Free Web NovelOn the flat Gobi Desert outside the southern city wall of Yumen Pass, amidst the vast army formations of the Shaman King, the golden-haired youth held a pair of terrifyingly large scythe-shaped blades, gazing blankly at the distant, roaring steel behemoths.
Aletan Arslan was the youth's name, meaning "Golden Lion."
As a renowned warrior of the Arslan Tribe, he had long ago lost the emotion of fear. When those steel behemoths appeared, he only felt bewildered.
Before setting out, the tribal chief had told him, "The people within the Pass are all cowards who cling to life and fear death. Once our great army presses on, the defenders within the Pass will surely not last an hour."
Aletan, who had been raiding merchant caravans with his tribesmen since he was young, deeply believed the tribal chief's words. In his impression, those people within the Pass would start to fear as soon as he drew his blade, and after suffering a little and seeing some blood, they would cry bitterly.
Some tribesmen jokingly referred to the people within the Pass as "two-legged sheep," which Aletan found very apt. They were indeed as timid as sheep, and their flesh and blood were indeed as delicious as lamb.
However, when he personally arrived on the battlefield and engaged in close combat with the Longxiang Army Armored Soldiers stationed at Yumen Pass, he realized that both he and the tribal chief seemed to have been mistaken.
Those Longxiang Army Armored Soldiers proved with their actions that the people within the Pass were not cowards; not only did they last more than an hour with very few casualties, but each and every one of them possessed bravery and strength no less than that of the tribal warriors.
And before setting out, the tribal chief had also told Aletan, who was leading more than half of the Arslan Tribe warriors to forcefully attack Yumen Pass, "Yumen Pass will not receive reinforcements. The Great Shaman King will bury all their hopes with yellow sand and raging fire."
However, this time the tribal chief's words were wrong again.
Yumen Pass not only received reinforcements, but they were also a terrifying force.
The steel behemoths were getting closer, and Aletan could feel the ground beneath his feet trembling violently. The rampaging steel behemoths roared loudly, emitting a terrifying noise.
Dust and thick smoke billowed, blurring everything in front of him. The air was filled with the stench of blood, old and new, overlapping, so Rich that it was nauseating.
Suddenly, as several dazzling white lights flashed across the front of the army formation, Aletan Arslan felt a blur before his eyes.
Then, a muffled thud came from the army formation ahead, accompanied by the heart-stopping neighing of warhorses.
That direction should be where the light cavalry formation of the Wulachi Tribe was located.
A few breaths later, as his eyes slightly adjusted to the dazzling glare, Aletan saw a terrifying sight.
"Boom!"
With a loud bang, a steel behemoth charged into the light cavalry formation of the Wulachi Tribe. In an instant, the formation was torn apart by the violent force, men and horses overturned, and blood splattered.
The four black, wheel-like legs passed over the blood-soaked ground, echoing with sticky sounds.
The steel behemoths charged too fast; the splattered blood and shattered flesh were still suspended in mid-air and had not yet fallen when they had already rushed past, crushing the bodies of more tribal warriors.
Under the gaze of eyes filled with astonishment, just like Aletan's, groups of behemoths passed through the army, tearing through several formations in just a few breaths.
However.
Such casualties were not enough to make the various tribes feel fear.
They were the bravest warriors of the Gobi Desert, the subjects of the Great Shaman King. Death in battle was not an end for them, but supreme glory!
Moreover, even the most terrifying creature should eventually tire...
Could these tens of thousands of tribal warriors really not trap and kill a few beasts?
Watching the steel behemoths break through several formations, causing numerous casualties, yet becoming increasingly mired within the encirclement of the tribal warriors, their speed gradually slowing, Aletan tightened his grip on his twin blades, his eyes brimming with fighting intent.
"Good!"
"Kill it! Kill it!"
"..."
Before Aletan could charge towards the steel behemoth ahead, driven by the growing fighting spirit in his heart, a cheer already rang out in his ears.
Following the sound, he saw not far away, a man with a bare upper body, dark skin, and a pair of large ox horns on his head, leveling a rusty long spear. He took a few steps, rushed to a steel behemoth stuck with broken weapons, and thrust his spear forward.
"Boom!"
With a loud bang, most of the man's spear plunged into the steel behemoth's head. He then used the momentum of the beast's forward pressure to take a few steps back, stabilized himself, planted his feet on the ground, slightly bent his entire body, and with all his strength, fiercely lifted the spear upwards.
