Chapter 953 Bedlam
The Moon Monarch was nowhere near amused to see the crates of Lunar Gems being loaded off the Lunar Specter. He was apoplectically livid.
A scarlet wave of phosphorescence erupted from him, sweeping in huge ripples everywhere. That sent the already-frenzied Moon Sentinels up to another level. One could almost smell the irrepressible blood lust filling the dead soldiers as they pummeled through the Trailblazer defense line with manic ferocity.
“He could strengthen his warriors?”
Li Mu mused with shock.
With each and every Moon Sentinel individually and magically augmented, the Trailblazers, who were already struggling to hold their own against the impossible odds, began to show signs of faltering.
“This is not working,” Ye Ying thought.
She speared her weapon through two Moon Sentinels in quick succession, sending them crashing to the ground. But for the first time, since this skirmish sparked, she could now feel an impossible force recoiling back at her from the other end of her weapon. A force that has multiplied so many folds as soon as the Moon Sentinels became stronger, and she needed no cue to understand how dangerous it was for them to linger onboard this ship.
“GET OFF! GET OFF THIS BLASTED SHIP RIGHT NOW!”
Lin Jingxin swung his dual-wielded swords and cried to his men.
“Take the villagers!”
Xiao Jianfei had his men carry Feng and other others.
Li Mu quickly undid his Shroud of the Golden Belt enchantment.
When one of the Trailblazers came to Li Mu and offered to carry him, the latter shook his head, saying, “I can take care of myself.”
Feng protested, “So can I!” As one of the best men of Oststern and a Cultivator of the Worm Realm, he could easily get off the ship himself.
The rest of the best men of the Trailblazer Corps, including the two Captains Lin Jingxin and Ye Ying and Lieutenant Xiao, stayed back to hold off the Moon Sentinel onslaught, buying the others as much time as possible to get to safety.
Li Mu was rather impressed.
Even with the pain of death looming over them, the Trailblazers had not displayed the slightest notion of abandoning Feng and the other Oststern villagers. They had held on to their duty as being the defenders of the undefended and downtrodden to the letter and this created a fresh impression of the human military upon Li Mu. Despite their initial clash and bickering over the treasures of the Children of the Moon and the Lunar Gems, all three squads remained ardent and dedicated to protecting the people, treating their wellbeing as valuable as the crates of Lunar Gems they were charged to secure.
The military really was taking seriously their duty to keep the people safe.
As Li Mu reflected upon the loyalty of the military to its mission, he quietly followed the Trailblazers as they got off the Lunar Specter.
With Lei Cang still present, he did not want to show his sleeves of aces just yet.
“KILL THEM ALL! DON’T LET ANY OF THESE INTRUDERS AND THIEVES GO ALIVE!”
The Moon Monarch’s brutal and inhuman voice echoed sonorously over the timbers of the Lunar Specter’s deck. He flailed his scepter wildly; with every sweep of his arm, he sent forth waves and waves of crimson luminescence whose main purpose was clearly to strengthen his troops.
But Li Mu was quick to pick up a minute detail: As the Moon Sentinels were enhanced, the number dwindled drastically.
“Could it be…” he murmured.
Li Mu activated his spiritual sight and there he saw it.
“QUICKLY! GET OFF THE BLOODY SHIP! GODAMMIT!”
Lei Cang’s voice was screaming hoarsely in the background, urging the men to pick up the pace with unloading the crates of Lunar Gems from the ship and putting them by the portal ward to be ready to be transported.
Not far away, the Moon Sentinel threw themselves at the human Trailblazers like a sea’s tide battering incessantly on a concrete wall.
The Trailblazers were on the receiving end of the never-ending abuse. Blood drenched the robes and caked the armor of captains Ye Ying and Lin Jingxin, including that of Lieutenant Xiao as they fought to keep the rear safe. But like a brick wall constantly being pummeled again and again by a relentless battering ram, the three were looking like they could crumble any time…
Li Mu was ready to leap forward to help if need be.
But all of a sudden, shrill screams came from the back.
“HAHAHAHAH! This shall be my credit and mine alone! You idiots! You’ll all die here with Li Mu!” Lei Cang roared into a burst of deranged laughter.
Lightning crackled up and down the length of his sword and it was bloodied—with the blood of his own comrades.
All nine wardcasters who should be working hard to maintain the integrity of the portal were clutching and clawing futilely at a bloody gash on their throats, their eyes fraught with shock and disbelief as they finally slid lifelessly to the ground.
Everyone was stunned at what they saw.
And before anyone could do anything, Lei Cang vanished into the portal before the rift vanished.
The portal ward went dead.
The wardcasters were all dead.
The portal was no more.
There was no way to escape.
“ARRGGHH! LEI CANG, YOU GODFORSAKEN BASTARD!”
Lin Jingxin snarled with venom, his handsome face twisting with uncontrollable rage.
Ye Ying too was a sheet of white-steely coldness. But quick to the uptake, she barked at her men, “Quick! Save them! Save the wardcasters!”
If they could save the wardcasters and reactivate the portal wards, then maybe they might still have a chance to get out of this alive.
But their wishes were just not meant to be.
Lei Cang had clearly been hatching this plan since the start.
By applying the Amaranthine Deathbolt to each of his blows, he had effectively made sure that none of the wardcasters would be alive by the time he had stepped through the portal.
The din of battle ensued around them.
The rest of the Trailblazers were still fighting for their lives.
But with the Moon Sentinels whittling down their defenses, they would not be able to hold on any longer.
“Out! We need to get out of here! Where’s the nearest human settlement?!” Xiao Jianfei demanded loudly.
That was their final and most desperate resort.
