Altar

Chapter 691 Altar

When the army was still a thousand meters away from the iconic city wall on the river front, built of huge logs and rough rocks, it came to an abrupt halt as if it had struck an invisible wall of sighs made of death and filth.

A thick, strange smell permeated the air.

It wasn't the pungent, rusty smell of fresh blood, nor the nauseating stench of a rotting corpse.

Rather, it is a deeper, more somber, stale, bloody stench, as if it has been steeped in countless pains and despairs. It is like the blood of countless living beings being forcibly drained, condensed, and ultimately transformed into an invisible curse permeating every grain of dust, silently seeping into everyone's nasal cavity and skin, bringing a physiological discomfort and a chilling chill to the soul.

When everyone's gaze finally pierced through the thin mist, which seemed to never dissipate and was tinged with a faint blood color, and truly landed on the city walls at the front line of the river region.

An indescribable chill, a mixture of horror and absurdity, instantly gripped everyone's hearts.

It was deathly silent, eerily quiet.

The once bustling city gate, teeming with mercenaries and caravans, is now deserted. The massive log gate stands askew, like a silent, gaping maw leading to hell.

The crenellations that should have been lined with vigilant sentries and defensive equipment on the city walls were now empty, with only a few tattered, stained flags hanging listlessly in the blood-scented wind.

The ramp leading to the city wall in front of the city gate was a mess!

Weapons were scattered all over the ground: broken spears, chipped swords, shattered shields, broken bows... all kinds of weapons and styles, mixed together, silently telling the story of the fierce close combat that had broken out here not long ago. Scattered pieces of armor were also everywhere: twisted and deformed breastplates, broken helmets, and torn arm guards, like metal wreckage torn and discarded by a huge force.

However, there was no body, no bloodstains, not even a trace of the dark red stains that should have been left by a struggle.

All that could be seen was cold metal, shattered wood chips, swirling dust, and the lingering, nauseating stench of old blood that permeated the air, as if a war fought by ghosts had just taken place here, and all the participants, along with their flesh and blood, had vanished into thin air after the battle.

The terrifying contrast between this extreme cleanliness and the intense stench of blood in the air sent chills down the spines of even the most valiant Black City mercenaries.

Qin Nan flapped her wings and landed lightly beside Scáthach, whose face was as cold as frost.

She suppressed the pounding in her heart, her delicate face filled with confusion and a hint of barely perceptible fear, her voice tense. "Lady Scáthach, what... what is going on? The smell of blood is so strong, yet there isn't a single corpse, not even a drop of blood. This doesn't make sense."

The spirit parrot, Little Grey, silently landed on Qin Nan's shoulder, its emerald green beady eyes warily scanning the eerie, clean battlefield.

Scáthach's eyes coldly scanned every detail of the city wall, from the types of scattered weapons and the shapes of the damaged armor to the huge tear marks left on the city gate. Finally, her gaze settled on the invisible yet seemingly heavy bloody scent in the air.

"The altar has been activated."

She slowly raised a finger covered in shadow armor, pointing to the empty city wall and the equipment scattered on the ground.

"Here, the entire area has been completely transformed into a living, greedy blood sacrifice altar." All living beings who die within this area—warriors, civilians, or fanatical cultists—their flesh, their souls, their very essence of existence will be instantly absorbed and devoured by this enormous altar.

The sacrifice is completed the moment death arrives.

"Therefore, you will not see corpses, you will not see blood, you will not even see any trace that proves they ever existed."

"Because everything they had has been eaten," becoming the most delicious nourishment for the joyful, crawling creature about to hatch.

Little Grey flapped its wings, its voice still tinged with fear, and pointed to the scattered items on the ground. "You can tell from the chaos of these weapons and equipment that an extremely fierce battle took place here, a completely disorganized and chaotic melee."

Qin Nan's sharp gaze swept across the battlefield, quickly locking onto several unusual spots. "It's not just the sentries and guards, look over there."

She pointed to several dark red robes, torn to shreds but still bearing distorted and blasphemous symbols, in the shadows near the inner side of the city gate. "Many of those cultists died too; their robes were just lying there on the ground."

Thinking of how their existence was instantly swallowed up by the altar, leaving only empty robes, Qin Nan felt nauseous.

"Madness...is their doctrine; death is their destiny." Scáthach's voice was icy cold. "Once the altar is opened, they are no longer 'human,' but living bombs driven by the desire for sacrifice."

