“By cutting off their supply lines, we can starve them of support.”
Jiang Lin’s finger traced across the map, circling three critical locations.
These were the junction points of the pollution veins, ranging from fifty to eighty kilometers from the base. Each node was occupied by tens of thousands of Aberrants.
“Split into three paths and attack the nodes simultaneously. Withdraw immediately after destroying them; do not linger for battle.”
The Bloodspeakers transmitted the command wordlessly.
One hundred thousand Blood Demons began to move slowly, like three crimson rivers branching off into three directions across the Corrupted Plains.
Jiang Lin chose the middle path, the largest node.
Fifteen thousand Blood Demons followed behind him. Crimson claw-wings blotted out the sky, Bloodblade Butchers marched in formation on the ground, and cursed blood bone dolls hovered in the center of the ranks.
He stood upon the back of a crimson claw-wing, his golden eyes staring at the dark red glow in the distance.
Two hours later, the node came into view.
It was a circular depression about two kilometers in diameter, resembling a massive crater left by a meteorite.
The crater walls were covered in a thick layer of crystallized substance, with a viscous dark red liquid flowing over the surface.
At the bottom of the pit, countless Aberrants were crowded together, biting, devouring, and fusing with one another.
In the center sat a massive, constantly pulsating meat tumor. Countless tentacles extended from its body, piercing into the surrounding rock walls and connecting to the entire network of pollution veins like blood vessels.
“Another factory,” Jiang Lin said, a cold glint in his eyes. “Destroy it.”
Fifteen thousand Blood Demons moved as one.
Crimson claw-wings dove down, their bone wings folded as they tore through the sky like a rain of dark red meteors.
Bloodblade Butchers advanced from the front, their four arms whirling like wheels. Wherever their bone blades passed, Aberrants fell in swaths like harvested wheat.
Cursed blood bone dolls hovered in mid-air, and blood-colored runes exploded one after another over the enemy ranks.
The battle lasted for six hours.
When the Shadow of Blood pierced the core of that massive meat tumor with its sword, the flow of pollution energy throughout the node came to a sudden halt.
The crystallized substance on the crater walls began to crack and peel away. The Aberrants, now deprived of their energy supply, became sluggish and disorganized, and were harvested in droves by the Blood Demon Legion.
Jiang Lin stood at the edge of the pit, looking down at the massive crater filled with the remains of Aberrants.
“What are the losses?”
The Bloodspeaker reported:
Of the fifteen thousand Blood Demons, four thousand were lost.
“Acceptable.”
He nodded and checked the status of the other two paths on his locator.
On the west path, twelve thousand Blood Demons had faced approximately thirty thousand Aberrants. Three thousand were lost, and the node was destroyed.
On the east path, eighteen thousand Blood Demons had faced about fifty thousand Aberrants. Six thousand were lost, and the battle at the node was still fierce.
“The east path needs support.”
With a thought, Jiang Lin led the remaining eleven thousand Blood Demons toward the east.
By the time he arrived, the battle on the east path was nearing its end.
The node’s meat tumor was being besieged by dozens of Bloodblade Butchers. Its surface was covered in cracks, and dark red bodily fluids geysered out.
As the final blow landed, the meat tumor exploded violently, and the pollution energy across the entire node dissipated instantly.
Victory on all three fronts.
The three pollution nodes on the base’s perimeter had been completely destroyed, and the pollution veins supplying energy to the base were severed.
“Withdraw and reorganize.”
Jiang Lin gave the order.
Of the one hundred thousand Blood Demons, thirteen thousand were lost, leaving eighty-seven thousand.
Meanwhile, the Aberrants surrounding the base had lost their entire supply of pollution energy.
This caused the monsters, which had been in a killing frenzy, to become sluggish and confused, with some even beginning to attack each other.
“Three days,” Jiang Lin estimated. “In three days, we should be ready to move again.”
He sat cross-legged on the back of the crimson claw-wing, circulating his three breathing techniques simultaneously as holy light magic and ice soul power cycled through his body.
The blood energy brought by the Shadow of Blood’s possession was also slowly restoring his mental strength.
At the same time, he prepared to use the newly collected flesh and blood as materials for a new summoning.
...
On the morning of the fourth day, as the first ray of dark red dawn pierced the pollution clouds, Jiang Lin leapt down from the top of the tower.
After three days of continuous summoning, the size of the Blood Demon Legion had been restored to over one hundred thousand.
“Departure.”
Jiang Lin leapt onto the back of the 3rd-rank peak crimson claw-wing and raised his right hand, pointing toward the base.
A crimson torrent shot into the sky.
One hundred thousand Blood Demons spread across the sky over the Corrupted Plains like a pouring tide.
Crimson claw-wings blotted out half the sky, their bone wings unfurled like a moving dark red cloud.
