Chapter 352: Three Hundred Thousand Puppets

The hundred and fifty miles of mountain roads took less than half an hour with Sane’s flying speed once he spread his wings.

When Kaelen, Sane, Finnick, and Oliver tore through the blizzard-filled night to stop on the cloud layer above the Red Iron Valley, it was already the darkest hour before dawn.

Looking down at the valley basin from a height of several hundred meters, even those who had experienced countless fierce battles like Kaelen and Sane had to furrow their brows tightly at the bizarre and insane scene unfolding.

The Red Iron Valley was a basin region over twenty miles wide, sandwiched between three rocky mountains that were dark red like dried blood. It was the intersection where three large glaciers flowed toward the Frostgard, Ironpeak, and Stormhold kingdoms.

Right at the center of the basin, the frozen ground had been torn open into a deep abyss a whole mile wide.

A pitch-black, giant flesh cocoon over a hundred meters tall emerged from the bottom of that deep abyss. Its surface was crisscrossed with bright red blood vessels as thick as thighs, pulsating and contracting with every heavy breath.

Right on top of the flesh cocoon, the dark purple metal tip of a broken battle halberd, about three meters long, was tightly bound by hundreds of black fleshy tendons like giant pythons. The tendons unceasingly extracted every ounce of origin pressure from the halberd tip, transforming it into rusty red fog streams that spewed out to engulf the entire valley!

At the East, West, and South corners surrounding the flesh cocoon stood three sacrificial altars ten meters high. They were built entirely from human skulls and the shattered weapons of soldiers who had perished here over the past fifty years.

Standing atop those three white bone sacrificial altars were the three old Kings of Frostgard, Ironpeak, and Stormhold!

Under Kaelen and Finnick’s penetrating vision, the three kings in their seventies were actually no longer normal living humans.

The parasitic insects from the Immortality Potion that had resided in their stomachs for decades had grown into monsters a whole meter long. They sprouted fleshy tentacles piercing straight through their spines all the way to their brains, turning the three kings into living puppets under the direct control of the central flesh cocoon!

However, the most hair-raising scene lay on the flat ground surrounding the flesh cocoon and the three sacrificial altars.

Across the twenty-mile-wide snowfield of the Red Iron Valley, over three hundred thousand people gathered from all three kingdoms stood closely packed together, forming a pitch-black human sea with no end in sight!

Among those three hundred thousand people, only about a third were regular soldiers still wearing iron armor and holding intact swords. The remaining two-thirds were entirely scrawny boys of twelve or thirteen in tattered cloth shirts shivering in the blizzard, white-haired old men, and barefoot farmers wielding only pitchforks, sickles, or sharpened wooden sticks!

All three hundred thousand people stood perfectly still like a forest of wooden statues. Their eyes glared wide open, with pupils as bloodshot as fresh blood. The white frosty breaths exhaled in the cold night carried an extreme madness and bloodlust, waiting only for a single command to tear each other apart!

"That stinking worm is truly cruel to the very core."

Finnick stood in mid-air, looking down at the twelve-year-old boys who could barely hold their wooden spears steadily, and spoke in an icy voice:

"These three hundred thousand people are the entire remaining male youths and children of all three kingdoms. It wants to use a single morning to force these three nations to drive themselves to extinction right in front of us!"

Oliver, sitting in Kaelen’s arms, had also dropped his usual mischievous demeanor. His small, rosy-white face tensely looked toward the eastern horizon:

"Papa, Daddy, look over there! The sun is about to rise!"

Everyone simultaneously looked toward the East.

Where the horizon met the distant snowy mountain range, the pitch-black night had begun to fade. The first orange-yellow streak of dawn slowly crested the mountain peak!

The moment the first ray of morning sun crested the slope and shone onto the peak of the black flesh cocoon in the center of the Red Iron Valley, the hundred-meter-tall cocoon suddenly contracted violently!

Thump!

A muffled sound like a drumbeat from hell erupted from the belly of the flesh cocoon, echoing across the valley!

Atop the three white bone sacrificial altars at the three corners, the three old Kings of Frostgard, Ironpeak, and Stormhold simultaneously raised their kingly swords high to the sky. They opened their mouths wide, spilling out black blood and wriggling insect antennae, and unleashed a hoarse roar that overlapped and resounded throughout the basin:

"The sun has risen! Everyone hear the order: Kill every single person standing in front of you! Offer all your fresh blood for the birth of the supreme God of War!"

"Kill!"

As soon as the three old kings’ roar ended, the entire three hundred thousand people standing still in the valley basin suddenly tilted their heads back and unleashed a frenzied scream that triggered rumbling avalanches on the three surrounding mountains!

There was absolutely no distinction between friend or foe!

