Lord of Winter: Beginning with Daily Intelligence - Chapter 756 - 421: Grand Finale (Part 2)
Some crouched on piles of corpses to eat, others pushed and trampled each other, while some suddenly froze during the biting, then continued with more frenzied movements.
Dark red fighting energy flickered intermittently on their bodies, like unstable flames forcibly burning within their flesh.
No one spoke inside the command vehicle; they all looked at Louis, waiting for his order.
Louis showed no hint of surprise.
The scene from half a year ago surfaced in his mind.
That morning, the [Daily Intelligence Update Complete] light screen unfolded as usual, with one piece of information squeezed between resources and military intelligence, seemingly inconspicuous.
There are significant flaws in the Remont Clan’s dragon blood formula.
In pursuit of ultimate combat power, the alchemist removed all metabolic safety valves.
The heart of a dragon blood warrior is essentially an engine with no braking system.
An engine without brakes means…
If you attempt to stop it, the cost is much higher.
The truly reasonable approach has never been to brake, but to push to the limit, letting it self-destruct at an unbearable speed.
This idea was merely a hypothesis back then.
Until he handed the concept over to Merian.
The lights in the alchemy room were blinding in the memory, Merian stood at the operation table, holding a sealed glass tube, with the liquid inside an unnatural bright red.
“This was derived from the idea you provided.” The Great Alchemist’s voice was somewhat tense, “I added inducing factors, which forcibly amplify the blood’s active response… In theory, it can cause the blood of Magical Beasts to break through its original stability threshold in an extremely short time.”
Merian didn’t know what this was used for, only that Louis paid special attention, having experimented on quite a few Magical Beasts, but apart from making their blood boil, it had no apparent effect.
This was not a technology that could be verified repeatedly, nor did it need widespread applicability.
It only needed to be used at the right time, facing the right target.
Now, that time had come.
On the hillside, the searchlight beams slowly advanced, casting the castle square in a ghastly white.
The monsters showed no reaction to the light, still immersed in the cycle of feeding and mutation.
Louis withdrew his gaze and finally spoke: “Array the troops to prevent monsters from breaking out of the castle.”
The signal operator immediately repeated the command, and the order was relayed in sections. Outside the vehicle, the tank formations began to align synchronously; tracks crushed the mud puddles with orderly, restrained movements, without any superfluous noise.
The second command was issued immediately after.
“Heavy artillery battalion, load boiling blood shells, special type three, target, castle center square, cover fire.”
The communication signals transmitted layer by layer, and the heavy artillery positions began adjusting their angles.
Loaders pushed rounds marked with red patterns into the barrels, the sound of metal grinding was particularly clear in the rainy night.
Louis leaned back into his seat, his gaze once again falling on the viewfinder.
If these rounds were ineffective, steam tanks would still be able to advance, with armor and firepower sufficient to crush everything inside the castle gates.
They would win.
But such a victory would come at too high a cost.
Even sacrificing the life of just one Red Tide Knight in exchange for these uncontrollable monsters seemed like a bad deal to him.
On the castle square, those monsters were still writhing, feeding, stacking.
Louis looked up, through the viewfinder, at the white area cut out by the spotlight.
“Tonight,” he said coolly, “we’ll deliver the Remont Clan a funeral.”
In the rainy night, the first round of shelling fell.
“Poof, poof, poof,” several muffled and short thuds sounded.
Dozens of specially made shells flew over the broken walls of Gray Rock Castle, like tin cans casually tossed, consecutively hitting the castle square.
The rounds didn’t even bounce upon landing, rolling briefly on the stone ground before the outer shell spontaneously cracked open, like a crushed rotten fruit, emitting a crisp and nearly negligible sound.
In the next second, scarlet mist seeped out from the cracks.
It didn’t diffuse but flowed along the ground.
The mist was dense and heavy, seemingly drawn by something, quickly spreading along the gaps between stones, bloodstains, and bodies.
It avoided the high places, converging in the center of the square, the color appearing extraordinarily vivid under the searchlights, as if still carrying heat.
The castle was originally filled only with sounds of chewing.
Soon, other noises emerged, the monsters atop the corpses paused.
Hundreds of distorted heads lifted almost simultaneously, nostrils flaring wildly.
Vertical pupils constricted sharply in the bright light, then quickly expanded.
“Roar?” A low growl filled with confusion and yearning.
Even the individuals gnawing on severed limbs unhesitatingly released their bite.
The half-eaten thigh rolled onto the ground, stained with rain and blood, yet not a single one turned back for a second glance.
A suppressed “gurgling” sound emanated from deep within their throats.
It was a sound reminiscent of the sucking noises made by young beasts.
In the next moment, the square moved.
Hundreds of twisted shadows simultaneously surged forward, their movements lacking any formation, yet strangely synchronized.
They shoved, trampled, climbed over one another’s bodies, all to get closer to the area where the red mist was densest.
Some bent down directly, bringing their noses close to the ground, and inhaled deeply.
They opened their mouths as if they wanted to swallow the entire atmosphere into their lungs.
The scene resembled a pack of beasts starved to the extreme, rushing towards a sole water source.
The red mist was swiftly diluted, constantly being inhaled.
In the center of the square, a brief, surging scarlet vortex formed.
