novelraw Chapter 463: Decapitation Strike! A Legendary Battle!
Chapter 463: Decapitation Strike! A Legendary Battle!
Under the azure sky, war raged violently.
Behind the Impregnable Wall, in the inner defensive positions, dust and rubble were whipped away by breath-driven gales, revealing a colossal, towering figure to the air and the defenders' sight.
In that instant, the air in the entire area seemed to thicken and grow scorching.
A metallic, sulphurous reek of molten iron spread outward.
A powerful, hulking silhouette appeared before everyone.
His build was extraordinary, several times larger than ordinary ogres, like an aberrant giant from myth.
He stood more than ten meters tall, with shoulders over five meters wide, his body covered in knotted, terrifying muscle fibers that looked like cooled lava. His skin was dark red, overlaid with rough, scale-like keratin plates that glinted with a furnace-like crimson glow between the scales.
Two curved, steel-gray horns jutted forward from his brow, and a thick, long tail lashed the ground, carving webbed cracks into the solid surface.
A dragon-blooded Gluttonous Ogre—Karu!
This highest military commander of Ironwall Fortress had personally arrived, leading a legion of burrower worms, using earth and concealment magic to avoid the satellite’s routine detection, launching a surprise strike on this position.“Wahahaha! Little mice of Theo, tremble beneath Old Man Karu’s crotch!”
Karu let out an ear-splitting, maniacal laugh that made the remaining glass panes hum.
His huge eyes swept once and immediately locked onto the command center, and the human in commander’s attire being shielded by officers in its midst.
Then he didn’t even run. He simply took long strides and began walking forward.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
With every step, the stone street cracked and collapsed like broken biscuits, fissures spreading dozens of meters outward.
A fixed alchemical cannon blocking his path, with its heavy steel base, was casually kicked aside by him, rolling into a nearby row of barracks and detonating in a chain of explosions and roaring flames.
“Stop him! Stop that monster!”
Sharp whistles and officers’ shouts filled the air.
A unit of Theo heavy infantry, having just rushed out of nearby barracks, formed a spear line on the street. They wore full plate armor and wielded four-meter anti-large-target dragon lances, planting spear butts deep into the ground while tips angled forward, forming a forest of steel.
Karu merely brushed aside the obstructing mass with a lateral swing of a giant arm, as if flicking away weeds.
Bang! Squelch—!
Half a squad—over twenty elite heavy infantry—turned instantly into spraying clouds of blood and shattered armor.
The heavy lances twisted and snapped, the sturdy plate armor torn as if it were paper.
They were erased in the literal sense before they could even let out a decent scream, reduced to lumps of torn flesh.
The stench of blood intensified.
“Golem units! Activate Fortress Guardians! Stop him!”
The ground convulsed violently as three “Fortress Guardian Mark IV” heavy war golems, buried under preset shelters, rose rapidly under hydraulic drives and rune arrays.
These were the fruits of Theo’s alchemical industry.
Each matched or exceeded Karu’s height, weighing over four thousand tons, their shells forged from enchanted adamantine and rare star-silver alloy, dense and dull metallic gray, studded with many fist-sized magic crystals.
They advanced with heavy, synchronized steps in a triangular formation to encircle Karu; each footfall made the earth groan.
The lead golem launched its attack first.
Armor at the front of its arms snapped open with a clang, revealing high-speed rotating alloy drills within that shrieked as they plunged toward Karu’s rippling chest.
This was an attack capable of drilling through metal walls, unstoppable in force.
Karu did not block or dodge.
He puffed his chest out slightly; the muscles beneath his dark red scales bulged, and he let the frenzied drill bury itself into his chest.
Clang—!!!
Creak—!
The grating sounds of metal twisting and snapping rang across the battlefield, even drowning distant explosions and battle cries.
The drill penetrated Karu’s outer keratin scales, but after less than ten centimeters it jammed against the knotted, wire-like muscle fibers and the dense bone beneath.
The drill spun madly, sending sparks flying, but could not advance an inch further.
“Toy.”
Karu looked down at the smoking drill and uttered two guttural syllables.
He raised his left arm; those impossibly thick fingers opened and covered the golem’s angular metal head.
Rather than gripping, he completely enveloped it.
Then his fingers closed.
With a teeth-grinding metallic wail, the head forged from adamantine and star-silver alloy was crushed like heated wax into a twisted lump of scrap.
The internal magic crystals shattered, and chaotic energy scorched his palm, smoking, but his thick hide barely registered the damage.
Karu’s right arm swept across, smashing the golem’s torso.
