The Rust Mine was located on the edge of the Corrupted Plains, approximately two hundred kilometers from Rusty Town.
As the Blood Demon Legion crossed the bridge soaked in blood and truly stepped into the territory of the Corrupted Plains, Jiang Lin could clearly feel the concentration of pollution in the air spike.
The sky here was no longer the dull red of Rusty Town, but a deep purple that seemed almost solidified. The clouds hung low like lead plates, and dark red lightning occasionally burst silently within them, illuminating the land like the entrance to hell.
There were no longer ruins on the ground, only continuous, grotesque crystallized landscapes resembling coral reefs.
Those crystal clusters grew savagely from the soil, some reaching several meters in height. Their surfaces flowed with a viscous dark red liquid that reflected an eerie luster under the flashes of lightning.
The air was so thick it felt as though one could wring water from it, and with every breath, one could feel the polluted energy writhing in their nasal cavity, throat, and lungs.
The holy light magic essence on Jiang Lin's skin flowed automatically, a pale golden halo isolating him from this cursed land.
One thousand six hundred Blood Demons sped forward silently behind him.
Crimson claw-wings glided at low altitudes, their bone wings spread like a moving dark red cloud.
Cursed blood bone dolls hovered in the center of the formation, their tiny bones making a light clicking sound in the polluted air, the blood-red runes on their bodies glowing even brighter than they had in Rusty Town.
Bloodblade Butchers marched in formation on the ground, their four arms hanging down, each step leaving deep cracks in the crystallized earth.
Jiang Lin stood on the back of the 3rd-rank peak crimson claw-wing, holding the locator the silver-haired woman had given him.
On the screen, a massive deep-red dot was rapidly approaching.
They had reached the Rust Mine.
From the air, it looked like a massive depression over five kilometers in diameter, as if a meteorite from beyond the heavens had smashed a deep pit into the earth.
Three massive open-pit mines were arranged in a triangular formation. The walls of the pits were steep rock layers, their surfaces covered in a thick layer of dark red crystallized matter that looked like flowing blood under the lightning.
Between the pits were dense building ruins.
Collapsed workshops, rusted conveyor belts, overturned mine carts, and fallen office buildings...
Everything was covered in crystallized vines, twisted into bizarre shapes under the dark red sky.
Those vines spread from the depths of the pits, connecting to every building like blood vessels, pulsating slowly as if the entire ruin were a single, massive, living organism.
And Aberrants were everywhere.
They crowded every street, every ruin, and every edge of the pits.
Some crouched atop collapsed workshops, some hung from crystallized vines, and others writhed, crawled, and devoured each other deep within the mines.
Jiang Lin gave a rough estimate: at least twenty thousand, perhaps even more.
He stood atop a derelict signal tower ten kilometers away from the mine.
His golden eyes peered through the pervasive fog of pollution, staring at the dead industrial ruins in the distance.
He raised his hand, and the Blood Demon Legion hovered in mid-air.
"Reconnaissance."
He issued the command through the Bloodspeakers.
One hundred crimson claw-wings broke from the formation and scattered silently, weaving through the ruins like dark red ghosts.
Their vision was continuously fed back into Jiang Lin's consciousness through the Bloodspeakers' mental link.
The outskirts of the pits were packed with Strollers and Piercers.
They crowded the open spaces between the ruins, tearing at, devouring, and merging with one another. From time to time, a new Aggregate would struggle out from the piles of flesh, letting out a piercing screech.
In the middle section of the pits were the massive Devourers.
They were like moving hills, each step making the ground tremble. Their bodies were embedded with the remains of the Aberrants they had consumed, which still writhed slowly and emitted low moans.
Deep within the pits, the pollution concentration was so high that even the vision of the crimson claw-wings became blurred.
But Jiang Lin could vaguely see a massive, constantly pulsating dark red meat tumor at the bottom.
Countless crystallized vines extended from the tumor, piercing into the surrounding rock walls, connecting to the entire ruin like blood vessels.
It was a Super Aggregate.
At least at the peak of the 4th rank, perhaps even touching the threshold of the 5th.
Jiang Lin withdrew his consciousness, his golden eyes narrowing slightly.
"Clear the perimeter first."
He raised his right hand, palm facing downward.
The Sea of Blood surged, and viscous blood energy erupted from his palm, spreading rapidly through the air.
This time, he held nothing back.
One thousand six hundred Blood Demons dove simultaneously like a torrential downpour of blood, smashing violently into the most densely populated area of Aberrants!
The battle turned white-hot in an instant.
The crimson claw-wings were the sharpest blades.
They folded their bone wings and dove, their sharp claws tearing through the torsos of the Aberrants, plowing blood-colored trenches through the dense enemy swarms.