After a sharp sound of metal twisting and tearing, the beast's head was sent flying into the air, sparks flying everywhere.
That was a warrior of the Wulachi Tribe... He killed these terrifying steel behemoths!
Aletan, his heart surging with fighting spirit, gained even more confidence in victory upon seeing this. He immediately took a few running steps, leaped into the air, crossed the chaotic army formation, and, raising his scythe-shaped twin blades, brought them down with the force of his descent towards another steel behemoth not far away.
His heart pounded like a drum, as if a lion roared within his chest. Feeling the boiling blood, carrying the power bestowed by the Great Shaman King, spread throughout his limbs and bones, a thought flashed through Aletan's mind—this strike would surely cut that beast in two!
However, at this moment, a woman's voice, clear and faint like a wind chimes, pierced through the clamor of the battlefield and entered his ears, yet it sounded particularly harsh.
"Ho! That big man looks so dark, like an African, but I didn't expect him to be a European Emperor? He actually drew the special prize on his first try!"
Looking in the direction from which the voice came, he saw two women standing on the head of a steel behemoth in the distance, stopped at the edge of the chaotic army formation.
Aletan did not understand the woman's nonsensical words, but from her calm and beautiful face, he could see that she did not care at all that the steel behemoth had been speared to death by the Wulachi Tribe warrior, its head severed from its body.
Her eyes were filled with composure, disdain, and... joy!
——————
Before controlling twenty-seven large trucks, accompanied by high-pitched honking, to charge into the Shaman King's army formation and cause widespread destruction, Lu Yibei had briefly hesitated whether to continue indulging the Witch Seed's instincts.
Although those tribal members, influenced by the Shaman King's power, could no longer be considered normal humans, and some of the stronger ones even showed signs of physical beastification, from a certain perspective, they had become the same kind as the Half-Guitan wandering outside Yumen Pass a thousand years later.
But since they were Half-Guitan, half of them were still human. Lu Yibei felt a slight twinge of reluctance to instantly obliterate so many.
However, when the Shaman King's army formation was thrown into disarray by the charge of the large trucks, with men and horses overturning and severed limbs and flesh splattering, that slight twinge of reluctance in her heart instantly vanished.
A special sense of pleasure rose from her heart, which had merged with the core of the Witch Seed, and shot straight to the back of her head, making ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ her feel lightheaded and dizzy.
An indescribable, fascinating sensation quietly arose from the depths of her heart.
In a trance, she seemed to hear a highly seductive voice, formed by the superposition of countless young girls' voices, whispering in her ear.
"She is the mist that obscures the eyes, and the star that guides the storm; she is her child, and the lips that blow out the lamps and kiss the darkness...
"As crimson as slaughter and decay, as pale as desolation and silence; she is invisible fear, and tangible chaos...
"She is the figure awakened outside paradise, possessing eyes that can beautify or corrupt all things..."
As the whispers describing her authority grew stronger in her ear, the voice posed one question after another to her.
Why?
Why can these guys kill people, but you can't kill them?
These guys are active in the Gobi Desert like wild beasts, brutally intercepting passing caravans and travelers, enjoying the benefits brought by the law of the jungle. So when you, who are stronger than them, appear here, shouldn't they accept the fate of being hunted?
...
On that battlefield, stained with blood and shrouded in the shadow of death.
The death of a large number of tribal soldiers, although it brought pleasure to the core of the Witch Seed, it was not enough, not satisfying; it wanted more!
There was a lack of fear, pain, despair, and other intense negative emotions here...
Perhaps due to the influence of the Shaman King's power, the soldiers of the Shaman King's army were not afraid of death at all. Physical destruction would not make them feel pain, nor would the passing of their companions make them feel sorrow.
Fortunately, Disaster always liked to keep a trick up its sleeve.
Thus, with a shift of thought, crimson handprints quietly lit up on the large trucks that were almost forced to stop...
"The second act is about to begin, my dear, are you happy?"
"Ho! That big man looks so dark, like an African, but I didn't expect him to be a European Emperor? He actually drew the special prize on his first try!"
Hearing Lu Yibei's words, Shen Baiwei, who had been guarding against The Serpent of the Years lurking nearby while gazing blankly at the sky, froze for a moment, then turned to look at Lu Yibei and frowned.
Did she attract that thing?
If so...
She even said she would protect me, but she herself might be in more danger, right? Shen Baiwei thought worriedly.
————
As early as when she decided to continue escorting Li Tieniu and Zhu Erming to Yumen Pass, Shen Baiwei felt a certain gaze.