Boom!!
The golem’s chest caved inward, and heavy armor at the corresponding spot on its back cracked open!
Gears, drive rods, rune core arrays, energy conduits… burst out like opened pomegranate seeds from the great breach.
A four-thousand-ton war machine flailed like a discarded puppet, toppling and smashing into another golem that had been lunging forward.
The two entangled and rolled, flattening fortifications and houses in their path.
At that moment, another golem’s chest plate slid aside, revealing a six-barreled alchemical cannon.
The barrels were fully charged and erupted in blinding fire!
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
A searing alchemical barrage formed a dense net of fire, engulfing Karu’s massive frame.
High explosive, armor-piercing, incendiary—various special alchemical rounds detonated in succession, orange fireballs and black smoke swallowing him.
Shockwaves hurled fragile objects within a hundred meters away, the ground pockmarked with charred craters.
Ordinary soldiers dared not approach.
Yet before the smoke fully cleared, the mountainous figure strode out of it.
Smoke rose from between his scales; many wounds marred his surface, some scales curled and tore, but his movement was unaffected. If anything, the ferocity in his burning eyes only intensified.
The other two damaged golems struggled up from the ruins.
Their outer armor was badly deformed; one had even lost its head and moved sluggishly, but internal combat protocols and resilient frames still drove them toward the target.
“Boring tricks! Come, keep tickling Old Man Karu!”
Karu bellowed, his roar shaking the sky.
Boom!
A visible plume of crimson flame ignited along his massive body, condensing and solidifying inch by inch from his shoulder blades outward!
Finally.......
A pair of sinewy, vascular, dark-red giant arms formed on top of his original limbs!
In that moment, Karu transformed into an even more terrifying four-armed giant.
In addition to his own life level, Karu had followed the great Red Iron Dragon Emperor onto the Star Path, and his rank was not low.
Four arms danced in unison!
Karu clenched fists and punched with brutal simplicity.
Thud! Crack!
A golem’s lower limb was smashed to pulp and collapsed in imbalance.
Another golem’s chest was struck by a titanic fist of fighting qi; its upper body bent painfully backward, almost folded in two, core arrays shattered, its inner light extinguished.
.......
Three high-end war golems, worth as much as an elite cavalry regiment, were reduced to smoking, sparking heaps of scrap and parts.
On the remaining terrace of the command building’s third floor, Rodrigo watched all of this with officers and guards around him.
Dust stained his uniform; a shard had slashed his left cheek, leaving a streak of blood, but his sword hand remained steady and his face calm as iron.
He stared at the grotesque giant walking among the golem wreckage with an unruffled expression.
“Little insect! You smell… delicious!”
Karu’s eyes fixed on Rodrigo on the terrace several hundred meters away, and his fanged maw split into a ferocious grin.
He could sense an important scent from that human—the commander, a target worth tearing apart!
He ceased caring about scattered ranged attacks; arrows and magic bolts barely tickled him.
His hulking body crouched slightly, four arms hanging low, legs coiling. Terrifying power conducted and accumulated into the ground beneath his feet.
The surface radiated cracks centered on his feet, forming a spiderweb-like pit over twenty meters in diameter.
The next second—boom!!!
Karu shattered the earth beneath him, his massive form tearing through the air and launching upward at a speed entirely disproportionate to his size. A blurred afterimage trailed through the sky, bringing a suffocating gust of blood and sulphur.
He fell like a small meteor straight toward Rodrigo on the ruined terrace.
At Karu’s explosive speed, the distance took less than a heartbeat.
The guards had no time to shove the commander to safety.
But in that lightning-fast instant—
Hum!
A vertical barrier of condensed light sprang up with no warning! Half a meter thick, its surface rippled with watery radiance, radiating an indomitable aura, standing squarely between Karu’s impact path and the terrace.
Boom—!!!
Karu struck the light wall with his flesh-and-blood body!
Dazzling light exploded! The barrier shook violently, web-like cracks spidering across its surface until it shattered.
Karu’s wall-smashing momentum was arrested; the tremendous recoil sent him flying backward at even greater speed, spraying blood through the air, scales torn by the barrier’s jagged shards into many wounds.
Yet he landed steadily; the wounds did not hit vitals.
As Karu landed, a figure emerged from the shadows behind Rodrigo.
He did not descend the stairs but leapt lightly through a breach on the third floor, landing soundlessly between Karu and the command center ruins, facing the dreadful giant head-on.
