aberrants exploded simultaneously, turning into a spray of black pus that splashed onto their nearby kin.
The Aberrants hit by the pus let out shrill shrieks as their skin began to dissolve and slough off, revealing the twisted flesh beneath.
Meanwhile, the cursed blood bone dolls' second round of curses had already arrived.
Once the cursed blood bone dolls reached a certain number, Jiang Lin felt a faint intuition that they were capable of using such a group curse.
The Bloodblade Butchers, for their part, formed a true mobile Great Wall.
Thirty Bloodblade Butchers stood side-by-side, advancing with rhythmic, heavy steps.
Their four arms swung in unison, their bone blades weaving a dense, airtight web of death. Everything in their path was crushed, severed, and shredded.
The bone spikes on their backs fired periodically, and the blood crystals exploded deep within the enemy ranks, blowing apart any Aberrants attempting to flank them from behind.
The Aberrants resisted, struggled, and fought back.
They were, after all, the creations of the evil god Mozos, possessing vitality and aggression far beyond that of normal creatures.
Aggregates roared as they charged the Bloodblade Butchers' line, the human faces embedded in their torsos opening their mouths to unleash a piercing mental shriek in unison.
The Bloodblade Butchers' movements stalled for a split second, and several Aggregates took the opportunity to pounce, stabbing their crystal tentacles into the giants' bodies.
But in the next second, dozens of crimson claw-wings struck from the flanks, tearing those Aggregates into fragments.
More Aberrants poured out from the depths of the ruins, throwing themselves forward regardless of the cost, driven only by the desire to shred everything before them.
The cursed blood bone dolls' curses fell continuously, causing dozens of Aberrants to explode, dissolve, or collapse with every round.
Yet, new Aberrants immediately filled the gaps.
The crimson claw-wings' assault formations wove through the enemy swarm, every charge claiming the lives of over a dozen Aberrants.
However, their numbers were also steadily dwindling.
Some were tackled by Aggregates, some were impaled by crystal tentacles, and some had their cores shattered by mental shrieks...
The Bloodblade Butchers' line was being pushed back, trembling and teetering on the edge of collapse.
The battle had entered a brutal war of attrition.
Jiang Lin remained in the sky, still standing atop the largest crimson claw-wing.
His long blond hair fluttered in the wind, and a bloody light swirled around him.
Below, four hundred and fifty Blood Demons were locked in a death match with thousands of Aberrants. Every second, lives were snuffed out, and every second, new flesh was devoured.
But he knew this wasn't enough.
There were too many Aberrants.
They poured out from every corner of Rusty Town—crawling out of ruined basements, collapsed factories, and mountains of debris—as if they could never be fully eradicated.
“Then let's see whose numbers are truly greater.”
Jiang Lin raised his right hand, palm facing downward.
The Sea of Blood surged once more.
This time, he began to consciously manipulate the flow of flesh and blood on the battlefield.
The remains of Aberrants torn apart by the Blood Demons, the bodies of fallen Blood Demons, and even the struggling, dying Aberrants—everything was drawn by the Sea of Blood, converging toward the area beneath his feet.
The thick, bloody aura spread like a living thing, covering more and more of the battlefield.
The moment any remains were swallowed by the Sea of Blood, they were converted into pure flesh-and-blood energy and stored within that crimson void.
Then, this energy was reshaped.
A crimson claw-wing struggled out of the Sea of Blood, its bone wings unfurling as it let out a piercing screech.
The moment it was born, it immediately dove into the battlefield below, joining the intense melee.
Then came a second, a third, a tenth, a twentieth...
Jiang Lin maintained the pace of his summoning, steady and unhurried, like a precision machine.
His magic essence was being continuously consumed, but every bit of consumption yielded new combat power.
Once these newly summoned Blood Demons entered the fray, they would tear apart more Aberrants, providing even more flesh-and-blood energy and creating a perfect cycle.
Jiang Lin wasn't just summoning new Blood Demons to join the fight, either.
He looked down at the battlefield below, learning how to command an army.
The mental link of every Blood Demon was connected to his consciousness, allowing him to perceive hundreds of perspectives, thousands of auras, and tens of thousands of heartbeats simultaneously.
This volume of information was a bit much for even his mental strength to handle.
As a result, he began trying to filter out certain perceptions and reduce the number of visual perspectives he was monitoring to alleviate the pressure.
It had been manageable with only four hundred Blood Demons, but as their numbers grew, precise command became increasingly taxing.
So, he tried to let these Blood Demons fight by instinct as much as possible while still coordinating with one another.
However, these Blood Demons didn't possess much intelligence.
They couldn't understand complex instructions.
They only knew how to kill based on their instincts and follow Jiang Lin's direct orders.
After attempting to command them for several dozen minutes, Jiang Lin finally chose to cut off all sensory perspectives.
After such a long period of devouring, the number of Blood Demons had reached a terrifying level.
If he were to accept all the information from these Blood Demons at once, it would be like being hit by a version of Unlimited Void that had been weakened countless times.