It was a chaotic and disordered gaze, impossible to perceive through sight, hearing, touch, or even spiritual sense. Only the person or urban legend being watched could detect its presence through a method that transcended all sensory boundaries.
On it, Shen Baiwei felt both benevolent care and chilling malice.
Shen Baiwei had seen similar feelings in the Tethys Laboratory, when the experimenters looked at the special individuals used for experiments.
They cared because these special individuals were rare, but at the same time, for these extremely rare special individuals, they were secretly planning brutal experiments... It was as if they were dealing with the last remaining experimental Mouse.
But the presence watching in the dark was far more frightening than the experimenters at the Tethys Laboratory.
As soon as she had the slightest thought of touching that thing, Shen Baiwei clearly felt the chaotic black lines, which were constantly eroding her body and symbolizing the prelude to the punishment of the years, becoming inexplicably active.
That might be the approaching punishment of the years, much stronger than ever before... This was Shen Baiwei’s judgment of that strange gaze at the time.
As Lu Yibei manipulated those large trucks, Shen Baiwei felt that unsettling gaze intensify.
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The source of that gaze seemed to be above the firmament, in the depths of the boundless night sky.
There, something was moving, rotating endlessly with a strange rhythm.
With its rotation, it scattered power that shouldn't exist here onto the earth, subtly changing everything.
As that thing gradually approached, Shen Baiwei realized that her previous judgment was wrong; it might not be as simple as the punishment of the years, but rather some more terrifying power.
And what caused that thing to approach was, in all likelihood, the Disaster...
It seemed to be emitting some kind of energy, driving the Disaster to create slaughter, to destroy, to use the tens of thousands of living beings on this battlefield for sacrifice, to complete a ritual, and to summon some terrifying existence to descend.
To descend onto this battlefield, or into the body of the Disaster...
“......”
No, she had to find a way to make the Disaster stop! Shen Baiwei thought uneasily, opened her mouth, and was about to say something to Lu Yibei when a violent roar suddenly sounded in her ears.
Something exploded!
Continuous explosions.
The earth trembled violently, and crimson flames swept through...
————
“Boom——!”
Aletan, leaping up, slammed heavily onto the head of a steel beast, crushing its top into a twisted shape. His twin blades followed through, instantly tearing two hideous wounds on its head.
After steadying himself, he turned his head to look at the two women in the distance, his bloodshot eyes filled with increasing killing intent.
“Damn Demoness!”
Upon noticing that the two women riding the giant beasts might be the ones controlling them, a thought arose in Aletan’s mind—kill them!
In his view, just as warhorses need knights to gallop and falcons need falconers to hunt, as long as those two Demoness were killed, the crisis brought by the steel beasts would resolve itself.
However, before he could truly act, the explosion occurred.
The steel beasts that had been stopped by the tribal warriors suddenly erupted with intense crimson light, and then that crimson light grew stronger and stronger, finally turning into violent explosions like firecrackers celebrating the New Year.
“Boom——Boom——Boom——!”
Deafening roars sounded one after another, and terrifying airwaves, wrapped in flames, stirred up fiery storms that swept over. The horrifying temperature created ripples in the air.
The next moment, in the gradually spreading sea of fire, a faint bark seemed to sound, and with that bark, a dazzling silver light, so intense it was impossible to look at directly, bloomed from the head of the giant beast that had been tossed into the air by the Ulazhei tribal warrior.
A suffocating sense of danger permeated with that silver light.
An astonishingly loud sound instantly drowned out the previous successive explosions and the noisy chaos of the battlefield, and everyone's ears fell silent.
In the central area where that silver light erupted, the earth trembled violently, like a quilt being flipped by an invisible pair of hands. The Shaman King's army standing on it was like scattered beans, coins, or other insignificant small objects on the quilt.
Flipping up and down, unable to resist!
Everyone felt their bodies fly up at that instant, then fall heavily, and before they could steady themselves, they were airborne again.
As one of the closest people to the center of that silver light's eruption, Aletan clearly felt the life force of his companions around him vanishing at an alarming speed.
They weren't dead; they were directly crushed to dust.
And as that silver light spread, enveloping his body, he experienced unprecedented pain. His bones and flesh were torn and shredded inch by inch, a pain that lingered and was far beyond what a knife cut or a fire burn could compare to. free𝑤ebnovel.com
————
After two or three breaths, the aftermath of the explosion finally receded, and that silver glow disappeared.
Patches of charred black earth were scattered across the battlefield, like dark marks on the ground. Around these scorched areas, there was widespread death and injury.
