Chapter 251: A Sea of Blood

  The fish-belly white of dawn was slowly brightening in the east. A faint mist appeared over the grassy forest floor, but this morning haze, which should have been as light and white as gauze, was now tinged with a crimson red—a color stained by the blood on the ground.

  The grass around the teleportation array was almost submerged in blood. This was not an amount that could be shed by one or two, or even dozens of people, and it didn't seem to have been shed all at once. In many places, the blood had already congealed into black clumps, over which fresh blood flowed. This once-lush, green meadow had become a sea of blood.

  There were no corpses or dismembered limbs soaking in the blood. The bodies had all been placed together in a very orderly manner, piled into a small hill like ingredients neatly stacked by an organized chef. The chef who had created this masterpiece was now holding the knife in his hand, watching the two people appear in the teleportation array with a very calm and wooden expression.

  "This is the two hundred and eighty-fourth. I rarely tire of killing, but today, I'm feeling a bit weary. You know, even the simplest action, when repeated over two hundred times, can easily become tiresome..." Knight Tamika said lightly to the two of them. In his hand, he held an elf whose throat had already been cut open. Fresh, red blood gurgled from the elf's fair, slender neck, splashing onto the grass. The elf twitched in a strange posture, his facial features so contorted they seemed about to tear from his face, but he could not make a sound, just like a chicken with its throat completely slit.

  The cut on this elf's neck was exactly the same as those on the hundreds of elf corpses piled there—a single, precise cut that severed both the vocal cords and the carotid artery, without harming a single extra bit of muscle or skin, like a loaf cut by the most experienced baker. The ground had been churned into a bloody paste, yet the black Fangs longsword in his hand was without a trace of blood, as clean and bright as new. Knight Tamika's expression was placid, and his every move seemed to carry an air and posture that was natural and innate, like a master chef who could effortlessly dissect an ox in the flick of a finger.

  Standing beside the hill of accumulated corpses, on a small lake of congealed blood, he was not just a master chef, but a grand butcher.

  Not far away, a large group of elves lay or sat, divided into several large clusters. They did not appear to be tied or restrained; the hundreds of elven captives were all unconscious. Nearby, there was also a pile of charred objects, whose shapes could barely be made out as the corpses of more than ten elves burned beyond recognition.

  "Alright, bring over the Leaves of the World Tree. Oh, and that thing which once emitted a strange aura here—I know it must be on you." Knight Tamika's voice was not loud, as flat and unremarkable as usual, mixing with the heavy, burnt stench in the air until they were indistinguishable.

  Almost as soon as the words left Knight Tamika's mouth, Luya had already produced the Leaves of the World Tree. But instead of stepping forward to give them to Knight Tamika, she held them up high. A brilliant, jade-green light shone like a lantern as magical power surged out like a furious spring.

  "Great Mafa, your servant calls upon divine power in your name—Thorn Cage!" Seeing this mountain of corpses and sea of blood, Luya immediately went from extreme shock to extreme terror. As she chanted loudly, the grass around Knight Tamika's feet suddenly grew and deformed at an explosive speed. The originally soft grass instantly formed a tall forest of thorns around him. And these thorns were not just thorns; they were more like giant, strange serpents, the moment they took shape, they coiled and pressed toward the Tamika Knight in the center.

  This could absolutely not be considered a cage, but a giant meat grinder. Countless thorns, as thick as arms, were covered in spikes as sharp as steel nails, and with the force they were exerting, even a bull in the center would likely be crushed to fragments.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  But Knight Tamika was naturally no bull. The black Fangs longsword flashed around his body with incomparable speed, and the python-like thorns were severed inch by inch. After his strike, Knight Tamika's expression remained unchanged; he just casually picked up a fragment of a thorn and threw it toward a pile of lying elven captives.

  The sound of the fragment landing was very small, very slight, but in the next instant, there was a sudden, loud boom, and that pile of elves was engulfed by a blazing, dazzling pillar of fire. The pillar erupted violently from the ground, like a geyser that had been building up for hundreds of years. The elves' screams barely had time to begin before they were burned to ashes along with everything else in the flames. The fire burned for only a moment and then instantly vanished, leaving only a patch of charred corpses on the ground.