Speaking of which, did he have the ability to transfer the perspectives of his Blood Demon army to someone else?
If he did, wouldn't he just need to summon enough Blood Demons and then transfer their perspectives to his opponent? Forcing them to process a massive amount of useless information in a short time would basically be his own version of Unlimited Void.
He shook his head, discarding the somewhat absurd thought.
By now, the number of Blood Demons had reached one thousand two hundred.
The Aberrant swarm had been mostly torn apart by the Blood Demon legion.
Only about three thousand five hundred remained.
Jiang Lin gave up on direct command and let the Blood Demon legion act freely.
He simply acted as a summoner who spammed units.
Three thousand five hundred Aberrants against one thousand two hundred Blood Demons.
The Aberrants still held the numerical advantage, but the Blood Demons' regenerative capabilities and the continuous summoning were slowly eating away at that gap.
Three thousand three hundred against one thousand four hundred.
Three thousand against one thousand six hundred.
Two thousand five hundred against one thousand eight hundred.
Every Aberrant that fell became nourishment for the birth of a Blood Demon.
And every Blood Demon born accelerated the death of the Aberrants.
It was a virtuous cycle—a terrifying, self-strengthening loop.
By this point, Jiang Lin's mental strength had recovered by more than half.
A look of ruthlessness flashed in his golden eyes.
The Sea of Blood surged again, this time more violently than ever before.
The remains piled across the battlefield were drawn in simultaneously, and countless amounts of flesh-and-blood energy converged beneath his feet like a hundred rivers flowing into the sea.
Then, it was all released at once.
Fifty, eighty, a hundred...
When the one hundred and twentieth brand-new Blood Demon struggled out of the Sea of Blood, the very ground of Rusty Town trembled.
Two thousand three hundred Blood Demons.
The number of Aberrants had now dropped to fewer than one thousand eight hundred.
On the battlefield, those Aberrants—who were normally fearless in the face of death—hesitated for the first time.
They lacked wisdom, possessing only instinct.
But instinct told them that the enemy before them was growing stronger while their own numbers were dwindling.
Some Aberrants began to retreat, attempting to flee this bloody purgatory.
However, their efforts were clearly futile.
The cursed blood bone dolls' curses fell simultaneously, sealing off all paths of retreat.
Crimson claw-wings flanked them from all directions, forcing the fleeing Aberrants back into the center of the battlefield.
The Bloodblade Butchers advanced from the front with heavy steps, their bone blades sending severed limbs flying like rain.
From that moment on, the battle for the final one thousand eight hundred Aberrants became a one-sided slaughter by the two thousand three hundred Blood Demons.
When the last Aberrant was cleaved in two by a Bloodblade Butcher's blade and the final roar faded into the ruins, Rusty Town fell into a deathly silence.
Only the wind blew through the ruins, kicking up dark red dust.
Jiang Lin descended slowly, his feet landing on the cracked stone pavement.
His face was somewhat pale, and fine beads of sweat dotted his forehead.
Two hours of continuous large-scale summoning and commanding had nearly exhausted his mental strength.
He did not collapse, however. He simply took out two magic restoration potions and drank them down.
The bitter liquid went down his throat, turning into a warm energy that flowed through his body.
The fatigue in his mental sea eased slightly, though he was still far from a full recovery.
He looked around.
Amidst the ruins, two thousand seven hundred Blood Demons stood silently.
Crimson claw-wings perched atop collapsed buildings, their bone wings folded as their dark red eyes looked toward their master.
Cursed blood bone dolls hovered in the air, their small skeletal frames vibrating slightly in the wind as the blood runes on their bodies flowed slowly.
The Bloodblade Butchers stood in the middle of the street, their four arms hanging low, the bone spikes on their backs emitting a dangerous glow.
They were all waiting.
Waiting for his command.
Jiang Lin ordered the Blood Demons to wait in place.
Then, with a thought, a blood-colored figure slid off him like a fading veil, slowly solidifying in the air.
It was the Shadow of Blood, still in the process of copying his current state.
It still maintained his previous appearance.
Less than a day had passed since it was last summoned and possessed him.
That was nowhere near enough time for it to finish copying him.
However, since its breakthrough limit had vanished, Jiang Lin had it emerge early to increase its rank.
Jiang Lin had tried earlier, but he wasn't sure if his magic essence was insufficient or if the flesh provided was lacking.
For the time being, he was unable to summon Blood Demons above the 2nd-rank.
He suspected this might be due to the Shadow of Blood.
If the Shadow of Blood broke through to the 3rd-rank, he should be able to summon 3rd-rank Blood Demons.
After all, according to the system, the summoning restrictions had been adjusted, allowing him to summon higher-rank Blood Demons.
And 3rd-rank Blood Demons certainly did not exceed the power limits of this world.
There was no reason he shouldn't be able to summon them.
Therefore, the restriction was very likely linked to the Shadow of Blood.
Jiang Lin sent out a command with his mind.
The Shadow of Blood, looking like his twin brother, turned into a streak of bloody light and attacked the massive Blood Demon legion around it.
Rate on N.U.
