323: framing

Chen Yu watched, dumbfounded.

Shang Wan Ning flicked her finger.

The light arrow silently merged into the shadows and vanished.

"Target: Armored Bugman leader, Grumm." The raspy command struck the White-Haired Loli's ears.

Chen Yu understood perfectly; shrinking her small body, she scurried forward along the slippery wall of flesh.

On the right wing of the battlefield, the Armored Bugman Grumm was brandishing a bone blade and slaughtering in all directions, his carapace stained with the emerald-green blood of elves.

His compound eyes were crimson, caught up in the thrill of the slaughter.

"Lord Grumm is mighty!" Chen Yu's shrill voice suddenly rang out.

Grumm paused, his compound eyes sweeping over the inconspicuous black-robed apprentice. "An apprentice of Shadow Erosion? Get lost, don't get in the way."

His bone blade slashed toward an Elf Ranger who was attempting a sneak attack.

Now!

From the shadows, that forged emerald-green light arrow shot out without warning, like a viper flicking its tongue.

Pfft!

It pierced the weakest point of the carapace connection between Grumm's compound eyes.

"Ugh..."

Grumm's body suddenly stiffened, the murderous light in his compound eyes extinguished, replaced by unbelievable shock.

The emerald-green power of nature raged wildly inside his skull, destroying all signs of life.

"Elves... sneak attack..." Broken syllables squeezed out of his throat as his body crashed to the ground, splashing a mess of black blood and flesh.

"Lord Grumm!" The nearby bugman warriors' eyes nearly split with rage.

"Elven curs, how dare you assassinate our commander!" The furious roar ignited the Wormrock City monsters on the right wing.

They abandoned the enemies before them and lunged with bloodshot eyes at the nearest elven phalanx, their assault ten times more ferocious than before.

"It wasn't me, we didn't..." An Elf Centurion tried to explain, but before he could finish, he was overwhelmed by a storm of bone blades.

Almost simultaneously.

On the left wing of the battlefield, Elf Elder Ellora was waving a Crystal Staff, summoning Thorn Vines to strangle the charging Bone Eaters.

He was surrounded by several Silver-Armored Guards.

A viscous tentacle, carrying the sulfurous stench characteristic of Wormrock City, erupted from the meat carpet beneath their feet.

"Elder Ellora, watch out!" a guard cried out, but it was already too late.

Pfft!

The bone spur at the tip of the tentacle pierced Ellora's chest, hoisting him off the ground, his robes instantly soaked in foul blood.

"Ugh..." Elder Ellora's green eyes bulged, and the Crystal Staff slipped from his hand.

He looked down at the dark red tentacle that had pierced his chest and was still wriggling.

This was clearly the "Soul-Devouring Tentacle" that only high-ranking members of Wormrock City could command.

"Angmar, you despicable..." He coughed up bloody foam as his life force rapidly ebbed away. "No, Elder!"

Seeing their respected elder assassinated by Wormrock City's signature attack, the elves' rationality snapped.

"Avenge Elder Ellora! Kill all these filthy monsters!"

The chains of hatred tightly bound both sides.

The war escalated from skirmishes into a relentless meat grinder of death. The gray mist was dyed a strange hue of interwoven dark red and emerald green, with lives vanishing in wails every passing second.

The top floor of the spire, the Bloody Throne.

Angmar sat coiled upon the throne, the crystalline points of his compound eyes flickering wildly as they projected images of the brutal battlefield outside the city.

He felt a bit of regret over Shadow Erosion's death.

That black mage's spatial expertise was indeed useful.

But dead was dead.

Wormrock City was not lacking a candidate priest.

What truly made his tentacles wriggle with pleasure was the war before him. "Good, well fought."

Angmar's thoughts vibrated through the throne room as his tentacles excitedly slapped the meat carpet.

"The Mother Goddess requires sacrifices of blood and soul; she needs sharpened flesh and blood minions."

He stared at his subordinates fighting madly in the projection, watching the elves retreat step by step under the onslaught of the flesh monsters, a hint of greed appearing in his compound eyes.

"Followers of the Elf Goddess?"

"Humph, I'll use their blood to temper the blades of my Wormrock City. Clear the path for the Mother Goddess's descent onto the Ativi Continent."

Angmar didn't even consider that the deaths of Shadow Erosion and the others were suspicious.

Once the war machine starts moving at full speed...

...conspiracies and framing are nothing more than insignificant dust before the absolute torrent of flesh and blood.

Wormrock City only needed victory, and more blood food to nourish the mother nest eye.

[Heh, fool.]

In the shadows of the flesh wall, Shang Wan Ning's true body sneered silently.

Angmar's reaction was entirely within her expectations.

This kind of "sub-god" whose brain had been eroded by chaos had nothing but power and sacrifice in his eyes; his logic was as simple as a single-celled organism.

A withered hand reached out from the shadows again, its fingertips wrapped in a faint trace of bugman aura stealthily stripped from Grumm's corpse. Blue Soul Fire flickered, blending and shaping the aura... After a moment, a lifelike tiny Stinger Beetle composed of energy took shape.

It was quietly shot toward the other end of the battlefield, toward an Elf Elder who was commanding an elven mage corps in chanting a large-scale forbidden spell.

The framing never stopped.

Chaos was the best cover.

Chen Yu crouched behind a relatively "safe" pile of bones at the edge of the battlefield, her black robe covered in blood and bits of flesh from heaven knows who.

She held a small piece of glowing Marrow Stone she'd picked up from the ground, muttering under her breath.

"One Elf Centurion... worth five hundred Magic Crystals? A Bugman Overseer... three hundred? An Eyeless Behemoth is thick-skinned, let's say eight hundred!"

"If that old elf Sylvia kicks the bucket, tsk, she's got to be worth at least..."

She counted on her fingers, her eyes shining as she calculated, as if the scene before her wasn't a gore-splattered battlefield but a glittering ATM.

[I'm rich, I'm rich!]

[Mordecai's Beast-Eared Girl isn't going anywhere, and I've got to get a share of this otherworldly war fortune.]

[Her Majesty does the sabotage, I do the revenue generation. Perfect.]

In the distance, another emerald-green light arrow killed a Flesh Crafter from Wormrock City.

Simultaneously, a violent Soul-Devouring Tentacle tore through the defenses of an Elf High Ranger.

The battlefield grew even more chaotic as the snowball of hatred between both sides rolled larger and larger.

Chen Yu nodded with satisfaction, tucked the Marrow Stone into her bosom, and patted it.

[Fight, fight! The fiercer the better. This venerable one's wife fund depends on you.]

She adjusted her crouching position, finding a more comfortable angle, and continued to enjoy with great interest this "flesh and blood feast" directed by her and Her Majesty, to which they were constantly adding fuel.

Deep in the shadows of the spire, Shang Wan Ning's withered finger rose again, aiming at the next "lucky winner."

"Heh, Sabrina, the doomsday carnival of the Gray Mist Territory has only just reached its climax."

"I hold a grudge. Interrupting girls' intimate cuddling is a very impolite thing to do!"