Bloodblade Butchers galloped in formation on the ground, each step making the earth tremble.
Cursed blood bone dolls hovered in the center of the ranks, their tiny skeletons making a light clicking sound in the wind.
One hundred and twenty kilometers was but a two-hour journey for the Blood Demon Legion.
When the agricultural research base covered in crystallized vines appeared in their vision, Jiang Lin raised his hand slightly. The entire legion slowed down instantly, hovering silently in mid-air.
The base was even more deathly silent than it had been three days ago.
The Aberrants that had been in a killing frenzy within the farmland ruins were now sluggish and confused.
However, Jiang Lin did not underestimate the enemy.
He closed his eyes and used the vision of a 3rd-rank elite crimson claw-wing to carefully scout every corner of the base.
At the perimeter of the base were dense crowds of Strollers and Piercers.
They were huddled among the ruins of collapsed buildings, the crystallized patterns on their bodies dull and their movements as slow as the walking dead.
In the middle of the base were the massive Devourers.
They had once been the most terrifying war machines on the battlefield, but now they lay motionless like silent hills, with only occasional twitches proving they were still alive.
The core area of the base was a relatively well-preserved complex of white buildings.
In the center of the complex was a massive hemispherical dome. The dome’s surface was covered in thick crystallized vines, but through the gaps in the vines, pale blue glass was still visible.
That was the gene bank.
And at the entrance to the gene bank, Jiang Lin saw the greatest threat to this operation.
It was an Aberrant he had never seen before.
It was as large as a small mountain, about fifteen meters tall, and its entire body was covered in a pitch-black crystallized carapace with dark red patterns flowing over it.
Its head was a massive mouth filled with spiral serrations that split from the top of its head down to its chest.
Its limbs were as thick as thousand-year-old trees, ending in six bone claws curved like scythes.
Most bizarre of all was its back.
Dozens of thick bone spikes grew there, and at the tip of each spike was embedded a dark red crystal the size of a human head. Dark red light pulsed slowly inside the crystals like a heartbeat.
It crouched silently at the entrance to the gene bank like an ancient behemoth guarding a treasure.
Jiang Lin could sense an aura from it that he had never felt from an Aberrant before.
It was... intelligence.
It wasn’t wandering aimlessly; it was guarding.
It was waiting—waiting for any intruders who dared to approach the gene bank.
“5th rank.”
Jiang Lin was shaken.
The power limit of this world was suppressed at the 3rd-rank peak, but this Aggregate had clearly broken through that limit.
It was composed of countless 3rd-rank peak Aberrants.
Ultimately, those lives had synthesized into a single powerful new life.
“No wonder the evil god designated the gene bank as a primary node. With a monster like this guarding it, it’s no wonder no one has been able to approach for three hundred years.”
Jiang Lin withdrew his consciousness and opened his eyes.
One hundred thousand Blood Demons hovered silently behind him, awaiting his command.
He did not rush into the attack. Instead, he took the locator from his spatial ring and pulled up the detailed structural diagram of the base.
The gene bank was located in the core area, surrounded by three rings of buildings: the laboratory, the seed bank, and the embryo cultivation center from before the Great Cataclysm.
Although those buildings were covered in crystallized vines, their overall structures remained intact, indicating that the builders of that era had used exceptionally high standards for seismic and corrosion-resistant materials.
“If I can take the gene bank intact... the breeding farm’s production capacity could increase tenfold from its current level.”
He put away the locator and issued his orders.
“Bloodspeakers.”
One hundred Bloodspeakers raised their heads simultaneously.
“Squads one through ten, you are responsible for clearing the outer Aberrants.
“Do not fight them head-on. Use your speed advantage to segment and surround them, then annihilate them one by one.
“Squads eleven through twenty, you are responsible for pinning down that big fellow.
“Do not get close to it. Use long-range attacks to deplete its energy.
“Squads twenty-one through thirty, follow me into the gene bank.”
The Bloodspeakers transmitted the commands wordlessly.
One hundred thousand Blood Demons began to move slowly, like ten crimson rivers branching off into different directions across the Corrupted Plains.
Jiang Lin took a deep breath and clenched his right hand.
The Eight Extremities Holy Sword condensed in his palm, its white-gold blade wrapped in deep blue ice soul power as the eight-colored runes on the guard cycled slowly.
The Shadow of Blood also emerged from his body, turning into a streak of crimson light that hovered by his side.
The golden eyes, identical to his own, gazed calmly at the pitch-black behemoth in the distance.
“Go.”
With that single word, one hundred thousand Blood Demons moved at once.
The battle on the perimeter turned white-hot in an instant.
The Aberrants that had lost their pollution energy supply were no match for the Blood Demons.
Crimson claw-wings dove down, their bone claws tearing through torsos and their bone wings severing limbs.