Their bone wings spun like blade-wheels, and wherever they passed, severed limbs and broken bodies splashed down like rain.
The Bloodblade Butchers advanced from the front, their four arms swinging like wheels as their bone blades shattered any enemy in their path.
The bone spikes on their backs fired repeatedly, and blood crystal blasts erupted deep within the enemy ranks, tearing everything within dozens of meters to shreds.
The cursed blood bone dolls hovered in mid-air, their tiny skeletal fingers rising simultaneously to trace the same patterns in the air.
One massive blood-red rune after another appeared above the most densely packed areas of Aberrants, and the power of the curse poured down like a tide.
The Aberrants struck by the curses developed dense blood-red patterns on their bodies before their frames exploded, turning into viscous black pus.
However, the Aberrants also demonstrated the terrifying advantage of their numbers.
They threw themselves forward in waves, using their overwhelming numbers and their fearlessness in the face of death to try and crush the Blood Demons.
Whenever a Blood Demon fell, its remains were swallowed by the Sea of Blood and transformed into new combat power in an extremely short amount of time.
And as the Aberrants were torn apart, their flesh and blood also merged into the Sea of Blood, becoming nourishment to sustain the Blood Demon Legion.
The battle lasted for half an hour.
The number of the Blood Demon Legion grew from one thousand six hundred to two thousand three hundred, then to three thousand, and then to three thousand eight hundred.
As for the number of Aberrants, it dropped from twenty thousand to fifteen thousand, then to ten thousand, and finally to six thousand.
Finally, the Aberrants on the outskirts of the pits were completely wiped out.
And the Blood Demon Legion had grown to five thousand six hundred in number.
The ruins were piled with dark red crystal dust—the powder of Aberrant remains—flickering with an eerie luster under the lightning.
The Blood Demon Legion stepped over the crystal dust, advancing toward the middle section of the pits.
"Continue the advance."
Jiang Lin stood in the air, looking down at the battlefield below.
His face was somewhat pale.
Although summoning Blood Demons no longer required his magic essence, allowing him to summon without limit, the continuous large-scale summoning still took a significant toll on his mental energy.
But now was not the time to worry about that.
He turned his attention back to the battlefield.
The battle in the middle of the pits was even more brutal.
Those Devourers were too large and their hides too thick; the bone blades of the Bloodblade Butchers could only leave shallow wounds on them, and those wounds would heal in a very short time.
The claws of the crimson claw-wings could not tear through their flesh, and the curses of the cursed blood bone dolls could not penetrate the thick crystallized shells on their bodies.
One Devourer was besieged by dozens of Blood Demons. It let out an earth-shaking roar, the crystallized patterns on its body flaring brilliantly as a terrifying suction force erupted from within it.
The surrounding Blood Demons were pulled by that suction, their bodies flying toward it uncontrollably, only to be swallowed, crushed, and absorbed by the many gaping maws constantly opening and closing on its body.
In just ten breaths, over fifty Blood Demons were consumed by that Devourer.
Jiang Lin's eyes narrowed, and with a thought, fifty Bloodblade Butchers turned simultaneously.
The bone spikes on their backs fired in unison, and blood crystal blasts erupted on the Devourer's surface, blowing countless cracks into its thick crystallized shell.
One hundred crimson claw-wings flanked it, their bone wings spinning like blade-wheels as they cut into the Devourer's body through those cracks.
The Devourer let out a howl of pain, the crystallized patterns on its body flashing frantically as black pus erupted from the gashes, but it did not fall.
The gaping maws on its body snapped wildly, trying to consume more Blood Demons to recover from its injuries.
But the Blood Demons gave it no chance.
The curses of the cursed blood bone dolls poured down like a tide, those blood-red runes spreading and intertwining on the Devourer's body, corroding dense holes into its crystallized shell.
The blood crystal blasts of the Bloodblade Butchers exploded within those holes, shattering the Devourer's internal organs.
Finally, the Devourer's massive frame began to tilt. Like a mountain collapsing, it smashed heavily onto the ground, kicking up a cloud of crystal dust.
It was dead.
But more Devourers were emerging from the depths of the pits.
Jiang Lin frowned. He could feel the pulsation of the Super Aggregate deep within the pit accelerating.
Those pulsations were like a heartbeat; every beat made the entire ruin tremble, and every beat saw new Aberrants crawling out from the depths of the mine.
"It's producing new Aberrants."
Jiang Lin felt a chill in his heart.
This Super Aggregate was not just a powerful combat unit; it was a living munitions factory.
It consumed the polluted energy deep within the mine and transformed it into Aberrants, continuously replenishing the front line's losses.
If it wasn't destroyed, this battle would never end.
