Shiro imdiately sensed that sothing was wrong.
As the mist began to spread, he frowned sharply, recognizing at once that this was neither a tactical smokescreen nor an illusion.
Thread-like objects floated in the mist, entwining like spider eggs, and slowly swaying like unsevered umbilical cords.
They were "living things."
"Fall back! Everyone! Evacuate the canyon!" He roared, his voice tearing like a scream.
Shiro suddenly drew the dagger from his waist and slashed his palm, blood gushing out.
He used the pain to maintain his clarity of mind, but this resolve lasted only a few seconds, which was far from enough.
Around him, the warriors' faces were pale, their expressions dazed, swaying as if drunk.
So knelt on the ground, clutching their chests, blood oozing from their mouths and noses, their hands gripping their heads tightly as if trying to expel sothing from their minds.
Then, one by one, they slowly stood up.
"Hiss..."
So joints were twisted into inhuman angles, so chests were still heaving violently, but their faces showed no fear, no pain, not even any expression.
Their pupils were milky white, their lips cracked, and sothing seed to be wriggling beneath their skin—that was the new neural pathway ford by the Worm-Eaten Household after completing its parasitism.
Old people, children, mothers, warriors—none were an exception.
They stood up, no longer looking at each other or speaking, but like bodies under so command, slowly gathering and forming ranks.
Row after row, like stone pillars rising from the tide.
Watching all this, Shiro's throat felt constricted, too dry to make a sound: "How could this—"
"How could it turn out like this—"
He had once said, "We can win the final battle," "As long as the Old God," "The Witch is an ally, she is useful to us"—
Because of his words, his clansn beca like puppets controlled by strings.
And every word he had ever spoken now felt like a sharp blade, cutting into his heart, one slice at a ti.
"—I was wrong—" he murmured, "I shouldn't have made you listen to ... I shouldn't have—"
The weaker one's strength, the faster they were turned into an Insect Corpse, while the stronger one's strength, the more they could resist the Corpse Insect. Shiro held on for a full half an hour; he had once tried to forcibly expel the parasite.
He cut open a blood vessel in his thigh with a short knife, draining a viscous fluid mixed with spores, containing a few unhatched insect eggs, which he gritted his teeth and crushed.
But soon, new insect threads probed into the wound.
This caused his battle qi to beco chaotic, his Qi Sea to beco turbid, and his spiritual consciousness to begin to waver.
And just then, he heard that voice.
"Are you tired, child?"
It was a voice that did not belong to reality, gentle as a comforting mory from the depths of childhood, with the soothing touch of a hand on his forehead.
But he knew it wasn't his mother's voice.
It was the Broodmother.
"No—" Shiro whispered, tears finally falling from the corners of his eyes.
Those weren't tears of revenge, nor cries of failure, but rather, genuine fear, loneliness, and regret.
"I shouldn't have trusted her... I shouldn't have—"
He knelt on the ground, the mist around him surging like a tide, beginning to seep into his wounds, eardrums, and eye sockets little by little.
He was still struggling, his fingernails digging into the ground, his back arched like a leopard, his body convulsing violently, yet he could not shake off the tentacles that entangled his soul.
"Mother—" he murmured softly, his voice like the dying chirp of a bird.
In the last mont before his consciousness collapsed, he seed to see a hallucination: many years ago, his mother lying in a pool of blood, reaching out to him and smiling.
But this ti, that face had transford into the visage of the Broodmother.
This made Shiro let out a guttural roar that tore through his lungs, like a cursed wail.
And his vocal cords completely snapped at that instant, his throat pierced by the insect body, unable to make any sound ever again.
Then, he fell silent.
The Worm-Eaten Household burrowed into every crevice of his body, controlling his nerves, erasing his mories.
Shiro, the last leader of the Snowsworn, was thus swallowed by the mist.
This was the scene the Despair Witch had always dread of.
Below the Broodmother, the mist had completed its injection.
A constantly wriggling, swelling war machine.
Around it were thousands of Snowsworn warriors who had beco its puppets.
He simply loved this creation too much.
For it, he had begun preparations five or six years ago.
Using illusion and mind-guidance techniques, he subtly rewrote Shiro's will in countless dreams, gradually leading that cold-blooded strongman, once known for his ferocity, into the abyss of faith in "Old God Revival."
He was not in a hurry, taking his ti; he liked to see a determined warrior struggle, collapse, and be reshaped between faith and madness, like carving a gemstone.
And the Snowsworn?
A group of followers driven by hatred, more effective than any catalyst.
He gave them dreams, gave them hope, gave them the promise of "God."
He incited them to hunt knights and nobles, to sacrifice, to provide the bloodline fuel needed for the Broodmother's growth.
Every sacrifice was a growth elixir he injected into the Broodmother.
And the Broodmother had failed, disintegrated, run wild, and even almost devoured him countless tis.
But he nurtured it as ticulously as a rare flower, repeatedly experinting with every bloodline and structure until it could stably grow into a "complete form."
Now, all this had finally co to fruition.
Within this gigantic nest, the Insect Mist had been brewing for three years, its concentration high enough to instantly corrode the entire camp; even soone as strong as Shiro could only last half an hour.
Thousands of Snowsworn fell one after another within a short incense stick's ti, the Corpse Insects within them having taken over their nervous systems, reconstructing their muscles, and covering them with chitinous spines.
Their combat skills, their battle qi, their instincts, all were extracted, purified, and stored within their bodies, while mories and life, such useless things, completely perished.
They were no longer human.
They were killing machines completely devoid of individual will, extensions of the Broodmother's nerves, his most perfect tools.
Of course, the Insect Mist could only be released this one ti.
He had accumulated it for three years, and it was only enough to cover this Snowsworn camp, but it was already sufficient.
With just this one event, he now possessed an Insect Corpse Army of thousands of transford Snowsworn, possessing battle qi and combat skills, and fearless of death.
But that wasn't all.
He had already buried dozens of "First-Generation Broodmothers" and "Second-Generation Broodmothers" throughout the Northern Territory.
Those incubation nodes also fully awakened tonight.
Countless lurking entities, infected individuals, and Insect [N O V E L I G H T] Mist cysts simultaneously activated, opening like nightmare rifts across the entire Northern Territory.
The fate of the Northern Territory, from tonight onwards, would no longer be in human hands.
Even the entire Empire, the entire world, would plunge into chaos.
And all of this—was rely a necessary path to "that door."
His ultimate goal lay beyond deeper darkness, beyond coordinates incomprehensible to ordinary people.
That was a "Final Return."
At this mont, the high platform was empty.
Snowsworn officials patrolling the camp, alert guards, and ssenger knights had all been unknowingly replaced by Corpse Insects.
Their appearances remained unchanged, but behind their pupils, there was nothing left but the ntal chains of the Broodmother controlling them.
The Despair Witch gently waved his hand.
The Broodmother, as if sensing the summons, let out a low hum, its cysts bursting, and countless Worm-Eaten Household slowly opened their cold-glowing eyes. This undead army quietly assembled in the night, marching towards Frost Halberd City.
They would roll over everything.
Destroy everything.
Trample order, turn the Northern Territory into a breeding ground of blood and insects.
And he simply needed to stand quietly at the end of the high platform, spread his arms, and embrace the world. "This is just the beginning," he said.
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