Chapter 139. Anti-War Sentint in the Three Kingdoms, the tamorphosis in the Mine Pit
The sound of a guard’s footsteps ca from outside the door. He drew a deep breath and straightened his crown.
“Enter.”
“Your Majesty, an urgent report from the front.”
A palace guard knelt while holding out a scroll, his voice trembling.
“The three kingdoms are gathering their forces and preparing to—”
Odyssey V waved a hand and cut him off.
“I know. Inform the commander at the front that reinforcents will arrive tomorrow. Tell them to prepare to coordinate with them.”
After the guard withdrew, the hall sank into silence once more.
The candlelight suddenly crackled, and under its flickering glow, the portraits of past Silver Oakleaf kings painted on the mural behind the throne seed to sneer coldly.
Odyssey V raised a hand to press against his brow, feeling only that this alliance, purchased at the cost of his kingdom’s fate, was like a venomous snake winding tighter and tighter around his neck.
At dawn the next day, the sky above the battlefield was shrouded in a layer of dark green miasma.
When waves of hissing rose from the rear of the Silver Oakleaf army, the faces of the soldiers in the coalition army of the three kingdoms changed drastically.
Countless Hydra were pouring up over the horizon. Their scales reflected a tallic chill under the sunlight, and as their nine heads swayed, saliva dripped onto the ground, corroding one smoking pit after another into the earth.
A new chaotic battle erupted in an instant, and almost the entire offensive of the coalition army turned toward these newly arrived Hydra.
But there were simply too many of them. One after another, they threw themselves into the fray, crushing shields with their serpentine bodies and lting armor with their venom.
The soldiers of the three kingdoms could only barely hold on by relying on dense formations and their advantage in numbers. Every step forward had to be bought by trampling over the corpses of their own comrades, and the sll of blood was so thick it refused to disperse.
“Damn it, how many of these monsters are there?”
A commander from Kadiya roared as he chopped through one snake neck, only to have his arm bitten by two other heads at the sa ti. His scream was cut off abruptly.
What drove the coalition army into even greater despair was that the monster legions that should have served as fighting forces were nowhere to be seen.
The Dwarf Kingdom’s Magic Bell Sheep Legion could release sound waves that intimidated strange beasts, while Kadiya’s Griffin Legion excelled at diving assaults, but they had only appeared on the first day of the war before being urgently recalled to their holands.
No one knew the reason. Only one order had been passed down: “Defend the holand. Do not engage unless absolutely necessary.”
Battle reports from the front were delivered one after another to the capitals of the three kingdoms, and every page was filled with casualty figures.
At the sa ti, anti-war sentint spread wildly through their countries like weeds. In council chambers, nobles slamd their hands on the tables and demanded to know why the royal treasury should be drained for a war that showed no visible return.
Commoners gathered in the plazas, holding signs that read “Bring Our Sons Ho,” blocking the gates of the recruitnt offices.
“The casualty ratio has already exceeded one to five, yet we still have not even taken one major border stronghold of Silver Oakleaf.”
At a noble council in the Dragon Kingdom, a count hurled a battle report onto the floor.
“How many Dragon Riders have we lost? The royal treasury is nearly bled dry of gold. If this continues, we will collapse before Silver Oakleaf ever does.”
The wave of doubt grew louder and louder, leaving the rulers of the three kingdoms overwheld and exhausted.
How could they not want to withdraw their troops?
But the Silver Oakleaf Kingdom’s collusion with the Hydra was a hatred that could not go unavenged. They also feared that once they retreated, the enemy would only turn around and devour them instead.
Caught in this dilemma, the offensive at the front grew weaker and weaker, and the soldiers’ hands began to tremble around their weapons.
They no longer knew whether they were fighting for justice, or simply throwing their lives into a bottomless war of attrition.
At the edge of the battlefield, one Hydra was tearing open the coalition army’s defensive line. Reflected in its serpent eyes was the chaotic crowd, along with a cold satisfaction.
And in the shadows behind it, dozens of juvenile Hydra were dragging corpses one after another into underground tunnels, sending them back to Magic Serpent Fortress.
Deep within the mine pit beneath Magic Serpent Fortress, the place had long ceased to resemble the mining site it once was.
The damp rock walls were densely covered in dark red runes, as though they had been drawn with coagulated blood. Their lines twisted like snakes, pulsing faintly with so invisible rhythm and giving off an eerie glow.
The air was filled with the thick stench of blood and sulfur, so oppressive that it was almost hard to breathe.
At the center of the mine pit, an enormous beast far larger than an ordinary Hydra was crouched on the ground.
Its scales had long since lost their luster. Dry blood scabs were embedded in the layered folds of its skin, and all nine heads hung low. Every serpent eye was clouded and dull, as though it had already reached the end of its life.
But at that mont, it was twisting its body with all its strength, trying to break free of the old skin that seed almost fused to its flesh and blood.
It was an agonizing molt. Every movent ca with the brittle crack of grinding bones and a hiss so suppressed it sounded as though it had been forced to the very brink.
“Hhh… hhh…”
The old Hydra’s breathing was as heavy as a broken bellows. Thick dark green fluid seeped out through the cracks in its splitting old hide, yet the shell still refused to co off completely.
An invisible force gripped it like shackles. Whenever it tried to exert its strength, that force tightened, making its whole body convulse in pain.
Just as it was about to collapse from exhaustion, the beast runes around it suddenly lit up all at once with red light, like countless eyes opening in the dark.
A scorching energy flowed along the rune patterns and poured into the old Hydra’s body, barely sustaining its consciousness on the verge of collapse.
“Blood… flesh…”
The old Hydra raised all nine heads at once. Its hoarse voice echoed through the mine pit, full of crazed hunger.
“I need more flesh and blood… the more, the better…”
The red light of the runes grew even brighter, and they even began to actively draw in the mountain of corpses piled outside the mine pit.
They greedily absorbed the energy of that flesh and blood, then transmitted it little by little through the pulsing lines into the old Hydra at the center.
Cracks were spreading across its old hide at a speed visible to the naked eye, revealing beneath it a newly ford layer of scales that glead with a tallic sheen.
At the entrance to the mine pit, several Hydra stood guard, trembling. Before them, the formation continued to operate, transferring the flesh and blood brought back from the battlefield to the area outside the pit.
One young Hydra could not help lifting its head to look toward the darkness shrouded in red light, its throat bobbing.
“Ancestor… can it really succeed?”
The Hydra beside it answered in a trembling voice.
“I don’t know… but we have no road left to turn back on… If Ancestor lacks flesh and blood, then we will have to fill the gap ourselves.”
From the depths of the mine pit, the old Hydra’s hiss rang out once again. This ti, it carried the desperate resolve of a creature breaking out of its cocoon.
The red glow of the runes reflected in its clouded serpent eyes like two clusters of hellfire.
This tamorphosis, with countless lives offered up as sacrifices, was advancing madly through the darkness toward an unknown end.
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