314: Flesh Furnace

She hugged Shang Wan Ning's neck tightly, her eyes shining brilliantly. "Hell yeah, I'll strike wherever Your Majesty points. Let's drain it dry, so Sabrina won't even have a place to cry."

Shang Wan Ning let out a muffled groan from being squeezed, then raised her hand and gave the back of Chen Yu's head a gentle smack. "Let go, I can't breathe."

Chen Yu chuckled and loosened her grip slightly, her face still buried in the crook of Shang Wan Ning's neck. "Then Your Majesty, where do we start draining? Angmar is level seven; going in head-on might alert the enemy."

"What's the rush?"

Shang Wan Ning closed her eyes again, but her arm remained around the warm bundle in her embrace.

"Cultivate first. The wool must be plucked strand by strand."

Chen Yu sniffed the familiar scent of cold plum blossoms and listened to the steady heartbeat in her ear, her mind strangely relaxing.

Her sea of consciousness was filled with images of incense offerings as she mumbled, "Wool... pluck it all... bonus..."

The night was still long, and atop the spires of Wormrock City, the seeds of a conspiracy were quietly sown.

Under the dark red sky, a silent erosion targeting the outer god's nest had just begun.

At the crack of dawn, Wormrock City was bathed in a morbid dark red.

"Knock, knock—"

The knocking was both urgent and light. A Senior Attendant's skeleton head peeked in, the soulfire in its eye sockets flickering uncertainly.

"Your Excellency Shadow Eater Candidate Priest, the City Lord summons you."

Shang Wan Ning opened her eyes, still holding the soundly sleeping Chen Yu. She expressionlessly pushed the White-Haired Loli aside, waved her withered hand, and her black robe automatically wrapped tight.

"What is the matter?"

"The Lord did not specify," the skeleton attendant said, bowing. "He only said for you to take your apprentices and make a trip to the 'Flesh and Blood Furnace'."

[The Flesh and Blood Furnace? That's the core workshop of Wormrock City on the parchment. Is Angmar trying to probe my depths this soon?]

Shang Wan Ning's hood shifted slightly. "Lead the way."

Chen Yu was nudged awake and dizzily put on her black robe. You Yu and Tudor were already standing by the door, their auras restrained.

The group followed the skeleton, stepping down onto a slippery fleshy carpet. The deeper they went, the stronger the smell of sulfur became, mixed with the burnt scent of scorched flesh.

The end of the passage suddenly opened up into a massive cave, and a wave of heat hit them square in the face.

In the center of the cave was a boiling blood pool, the liquid inside bubbling and popping with a strange, oily sheen.

Around the pool stood dozens of tumor-like 'furnaces.' Their greyish sacs were covered in blue veins, and the furnace mouths were spewing dark red flames, causing the surrounding fleshy walls to sizzle.

The skeleton leading the way suddenly stopped, its empty eye sockets turning toward a crack in the left rock wall.

A faint purple mist seeped from the crack, condensing into tiny blood droplets as it hit the ground.

At that moment, countless hunched figures were busy working.

Some were throwing whole chunks of meat into the furnaces; others used bone pincers to pull out semi-molten metal blocks, hammering them into weapons and armor.

Even more were by the blood pool, pouring the refined, viscous 'Flesh Essence' into bone bottles.

The overseers were several armored insect-men, their compound eyes cold as their bone whips cracked loudly.

One thin, weak figure moved a bit too slowly, and a bone whip lashed across her back, tearing the flesh open.

"Hurry up! The Mother God's gift cannot be neglected," the Insect-man Overseer hissed.

The weak figure trembled and fell toward the edge of a scalding furnace... Shang Wan Ning's withered hand lifted slightly, and a Mage Hand grabbed the figure, narrowly pulling her back. The movement was so fast no one saw it clearly.

The Insect-man Overseer's bone whip paused, and its compound eyes turned toward Shang Wan Ning with suspicion.

The skeleton quickly scolded, "Impudent! This is the newly appointed Lord Shadow Eater Candidate Priest!"

The red light in the Insect-man Overseer's compound eyes flickered for a moment, and its bone whip lowered slightly, not daring to speak.

