Chapter 1322: Spreading Flames and Smoldering Shadows

Just as the chieftain and the general had anticipated, the defensive line atop Wolfspine Mountain could no longer hold back the surging tide of mutants pouring in from the wastelands. When a relentless barrage of corrosive energy arrows rained down, accompanied by countless aberrant creatures utterly fearless of blade or spear, even the bravest highland warriors and champion fighters were forced into a fighting retreat, ceding ground inch by inch.

The tribe’s warriors were neither lacking in courage nor battle savvy, but they were short on finely crafted weapons, insufficient in numbers, and their fortifications were ill-prepared—worst of all, they had no reinforcements. Their sole advantage lay in the natural defensibility of Wolfspine Mountain itself. Yet against an enemy that never tired and came in endless waves, even this advantage was quickly being worn away.

It wasn’t just Morak and Camilla who foresaw this grim outcome. Many commanders within the tribal army had long understood the situation: the Grant Wall had developed several breaches, and the pressure from the wastelands was unceasing. The tribe’s warriors had failed to stop the monsters at the eastern foothills of the mountain barrier; if they couldn’t hold there, they certainly couldn’t hold anywhere else against the swelling enemy ranks. Unless those breaches in the Grant Wall were sealed, the fate of the war was sealed the moment the mountain barrier fell.

Still, the tribe’s warriors chose to fight on—until the day of total annihilation. This stubbornness was etched into the very bones of the orcs. Since ancient times, they had never been a people to bow before despair. An unconquerable enemy would not make them kneel; they would only choose to die charging forward.

“This is not the end…”

A biting scent rode the cold wind. The tranquil Red Jade Forest seemed to sense the restless unease in the air. Towering ancient trees rustled in the breeze as the old orc Morak led a small elite squad through the woods. He lifted his gaze toward the dim shadows deep within the forest, listening to the faint echoes of distant battle cries carried on the wind, murmuring softly to himself.

The ancient forest offered no reply. Only the whisper of leaves stirred by the wind and the soft patter of snow falling to the ground echoed through the trees. Dawn had broken, and morning light filtered through gaps in the canopy, casting a hazy glow over a clearing. Beneath the ethereal light, thick snow and soft earth concealed subtle, barely perceptible whirlpools of energy quietly gathering.

The warriors felt eyes upon them—watchful, assessing. Morak raised a hand, and his soldiers immediately halted. He looked toward the far edge of the clearing, his gaze settling on a strangely shaped monolith.

The massive stone stood abruptly amid a circle of smaller rocks. Its irregular surface was etched with dark red veins, and several rough, natural crystals embedded atop it resembled eerie eyes. Morak stared at the stone until an invisible gust swept snow and dead leaves across his vision. Then the wind died down, and several cloaked figures appeared within the stone circle.

They were draped in thick cloaks, their entire bodies and faces hidden beneath the hoods. The fabric occasionally billowed as if beneath it was not flesh and bone but shifting smoke and dust. In their hands, they held weapons that looked decayed and fragile, as if they would shatter at the slightest touch. Cracks in the weapons’ surfaces glowed with a pale blue light—the cold breath of death seeping from within.

“Guardians of the Forest,” Morak stepped forward from among his silent warriors, his expression calm as he addressed the cloaked figures. “I speak on behalf of the Great Chieftain.”

“We know why you’ve come. The spirit shamans have told us of the battles raging in the east,” one of the figures spoke, its voice not of flesh and blood but a distorted vibration carried on the air. “Pathetic… We didn’t expect you to fall so quickly.”

Morak’s nostrils twitched, but his face remained impassive. “You will soon realize just how powerful that ‘tide’ truly is.”

“Perhaps. But we do not care,” the leader of the Guardians seemed to smile, though all Morak and his men heard was the hollow sound of the wind. “We only care about the terms your ‘Great Chieftain’ promised… We ignite the Red Jade Forest, and she grants us a way out. That is the entirety of the bargain. Am I mistaken?”

Morak quietly studied the figures within the stone circle. In the shadows of the forest beyond, more eyes and vague shapes watched them—these were the true Guardians of the Red Jade Forest, a group few outside knew of. Banished and cursed a millennium ago by the orcs in a great war, trapped eternally in a state between life and death, they were neither undead nor living. They were the pitiful remnants of the orcs’ ancient masters.

Their reign had been overthrown a thousand years ago by their own slaves. Now, all that remained were these “cursed ones,” nearly forgotten by time.

The land of Ogure was ancient and wild. In this age, it might not be as “advanced” or “civilized” as other nations, but beneath its mysterious surface lay countless ancient secrets beyond the imagination of outsiders. The Red Jade Forest was but a ripple in its long history—and now, that ripple was about to be stilled forever.

Morak withdrew a beast’s tooth pendant from his chest and held it before the Guardians’ leader. “The Great Chieftain’s promise is as unshakable as the mountains. This is your final debt to the living world. The spirit shamans have sealed the contract within it. I will leave it here. When the flames rise in the Red Jade Forest, this thousand-year-old grudge will end.”

In the dim forest, countless eyes instantly fixed on the pendant. Morak could feel the almost tangible hunger and heat radiating from those gazes. The pressure made the battle-hardened orc’s fur bristle, yet he remained composed, stepping forward calmly to place the pendant on a stone at the edge of the circle.

The Guardians’ leader moved almost immediately, drifting like smoke several meters forward. He reached out with an arm made of ash and thick smoke to touch the pendant. But before his fingers could make contact, a burst of pale blue flame erupted from his fingertips, forcing him to recoil and frantically extinguish the fire.

