Chapter 297: Explosion
It was a scene of three thousand, including three hundred notorious Death Guards from the Calamity Church, against six hundred people. The difference in power was completely disproportionate. The fate of the remaining six hundred people was destined to be death, just that the exact moment of their demise was dragged out for a few more minutes.
Life became cheap with every ear-piercing, miserable scream of the mercenaries that were from various races and of different skin colors. They slowly and listlessly fell in a pool of blood. Streams of air, barely visible to the human eye, drifted upwards from the dead bodies before gathering in a corner of the mountain valley.
Han Shuo was the hand in the shadows that’d pulled the strings of this battle. With the three yin demons observing the overall battle, he sat on the sidelines in a surreptitious corner, extremely comfortable as he absorbed each burst of scattered energy. The desires of the bloodlust realm were churning, wanting to explode out. However, his rational mind tightly forced the urge down.
Lives perished as time passed. The original group of six hundred mercenaries guarding the mine were now down to two hundred. The mages in this group were ceaselessly releasing various spells. Their targets were naturally the mercenaries with the vivid colored outfits. No one would waste their magic on the Death Guards.
Adam Menlo and the experts from his family were the first few to arrive. However, they could only used magic and arrows to attack Laureton’s group in the mountain valley from a distance. They stood still as they watched their remaining family members in the valley get slaughtered.
It wasn’t that they didn’t want to, but rather that they just didn’t dare!
Those elite members of the House of Menlo, who could fly in the air, were all magic creature riders. This elite army was the foundation of the family. It was a pity that their numbers were few, far fewer than the number of experts in Laureton’s Cairo mercenary band. Adam Menlo’s heart bled as he watched his family members die one by one. However, he didn’t dare to come in close to rescue them. He knew full well that once he landed, what awaited his group would be destructive blows.
He was waiting, waiting for Florida and Katar’s groups to arrive. The new arrivals would be able to surround Laureton’s group from outside the mountain valley. He was waiting for more members of the three forces to assemble and then vent their accumulated rage towards Laureton.
“Honorable father, save me!” A middle-aged man, with a face similar to Adam Menlo’s, was riding an armored Black Buffalo in the middle of the valley. His eyes flooded with helplessness as he called out miserably to Adam Menlo, who hovered in the air on his fiery bird.
Laureton stood in front of this middle-aged man, holding his Berserker’s War Axe, leering widely. Several berserkers were next to Laureton, also grinning maliciously as they coordinated to keep watch on the middle-aged man. Laureton wasn’t in a hurry to kill him.
Instead, he lifted his head to look at to the sky, as if waiting for Adam Menlo to draw nearer.
However, he only saw Adam Menlo turn around with his shoulders trembling slightly after waiting for a while. It seemed that Adam had made the right decision despite the agony he felt in his heart.
“No!” The middle-aged man bitterly growled. Laureton approached and cleaved him in two. The echoing sound of his dying cry made the distant Adam Menlo falter on the back of his flaming bird.
The heavy sounds of dull hooves were finally heard. Florida and Katar were leading a large number of mercenaries to advance upon the mountain valley. Adam Menlo’s eyes were bloodshot as he held up beneath the heart wrenching agony of the scenes displayed in front of him. He was the first to rush into the center of the valley. Fighting aura burst out from the spear in his hand and intersected with the blazing flames from the flaming bird’s beak, instantly taking several lives.
The battle had become even more devastating, taking place in the mountain valley like a raging fire. Han Shuo absorbed the killing intent quietly and indifferently. He coldly watched the battle that had turned the mountain valley into a level of hell and desperately suppressed his intense desire to join the fray.
The evenly matched forces fought each other until they became crazed with bloodlust as time went on. Ninety percent of the Valley of Sunshine’s forces had become involved in this, either for the mithril mine, or to gain privilege in the Valley, or to vent their deep hatred accumulated over the many years.
The life force of the unyielding powerhouses was happily absorbed by an opportunist. Soon, the bodies piled up all over the whole mountain valley and began to hinder the battle itself. The races slaughtered each other to their heart’s content out of interest and hatred.
Blood red mist began to materialize around Han Shuo from the large amount of energy he’d absorbed. The sky above the mountain valley was suddenly blotted out by a bloody red mist. This terrifying evil murderous intent brought along with it a nauseating, bloody smell as it enveloped the entire mountain valley.