  "If you dare to attack me again, I will burn another pile. They are all sitting on magic traps. I can just toss something over and dozens of elves will instantly become charcoal. And don't you try to touch those traps with your nature magic; even the slightest collision will trigger them to detonate," Knight Tamika said expressionlessly, pointing to a Templar not far behind him. "The magic traps made by my subordinates are certainly not inferior to the masterpieces of the assassins from the Assassin Guild years ago."

  That Templar stood with a longsword beside a group of elven captives. Like his leader, he was expressionless. He had a middle-aged face, no exposed sharpness or imposing manner, and didn't seem to possess the demeanor or style of a master at all, even appearing a bit rustic.

  Just like the other Templar who used the Mana Divine Eye, Knight Tamika's subordinates are not necessarily powerful fighters, but when they are performing their function, they are superior to any master.

  "I'll say it one more time: give me the Leaves of the World Tree and that other thing. Otherwise, I will keep killing until you are willing to hand them over." Knight Tamika gave the two a cold glance, then turned and walked toward the elven captives.

  "It's useless. This is a sacred relic of our elven race. Every elf is mentally prepared to sacrifice for it. You can't threaten me." Luya's eyes were already bloodshot, and she forced the words out through her teeth, one syllable at a time. Compared to Master Aiden's threat to blow up the entire Whispering Woods, Knight Tamika's threat seemed insignificant. But faced with the mountain of corpses and the smell of blood so thick it seemed to swirl in her mind, she only felt her own blood boiling.

  Knight Tamika ignored her, simply reaching out to grab an elven captive and slitting his throat with another cut. He was not a man of many words, because he knew that actions were more persuasive.

  Luya's whole body was trembling. She suddenly lunged, jumping off the platform of the teleportation array. But she wasn't rushing to fight Knight Tamika desperately; she was running in the direction of the War Ancient Tree. She could not hand over the Leaves of the World Tree, but she could not bear to watch her people be slaughtered like this.

  "Don't move!" Just as Luya's body moved, Ethan suddenly shouted and reached out to grab her. Ever since they appeared in the teleportation array and discovered the situation, Ethan had seemed a bit strange. He hadn't rushed to fight Knight Tamika, and he just stood there, holding the bag of magic scrolls he had just plundered from the Tower of Fangs, not knowing whether to use them, just scanning the surroundings. It was only when Luya moved that he suddenly seemed to come to his senses and violently moved to stop her.

  Luya's body was still in mid-air when Ethan's hand caught her, but the tips of her toes had already touched the semi-congealed sea of blood below.

  An overwhelming, sky-covering magical aura instantly filled the space around the teleportation array. If the magic trap that burned the elves earlier was a geyser that had been building for a hundred years, what now shot towards the sky was like a dormant volcano, silent for a millennium, suddenly erupting.

  However, what erupted was not fire, but a bone-chilling cold air, more fierce and intense than the flames that had instantly turned people to charcoal. Not only did the moisture in the air instantly freeze, but the air itself was solidifying, stiffening, about to become a solid to imprison those within.

  From the moment Luya's feet touched the bloodstains on the ground, in the time it took to blink and a third, a massive, snow-white block of ice appeared out of thin air over the large bloody mess, enveloping everything inside, including the teleportation array.

  With a crisp 'clang' sound, almost at the exact moment the white ice formed, a black blade of light with a human figure burst out from the massive block of ice. Ethan landed on the grass, his entire body covered in a thin layer of white frost, with several larger chunks of ice still attached to his legs. Behind him, the massive block of ice continued to emit cold air, rapidly drawing moisture from the air to grow itself. By the time Ethan landed, turned, and looked back, that massive block of ice had already become an iceberg.

  Luya's figure was completely frozen in the very center of the mountain-like block of ice, like an insect specimen trapped in a massive piece of amber. Also trapped inside was the Leaves of the World Tree, its brilliant jade-green light extending from the leaves and encircling her. The iceberg was now fully formed. The special ice, condensed from immense water magic power, was as hard as iron; I fear even Gru could not break it open easily.

  Ethan only briefly glanced at the scene inside the iceberg and then looked away, because there was a more important person to watch. When facing someone like Knight Tamika, no one would dare not to watch.

  "I knew that if I triggered the trap myself, it would surely alert you, so I waited for you to trigger it. But I didn't expect it still wouldn't be able to trap you. So, you know how to let go."