Shang Wan Ning ignored the overseer and pointed her withered hand at the mountain of bone bottles by the blood pool.

"Where are those essences being sent?"

The skeleton leaned in and whispered, "To answer the Master, seventy percent is for the City Lord and the White Bone Guards to temper their bodies. Thirty percent... is sent deep into the grey mist to the 'mother nest eye' to nourish the Mother God's avatar."

[The mother nest eye, Sabrina's avatar nest.]

Shang Wan Ning's gaze from under her hood swept across the busy workshop, finally landing on the largest furnace.

Its fire was the strongest, and its walls were carved with twisted runes that emitted spatial fluctuations.

"What is being forged in that furnace?"

"It is the core component of the 'Space Anchor.' The City Lord is personally supervising its construction to stabilize the temporary passage opened by the Mother God..."

Before the words had even faded!

BOOM—!!!

The largest furnace exploded, and dark red flames wrapped in shredded meat and bone fragments shot into the sky.

The violent shockwave knocked over dozens of nearby flesh-and-blood artisans, leaving a chorus of miserable wails. The runes on the furnace walls flickered wildly, and the spatial fluctuations instantly became chaotic.

"Enemy attack?" The skeleton's jaw clattered as it looked around in panic.

In the chaos, a twisted black shadow lunged out from the shattered furnace core, its speed ghostly as it headed straight for the pile of 'Flesh Essence' bone bottles.

"Quickly, stop it!" Angmar's roar came from deep within the cave, carrying a hint of frantic exasperation.

Several Insect-man Overseers lunged forward with their bone whips, but the shadow's tentacles swept out, snapping the whips into pieces.

The tentacles then pierced through the insect-men's carapaces, splashing black blood everywhere.

The shadow snatched up a dozen bottles of essence and turned to flee.

[Good opportunity.]

Shang Wan Ning flipped her withered hand inside her sleeve, and an inconspicuous bone nail popped out, silently shooting toward the crack in the rock wall where the shadow was escaping.

The bone nail sank into the stone crevice, and a faint light flashed.

When the shadow hit that section of the rock wall, space seemed to become as sluggish as a quagmire for an instant.

"Die!"

Angmar's massive body crashed out from the shadows, his tentacles shooting forth. Before their trajectory could even be seen, they struck the lagging shadow.

"Pfft—"

The shadow was whipped apart, fragments splashing everywhere. The bone bottles it had been carrying fell to the ground and shattered, the essence inside flowing out through the stone cracks and spreading like stains across the fleshy carpet.

Angmar's compound eyes were blood-red as his tentacles picked up a piece of the remains and sniffed it. "Another 'Faceless One' pest. Clean up the site."

He turned to Shang Wan Ning, the crystal facets of his compound eyes flickering. "Shadow Erosion Priest, just now... did you act?"

Shang Wan Ning pulled her withered hand back into her sleeve and said hoarsely, "The City Lord's power is divine. I merely saw the beast trying to destroy the essence and used a small spatial delay trick in my haste. I've made a fool of myself."

Angmar slowly retracted his tentacles. "A small trick? It was perfectly timed."

His compound eyes swept over the mess of the furnaces, especially the largest one that had exploded, its spatial runes now dim and damaged.

"The furnace is destroyed. The forging of the Space Anchor..."

Shang Wan Ning stepped forward, her withered hand pointing at the runes on the damaged furnace wall. "City Lord, this rune architecture seems to rely too heavily on flesh and blood energy, leading to insufficient stability."

"When I was in the Rust Mountains, I studied ancient space arrays and might be able to improve it slightly."

Angmar's compound eyes suddenly fixed on her. "You can fix it, and even improve it?"

"Mages who understand space are rare, let alone one at the Great Mage level."

Shang Wan Ning took three steps forward, reciting the background story she had prepared long ago. "I was once an apostate of the Purifying Flame Holy See, so I naturally understand some spatial formations."

Angmar's compound eyes narrowed, and all his suspicions about Shang Wan Ning vanished. "Hahaha, it all adds up. No wonder you were cultivating in the deep mountains and have such high magical attainments, yet still sought refuge in Wormrock City. So you are a traitor to the Nature Pantheon."

"As long as you work obediently for the Mother God, My Lord will naturally protect you..."