Jiang Lin took a deep breath, a hint of ruthlessness flashing in his golden eyes.
He raised his right hand, palm facing downward.
The Sea of Blood surged, and this time, he held nothing back.
The remains of all the fallen Blood Demons, the torn pieces of every Aberrant, and all the black pus and dark red blood flowing through the ruins were drawn by him, converging toward the space beneath his feet.
That flesh and blood energy was like a hundred rivers returning to the sea, pouring into that crimson void before being reshaped.
Fifty, one hundred, two hundred, three hundred...
In just ten breaths, three hundred brand-new Bloodblade Butchers struggled out of the Sea of Blood and pounced toward the battlefield below!
The defensive line was stabilized once more.
But the number of Aberrants still seemed endless.
They continued to pour out from the depths of the pits as if they could never be fully killed.
Jiang Lin frowned.
He clearly felt that something deep in the mine was continuously "manufacturing" Aberrants.
A significant portion of the remains torn apart by the Blood Demons was not being swallowed by the Sea of Blood but was being drawn by some invisible force into the depths of the mine.
Then, new Aberrants would crawl out.
"I see."
Jiang Lin understood.
The Rust Mine was not a simple gathering zone for Aberrants; it was a "factory."
A factory established by the evil god Mozos to continuously manufacture Aberrants.
Deep within the pits, there had to be something recycling remains, reshaping flesh, and manufacturing new monsters.
"I must destroy that thing."
Jiang Lin took a deep breath and shifted his mind.
The Shadow of Blood possessing him transformed into a streak of blood-red light, peeling away from his body and hovering beside him.
Because its rank was now one higher than Jiang Lin's and due to the contract link, the Shadow of Blood's replication speed had become much faster.
In just these two or three short days, it had completely replicated Jiang Lin's current form.
It had blood-red hair and eyes, a perfect and flawless face, and within the blood-colored light surrounding it, a faint golden glow could be seen.
"Go."
Jiang Lin pointed toward the depths of the pits.
The Shadow of Blood turned into a streak of blood-red lightning, tearing through the air and charging straight into the bottomless pit!
Deep within the mine, darkness and pollution intertwined into a thick, dark red mist.
The Shadow of Blood fell at high speed. The surrounding air pressure rose sharply while the temperature plummeted.
Through the Shadow of Blood's perception, Jiang Lin could clearly "see" the internal structure of the mine.
The first hundred meters consisted of derelict mining tunnels, their rock walls covered in thick dark red moss, with countless Aberrants crowded in the tunnels like insects, tearing at and devouring each other.
At two hundred meters, the tunnels disappeared, replaced by a massive natural cavern.
The cavern was over five hundred meters in diameter. Countless stalactite-like flesh tissues hung from the ceiling, pulsating slowly, with dark red light flashing through their patterns with every beat.
At the bottom of the cavern was a massive "flesh pool."
It was a flesh-and-blood marsh formed from the fusion of countless Aberrant remains, with viscous dark red liquid churning and boiling within it.
Bubbles constantly rose from the depths and burst, releasing a pungent, rotting stench.
In the center of the flesh pool, a massive meat tumor over ten meters in diameter was pulsating slowly.
Its surface was covered in vessel-like networks, with dark red light flowing through them.
Countless tentacles extended from the meat tumor, piercing deep into the flesh pool to draw energy from the remains.
Even more bizarrely, new Aberrants were constantly "growing" out from the surface of the meat tumor.
They struggled out of the tumor, covered in viscous body fluids, let out their first roar, and then crawled out of the flesh pool and up the rock walls to join the battlefield on the surface.
"So this is... the factory core manufacturing the Aberrants."
The Shadow of Blood hovered above the cavern, its crimson eyes staring at the massive meat tumor.
The meat tumor seemed to sense the threat, and the networks on its surface suddenly flared.
Countless tentacles erupted from the flesh pool, coiling toward the Shadow of Blood!
The Shadow of Blood did not dodge.
It simply raised its right hand and made a grasping motion.
A longsword that was almost identical to the Eight Extremities Holy Sword, only entirely blood-red, condensed in its palm.
The blade vibrated slightly, and the blood-colored light surged.
Then, it swung the sword.
First Style · Frost Condensation.
No, it should be the Shadow of Blood version of Frost Condensation.
There was no icy blue frost, only a blood-red sword light condensed to the absolute limit.
The sword light passed silently through the erupting tentacles.
All the tentacles froze simultaneously, dense blood-red patterns appearing on their surfaces before they shattered inch by inch, turning into a mist of blood that filled the air.
The Shadow of Blood did not stop. Its body transformed into a streak of blood-red light, charging straight for that meat tumor!
...
Rate on N.U.