The newcomer appeared to be in his fifties, with a rugged, well-defined face and fine lines at the corners of his eyes carved by years and weather, yet his eyes were sharp and clear as a youth’s, without any cloudiness.
He wore plain gray light armor without ornament.
Most striking was the long spear in his right hand.
Over two meters long, the shaft was a treated, dull black ironwood, glossy and durable; the spear tip was made of a peculiar silver-white metal that did not reflect sunlight but seemed to swallow light like a small black hole, making the space around the tip somewhat dim.
His stance was unostentatious, simply standing tall with a straight spine.
Like a battle flag weathered by countless storms but firmly planted, calm and resolute, carrying the killing aura of many battles.
“Legend…”
Karu shook his massive head and stared fixedly at the spearman, baring his teeth.
“Hey, you finally crawl out of the mouse hole?”
The spearman, Iron Spear Balor, was the legend permanently assigned as the Kingdom of Theo’s highest protective commander.
He did not respond to Karu’s provocation. He tilted his head slightly and cast his gaze to Rodrigo on the terrace.
“Commander, fall back to a safe area. Leave the next fight to me.”
His voice was clear, laced with steady confidence.
Rodrigo calmly nodded and, surrounded by guards, quickly withdrew.
He glanced at the other burrower worms and Aola elite troops rampaging in the distance, then at the sky, his thoughts racing.
He did not expect that their legend would be forced out first…
In strategy terms, he had already lost on that front.
Still, the Aola warlord, the Grand Warlord, dared to risk his life and personally carry out this high-risk decapitation strike.
So having a legend respond to finish things off was a reasonable exchange.
Across from him, Karu obviously knew the spearman was dangerous.
He did not immediately attack again; instead, he began to adjust his breathing.
With each long inhale his dark red scales parted slightly, exhaling hot steam reeking of sulphur; with each heavy exhale his knotted muscles swelled further, his bones making sickening cracking sounds.
In a few breaths his body swelled another thirty percent; his aura grew more blistering and feral.
The air around him shimmered with heat.
Beneath his skin it was as if lava flowed slowly.
Balor moved too.
He showed no flashy beginning—he simply leveled his spear, the tip aimed directly at Karu’s chest in a movement pared down to the extreme.
“For Aola!!!”
Karu roared, a howl that split the heavens!
A deep emblem embedded in the flesh of his chest flared with blinding light.
At the same time, as if answering their leader’s roar, all Aola warriors rampaging within the Dazhi Iron Front—ogres, ogre elites, Dragonforged Warriors—near and far, lifted their heads and let out a unified, battle-thirsty war cry: “For Aola!!!”
The sound surged upward!
The Oath of Ten Thousand Armies’ Command was activated in that instant.
Theo’s forces, reeling from the surprise attack, couldn’t respond quickly; the system required prearrangement, not instant activation.
At this moment, the battlefield will poured into Karu as the control node.
Boom—!
Karu’s form expanded again!
Already horrific muscle fibers bulged more violently; the skin broke into small fissures, revealing molten-like glow beneath, only to be rapidly covered by newly formed, thicker keratin.
Jagged bone spurs erupted from his shoulders, elbows, and back joints, glinting cold.
The crimson flames around him solidified into a substantive, burning blood-colored armor!
His aura reached its peak, matching genuine legendary pressure.
Then he charged recklessly, four arms—fist and claw—trailing blood-red flame arcs like burning meteors, bearing down on Balor!
Balor’s pupils contracted.
At that instant he perceived a real, tangible threat in the Gluttonous Ogre.
But he did not hesitate. His wrist twitched and he vanished from his spot.
Thrust!
The spear stabbed with no flourish, faster than visual afterimage, even outpacing sound.
The tip tore the air without a gust because the trajectory was so straight and efficient that the air had no time to roar.
It appeared abruptly a foot before Karu’s chest then continued steadily forward, aimed directly for the heart protected by thick muscle and bone.
The silver-white metal that swallowed light glowed faintly upon contacting Karu’s flame armor.
Clang—!!!
A piercing clash of metal and iron echoed with sparking fire!
Karu did not dodge but only twisted his torso slightly, using the thickest muscles and ribcage on his left side to take the lethal strike.
Squelch!
The spear tip tore through the solid blood-colored aura, pierced the tough dark-red scales and keratin, and sank deep into Karu’s flesh and bone.
But it became lodged.
“I’ve got you, insect! Die for me!!”
Karu laughed wildly, as if the agony threading through his body was negligible.
