Chương 92: Blood Harvest

The core territory of the Duskwood Barony, Mirevale, was located at the easternmost corner of the Eldrathia Kingdom, less than a dozen kilometers away from the famous Silverbark forest. In the outer range of Silverbark, on top of a small hill less than 100 meters from its periphery, two hooded figures stood, watching as the blood-red pillar burst out inside Mirevale.

"The ritual has started." Said one of the hooded figures. Her high pitch indicated that she was a woman.

"Hm." The other hooded figure nodded, his golden eyes fixated on the blood pillars. He watched intently as three more blood-red pillars burst from outside Mirevale, buzzing as they radiated immense energy. The blood-red pillar flickered as a semi-transparent red cover quickly extended from each pillar, connecting into a giant hexagon-shaped cover.

"Tch! It's still flawed in the end." The hooded figure clicked his tongue, his gaze fixated on the pillar that burst out from the southern district. It was visibly thinner and dimmer than the other pillars.

"Does it really matter? This is just an experiment. Testing the effects of the modified rank ascension ritual we stole from the bloodfallen. As long as we get the result we want, it doesn't matter if the ritual is flawed. Right? Elliot." Elliot shook his head; he wasn't the type to be satisfied with just completion. He sought perfection. Unfortunately, until this point, he couldn't understand what exactly went wrong. How did the adventurers' guild discover that ritual point? This left him baffled.

"Heh, you didn't expect this ritual to push that goblin lord to the level of a titled master, right? You should know that it's impossible. Even if you add the lives of everyone in Mirevale and the 100, 000 goblins, that's still impossible." The hooded woman snickered. She stepped forward and took off her hood, revealing her beautiful face and silky black hair.

"And now, if those guys inside the town focus on attacking the weak point, it might be possible to destroy the ritual before everyone there dies. Wouldn't that be great, Elliot? The old you would definitely be thrilled." The woman said with a snarky grin.

"Then again, that wouldn't make a difference. The goblin lord should have already advanced to rank 3 by that point, and most would still die in the end. Oh! How pitiful!" The woman spun around before stopping face-to-face with Elliot, looking for any trace of change on his face. Unfortunately, she didn't find anything. Elliot's expression was still cold. He even swept her to the side to continue watching the ritual.

"You're no fun." She sulked, moving to the side.

"This isn't the time for your antics, Mabel," Elliot replied. The light of the red pillars reflected in his golden eyes.

"You know that I have long abandoned that ridiculous kindness." He calmly looked at Mabel from the corner of his eye.

"Everything we do is for the great emperor and humanity. For this great goal, sacrificing their lives is their honor." Elliot concluded before shifting his gaze to the ritual. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

"Boooring!! You were so cute and interesting as a child. How did you grow up to be so boring?" Mabel swung her arms and said. Elliot's expression finally changed. A hint of killing intent appeared in his eyes as he turned to look at Mabel. However, Mabel just grinned with a look of satisfaction on her face. The scene fell silent as the two fell into a standstill. In the end, Elliot slowly reined in his murderous intent and looked away.

"The lightning blade, Richard, and his team have already dealt with the bait; they're now heading back. Do you think we should intercept them?" Mabel suddenly said.

"No, we won't interfere any further. Besides, he won't change much. In front of a rank 3 master, even the [Lightning Blade] and the [Purple Disaster] together won't make any difference. Against a rank 3 monster, only an equivalent master can deal with it." Elliot shook his head.

"Such a shame." Mabel shook her head with a look of disappointment. She looked at the giant red cover, her expression unreadable. ….

"What is that?" Kyle looked at the red cover that enveloped most of the town. Whether they were humans or goblins, everyone stopped and looked up at the giant cover blankly. A red dot the size of a glass marble slowly flew past Kyle's eyes and into the sky. Looking around, countless red dots had filled the air at some point, all flying, or rather pulled to the red cover. Kyle needed just one glance to find the source of the red dots.

It was the corpses lying around, the blood and flesh scattered on the ground, and even injured living people. Even if the injury was treated and bandaged, red dots were still pulled from their wounds, drifting upward into the red cover.

'Is this… A ritual?' Kyle quickly thought of the rituals he had seen in the past. His mind raced until it landed on the magic circle he had seen in the underground space under the haunted manor.

'So that was the purpose of that giant magic circle? But didn't Miss Selene already deal with it? Wait…' Kyle quickly discovered that the red pillar bursting out from the southern district wasn't situated above the haunted manor but on another street hundreds of meters away from it.

'A new one? Are the guards of Mirevale so incompetent that they didn't notice the construction of a new ritual point, or maybe the cult had already prepared a backup?'

'Ah! Such a headache! Well, it's pointless to think about this now. We need to destroy the ritual!' Kyle shook his head and looked around. They mustn't keep tangling with goblins; they had to find a way to destroy the ritual. However, would the goblins allow them to peacefully look for a way to break the ritual?

"Gah!!!"

"Wa gah!!"

"Roar!!" Howling suddenly filled the battlefield as all goblins seemed to go berserk. Their eyes turned red as they pounced on the closest human next to them, fighting to the death.

"What's wrong with them?" Rowan shouted as he thrust his sword into the heart of a leaping goblin. However, despite its crushed heart, the goblin still roared with madness as it inched closer, waving its claws, trying to injure him. Rowan had to pull his sword and behead it before it finally died. However, that was just one of hundreds of goblins on the battlefield, and it seemed that the number of goblins rushing out of the underground entrance was never going to end.

"We have to do something," Kyle said as he beheaded another goblin. With each death, the number of red dots increased. In less than a minute, the number of red dots had increased to an inconceivable degree. They densely filled the battlefield, then were slowly pulled up towards the red barrier.

'We have to divide our forces. One side must at least head out to one of the pillars to try and break the ritual. At least, we have to get mages near the ritual points; they might find a solution.' Kyle quickly shifted his gaze to the nominal highest leader on this battlefield, Matthias. To his dismay, the latter was running away; a dozen knights and the rank 2 old man followed behind him.

"That bastard!" Kyle gritted his teeth. Without his support, the defense line around the underground entrance was slowly crumbling. Once the remaining guards and adventurers around the hole noticed that their commander had run, the defense line might instantly collapse. Kyle looked around, trying to find any lead or solution. Fortunately, after a few painful seconds, he found it. In an alley not far from the ritual point, a hooded figure was moving away from the pillar.

It suddenly paused, turning its head to look at him. Kyle's blue eyes locked with the red eyes beneath the hood across dozens of meters.

"A cultist!"