"They will not fear, they will not back down, and they will kill and destroy in the most insane and ruthless way." Scáthach's blood-red eyes gazed behind the city walls, at the terrifyingly silent interior. "Until they themselves are swept into the vortex of slaughter, offering their own flesh and soul as the final sacrifice" to that greedy altar.

"For them, this is the most perfect sublimation."

Just then!

"Holy crap!!!"

A non-human roar, filled with madness and bloodlust, suddenly came from above the city wall!

A figure dressed in tattered clothes, with eyes burning with an abnormal, ghostly green light like will-o'-the-wisps, emerged from behind the barricade like a wild beast.

He had no weapon in his hand, only waving his withered arms in vain, letting out unintelligible roars from his throat, and then, without hesitation, he leaped off the high city wall like a moth to a flame, plunging headfirst into the legion standing below.

boom! !

After a dull thud, the figure crashed to the hard ground, becoming a bloody mess. But strangely, at the moment of his fall, a faint, yet foul-smelling, dark red light seemed to flash briefly at the spot where his body hit the ground.

Then, the second, the third...

Like dumplings being dropped into a pot, dozens of refugees, equally driven to madness and with vacant, fanatical eyes, seemed to be controlled by invisible threads, rushing out from every corner of the city wall and from the depths of the broken city gate... disregarding everything.

Some of them brandished crude weapons, while others, like the first, were unarmed. They surged towards the Black City Legion like a tidal wave, uttering incomprehensible roars, their eyes filled with the mad light of destruction and self-sacrifice.

"See that?" Scáthach's icy voice rang in Qin Nan's ears, tinged with cruel mockery. "This is the resolve of a sacrifice after being controlled."

She slowly raised her hand, her scarlet eyes filled with no pity, only icy killing intent.

"Everyone, prepare for battle!!"

"Kill!!" The Black City Legion behind them erupted in a deafening roar.

But the sound did not instill any fear in the controlled refugees. They howled like wild beasts and charged madly toward the Black City Legion.

The battle began in an extremely bizarre and brutal manner.

Those refugees on the front lines of the river basin, whose minds had been corrupted and who had become living nourishment for the altar, surged out of the silent city gates and breaches in the city walls like a mad herd of beasts driven by an invisible whip, without any order or pattern.

With bloodshot eyes, they roared and laughed incoherently, brandishing crude weapons or even their bare hands, and with a hysterical madness that disregarded their own destruction, they crashed into the Black City Legion's formidable steel lines.

*Thud!* *Crack!* *Bang!*

The sounds of impact, bones cracking, and blades piercing flesh filled the air instantly.

However, the scene was not the expected evenly matched contest, but rather a one-sided massacre.

Faced with the well-trained Black City mercenaries and elven rangers, clad in magical armor, wielding sharp dark crystal weapons, and fighting in formation, these madmen, devoid of reason and protection, were as fragile as paper. The sturdy shield wall easily blocked their feeble attacks, the sharp dark crystal spears pierced their bodies as easily as cutting through wheat stalks, and each swing of the heavy battle axe brought up large chunks of severed limbs.

These frenzied refugees couldn't even pose a threat to the formation; they couldn't even break through the front echelon holding shields, and most of them were pierced by arrows before they could even charge forward.

Scáthach stood quietly not far in front of the formation, like a reef in a storm.

A refugee with his eyes rolled back and drool dripping from his mouth roared and lunged at her. She didn't even turn her gaze; instead, the long, straight, and powerful leg clad in shadow boots delivered a casual side kick like a whip.

Bang!

The figure was struck as if by a battering ram, flying backward at an even faster speed than when it charged, crashing heavily into the base of the city wall, its body twisting strangely, clearly beyond saving.

Immediately afterward, two more madmen pounced from the side. Scáthach's figure moved slightly like a ghost, her two long legs instantly turning into afterimages.

boom!boom!

Two muffled thuds rang out almost simultaneously! The two figures that lunged forward were kicked away like tattered sacks; one crashed into half of a low wall, while the other became embedded directly in the wooden pillar of the city gate.

Her movements were fluid and graceful, possessing a cold, almost artistic beauty. Each kick was precise and deadly, yet appeared so nonchalant.

To her, cleaning up these sacrificial offerings that were treated as consumables seemed no different from brushing off the dust from the corners of her clothes.