Chapter 50: Chapter 50: Continental Harvest
The Sunlit Steppes were immediately baptized in absolute, unadulterated ruin.
Fifty Abyssal Siege-Crawlers—massive, multi-legged artillery platforms of frictionless black glass—unleashed their first synchronized barrage. The heavy, repeating ballistas mounted on their backs did not fire solid iron. They fired highly compressed spheres of volatile dark alchemy synthesized by Elara Valerius.
The sky above the Golden Coalition turned a putrid, glowing violet.
When the spheres made contact with the tightly packed vanguard of the million-man army, they didn’t just explode with kinetic force. They detonated into massive, expanding clouds of corrosive void-plasma.
"Shield wall!" a terrified Coalition Commander screamed, raising his glowing platinum heavy-shield. "Hold the—"
He was instantly vaporized. The corrosive plasma aggressively devoured the holy wards of the infantrymen, melting through their steel breastplates and incinerating their flesh in a fraction of a second. Entire battalions were completely wiped off the map in a single heartbeat, leaving nothing behind but bubbling, glassed earth.
[Party Kill: Coalition Infantryman (Level 20) x4,500. +135,000 EXP.] [Party Kill: Silver-Rank Templar (Level 35) x800. +56,000 EXP.]
The sheer psychological terror of the bombardment instantly broke the Golden Coalition.
This was not a war of formations and tactics. It was a localized apocalypse. Without King Alaric or their generals to maintain order, the remaining one million soldiers completely abandoned their posts. They dropped their heavy weapons, trampled their own banners, and desperately fled south into the rolling hills, screaming in absolute, primal terror.
But they couldn’t outrun the Abyss.
"Do not let a single soul escape the Domain!" Seraphina roared, her corrupted golden eyes blazing with manic bloodlust.
The fallen High Paladin spurred her nightmare steed forward, leading the charge of ten thousand Void-iron armored Brutes. The heavy infantry of the Dungeon crashed into the routing mortal army like a tidal wave of jagged black metal.
The physical difference was a massacre. The eight-foot-tall Brutes swung their massive trench-maces, shattering the spines and skulls of the fleeing knights with effortless brutality.
Seraphina was a literal blur of death. She leaped from her steed, crashing directly into the center of the Coalition’s fleeing elite rear-guard. She swung the Mythic-Tier Eclipse Breaker in a devastating, 360-degree horizontal arc. The pitch-black greatsword violently devoured their desperate magical barriers and cleanly severed a dozen heavily armored knights perfectly in half.
[Passive Effect Triggered: Magic Devoured. Converting to Physical Stamina...]
Seraphina let out a dark, euphoric laugh as the stolen kinetic energy violently spiked her physical stats, allowing her to swing the massive blade even faster.
High above the slaughter, the heavens offered no salvation.
Ariel, the Abyssal Valkyrie, hovered in the churning, darkened sky. Her six massive Void-Wings passively beat against the air, radiating a suffocating, freezing dark aura that completely choked out the sun.
Down below, a desperate battalion of Coalition Arch-Mages rallied around a holy standard.
"Bring the demon down!" the Lead Mage screamed, tears streaming down his face as they desperately channeled a massive, combined pillar of white-hot holy fire toward the sky.
Ariel didn’t dodge. She simply looked down at the blazing pillar of light with absolute, cold apathy.
She raised her pale hand, tapping into her Level 105 corrupted core. The holy fire struck her hyper-dense shadow-wings and instantly dissolved into harmless, sparkling ash. The Abyssal Trinity link granted her absolute immunity to mortal-tier holy magic.
"Your Goddess is a parasite," Ariel’s voice echoed like a chorus of shattered glass, amplifying perfectly across the battlefield. "And your prayers are entirely empty."
Ariel pointed her hand downward. A localized tear in reality violently ripped open above the Arch-Mages. Hundreds of razor-sharp, hyper-dense void-spears rained down from the tear, completely obliterating the mages and violently pinning their corpses to the rotting, blackened earth.
[Kill: High Arch-Mage (Level 55) x20. +80,000 EXP.]
From the command deck of the lead Siege-Crawler, Kaelen watched the systematic destruction of the continent’s greatest military force with a wicked, deeply satisfied smirk.
He didn’t even need to draw a weapon. His generals were flawless. The localized leylines of the Dungeon were actively expanding outward, greedily devouring the blood and souls of the fallen army and feeding them directly into Kaelen’s core.
The glowing blue text of the System flooded his peripheral vision in a rapid, continuous blur.
[Massive Experience Threshold Met! Leveling Up...] [Level Up! You are now Level 96.] [Level Up! You are now Level 97.] [Level Up! You are now Level 98.]
The suffocating, god-like gravity of his Ascendant aura grew exponentially heavier with every passing second. The black glass of the Siege-Crawler actively cracked beneath his heavy boots, struggling to contain the sheer density of his existence.
"Master," Lyriel’s voice echoed smoothly through the telepathic link.
Kaelen looked down. The elven assassin materialized perfectly from the shadow cast by the Crawler’s mechanical leg. She held her poisoned daggers loosely, her silver eyes glowing with predatory amusement.
"The Coalition’s command structure is completely eradicated," Lyriel reported, kneeling gracefully. "The remaining army has shattered into hundreds of disorganized splinter factions. They are scattering across the continent."
"Let the Brutes hunt them down for sport," Kaelen commanded smoothly, the multi-tonal resonance of his voice violently vibrating the air. "What of their capital cities?"
"The Sunlit Steppes are officially without a King," Lyriel smiled. "And the neighboring empires of Valoria and Oakhaven have completely emptied their garrisons to supply this failed Crusade. Their massive stone walls are currently being defended by nothing but trembling old men and terrified squires."
Kaelen slowly raised his hand, pointing toward the southern horizon where the sprawling, wealthy cities of the human empires lay completely exposed.
"Elara," Kaelen called out through the link.
Down in the massive Imperial Forges of Aethelgard, the Forge-Master looked up from her anvil, her emerald eyes dilated with sheer devotion. "Yes, my Emperor?"
"The Siege-Crawlers perform flawlessly," Kaelen praised, sending a deliberate, concentrated pulse of euphoric dark mana down the link to reward her. "Synthesize another hundred. Strip the flesh and armor from the million men currently bleeding out on my plains. Feed them to the Brute spawning pools."
"It will be done, Master," Elara whimpered, practically vibrating from the sudden, intoxicating rush of his power.
Kaelen dropped his hand, his violet eyes burning with the absolute, unyielding intent of a true conqueror. The mortal realm was completely broken. The Goddess had played her final card and lost a million souls in less than an hour.
"Seraphina. Ariel," Kaelen commanded, projecting his will across the blood-soaked plains.
The High Paladin and the Abyssal Valkyrie instantly stopped their slaughter, turning perfectly toward their dark god.
"We do not stop," the Emperor declared, his voice rolling across the shifting black glass of his expanding Labyrinth. "Divide the Brutes. March on Valoria and Oakhaven simultaneously. Tear down their flags. Burn their shrines. By midnight tomorrow, I want this entire continent anchored to the Abyss."
