Chapter 181. Sacrificial Ritual and Summoning
The slaughter on the walls continued.
The soldiers of the Noble Legion swung their swords and hacked down the Barbarians climbing up the battlements. Blood ran down the fortress bricks and quickly froze in the bitter air.
Suddenly, William’s attention was no longer on the melee below. He stared fixedly at the sky.
At some point, a blood-red sphere had appeared high above them. It kept swelling larger and larger, like some grotesque heart pulsing between the clouds and radiating a sinister aura that made one’s chest tighten with dread.
“This isn’t right...”
William muttered under his breath, his mind racing.
Kalgari could not possibly have failed to realize that this suicidal charge was meaningless unless... his true objective had never been to storm the fortress at all.
Just then, the blood-red sphere suddenly trembled, and its rate of expansion sharply accelerated. The blood beneath Despair Fortress began to rise as if pulled by an invisible force, streaming upward into the crimson orb.
“Fire! Shoot it down!”
Kru’s roar rang out first. He had clearly sensed the danger as well.
The magic crystal cannons on the walls instantly swung their muzzles around, and several dazzling beams tore through the air, striking straight at the blood-red sphere.
“Hummm...”
The instant the beams collided with the orb, more than a hundred Orc Shamans clad in beast hides and holding bone staffs suddenly appeared from the formations behind the icefield.
They raised their bone staffs high and began chanting obscure, incomprehensible incantations in hoarse, unified voices that sounded as though they had risen from the Abyss itself.
As the chant rose, a thick crimson glow spread across the surface of the blood-red sphere and formed a massive protective barrier.
The beams from the magic crystal cannons struck the barrier and produced nothing but ripples. They failed to damage the orb in the slightest.
“It’s the shamans’ Blood Curse.”
Keli’s expression changed drastically.
“They’re using the Barbarians’ blood and lives for a Sacrificial Ritual. That red sphere is... it’s a Summoning Array.”
William’s heart sank.
A Sacrificial Ritual? A Summoning Array? So that was it. Kalgari really had been playing tricks. He had used the lives of countless Barbarians as bait to draw the fortress’s attention while secretly completing this grotesque ritual.
“All mages, concentrate your fire on the barrier!” William shouted sharply.
“Kru, increase the power of the magic crystal cannons and keep firing!”
Five thousand Gold Mages attacked at once. Their vast mana gathered into a massive elemental torrent that roared forward like a dragon and slammed into the crimson barrier.
The armor-piercing shells from the magic crystal cannons shrieked through the air and struck the same point again and again. The barrier’s red light flickered violently, as if it might shatter at any moment.
But the Orc Shamans had gone mad. They kept chanting without pause, and some even coughed up blood, forcefully reinforcing the barrier with their own life force.
Protected by the barrier, the blood-red sphere continued to expand with slow, unwavering certainty. Twisted runes began to emerge across its surface, and an even more terrifying aura was building within it.
“Your Highness, this won’t work.”
Kru rushed to William’s side, blood staining his armor.
“The barrier’s power comes from the sacrifice. As long as the Barbarians’ charge continues, it can keep drawing strength without end!”
William looked below. Sure enough, even though the front ranks were charging into a sea of fire and certain death, the Barbarians behind them were still being driven forward. Their blood seeped into the ice and followed some invisible path toward the distant line of shamans.
In the end, it all flowed into the blood-red sphere in the sky.
“Cut off their source of sacrifice.”
William’s gaze sharpened as he pointed toward the Orc Overseer Squad on the icefield.
“Stop their advance.”
Outside Despair Fortress, Kalgari looked at the blood sphere in the sky, which had grown ever more scarlet, and a cruel smile spread across his face.
He shot a look at his Deputy Commander, Lailan. The latter understood at once and suddenly raised the battle axe in his hand high over his head.
“Hummm...”
The low blare of a war horn rang out again, but this time it carried an eerie frequency.
On the icefield, the Barbarians in mid-charge suddenly looked as though invisible hands had seized them by the throat. Their movements froze at once. Then blood began seeping from all seven orifices, their eyes bulged wide, and unbearable agony congealed across their faces.
Thud... thud...
Great swathes of Barbarians collapsed to the ground. Their bodies twitched a few times, then fell still. Blood poured from their eyes, ears, noses, and mouths, pooling into winding streams across the frozen ground and flowing along some hidden pattern toward the Orc Shamans.