Feng and the other villages jolted awake from their stupor of witnessing the heinous treachery. “Oststern! A hundred miles to the east! Just a hundred miles to the east!”
“A hundred miles? Oststern?” yelped Ye Ying as she blasted another Moon Sentinel away with a heavy blow from her spear. “I’ve heard of it, I think. A tiny little village. No, that won’t do. A Class-One Tree of Eternity like that won’t be able to repel such a stampede of beasts and a Moon Sentinel force like this! We’ll only be condemning the village to death!”
The villagers were stupefied.
But Feng pointed out the moment something occurred to him, “No! Because of Li Mu’s birth from the Tree of Eternity, it should be a Class-Two Tree by now!”
“Are you sure of that!?” An overjoyed Lin Jingxin asked, “Really?”
“I am!” Feng responded loudly, “I’ve been in the military before, and I know these things! I’m sure of that!”
“Well, if that’s true, that it’s our best shot!” Xiao Jianfei remarked over the clamor while he struck down another Moon Sentinel, “Thunder Squad will hold up the rear! Captains Lin and Ye! Take your men and lead on! The villagers shall go with you!” It was plain enough that he and the rest of Thunder Squad were feeling guilty about Lei Cang’s betrayal and for that, they were disgraced.
“But what about these Lunar Gems?” another Trailblazer motioned at the crates.
Ye Ying immediately snapped, “The safety of our men and the villagers takes precedence! Lei Cang has already eloped with more than eighty crates, so that will have to suffice for now! Go! Watch the villagers and keep them safe!”
Of the one hundred crates of Lunar Gems the Trailblazers had retrieved from within the hold of the Lunar Specter, most of them had been transported to safety, with just barely twenty still here.
A number that they could easily forgo.
“GO!”
Lin Jingxin and Ye Ying spearheaded the charge with their men in tow, plowing a way through the deepest parts of the hordes of beasts and wraiths.
Xiao Jianfei never stopped waving his maces. The bold and gallant lieutenant of the Trailblazer Corps yelled to the rest of Squad Thunder over the rowdy and uproarious hubbub, “My apologies, men! I cannot guarantee that every one of you will survive today, but I will ensure that none of you will fall before I do!”
That was enough to spike up the morale of Squad Thunder and they fought on with a renewed sense of duty and self-sacrifice.
But none of this went unnoticed by the Moon Monarch who had been standing by the bow, towering over everyone from above, waving his scepter like a god, his eyes red and livid.
“Run as you may, but none of you will be leaving this place. Alive. Hahahahahaha!”
The Moon Monarch thrust his scepter at the fleeing humans, letting loose an evil grin.
A twinkle of light winked between the moon and stars ornament on the pommel of the scepter. Next, it trembled in the grasp of the Moon Monarch, before what was just a glint turned into a gigantic column of light that shot up into the sky as if Judgment had just befallen. It was a sword—a gigantic and phosphorescent image reminiscent of one with the scepter as its hilt—and the Moon Monarch mercilessly brought it down with all the speed and force he could muster.
The blow came slamming down, filling the sights of everyone or every beast and wraith with a vista of red.
“Gods help us!”
Xiao Jianfei cried in despair.
As a well-experienced leader of his troops through countless battles, one look was enough for Xiao Jianfei to know that they would never survive the blow. No one in the three Trailblazer squads—not him, not even the captains Lin Jingxin and Ye Ying—possessed the power to endure such a blow.
“We’re done for!”
Xiao Jianfei’s mind went blank.
Even Lin Jingxin and Ye Ying both braced with helplessness and dread as the bright scarlet illumination that drew nearer as if time had slowed spread all across their faces.
With his godly powers, Lei Cang must have seen how dangerous the Moon Monarch could be. That must have been what prompted his betrayal. As they watched how Death began to near, the two captains and lieutenant reflected upon the amalgamation of resentment, frustration, and hatred that Lei Cang’s treachery would triumph and their deaths unavenged.
BOOM!
A terrible thunderclap erupted.
The ground shook beneath everyone’s feet, a tectonic shift that was threatening to split the earth open.
The explosion of force and dust floored every villager, plus the weaker ones of the Trailblazers.
Death has finally arrived.
Fear swept through the entire host of humans, flooding them with panic and anguish.
Seconds passed by in gripping silence. No one dared breathe, before one of the Trailblazers began to realize that they were still alive! Very much alive!
“What the hell just happened?!”
Eyes shot left and right with disbelief and incredulity.
In the way of the gigantic column of red that should have exacted their deaths was a white dome-like shield, hanging just three meters over their heads and exuding airs of purity and soothing.
“The Moon Monarch’s destructive attack that should have wiped them all out was stopped!?
“Is it really stopped?!
“But by whom?!”
The one person that no one expected would step forward now filled their now-clearing sights still struggling to recover from the impactful trauma.
Tall and majestic, he stood in front of them—over them.
Like an indomitable pillar, he has both arms reaching for the sky. A rock that now stood between them and certain death. Trails of gold shaped like dragons swirled from his open palms, rising and circling in ascending spirals before they melded into the aureate light shield overhead.
“Li Mu!
“The Chosen One from Oststern has stepped forward to save all of us!
“How did we not realize that he could be so powerful?!”
Everyone was awe-struck and speechless, the villagers of Oststern more so than the Trailblazers and the captains and lieutenant. Everyone gaped at him with difficulty believing their eyes.
“Lieutenant Xiao, I’ll rely on you to take everyone and leave. Take care of the villagers, especially. I’ll deal with this.”
Li Mu did not even turn his head.
“Y-You…” Xiao Jianfei stammered, still very much in shock. He gasped, “B-But… H-How…”