Chapter 1212: Black Tide Descends
Ethan spun and sent the signal to the rear.
But the battlefield where Emerald Castle’s main force was fighting had already reached a boiling point.
In the distance, layers of energy kept rising, pressing down until the entire front looked airtight. The Mournvale Abyss army’s power hung across the line like a massive wall, brutally stopping Emerald Castle’s advance. Every charge that slammed into it got forced back by corrosive energy. The glow on the shields was gnawed until it flickered, bright then dim, and the frontline formation couldn’t push forward even a single step.
Catheryn sensed it too.
She snorted, and her figure blurred—shooting straight toward the main battlefield. Wherever she passed, dust on the ground was kicked up, and the air split into a clean, visible corridor. The leftover corrosive force in the air didn’t even get the chance to reach her before the surging energy around her shook it apart.
The Mournvale Abyss soldiers who’d been locked in a death fight with Emerald Castle almost all froze at once.
The moment they saw Catheryn, the weapons in the hands of the first row wobbled. The corrosive power they’d been pushing forward lost its stability, twisting and snapping midair like someone had yanked out its spine. One soldier took an involuntary step back, armor bumping the chestplate of the man behind him with a dull thud.
"Bad news! Goddess Catheryn broke the seal—run!"
No one knew who shouted it.
But the next second, the Mournvale Abyss line collapsed.
The neat formation pressing forward was torn open from the middle as soldiers scrambled backward. Spears were dropped. Shields were thrown aside. Some didn’t even have the courage to look back and confirm—just turned and fled deeper into the裂谷, desperate to escape.
The energy between heaven and earth went chaotic with them.
With no unified control, corrosive forces darted everywhere, colliding with Catheryn’s expanding power and detonating into bursts of blinding light. Cracks split the ground. Dust rose along the battlefield’s edge, swallowing the retreating figures in drifting sheets.
They didn’t get far.
Catheryn raised her hand and pressed her palm forward.
A violent wave surged up behind her, swept over the heads of Emerald Castle’s army, and dove across the sky toward the fleeing Mournvale Abyss soldiers. The force spread into a massive curved surface first—then snapped shut, sealing the running crowd inside.
Soldiers slammed into the energy wall and rebounded like they’d hit iron. Some swung weapons at it, only to throw off a few short-lived sparks. Others tried to unleash corrosion to tear open a gap—black energy touched the seal and was crushed right back into their bodies.
Catheryn’s fingers tightened again.
The sealed circle caved inward. Power squeezed from all directions. The soldiers on the outer edge were crushed first—flesh and shattered armor spraying out together. Then the inner mass was dragged into it. Screams didn’t even have time to fully form before they were swallowed by a chain of explosions.
The backlash swept the ground, flinging discarded weapons and loose rock into the air and smashing them into the distant black cliffs.
Those panicked, fleeing silhouettes—
turned into minced flesh in seconds.
The battlefield went silent for a heartbeat.
Emerald Castle’s troops didn’t immediately chase. Many were still locked in stance, shields raised or swords half-lifted, staring through the blood fog at Goddess Catheryn. The enemy formation that had pinned them down couldn’t even leave behind a coherent line after she moved.
Ethan stared too.
Catheryn’s breathing was turning rougher, her chest rising and falling faster. But the energy around her didn’t calm—it kept spreading outward. That power rolled from the battlefield’s center across cracked ground, through floating dust, and into deeper darkness.
A deep, rumbling roar answered from within the abyss.
At the same time, Ethan returned to the front of Emerald Castle’s formation.
When he walked back from the abyss side, violent aftershocks still churned behind him. The traces of the Mournvale Abyss soldiers Catheryn had pulverized hadn’t fully dispersed, and the air still stank with the sharp, torn bite of ruined corrosion. The front-row soldiers snapped their grips tight as soon as they saw Ethan, the slightly scattered line immediately tightening up again.
Ethan didn’t waste a word.
He raised his hand and gave the order for a full charge.
The next instant, Emerald Castle’s army surged forward as one. Power rose in sheets from the formation—lighting across every shield and every weapon first, then merging into a massive torrent that flooded down the abyss corridor like a storm tide. Boots hammered broken black rock. The dense rhythm of marching feet echoed through the canyon, shaking fine debris loose from the walls.
This time, there was no resistance.
The Mournvale Abyss line had already shattered completely, and the road deeper in had been forcibly opened. Emerald Castle advanced down the corridor, energy spreading over the troops like a canopy, pressing the remaining corrosive aura back again and again. No enemies intercepted them. No new strikes fell. Only battle scars—cracks, rubble, and shattered terrain—covered the path ahead.
Before long, they reached deeper into the abyss.
But the moment the formation truly neared that region, the air ahead suddenly grew heavy.
Ethan felt it first.
His pace slowed, eyes cutting through the darkness toward the far end of the abyss. No immediate attack came. No dense swarm of enemies appeared. But an oppressive force surged in anyway, spreading low along the ground, threading through rock fissures, pressing into the formation until dozens of Emerald Castle soldiers involuntarily caught their breath at once.
The glow on their shields dimmed.
A few of the men in the front line shifted their footing backward without thinking, hands tightening until knuckles went white. They didn’t even know what was ahead.
Their bodies just knew.
Then a middle-aged man with a thick, powerful build stepped into view.
He stood at the mouth of a deeper passage, shoulders broad, posture steady, his entire body wrapped in roiling corrosion. Black energy spread outward from his feet, leaving ring after ring of dull, eaten scars across the stone. With his appearance, the space Emerald Castle had just forced open became heavy again, like the abyss had decided to sink back down on top of them.
Ethan’s eyes turned cold.
The aura coming off that man was terrifying—nothing like the power of ordinary Mournvale Abyss soldiers. It carried the kind of presence that could press down an entire battlefield by itself. Even Emerald Castle’s troops—who had just steadied themselves after Catheryn’s display—stalled again for a brief, instinctive moment.
The middle-aged man didn’t look at Ethan.
He didn’t look at the soldiers.
His gaze locked directly onto Catheryn.
"Catheryn!" he roared, and the sound detonated through the abyss, shaking dust from the canyon walls. "Never thought you, you filthy woman, would break the seal."
His mouth curled, contempt thick.
"But to me, you’ll always be a prisoner. Today I’ll show you what real power looks like!"
He bellowed and flung his arms wide.
Corrosive force gathered to him from every direction. Black patterns across the abyss floor stirred like living veins. Energy was ripped from cracks in the rock walls, layer after layer surging overhead. The gathered power compressed into a heavy black tide in the sky, its edges rolling and grinding with an ear-splitting friction.
The man slammed both arms down.
That black energy tide crashed from above, straight toward Catheryn. Along its descent, the air was crushed into a warped dark scar. Loose stones weren’t even struck yet before they were reduced to powder by the corrosive aura. The front-line soldiers’ faces changed as they threw shields up—then realized the attack wasn’t aimed at them at all.
"Hmph."
Goddess Catheryn didn’t step back.
Her power rippled outward, spreading from her feet, then flowing up through her body and into her arms. Violent strength poured into her palms, compressing between both hands into a huge energy sphere. Light trembled across its surface. The air was pushed outward in expanding rings, and dust on the ground lifted, spinning around her in a tightening spiral.
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