The soldiers on the walls were dumbstruck. They forgot even to breathe. This was no charge. It was plainly a sacrifice.
“They’re accelerating the sacrifice...”
The old mage atop the Watchtower cried out in alarm, the gem at the tip of his staff flashing wildly.
“The Barbarians aren’t being killed in battle. The shamans’ spell is forcibly draining away their life force and blood!”
The blood-red sphere in the sky seemed to receive a massive nourishment. It suddenly swelled by another full circle, and the runes on its surface lit up with a sinister red glow. Even the barrier became thicker and denser.
The attacks from the magic crystal cannons and the mages landed on it, but now even the ripples they produced had grown faint.
Standing atop the Watchtower, Kalgari watched the ever-growing sphere and licked the fang at the corner of his mouth.
“William Kroll, this is only the beginning. Did you think holding the fortress would be enough? I’ll let you see with your own eyes what true despair is.”
At his side, Lailan said quietly, “Commander, according to the ritual, in another quarter of an hour, ‘that one’ will descend.”
“Good.”
Kalgari nodded and turned his gaze toward the Golden Dragon and the Legendary Powerhouses closing in above the fortress.
“Send the Legendary Combatants to meet them. Don’t let these humans interfere with the ritual.”
Lailan accepted the order and departed. A moment later, dozens of tyrannical auras shot up from the Orc camp into the sky.
They were the Legendary Powerhouses of the Orcs and Barbarians. Clad in beast hides or heavy armor and wielding bone blades and giant axes, they lunged viciously toward Darwin, Keli, and the others.
“They came at the right time.”
A Legendary mage who controlled the wind element snorted coldly and swept his staff through the air, sending several Wind Blades straight at the foremost Orc Legend.
The sky instantly erupted into a violent clash. Dou Qi and magic intertwined, beastly roars and incantations rang together, and every collision tore through the air with a shrill screech. Even the clouds were blasted apart.
Darwin avoided the giant axe of a Barbarian Legend and answered with a blast of dragon breath, forcing the opponent back again and again.
But his gaze never left the blood-red sphere pulsing in the distance like a living thing. The unease in his heart rose like a swelling tide.
The rhythm of that sphere’s pulsing was growing more and more similar to the records of a certain forbidden ritual in the dragons’ inherited memories.
Time slipped away amid the fierce slaughter. The blood-red sphere’s glow grew brighter and brighter, and the runes flowing across its surface moved so quickly they almost seemed to merge into one.
Then, with a sudden BOOM, the orb exploded without warning.
Countless streams of scarlet light burst across the sky, only to gather together again in a grotesque fashion and weave themselves into an enormous magic array.
Its lines were intricate and sinister. Every stroke looked as if it had been drawn with congealed blood, and it radiated a suffocating pressure.
Immediately afterward, a thick stench of sulfur spread out from the magic array, mixed with searing heat, as though a living hell were slowly opening within it.
The soldiers on the walls could not help covering their noses and mouths, and even breathing became difficult. Those with weaker cultivation turned pale and trembled all over.
“It’s an Abyssal Array!”
The old mage on the Watchtower screamed in terror.
“What they’re summoning is... an Abyssal Creature.”
William’s heart shook violently, and his grip on his sword hilt tightened at once.
The Abyss was a place even Domain-Level Powerhouses feared, a realm that delighted in slaughter and destruction. If such a thing descended upon the Eastern Continent, the consequences would be unimaginable.
The magic array in the sky spun faster and faster. The smell of sulfur grew stronger and stronger. In the center of the array, a black vortex was beginning to form and widen, and deep within it, it seemed as though countless scarlet eyes were opening one by one.
“Stop it! Stop it now!”
William roared. Beside him, the magic crystal cannons fired without pause, shot after shot slamming into that Array Core.
The Legendary Combatants wanted to help, but the Orc Legendary Powerhouses had them tightly pinned down. One Barbarian’s giant axe, carrying a violent tearing wind, even came straight for Darwin’s wings.
The clash in the sky became even more savage. Everyone knew that this was no longer a matter of victory or defeat. They were racing against time.
They had to destroy this Abyssal Array before that horrifying existence fully descended.
The sulfurous stench grew ever more pungent, and a low roar came from within the black vortex, as though some colossal being were awakening.