As the giant blade materialized, Sivating moved.
In this moment, Sivating was no longer a commander.
Instead, he was an unstoppable spear!
The golden figure plunged directly into the crowd of half-mermen, his giant blade sweeping through; flesh and blood flew wherever he passed.
The three-meter-tall half-mermen were like paper before him, sliced in half with a single stroke as black blood erupted and organs scattered across the ground.
A straight path of blood was left in his wake, with mangled limbs and broken bodies piled on both sides.
Sivating was too fast, moving so quickly that the monsters had no time to react.
The Holy Armored Army soldiers maintained their formation and advanced slowly, covering his flanks.
As the Holy Armored Army pushed deeper, the golden light on their bodies was steadily worn down, but this did not affect the coordination of the military array; their spears were like a forest, turning any stragglers into pincushions.
With Sivating breaking the front, Alice's advance on the flank grew even faster.
Every time her Thunder Warhammer fell, thunder crackled and exploded, claiming the life of a half-merman.
On the high platform, Hans commanded the scout team to maintain a continuous stream of fire, alchemical crossbow bolts raining down into the crowd of monsters; blue flames spread across the half-mermen, causing them to emit piercing shrieks.
It was a one-sided slaughter.
The number of half-mermen was rapidly dwindling.
The warehouse was right before their eyes.
...
Inside the warehouse, the atmosphere was heavy to the extreme.
A salty, fishy stench of seawater permeated the dim space, the ground was covered in complex runes, and dark red candlelight flickered in the corners.
Over a dozen grey-cloaked figures knelt on the ground, chanting ancient prayers in low voices.
In their center, a figure clad in deep blue robes stood before the altar.
His human hands had already completely mutated into tentacles, which now hovered over a box wrapped in black cloth, guiding the flow of a certain power.
The ritual was already halfway complete.
However, the sounds of battle outside were drawing closer.
A grey-cloaked figure rushed in, fear in his voice: "My lord! The Holy Armored Army has broken through the second defensive line! That golden monster... we can't stop him at all!"
The High Priest did not open his eyes; his voice drifted out from beneath his hood like bubbles rising from the bottom of the water: "You can't stop him?"
"Yes... and there's that woman with the hammer; she's charging directly toward us!"
The High Priest fell silent for a moment.
Then, he opened his eyes.
"It seems... it must be done ahead of schedule."
He lifted his tentacles, tracing an arc in the air.
Outside the warehouse, the rain suddenly intensified.
Lu Yuan noticed the anomaly.
The light drizzle turned into a torrential downpour, with raindrops as large as beans hammering against armor with a dense, rhythmic pitter-patter.
Even more eerily, when the rain fell on the half-mermen, their movements actually became faster.
Their greyish-blue scales took on a sheen in the rain, as if they had been injected with new strength.
Then, a song began to drift through the air.
Ethereal, distant.
It was as if it came from the deepest, furthest reaches of the seabed, passing through ten thousand fathoms of water, through endless darkness, and finally reaching everyone's ears with the falling raindrops.
The melody had no lyrics, yet it made people inexplicably want to listen.
To draw closer.
To sink into that dark sea.
Lu Yuan shook his head, easily shaking off the song's influence.
The reason he could do this was his exceptionally high Sanity cap, but the Holy Armored Army and the Nightwatchers did not have that luxury.
As the song appeared, the golden light on the Holy Armored Army soldiers began to dim, as if suppressed by something.
Sivating's giant blade continued to swing, but the condensed light was no longer as dazzling as before.
The connections within the military array began to loosen.
The half-mermen, who already possessed low sanity, now lost it completely.
Their previously somewhat orderly charge turned into total madness as they hissed and roared, throwing themselves desperately at the Holy Armored Army's line.
Some half-mermen were pierced through the chest by spears, yet they endured the erosion of the golden light and grabbed the spear shafts to charge forward, forcing themselves right in front of the soldiers to bite through their necks.
Some had their arms cut off but remained completely unconcerned, using their massive bodies to frantically slam into the formation.
They had lost their survival instinct.
Or rather—the song made them forget everything, including death.
The Holy Armored Army's advance slowed significantly, their previously unstoppable momentum halted by this wave of frenzied counterattacks.
Alice's lightning continued to flash, but her speed also dropped; not from a lack of stamina, but because the enemies were too crazed, forcing her to expend more energy on defense.
Just then, something even more terrifying happened.
The human cultists embedded within the half-mermen's bodies all stopped their prayers simultaneously.
Fanatical smiles appeared on their faces.
"For the Mother..."
The cultists' bodies began to melt and dissolve.
Starting from the skin, their entire beings began to liquefy like candles met with flame.
Yet they did not scream.
Instead, they sang.
Their voices merged into that ethereal melody, making it even clearer.
Flesh and blood turned into a dark red liquid that flowed out of the half-mermen, shrouding the entire area in a foul stench.
That liquid did not fall to the ground; instead, it floated into the air, gathering into a dark red cloud.
In the next moment.
A red rain began to fall from the sky.
A rain of blood.
When it hit the ground, it did not soak in; instead, it pooled and spread.
The entire battlefield was transformed into a dark red swamp.
At this moment, the song and the blood rain intertwined, creating a scene that looked like hell itself.
In the distance, a faint stabbing pain flared in Lu Yuan's mind.
At the edge of his vision, greyish-white text flickered:
【Encountered composite mental pollution: Deep Sea Song and Blood Tide Sacrifice】
【Traits: The song breaks the will while the blood swamp erodes the flesh; under the double layering, the pollution effect is multiplied】
【Weaknesses: Requires continuous chanting to maintain; destroying the ritual core can terminate it】
【Sanity: -2, 32/70】
【Sanity III: +1, 22.2/70 (EXP)】
Lu Yuan frowned; if he was experiencing this level of influence while not even at the center, what about the Nightwatchers? They didn't have the protection of the Holy Armored Army.
The situation on the battlefield took a sharp turn for the worse with the appearance of the blood rain and the song.
Despite the lingering golden light on the Holy Armored Army, the soldiers' feet sank into the blood swamp, making every step incredibly difficult.
Sivating's golden light struggled within the swamp; when he tried to pull his foot out, the blood swamp clung to him like a living thing, refusing to let go.
Alice smashed her hammer into the head of a lunging half-merman, causing the monster's head to explode into a spray of flesh, but as she did, the surrounding blood swamp also coiled around her.
In contrast, the half-mermen moved through the blood swamp as if they were in their natural element, their speed increasing rather than decreasing, moving freely through the red mire as if they had returned to the deep sea.
But the Nightwatchers were not entirely unprepared.
Alice pulled a small vial from her waist, uncorked it, and downed it.
As the pale blue liquid hit her throat, a cool sensation spread from her stomach, causing the whispers and hallucinations in her mind to fade significantly.
"Drink your potions!" Hans's voice rang out from the high platform.
The scout team members followed suit, each pulling out a vial and drinking it down.
The Nightwatchers' movements stabilized noticeably; though they couldn't match the protection of the Holy Armored Army's golden light, they could at least barely resist the erosion of the Deep Sea Song.
Mary stood atop the base's high ground, her silver halo expanding desperately as she tried to neutralize the effects of the song and the blood swamp. However, her face grew paler and paler, and a nosebleed began to trickle down from the corner of her mouth.
"Damn it... I'm reaching my limit..."
Rate on N.U.
