Free Web NovelChapter 22: Chapter22-The Blood-Red Royal Capital, Besieged and Ravaged
Taking advantage of the chaos as the player army clashed with the swarms of soldiers, John used his high movement speed to deftly weave around the tangled battlefield and arrive at the rear.
Only now did he finally get a clear look at the true appearance of the royal capital before him.
The entire city looked as though it had been placed inside a mass of blazing fire.
All of the buildings had been twisted upward by some strange, invisible force. They spiraled and stretched uncontrollably toward the highest point, like a pile of ropes that had been forcibly wrung together.
At the very top of this "knot," the roofs of many buildings had already pierced into the blood-red clouds.
John looked around and discovered that this city did not have a gate.
Fortunately, he himself was a walking gate-maker.
Boom!
John aimed at a stone wall in front of him and threw out a punch. The city wall collapsed with a thunderous crash, revealing an opening just large enough for one person to pass through.
He stepped inside, and beyond the breach was a street.
John’s eyes flickered as his gaze swept over the vein-like branches covering the street.
These branches clung to the streets and the walls on both sides, pulsing faintly as though they possessed life.
The sight was extremely similar to what he had seen before in Blightwarren.
"Haaah—"
Just then, several mummified-looking residents emerged from a distant building.
They were all nothing but skin and bones. Their murky gray-white pupils stared toward the fiery red clouds at the top of the city.
These mummified people knelt stiffly, as if praying to something.
John’s expression turned thoughtful. He raised his hand toward these mummified residents, intending to devour them.
[This target cannot be devoured!]
Hearing the notification, John immediately understood.
These mummified people were the same as the soldiers outside. They were not undead beings who had risen after death.
They were truly living life-forms.
However, the feeling they gave off was somewhere between the dead and the living. Neither dead nor alive, neither human nor ghost.
John approached the closest mummified resident. Just as he came within a few meters of the other party—
All of a sudden,
that mummified resident snapped its head around. A red glow rose within its gray-white pupils.
Immediately afterward, one resident after another rose to their feet. Their movements were no longer stiff. Instead, they became shockingly fast.
"Haaah, haaah, haaah!"
A series of hoarse roars squeezed out from the throats of the mummified residents.
Their dry, bloodless chests split open one after another.
Gurgle, gurgle!
Inside their chests was a huge mass of mingled flame and blood, constantly churning in an utterly nauseating manner.
These chest-split mummified corpses suddenly accelerated. One after another, they erupted forward and surrounded John in a murderous assault.
John’s expression shifted slightly. He punched toward one of the mummified corpses, but before his fist could even touch it, the corpse suddenly self-detonated.
Boom!
The mummified corpse exploded apart, and a massive cloud of blood mist and scorching flame enveloped John’s body.
[-0!]
Fortunately, John’s attributes were extremely high. This level of attack could not harm him at all.
Boom, boom, boom!
The residents that followed were all the same. The moment they came into contact with him, they self-detonated, sending blood mist and flames flying across the sky.
[-0!]
[-0!]
[...]
John expressionlessly wiped the bloodstains off his body, then raised his hand and sniffed them.
There was the smell of rust mixed with sulfur.
For some reason, this scent actually made him feel a terror that seemed engraved into his genetic instincts.
This blood definitely did not come from these residents themselves.
Ding!!!
Just then, John suddenly heard a sound like the shaking of a bell.
Unlike the crisp ring of an ordinary bell, this sound carried a piercing, grating noise. Faintly, there also seemed to be the sound of prayers and sobbing within it. freēwebnovel.com
His gaze shifted slightly, and he quickly locked onto the direction of the sound.
John immediately rushed in that direction.
For the sake of observation, he first climbed to the top of a nearby building.
Gripping the curved spire, he looked down.
He saw that on a winding avenue leading upward, an entire long procession made up of countless small squads was slowly moving forward.
At the center of each squad were two hideously deformed giants.
The two deformed giants dragged either side of an enormous vehicle that looked like a flatbed cart, slowly advancing with the procession.
On top of the flatbed cart, a dozen or so living corpses lay motionless, prostrated in poses of prayer.
Both in front of and behind the cart followed two armored knights.
Looking as far as he could see, squads like this stretched on almost endlessly, extending from the winding avenue all the way to the top of the city.
"So many damned things are all moving toward the top of the city. Could there be some secret up there?
"Should I go up there and take a look too?"
John’s heart stirred. He immediately prepared to blend in with this strange procession and make his way to the top.
But at that moment, there was a rumbling crash.
From the blood-red clouds overhead, a bolt of reddish-yellow lightning suddenly struck down.
Fortunately, John’s movement speed was high and his reactions were fast. He hurriedly dodged aside, narrowly avoiding the fate of being struck.
At that same moment,
he suddenly realized that within the shadowed area at the top, there were actually many robed clergy members hiding with their bodies outlined in the gloom.
Their bodies were similarly shriveled. Draped in divine robes, they faced the top of the city in poses of prayer.
Looking at these mummified clergy members,
John felt a chill run through his heart.
"I actually didn’t notice them earlier?"
At the same time, as the lightning struck the top of the building,
all the processions below came to a halt at once.
The tremendous noise attracted the attention of every knight in the procession.
Their gazes all locked onto the area where John was located.
Seeing this, John cursed inwardly.
"Damn it. I’ve been exposed!" ƒrēewebnovel.com
Since that was the case, there was no need to keep hiding.
Hiss!
A crimson line burst out from John’s eyes, instantly sweeping across the entire rooftop.
Every clergy member within his line of sight was cut in half at the waist.
His figure flashed, and he appeared at the edge of the roof.
He discovered that the knights below were all raising their hands and gathering power, seemingly preparing to throw something.
Meanwhile, on the flatbed carts, the chests of those living corpses suddenly split open. Fiery red blood and flame gradually separated from their bodies.
They transformed into streams of pure energy and gathered in the palms of the surrounding knights.
And the moment the blood left the living corpses, they collapsed in rows like harvested chives.
Through the sacrifice of these living corpses, in just a brief moment, flaming blood-colored spears appeared in the knights’ hands.
The spearheads pointed directly at John, like the pupils of demons.
John’s pupils shrank slightly as he stared at the spears in the knights’ hands.
He had seen this kind of blood magic before!
Whoosh!
In the next instant, the knights finished charging their attacks and hurled the spears with all their strength.
The spears shot toward him in unison like a rainstorm.
John’s figure flashed, narrowly dodging in a rather sorry state.
The spears slammed into the rooftop and produced a violent explosion.
The entire building was swallowed by blood mist and flames. The blast radius was enormous.
Even the whole royal capital shook from the impact.
...
At the same time,
on the battlefield outside the royal capital,
LoranBlade casually cut down more than a dozen living corpses, then turned his head toward the middle section of the city. He happened to catch sight of that terrifying explosion.
"Was that guy the one who set off a nuclear blast?"
LoranBlade narrowed his eyes and looked carefully, only to realize something was off.
The aftershock of this explosion was crimson red, completely different from John’s ghastly pale color.
LoranBlade’s heart tightened.
"Hiss... From the looks of it, things aren’t going too well. I just hope that guy can stay alive."