However, the forces were all obsessed by battle and didn’t notice this strange happening. All of their attention was focused on the enemy in front of them. Each and every individual had gone completely insane, using their weapons, bare hands and feet, or even their teeth to attack.
Han Shuo almost lost control of himself as he fought against his own bloodthirsty urges. He finally issued an order to the earth elite zombie lurking underground. Han Shuo understood that this wasn’t the right time, since one side hadn’t obtained victory yet. He could still wait a bit longer. Unfortunately, Han Shuo knew that he was in an extremely bad state. He’d absorbed far more killing intent than he could bear. He was afraid that he’d lose his rationality and miss his chance.
Ninety percent of the forces in the Valley of Sunshine was here, locked in battle. Of that, a fourth of this number had already perished. This battle was absolutely the most intense one that had ever occurred in the history of the Valley of Sunshine, with the greatest amount of participants as well. Suddenly, the forces that had been fighting to the death, felt a violent tremor from the ground. Every corner of the entire mountain valley seemed to explode before they could react, the strong smell of explosives instantly spreading.
As every corner in the mountain valley had opponents fighting each other, the explosion caused massive damage. The mercenaries instantly exploded into clouds of blood mist. The earth was shaking and mountains cracked with the endlessly echoing series of explosions. More than half of the forces that had been lucky enough to survive until now died to the violent explosions.
The huge rocks above ground shattered into pieces due to the underground explosion. Each piece was bigger than a person, and tumbled down like a shower of rain. The impact from the momentum of rocks that were falling from an altitude of several hundred meters was extremely terrifying. Careless experts were smashed into meat paste by them.
The parties in the mountain valley were dumbfounded by this violent explosion. Ninety percent of the Valley of Sunshine’s forces were located here, but this earth-shattering bombardment hadn’t distinguished between friend nor enemy. The damage it caused was amplified even more. No matter how dimwitted Laureton’s group was, they too could smell a conspiracy going on here.
Countless rocks were still falling, the entire mountain valley was sealed off. The startled experts were snapped out of their bloodlust by the sound of explosion and reacted abruptly. They looked up and cursed loudly before madly fleeing for their lives. The voices of Laureton’s people were extremely resounding among the scene, each screaming and roaring before quickly evacuating.
Perhaps these people would have discovered Han Shuo existence if it weren’t for the avalanche obscuring the bloody mist surrounding him. After all, the fiendish image that he’d established in people’s hearts after using the blood mist to attack last time had left an unforgettable impact in their hearts.
However, the big rolling boulders had dispersed the barely noticeable mist. In addition, the downpour of rocks was so terrifying that no one had the heart to carefully watch the sky. Everyone put all their effort into fleeing, so Han Shuo’s existence wasn’t exposed.
The leader of the great powers could smell conspiracy, and so their resentment and hatred overflowed like rivers and seas. However, they knew full well this wasn’t the time to pursue the matter. Like Laureton, all of the leaders ordered their subordinates to retreat from this place as quickly as possible.
Florida’s group had already felt an ominous premonition when they received the arrows. The bloody battle had already started by the time that they had arrived at the mountain valley. The series of explosions constantly bombarded them before they could finish distinguishing between friend and foe. Florida immediately understood that the people in the mountain valley had been plotted against.
Florida’s group was terrified. They even thought that this was an act from the three great empires surrounding the Valley of Sunshine, the purpose to eradicate all forces and take complete control of the Valley. Due to this, Florida naturally believed that this attack using explosives was just the beginning. Perhaps a great number of soldiers from some empire was baring their fangs at them already.
Therefore, when Laureton fled, they also chosen to flee in panic. No matter how they thought about it, they hadn’t expected this to be orchestrated by a single person, and that an attack with such a massive impact was created by just the earth elite zombie alone. This sent all of the forces into complete disarray.
The leader of a force was naturally much more meticulous in his calculations. However, not all of his followers were as smart. The majority of these mercenaries, who lived by their blades, were simple-minded fellows. The disastrous battle in the mountain valley had taken the lives of their comrades, and their enemies were now running madly around them. They didn’t think much and attacked immediately.
And just like that, the great powers still fought each other tooth and nail even as they tried to escape, due to the irreconcilable hatred between each other. The sounds of metal colliding with metal echoed outside the mountain valley, tragic dying screams resounding endlessly for a long time.
At this moment however, the culprit was shrouded in a thick, blood red mist
and was on the verge of breaking through. The Demonslayer Edge hovered in the sky above the mountain valley, absorbing the various energies in Han Shuo’s stead.