Bloodblade Butchers advanced from the front, their four arms whirling like wheels. Wherever their bone blades passed, severed limbs splattered like raindrops.
The cursed blood bone dolls’ curses exploded one after another over the enemy ranks, blasting swaths of Aberrants into a mist of blood.
In just fifteen minutes, more than half of the three hundred thousand Aberrants on the perimeter had been cleared.
However, the pitch-black behemoth at the gene bank entrance had not moved once.
It simply crouched there, its dark red eyes watching the distant slaughter with cold indifference, as if the kin being torn apart by the Blood Demons had nothing to do with it.
Jiang Lin did not rush to approach.
He brought the thirty thousand Blood Demons of squads twenty-one through thirty and stopped two kilometers away from the behemoth.
“Probing attack.”
One hundred Bloodblade Butchers raised the bone spikes on their backs simultaneously, firing a storm of blood crystals at the behemoth.
“Boom! Boom! Boom!”
The blood crystals exploded against the behemoth’s body, and dark red flames shot into the sky.
But when the dust cleared, the behemoth was still crouching in the same spot, without so much as a crack on its pitch-black carapace.
It slowly raised its head, and its dark red eyes finally turned toward Jiang Lin’s direction.
Then, it opened its massive mouth filled with spiral serrations.
A silent shriek.
It wasn’t a sound, but a mental shock that directly targeted the soul.
Invisible ripples spread out from the behemoth as the center. Everywhere they passed, the air twisted and trembled.
Jiang Lin felt a violent jolt in his mental sea, as if he had been struck hard by an invisible iron hammer. He groaned, a trace of blood leaking from the corner of his mouth.
The thirty thousand Blood Demons around him fared even worse.
The 2nd-rank Bloodblade Butchers and crimson claw-wings froze in place the moment the shriek reached them. The crimson light on their bodies fluctuated wildly before quickly dimming like a popped balloon.
In just three breaths, over three thousand Blood Demons lost consciousness and fell from the sky, crashing into the ground and kicking up clouds of crystal dust.
“A soul attack...”
Jiang Lin gritted his teeth, mobilizing the ice soul power—which also possessed soul attributes—to protect his mental sea.
At the same time, his mind shifted.
The Shadow of Blood turned into a streak of crimson light and charged straight for the behemoth.
The behemoth’s dark red eyes turned toward the Shadow of Blood, and it opened its massive mouth once more.
But this time, the Shadow of Blood did not give it the chance.
It accelerated abruptly mid-charge, its form becoming a blur of blood-colored lightning that reached the behemoth before the shriek could erupt.
Eight Extremities Holy Sword: Ice Flower · Eternal!
The Shadow of Blood gripped the blood-colored longsword with both hands, pointing the tip downward. A thick beam of blood-colored light erupted from the tip, stabbing straight for the behemoth’s eyes!
The behemoth finally moved.
Its massive body shifted sideways with a speed completely inconsistent with its size. Simultaneously, its right claw swept out, its six bone scythes tearing through the air and striking at the Shadow of Blood with an ear-piercing whistle.
The Shadow of Blood did not dodge. It swung its longsword horizontally, meeting the massive bone claw head-on!
“Clang!!!”
The deafening clash of metal made the surrounding buildings tremble.
The Shadow of Blood was sent flying by the terrifying force, tumbling through the air several times before barely stabilizing itself.
As for the behemoth, a crack deep enough to see bone had appeared on its right claw, and dark red fluid seeped out.
It looked down at its wound, then looked back up at the Shadow of Blood.
For the first time, a trace of wariness appeared in those dark red eyes.
Jiang Lin seized the opportunity.
“All-out assault!”
Thirty thousand Blood Demons moved at once.
The behemoth roared, no longer defending passively.
Its massive body charged forward like a mountain. Its six bone claws whirled like the wind, each strike tearing dozens of Blood Demons to shreds.
The bone spikes on its back fired continuously, and dark red crystals exploded among the Blood Demons, tearing everything nearby into powder.
But there were too many Blood Demons.
Thirty thousand Blood Demons swarmed from all directions, coming one after another like a never-ending tide.
They bit at the behemoth’s carapace and gnawed at its flesh, using their lives as the price to leave one wound after another on its body.
The behemoth’s resistance grew weaker and weaker.
Its carapace was torn open with countless gashes, and dark red bodily fluids geysered out.
Its movements became sluggish, and the strikes of its bone claws were no longer forceful.
Finally, as the thirteenth strike of the Shadow of Blood landed, the behemoth’s massive frame began to tilt.
“Boom!!!”
Like a collapsing mountain, the behemoth crashed heavily into the ground, kicking up a massive cloud of crystal dust.
It tried to struggle back to its feet, but the Shadow of Blood had already landed on its head. The longsword pierced through its brow, pinning it to the ground.
...
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