“The contract is not yet complete. You cannot touch it,” Morak said, as if expecting this, his tone steady. “You don’t need to touch it. Once the forest begins to burn, it will return to dust on its own.”

The leader silently drifted back to his place. From beneath his hood, two cold eyes seemed to pierce Morak’s soul. After a moment, a hollow voice emerged from the darkness.

“Hope you are truly prepared… Once the Red Jade Forest is consumed by fire, there will be no turning back.”

“A thousand years ago, when our ancestors decided to strike back, they had no retreat either,” Morak replied calmly. “We’re used to it.”

…

The armies spread across the mountains. The resistance of the civilized world flickered like a fragile candle in a storm, wavering and snuffed out one by one in the darkness. The complacent mortals beyond the wastelands and their laughable “mountain defenses” were like sandcastles on the shore—no matter how finely crafted, they crumbled silently when the tide came.

Deep within the surging mutant waves of the western front, numerous high-level aberrations and synthetic “behemoths” clustered around their command nodes. A dark treant druid, his bark withered and yellowed, his crown shaped like a grotesque brain, climbed a mountain rock blackened by chaotic magic. He stretched his branches in the cold wind, his deep brown eyes shifting beneath layers of bark as he gazed toward the sunlit slope.

The mortals’ defenses were there, holding the high ground, stubbornly resisting. But their firepower pouring down from above was now meaningless against the vast mutant horde. The army gathered from the wastelands advanced like a black tide flowing uphill, already establishing firing points along the mountain passes on both flanks. The exhausted orcs and their spirit allies could only raise feeble magic and burning stones that splashed insignificant ripples in the tide—ripples that visibly weakened by the moment.

Further north at a mountain pass, another legion had broken through the thinly held defenses. The massive mutant forces would soon bypass the mountain range and strike directly into the so-called “Sacred Forest.”

“Bertram is an incompetent fool… but at least his failure has taught us valuable lessons,” the dark priest commanding the western army said to another priest beside him. “Now we have found the weakest point in the mortal defenses. Once we destroy this ancient, fragile kingdom, their ridiculous ‘alliance’ will suffer a devastating blow.”

“As you say, High Priest Marcellus,” the junior priest replied, shaking his brittle branches. “But we must be wary of these cunning ‘mountain folk.’ Their resistance is fierce. Even now, cornered here, they show no sign of collapse. I fear they still have…”

“Stubborn will is their only redeeming trait, but will alone cannot change fate—we are their fate,” Marcellus laughed, his voice dry and grating. “We have cut off the entire western front. From the Grant Wall to these mountains, our legions cover the land. Even if the mountain tribes have reinforcements and try to encircle us, they won’t break through. As for reinforcements from inland Ogure… ha.”

He sneered contemptuously.

“That’s a land covered by mountains, forests, and raging rivers. Even if the alliance sent reinforcements—if they exist at all—they couldn’t reach the front lines in time. Unless their entire army flies here from the sky!”

Marcellus spoke as he glanced back at the low-ranking priests waiting for orders, along with the large contingent of aberrations controlled by them. Amid this silent force, the most striking sight was the “cargo” they carried.

Neatly arranged on the ground were massive cubes—dormant deep-blue netherway control nodes.

“Instead of worrying about those doomed, uncivilized orcs, our focus should be on the next move… Destroying a weakened ancient kingdom isn’t our true mission,” Marcellus said slowly. “Where’s the next deployment point?”

“A city called Crimson Jade—if it still goes by that name,” the low-ranking priest replied immediately. “Deep beneath the city lies an invisible rift. The locals know nothing of it; they only regard the magical energies around it as a ‘gift from their ancestors.’ We need to blow open the city center and then insert the rune stones.”

“Good. Crimson Jade—then comes Sanctum Helm and their so-called ‘Ancestor’s Peak,’” Marcellus’s dark gaze swept over the dormant rune stone cubes. “They’ll fight tooth and nail to defend that ‘holy mountain,’ but we must secure that node. So far, the grand plan has deployed nodes to nearly every usable deep-blue rift in the wasteland, but we’re still almost halfway behind schedule… Damn those sea hags.”

“Yeah, those damn sea hags… If they hadn’t interfered, we wouldn’t have had to rush for the Ancestor’s Peak node,” the priest agreed, then twisted his tendrils to look toward the fiercely contested ridge line. Under the rising sun, the banners of the Ogre tribe and Chief Kamira still flew high, but the blood and bodies around them were mounting.

Breaking through those forest tribes’ defenses was only a matter of time.

…

A low, pleasant hum rose from deep beneath the steel ground beneath their feet. The cold, fierce winds high above were blocked and filtered by the fortress’s energy shield, leaving only a gentle breeze to caress the deck. Mountains and valleys drifted slowly across the distant land, clouds so close they seemed within reach—sometimes even passing through them. This was an experience Rebecca would never forget in her lifetime.

Though dragon riders could fly, only those dragonborn pilots skilled in extreme maneuvers could truly feel this sense of vast openness. For ordinary humans, riding a dragon didn’t offer this—opening the hatch at such altitudes would be fatal.

Rebecca walked across the unusually wide deck of the Dawn of the Mortal World, taking a deep breath of the crisp, cold air. As her spirits lifted, she heard the ship’s mainframe voice through a nearby speaker: “Good morning, Creator. I hope you slept well last night.”

“I barely slept—couldn’t sleep at all, actually. But that’s no problem,” Rebecca waved her hand casually as she headed toward a large platform at the deck’s end. “How about you? How’s your first flight?”

“All systems are functioning normally,” the mainframe replied immediately. “My virtual persona assesses this as a ‘pleasant’ experience.”

“That’s good. Keep that up—then let’s give those monsters a big surprise!”

(End of chapter)