Chapter 237
Chapter 237. Savage Carnage
The wolf cavalry of the Frostwolf Clan put away their battle-axes. With a tug of their reins, the Icefield Giant Wolves beneath them let out long, drawn-out howls and turned toward the Misty Secret Realm behind them.
The shamans of the Blood Ring Clan danced with bone staves in hand. Green Soul Fire burned behind the formation, forming a strange barrier that carried the legion away at greater speed.
They brought the Legendary powerhouses of the Eight Great Clans with them, and their figures soon vanished into the dense mist at the entrance of the Secret Realm. They had to stop the Bloodclaw Knight Order.
After all, a large number of the Eight Great Clans’ elites had already been dispatched to several mid-sized clan Secret Realms under the Orcs Emperor’s vassals. They intended to destroy those mid-sized clans and let the Northern Continent see who truly had the final say over this land.
However, the tremors across the frozen earth did not cease.
The Orcs Emperor’s roar seemed to still be echoing in the wind. In the next moment, even denser clouds of dust rose from the horizon.
The Third, Fourth, Fifth, Seventh, and Eighth Legions of the Orcs Emperor’s Imperial Guard surged forward like five black torrents, bringing with them the forces of every vassal clan. They crushed over the lingering scars of battle and charged toward the Eight Great Clans.
“Bloodwash them. Leave not a single survivor.”
The lion general leading the army raised his warhammer high. The runes on the hammerhead erupted with dazzling crimson light beneath the sun.
Behind him, the great-axe infantry phalanxes advanced in perfect order. Every step they took split the frozen ground, and the sharp clashing of shields gathered into a metallic tide of fury.
Harpies circled high in the sky, their claws gleaming coldly. Their piercing shrieks tore through the clouds.
Even the Burrow Clan, which excelled most at digging, pushed battering rams forward and carved winding trenches through the icefield, pressing straight toward the Eight Great Clans’ encampment.
There were no roars of declaration, nor curses shouted before battle. The two sides collided abruptly like two masses of searing magma.
The steel spears of the Warsong Clan tore through the air with white frost, instantly freezing the armor of the Imperial Guard warriors in the front ranks. Yet the Soul Fire of the Blackstone Shamans swept over immediately after, burning those frozen bodies into charred black lumps.
The Imperial Guard’s Spellbreakers swung rune warhammers, and every strike shattered large swaths of shamanic barriers. Green poisonous mist and golden Dou Qi exploded in midair, condensing into eerie masses of light.
At the center of the battlefield, two black bear Orcs wrestled with each other. Only when their claws tore open each other’s throats did they see the clan emblems on each other’s necks.
They were actually distant kin from the same black forest.
One of them collapsed in a pool of blood. In his final gaze toward the sky, there still lingered a bewildered disbelief.
The shrieks of the Harpies pierced eardrums. The fierce wind stirred up by their dives swept along severed limbs and entrails, making it impossible to tell whether those remains belonged to comrades or enemies.
The trenches dug open by the Burrow Clan were filled with blood. Orcs from both sides climbed upward over the corpses of their companions.
The muffled sound of axes chopping into flesh, the brittle crack of shattering bones, and the booming explosions of shamanic backlash intertwined, becoming the most hideous movement ever played upon this frozen earth.
The Legendary powerhouses of the Eight Great Clans swept through the battlefield as though no one could stop them. A tiger warrior’s Dou Qi condensed into a tangible fierce tiger, and one swipe of its claws shattered the Imperial Guard’s shield formation.
A fox shaman summoned Ancestral Heroic Spirits. Wherever those phantoms passed, Imperial Guard soldiers turned against their own side one after another.
Those soldiers had originally come from small clans suppressed by the Eight Great Clans. Under the call of the heroic spirits, they actually raised their weapons against the comrades they had once fought beside.
Yet the Orcs Emperor’s Imperial Guard was by no means weak.
Every swing of the lion general’s warhammer carried thunder with it, forcibly smashing open gaps in the defensive line of the Legendary powerhouses.
The Icefield Shamans joined hands to lay down a Great Ice-Sealing Array, freezing half of the Warsong Clan’s camp into ice sculptures. Even the Soul Fire was sealed within the ice, releasing faint, brittle cracking sounds.
The slaughter lasted from dawn until dusk. The frozen earth was dyed dark brown with blood, then solidified in the bitter cold into a dark-red shell of ice.
