NOVEL NEXT Chapter 514: The Blood Gate Opens
At first, it seemed like victory was within reach. Hundreds of people unleashed their strongest ranged attacks in unison, filling the air with blinding streaks of power. A massive fist-shaped blast led the charge, crashing down toward the blood-red pillar of light.
But when their strikes landed, nothing happened. The light didn't flicker, didn't even ripple. The blasts were swallowed whole without the faintest sound.
The battlefield froze in an instant. Seven or eight hundred warriors stood rooted to the spot, their faces pale with disbelief.
"My… my attack was eaten?" one man stammered, as if asking for confirmation rather than stating a fact.
"It's the same here… my strike just vanished," another whispered, staring at his empty hands in horror.
These weren't novices—they were War God-ranked fighters, each with years of battle behind them. Yet their proudest, most destructive techniques had been devoured like kindling tossed into a bonfire.
Then came the roar.
The pillar of light began to tremble, seething as a thunderous bellow rolled across the frozen plain. It was followed by another, and another, until the air itself seemed to shake apart.
"Go forth, my children… unleash yourselves."
The voice was faint, almost whisper-soft, but it sliced through the roar like ice in the veins.
The ground shuddered. The pillar burst open.
From the crimson light poured a flood of figures, each one steeped in blood-red mist. There were so many that the horizon itself seemed to bleed.
"Boss!" Micah shouted, frantically scattering runes carved into bone chips, each one flashing as it struck the air. Behind him, beast cores from Ethan's supplies clattered to the ground like jewels in the snow. "They're using the blood of the ancient creature beneath us as a catalyst. They're opening a gate! I swear it—that's the Blood Clan's stronghold. If they succeed, this world is finished!"
"Stop with the lecture and tell us how to kill them!" Blackie snarled, his voice half-growl even in human form.
Micah glanced up, but his eyes widened at the tide already flooding across the field. There was no end to it, just rank after rank of scarlet bodies emerging.
Ethan's heart sank. He knew the truth—for million Blood Clan soldiers had gathered here. All of them at the very peak of the Transcendent stage. And among them, one hundred thousand were War God rank.
Four million enemies.
Their own forces? Barely two hundred thousand. And the number of true elites among them was pitiful by comparison.
The scale of it was madness.
The Blood Clan didn't waste time. With an earth-shaking roar, the first ranks charged.
The seven or eight hundred fighters who had been standing at the front collapsed into panic. Legs gave way, armor rattled. Some even lost control of their bowels, the mess freezing instantly against their skin in the biting cold.
They never had the chance to be ashamed.
The Blood Clan hit them like a tidal wave. In an instant, the fighters were ripped apart, flesh torn from bone, their blood sucked dry before it even had a chance to fall to the ice. Their frozen remains scattered like shattered glass, and then even those fragments vanished into the enemy's gaping maws.
The air turned coppery and thick, and the blood-scent only made the creatures howl louder.
The plain became a slaughterhouse.
"Micah, how much longer?" Ethan shouted, glancing back. The tens of thousands behind him hadn't moved. They stared in shock at the massacre, all will to fight crushed before they'd even drawn their weapons.
Ethan clenched his fists. With such overwhelming numbers stacked against them, even he felt the icy claws of despair digging into his chest. How were they supposed to win this war?
But he forced himself to stay steady. If Micah could raise the defensive barrier in time, if they could just hold the line for even a little while, morale might return. These weren't cowards. They had lived in the Sea of Death, had survived horrors beyond imagination. If they saw the enemy bleed, they would fight.
And if all else failed, there was still Shatterstar. That weapon could wipe every living thing from this field—enemy and ally alike. Unless there was truly no other option, Ethan would never release it.
"Half an hour, Boss!" Micah yelled back, his hands a blur as more runes flared in the air. "But the formation won't last without stronger cores! I need higher-grade catalysts, or it won't withstand so many War Gods!"
"How strong can your array hold?" Baelor Wane rasped, finally recovered enough to speak.
"At its peak? It can stop a Saint-rank strike for thirty minutes," Micah replied without hesitation.
Baelor's eyes narrowed. "That strong… like Clearspring City's great barrier. Then take these." He clenched his jaw, producing three sixth-tier beast cores and tossing them forward.
Micah caught them, weighing their energy with a grim nod. "Barely enough for the anchor points. If only I had an eighth-tier—"
"Here," Shaw Zilo interrupted. With a flick of his hand, he summoned a snow-white core that radiated frost. It drifted into Micah's grasp, glittering with power.
Micah's eyes lit up. "Perfect! Hold the line for thirty minutes. Once the barrier is fully charged, it will cover not only us, but the reinforcements when they arrive."
Ethan didn't waste a second. "Julian! Blackie! Form up!"
Blackie roared, shifting into his true form, though this time only the size of a warhorse. Julian vaulted onto his back, steady as stone, and summoned a golden greatsword that gleamed with divine fire.
"Central Dominion Guard!" he bellowed, his voice carrying across the plain. "Brothers—give them everything!"
The guard responded at once. Blades rang as ten thousand warriors surged forward in unison, their blood-forged auras igniting the air. Heat shimmered against the cold as they followed Julian and Blackie, a golden spearpoint piercing into the tide of crimson.
They were hopelessly outnumbered, a tiny force against four million. But when Julian raised his sword, their spirits merged into one blazing will.
Ethan watched, astonished, as he realized something else. Every last man in the Central Dominion Guard had reached the Transcendent peak. And their captains… many were already stepping into the War God rank.
The power rolling off them was the same burning heat he'd sensed earlier, emanating from the silent figure of Bongo, who now marched at their back.