Chapter 71: BATTLE OF THE SWAMP (8)

The torch hit the black, viscous surface of the tar-mud.

For a fraction of a second, nothing happened. The starving, exhausted Paladins stopped their charge, staring at the tiny purple flame sizzling in the muck, their sleep-deprived minds failing to process the danger.

Then, the Bio-Reactor’s runoff ignited.

A shockwave of pure thermal force ripped through the basin, accompanied by a deafening THOOM that rattled the teeth of every creature within five miles.

A sea of violet and violent orange fire instantly engulfed the entire clearing. The flames shot forty feet into the air, feeding greedily on the chemical-soaked mud and the Paladins’ tabards.

“NO!” Aurelius shrieked.

The Golden King slammed his fists against the invisible barrier of his Sun Shrine network. He watched in absolute, paralyzed horror as his final 3,800 men were swallowed by the inferno.

He was Rank 9, a god of the Sun. And this fire was industrial, toxic, and utterly devoid of mercy.

Inside the blaze, the Paladins screamed. Their enchanted armor, designed to deflect magical heat, was completely coated in the sticky, burning tar. They couldn’t run as the mud clung to their boots like glue. They couldn’t cast spells as their faith was entirely drained from the days of marching and the nights of whistling arrows.

Those who managed to drag themselves to the edge of the fire pit, coughing up black smoke and reaching for the cool fog of the swamp, found no salvation.

Stepping out from the shadows were the massive silhouettes of the Troglodytes, their Star-Iron mauls reflecting the violet flames. Behind them, the burning amber eyes of the Treants glared through the smoke, their massive wooden fists ready to crush anyone who tried to retreat.

Gorak rested his heavy hammer-axe on his shoulder, the heat washing over his gray scales. He looked at a burning Paladin crawling toward his boots and smiled, showing his tusks.

“The mud is warm today,” Gorak rumbled.

High above, Red watched the Battle of the Swamp.

The massive cluster of golden dots had turned a chaotic, flashing red. The numbers on his interface were dropping so fast the system was struggling to render the updates.

[ ENEMY COMBATANTS REMAINING: 3,102… 2,840… 2,115… ]

Down on the map, a single, bright golden dot remained stationary behind the border.

It was Aurelius who couldn’t do anything but watch as he was trapped in his own domain.

Red adjusted his cuffs and leaned forward.

“Hostile takeover successful,” Red whispered to the empty room. “Welcome to the Spiral, Golden Boy.”

The tar-mud basin was no longer a swamp, but an industrial incinerator.

Thick, choking black smoke billowed into the night sky, turning the fog into a blinding, toxic smog. Inside the inferno, the remaining Paladins of the Golden Army abandoned all formation. Starving, sleep-deprived, and burning alive, the demigods reverted to sheer, panicked survival instinct.

“Push through!” Sir Valerius roared, his golden armor blackened with soot. “To the tree line! Break their perimeter!”

Hundreds of burning Sun-Men blindly charged through the violet flames, their boots fighting the sucking pull of the tar. They emerged from the smoke, gasping for air, swords raised, only to hit the solid wall of Bastion.

Warlord Gorak didn’t wait for them to catch their breath.

“Crush the gold!” Gorak bellowed, swinging his Star-Iron maul in a massive, horizontal arc.

The heavy, anti-magic metal collided with the chest plate of a charging Paladin. The weakened, heat-warped gold shattered instantly, and the Paladin was thrown backward back into the flames.

From the safety of the Cypress branches above, the Kobolds

rained death.

Star-Iron crossbow bolts whistled through the smoke, pinning Paladins to the rotting trees. While Sludge and the Mud-Skippers lobbed the remaining clay pots of Crawler’s Kiss, aiming specifically for the men who managed to cast protective water wards.

The acid melted their defenses and fused their joints.

At the edges of the clearing, where the tar-mud gave way to the deep, black water of the bogs, Razor-Fin and the Grey-Fins waited. Whenever a group of Paladins tried to flank the Troglodytes by wading through the water, scaled hands shot up from the depths, dragging the heavily armored men under the surface in absolute silence.

But the Sun-Men were still Demigods. Cornered and dying, they fought with the desperate ferocity of trapped animals.

A hulking Paladin, his cape entirely ablaze, let out a war cry. He bypassed his weapon entirely, channeling the absolute last dregs of his Divine Share into his bare hands. He lunged past a Star-Iron swing and grabbed a Troglodyte by the face.

With a blinding flash of [ SOLAR DETONATION ], the Troglodyte’s head was vaporized. The Paladin collapsed immediately after, his mana completely burned out, before a dozen Kobold bolts turned his back into a pincushion.

Another Paladin hurled a desperate lance of solid light into the canopy. The beam struck a branch, snapping it in half and sending three Kobold slingers plummeting forty feet into the burning tar below.

Up in the Void, Red watched the numbers flicker.

[ BASTION CASUALTIES: 14 ]

[ BASTION CASUALTIES: 22 ]

Red remained perfectly still, his hands resting slab. This was a war, and Zero casualties was a fairy tale. You had to spend capital to break a monopoly. But those who were martyred woke up in the Divine Heaven created by Red.

The final nail in the Golden Army’s coffin was not iron, but wood and stone

The Treants and Shell-Kins did not hold the line. They waded directly into the flames, their charred, blackened bark seemingly immune to the agonizing heat. They were looking for payment for the Root-Father.

A Treant the size of a watchtower reached down, grabbing a screaming Paladin in each of its massive wooden fists. With a sickening, cracking sound, it smashed the two armored men together like cymbals, dropping their ruined bodies into the muck.

“For the Roots!” the Treant bellowed, a sound like a mountain cracking in half. They kicked through the remaining clusters of Sun-Men, trampling the broken demigods under feet the size of boulders.

Just fifty meters away, separated by an invisible System border, Aurelius watched his empire die.

The Golden King stood at the absolute edge of his Sun Shrine’s territory. His fists beat against the barrier of his own domain as his golden aura flared with rage.

“Get up!” Aurelius screamed, his voice cracking, completely ignoring the fact that his men were being liquefied. “Fight back! I am the Sun! You are my chosen! BURN THEM!”

But his chosen were crawling in the mud. The 3,800 Paladins were reduced to hundreds, then dozens as their golden armor tarnished black by soot, acid, and blood.

Red watched the Golden King’s breakdown mentally and physically, although he lacked emotions for them. He only cared because he was losing, not because they were his people.

He simply observed the brutal, mathematical conclusion of a flawlessly executed logistical trap. It was like the CEO watching a competitor file for bankruptcy.

[ ENEMY COMBATANTS REMAINING: 12 ]

[ ENEMY COMBATANTS REMAINING: 4 ]

[ ENEMY COMBATANTS REMAINING: 0 ]

The screams in the swamp finally died out, replaced only by the crackling of the violet flames and the heavy, exhausted panting of the Bastion army.

Six hundred monsters stood amidst a sea of broken gold. And Aurelius stood entirely alone behind his invisible wall.

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