The corpses of both sides were piled layer upon layer, rising higher than the lowest shrubs.
At times, one side had just torn open a gap, only to be forced back the next moment by the other side’s counterattack.
At times, the Imperial Guard’s warhammers were just about to smash open the Secret Realm barrier, only for reinforcements from the Eight Great Clans to charge out from the flank and wrench the advantage back by force.
The afterglow of the setting sun shone through the smoke, coating the battlefield in an eerie layer of gold and crimson.
The surviving Orcs leaned on their weapons and panted, staring at faces across from them that looked almost identical to their own. For a moment, they even forgot where their axes should fall the next time they swung them.
A stalemate pressed upon everyone’s heart like a heavy boulder.
They all knew that once this bloody battle of kin slaying kin came to a halt, the first thing to collapse might not be one side’s defensive line, but the very foundation upon which the entire Orcs Alliance relied for survival.
Yet now, no one could stop anymore.
The slaughter in the rear Secret Realm was even more hideous than the front line.
The Frostwolf Clan’s Ice Spike Array spread out between the canyon walls. Sharp ice spikes suddenly erupted from beneath the frozen ground, piercing the hooves of the Bloodclaw Knight Order’s magic wolves.
Yet the flails the knights swung in return carried blood-colored runes. In an instant, they smashed apart great swaths of ice spikes. Wherever the chain blades swept past, the warriors of the Frostwolf Clan were cut in half at the waist. Their scalding entrails splashed against the cold rock walls and quickly froze into dark-red chunks.
The shamans of the Blood Ring Clan formed a Great Soul Array. Dozens of bone staves were raised at the same time, and green wraiths surged out of the formation, howling as they pounced toward the knight order.
Those wraiths were the heroic spirits of the clan’s warriors who had died in battle throughout the generations. They carried undying malice with them, and once they wrapped around a knight, they would gnaw away at his Dou Qi.
But the commander of the Bloodclaw Legendary Knight Order, a one-eyed wolf beastman, suddenly bit open his fingertip and smeared blood across his warhammer. Then he slammed the hammerhead against the ground.
“By blood as my oath, break!”
Golden Dou Qi mixed with blood-colored runes and exploded outward. The wraiths let out agonized shrieks within the radiance, melting away like ice and snow.
The shamans within the formation all spat blood at the same time. Cracks appeared in the Great Soul Array, and several of the youngest collapsed directly to the ground, never to awaken again.
“Use the final trump card.”
The Legendary Elder of the Frostwolf Clan roared. Dazzling blue light erupted from all around him, and the Icefield Giant Wolf behind him suddenly stood upright. Its body swelled to three times its original size, and a chill capable of splitting steel condensed upon its fangs.
It leaped forward and pounced at the one-eyed commander. The instant its giant claws came crashing down, however, the commander sidestepped and evaded.
He swung the warhammer backhanded into the giant wolf’s joint. With a crisp crack, the giant wolf let out a piercing howl of pain. Its massive body slammed into the rock wall, shaking loose countless fragments of stone.
The elder’s eyes nearly split with rage. He raised an ice spear and charged at the commander, only for the other man’s flail to wrap around his neck.
“You traitor! You are no longer a member of the Frostwolf Clan!”
He roared as his ice spear pierced the commander’s shoulder, but the flail also tightened violently and snapped his throat.
The Great Shaman of the Blood Ring Clan watched his companions fall one after another. He seized the last bone staff beside him and stabbed it into his own heart.
Green Soul Fire instantly devoured him, transforming him into an enormous wraith that charged recklessly into the knight order’s formation.
Wherever the wraith passed, the knights’ armor decayed rapidly, and even the magic wolves collapsed to the ground, becoming pools of foul-smelling pus. But this eruption also exhausted his life. The wraith dispersed moments later, leaving only devastation scattered across the ground.
The canyon was piled full of corpses. The white fur of the Frostwolves and the bone ornaments of the Blood Ring Clan were mixed together and trampled into the mud.
The surviving Legendary combatants leaned against the rock walls and gasped for breath. Looking at the other side’s equally ruined formation, only numbness remained in their eyes.
The array had been broken, and more than half of their Legendary combatants had fallen. All they could do was use their remaining strength to delay the knight order’s advance.