Two blood-formed arms of condensed fighting qi shot out like the strongest shackles and clenched Balor’s spear shaft! The other two original muscle arms had already wound up and now swung, one left and one right, to smash the slightly delayed legend warrior whose weapon had been trapped.
Before the fists even landed, the pressure of their blows had already made the air around Balor congeal; the ground groaned inward!
Facing this unavoidable pincer strike, Balor’s eyes flashed; he advanced rather than retreating!
He braced the impact with his domain to absorb damage, then aimed to burst out and wrench his weapon free before delivering a sharper counterattack—his rich combat experience making the optimal choice in a flash.
But reality exceeded his expectations.
At the moment the two massive original fists struck the domain—
Boom!!!
Balor’s domain distorted violently; cracks appeared on its surface!
Creak… crack crack…
The sounds of shattering rang out.
The domain’s fractures radiated from the impact points, spreading rapidly like a mirror breaking.
Residual force seeped through the fissures and still slammed into Balor’s arms crossed in front of his chest and his body, albeit weakened.
“What?!”
Surprise finally showed on Balor’s face.
He felt bone-crushing pain through his arms, his innards roiling, and a sweet taste in his throat as blood involuntarily leaked from his mouth. His body was hurled into the air by the remaining massive force, rolled backward and smashed through several collapsed walls.
Karu’s life level had long reached the pinnacle of the mundane.
Gluttonous Ogres already possessed formidable base qualities, and Karu had inherited red dragon flame and power talents from the Red Iron Dragon Emperor.
This made him stronger than many red dragons among his peers. Now amplified by the Oath of Ten Thousand Armies’ Command, a single punch had actually cracked a legend’s domain.
Balor still had that peculiar spear embedded in him, blood gushing down its shaft, evaporating into mist on his scorching body.
But Karu seemed oblivious to pain and didn’t look at Balor.
He knew that even in this peak state, killing a legend in short order was nearly impossible.
Breaking the domain did not mean completely shattering it.
So without hesitation, the Gluttonous Ogre spun, spear still lodged, became a bloody hurricane, and charged toward Rodrigo and the guards withdrawing nearby.
“That monster…”
From afar Balor breathed raggedly, watching Karu rush Rodrigo, dread filling his chest.
Rodrigo’s guards could not withstand even one strike from Karu in this condition.
Balor felt the splintering bones, clenched his teeth, inhaled deeply, and, using his hand as if it were a spear, swung a highly condensed spear-light toward Karu.
At the command entrance Rodrigo’s pupils tightened; he struggled to remain composed.
He hadn’t expected this Gluttonous Ogre to push their legendary warrior back, even at the cost of injury for momentum.
This meant if the monster ever truly breached the legendary threshold, Aola would gain a terrifying war general capable of beheading marshals amid tens of thousands.
That posed a grave threat to Theo’s future.
At the same time, the insignia at Rodrigo’s waist shone and shot a brilliant blue beam into the sky.
It was the highest-level distress and positioning signal.
Almost as the blue light rose, a tiny spot of light near the scorching sun flickered in response.
A magical satellite received the signal and began calculating an optimal transfer coordinate and accumulating energy.
But that required time, even a brief breath for guidance and lock-on.
And Karu, burning with scarlet flame, was already tearing through the air, closing in!
His vast shadow completely covered Rodrigo and the last few guards.
“Commander!!”
Adjutant Torres’ eyes went bloodshot. Knowing they could not win, he still raised his sword, unleashed all his magical energy, and charged Karu without hesitation to buy the commander a second.
Thud!
A dull impact sounded.
The frail human body met the rampaging giant and Torres exploded into a tragic spray of blood, leaving no intact bones, a pitiful mist.
Karu did not even glance down.
He roared through the blood mist, ignoring Balor’s remote spear light that pierced his back and opened wounds.
His right claw, edged with ripping gusts, closed on Rodrigo!
Before the claw struck, its violent aura had already torn Rodrigo’s general’s uniform, slashing several bloody gashes across his chest.
Swoosh!
At that split-second!
A soft pale-blue beam descended from the sky, instantly enveloping Rodrigo and the two nearest guards!
Their silhouettes became ethereal, translucent, and then vanished, teleported to a preset safe zone tens of miles away.
When the light faded, Rodrigo’s face was white as paper, and he stumbled, dropping to one knee.
His left shoulder and the entire arm were cleanly severed from his body.
The wound was not a mangled mess but a smooth, mirror-like cross-section.
Bone, muscle, vessels, and nerves were visible; no immediate bleeding flowed. An extreme high-temperature energy had carbonized the wound at contact, preventing hemorrhage but inflicting horrific burns and agonizing pain.