A soldier in the front row immediately spun around, driving his iron spear tip straight into the chest of the comrade from his own village standing right behind him! A white-haired old man swung his sickle, aiming straight at the neck of his own thirteen-year-old grandson standing beside him! In the exact same moment, hundreds of thousands of sword blades, spear tips, and hoes struck directly at the person closest to them!

Had they been half a breath slower, the ground of the Red Iron Valley would have instantly turned into a sea of blood with hundreds of thousands of corpses collapsing simultaneously!

"Don’t even think about it!"

Amidst the dawn sky, Kaelen and Finnick shouted simultaneously. The father and son did not hold back a single bit of strength, diving straight from the cloud layer down to the valley floor!

Kaelen’s four-tenths origin Nature Divine Energy and Finnick’s five-tenths origin Life Divine Energy erupted simultaneously. Coupled with the full support of Chloe as she soared into mid-air, they created a jade-green light tsunami sweeping across the entire twenty-mile expanse of the basin!

Rumble rumble rumble!

"Tree roots, hold all their weapons down for me!"

Following Kaelen’s command, the rock and soil layer frozen as hard as iron beneath the feet of three hundred thousand people cracked wide open in the blink of an eye!

Millions of green vines, supple yet harder than steel chains, shot up from underground as fast as lightning. With infallible precision, they tightly bound the wrists and weapon shafts of all three hundred thousand people in the valley!

Clack!

Hundreds of thousands of spears, swords, and hoes thrusting at high speed were simultaneously brought to a screeching halt in mid-air by the green vines!

Several sharp iron spear tips had already touched the cloth shirts on the chests of the twelve-year-old boys standing opposite them. They were exactly one centimeter away from piercing their hearts, but three emerald-green vines had locked them rigidly in place, unable to budge another millimeter!

However, the three hundred thousand people completely controlled by the bloodlust blood fog knew no fear. With their weapon-holding hands locked tight by the vines, they struggled frantically, roaring like wild beasts to tear the vines apart. Many even had their wrists squeezed to the point of bleeding by the vines yet still refused to let go of their sword hilts!

"Rule Ice Rain, calm the mind!"

Atop a giant fifty-meter-tall ancient tree that Kaelen had just grown in the middle of the valley as a foothold, Oliver used his two tiny hands to raise his white jade folding fan high above his head and swung it forcefully downward!

Whoosh!

All the water vapor and cold snow in the sky of the Red Iron Valley were instantly gathered by Oliver into a vast bluish-purple cloud that covered the entire basin sky.

A bluish-purple snowflake rain carrying the orderly power of Rules poured heavily down onto the heads of the three hundred thousand people below, temporarily severing the bloodlust-stimulating sound waves radiating from the three white bone sacrificial altars!

Having its mass suicide scheme of three hundred thousand people thwarted at the very last second by Kaelen, Finnick, and Oliver, the hundred-meter-tall black flesh cocoon in the center of the deep abyss shook frantically!

It sensed the presence of the true master of the half battle halberd tip it held atop its head currently in the sky!

"Roar!"

Unable to wait for the blood sacrifice of the three hundred thousand people below any longer, the giant flesh cocoon suddenly shot out three black fleshy tentacles hundreds of meters long. They pierced through the void and embedded deeply into the backs of the three old Kings standing on the three white bone sacrificial altars!

Thwack!

Amidst the brief tragic screams of the three old kings who had once ruled the North, the three fleshy tentacles sucked dry all their flesh, blood, and lives, along with the hundreds of plump parasitic insects nourished inside their bodies over fifty years, in just a single breath. The three old kings were turned into three dry, shriveled skin-and-bone husks that shattered into the wind!

Obtaining the dense energy source from three supreme host bodies along with the resentment accumulated for half a century at the bottom of the abyss, the pitch-black fleshy shell of the hundred-meter-tall cocoon, which was several meters thick, suddenly tore wide open from peak to base!

Riiiip!

Black blood and foul-smelling slime spewed out like a waterfall.

A humanoid monster over fifty meters tall stepped out from inside the torn flesh cocoon!

The monster’s entire body was covered by a blood-red bone armor that seamlessly merged with its flesh. Four giant arms with rippling muscles and sharp bone spikes sprouted from its shoulders, and atop its ferocious head, imitating Sane’s appearance, grew a pair of twisted, pitch-black fleshy horns!

The four-armed monster tilted its head back and unleashed a roar that shook the three surrounding mountains. Its two upper arms reached for the peak of the flesh cocoon, gripped tightly onto Sane’s dark purple half battle halberd tip, and forcefully yanked the three-meter-long battle halberd tip out of the submerged rock layer like its very own broadsword!

"I am War! I am the lord of slaughter and fresh blood on this land!"

The monster, calling itself the newly born Fierce God of War, roared thunderously. Its glaring red eyes locked straight onto Sane’s tall, imposing figure hovering in the sky, and its four arms simultaneously swung the dark purple half battle halberd tip, unleashing a blackish-red slash a hundred meters long that cleaved directly toward Sane!