Even more shocking was the area where that silver light erupted.
The people, objects, and even the land that had been there seemed to have evaporated, disappearing without a trace, leaving only deep pits and crisscrossing fissures.
The warriors from the various tribes finally felt fear, looking at the last remaining steel beast on the edge of the army formation, and fled in panic in the completely opposite direction, like a startled flock of sheep.
And in that direction, waiting for them were the Yumen Pass defenders, who had recovered from their shock and had a short rest.
“Fire arrows!”
“Spearmen, form ranks!”
“Rolling stones, prepare!”
“......”
Cheers of encouragement echoed from the top of the southern city wall of Yumen Pass.
The time for harvesting had arrived.
Overwhelming arrow rain, light-casting crossbow bolts emitting strong light, and rolling logs as thick as a man's embrace continuously fell. Lives vanished rapidly as if caught in a shredder, but on the battlefield, the flight did not cease.
Because they saw new steel beasts gradually appearing beside the two women, illuminated by the pervasive firelight, and letting out high-pitched, sharp roars in unison.
Those steel beasts were unkillable; no matter how many times they were killed, they would descend again...
Such power could perhaps only be suppressed by the Great Shaman King, far beyond what they could compare to. Fleeing towards Yumen Pass, if they could miraculously break into the city, there might still be a glimmer of hope...
All sorts of thoughts quietly arose in the hearts of the Shaman King's army.
However,'
Just as the vast majority of tribal warriors were fleeing towards the Yumen Pass city wall, effectively walking into a trap, a very small number of figures rose from the scorched earth, from beneath shattered corpses, and from the trenches filled with blood and yellow sand, raising their weapons.
Their bodies, covered in blood and wounds, swayed, their eyes gleaming with crimson light, like bloodthirsty beasts.
They were the true favored subjects of the Great Shaman King!
They would only die in battle, never fall on the road of escape...
————
Aletan lay curled on the ground, convulsing incessantly.
After an unknown period, a hot current that made his blood boil rose from deep within his body, instantly eliminating his physical pain and giving him the strength to stand up again.
He frowned, shakily stood up, and looked down, his eyes trembling.
His entire chest and abdomen were almost devoid of flesh, with only scattered bits of meat covering his writhing internal organs.
But... he was not dead, felt no pain, and only wanted to continue fighting.
Steadying himself, Aletan looked up at the two Demoness in front of him and the reappearing steel beasts. He took a deep breath, letting the murky air fill his half-missing lung, and then took a step forward.
The moment he took that step, what came to his mind was not the teachings of the chieftain or the tribal Shaman, nor the sacred edicts of the Great Shaman King, but his elder sister, Meru Arslan.
The once most beautiful, now withered flower of the Arslan Tribe.
His elder sister starved to death...
In a winter a few years ago.
It was a terrible cold winter when food was so scarce that even grass roots were hard to find. A large number of tribal members lost their lives due to hunger and cold, and Meru was one of them. frёeωebɳovel.com
Before Meru died, she asked him, “Little brother, do you think we are really different from the people inside the Pass?”
“I heard that inside the Pass, there’s endless good wine, herds of cattle and sheep, and fertile land that can grow enough food to feed everyone...”
“Why do they have those things, and not us? Are we inferior to them in any way?”
At that time, young Aletan didn't know how to answer his sister's question.
He was also puzzled why, being human just like them, the people inside the Pass could live like humans, while they lived like beasts.
And once they dared to covet things inside the Pass, they would be driven away by the Long Xiang Army and other border defense troops, becoming even worse than beasts.
Were they really inferior to those people inside the Pass?
That question troubled Aletan for a long time, until the Great Shaman King descended, and he finally got the answer he wanted.
The Great Shaman King said that they were not inferior to those people inside the Pass; they were stronger and more excellent than those people inside the Pass, and they were more entitled to everything those people inside the Pass possessed!
If they did not fight, did not resist, did not plunder, their tribe, their descendants, would forever be trapped in the Gobi Desert, fighting with beasts for food and suffering from Calamities.
They wanted to live, to live better, and there was nothing wrong with that. So they had to fight, to eliminate those people inside the Pass who were inferior to them, and to seize what rightfully belonged to them!
No matter if what stood in front of them were steel beasts, or a mountain of blades and a sea of fire...
Go, fight! No need to worry about what's behind you.
The Great Shaman King would bestow upon them strength and the meaning of battle, guiding them to constantly move forward.