A heart-wrenching agony hit him like a tsunami a tenth of a second later.
Rodrigo clenched his teeth, veins bulging on his forehead, cold sweat soaking his torn uniform, nearly fainting from pain and blood loss.
A guard who had been teleported with him hurried to help.
At the same time, a golden beam descended, wrapping around Rodrigo.
The column brimmed with vast life energy; Rodrigo’s wound stopped bleeding and tissue began crawling and closing before the eye. Vital signs stabilized rapidly as new bone, muscle, vessels, and skin sprouted and reassembled—the arm’s regrowth was excruciating but astonishingly fast.
Inside the Dazhi Iron Front, having lost its primary target, Karu unleashed an enraged roar that shook dust from nearby ruined structures.
But Balor’s spear-light continued to wreak havoc inside him, shredding organs and muscles.
His skin cracked open repeatedly; scale fragments crumbled and dark red blood seeped from countless wounds, hissing as it hit the ground.
His aura visibly waned; the condensed blood arms flickered in and out.
Meanwhile, Aola warriors who had completed their demolition tasks or encountered stiff resistance began to withdraw according to plan, heading toward the burrower worms’ gaping mouths that had not yet left.
One by one the burrower worms opened their spiral maws again, swallowing returning soldiers, then pointing their heads down and roaring as they dove to tunnel away.
“Reptile! Next time we meet, I’ll twist your neck off!”
Karu growled toward Balor, then charged the largest burrower worm.
He knew they had to withdraw immediately.
If more Theo legends or satellite-transferred reinforcements arrived, escape would be impossible.
Balor wiped blood from his mouth and inhaled deeply.
He glanced at the withdrawing Aola forces and then at Karu’s still-ominous back, preparing to pursue.
At that moment Rodrigo’s voice came over the comm.
“Balor, do not pursue! You cannot kill him quickly.”
“Normann Pass… was just struck by the legendary White Dragon Beskarl!”
“The garrison suffered heavy losses. The pass is in dire straits! Support immediately! That’s an order!”
Normann Pass was another key strategic node for the Kingdom of Theo.
Balor’s pupils contracted.
“Damn it!”
The legend stamped the ground, opening a shallow crater, and forced himself to suppress pursuit.
He stopped watching the fleeing enemy, raised his hand, and pointed to the sky.
The satellite responded again.
A thicker, more concentrated blue beam than the one that teleported Rodrigo descended, enveloping Balor.
His figure blurred in light and, the next moment, he vanished from the Dazhi Iron Front, urgently teleported to Normann Pass.
New Calendar Year 343, high summer, July 17.
While the Aola Kingdom launched large-scale feints across multiple fronts to distract and pin forces, dozens of burrower worms loaded with elite ogres, ogre elites, and Dragonforged Warriors—led in person by warlord Karu—emerged from distant hidden tunnels after extreme long-range burrowing and successfully broke ground inside Dazhi Iron Front to launch the attack.
Aola’s warlord, the dragon-blooded Gluttonous Ogre Karu, with a mundane body, withstood the legendary warrior Iron Spear Balor and briefly repelled and injured him, nearly succeeding in beheading Theo’s front-line overall commander Rodrigo Krowen, and ultimately withdrew with severe wounds after satellite intervention.
On the same day, Aola’s other legend, Ancient White Dragon Beskarl, struck at Theo’s eastern strategic stronghold, Normann Pass, fought three defending Theo legends, and by paying heavy wounds escaped thanks to his massive dragon body.
This battle greatly boosted Aola’s morale, slowed Theo’s overall advance, and forced Theo to invest more resources into underground detection and base defense. However, it also revealed one of Aola’s trump cards and made it a one-time gambit.
Conventional war escalated into a legendary war, turning white-hot. Theo began to use satellites more frequently.
Time gradually moved to New Calendar Year 344.
February 3, spring.
Aola Kingdom, Dragonback Mountains; green life was faintly visible, and the air smelled fresh.
“It takes three years for a dragon egg to fully form. Is she about to give birth?”
“Yes. My Garoth’s offspring may be special from birth.”
“Understood. Don’t worry. I am cautious; I won’t risk my life lightly.”
“...........”
After finishing the transmission with the Vophal Dragon Domain, the Red Iron Dragon Emperor gazed at the sky.
He slowly stretched his wings, flexed his body, swallowed black oil crystals and gems one after another, equipped the Eye of Truth and the Anti-Mage Gloves, and stowed away the Hall of Heroic Spirits.