Chapter 0585: The Crimson Knight-General's Plan

The students groaned when they saw the Bloodtailed Other still alive, but the crimson knight-general heaved a huge sigh of relief.

He turned towards Jiang Qing'e angrily, but he did not strike out. He could sense that the Bloodtailed Other's vitality was fading fast. He could not afford to linger here.

Therefore, he kept his temper in check and relocated to the top of his black altar.

Immediately after, columns of energy started to rise around the altar, glimmering with dark power.

Rumble! Roar!

The Bloodtailed Other thrashed against its chains as it was dragged to the top of the altar, where the columns of power crashed down on it, covering it with mystic runes that began to burn with a pale fire as they touched its skin. It spread like sparks landing on cotton.

“Eek!”

The Bloodtailed Other squealed again.

The crimson knight-general's desire shone brightly in his eyes. "I've brought you up just for this day. Oh, I've waited so long!"

Back when he had first come to the Red Clay Province, the Bloodtailed Other was not this strong yet. In fact, there were stronger Others. But with the help of the crimson knight-general, it had managed to eat the millions of people in Russet Rock City and become as powerful as it was today.

Still, the crimson knight-general had not helped it out of the goodness of his heart. Farmers don’t feed their pigs because they don’t want them to go hungry.

Today was bacon time.

As the pale flames built up in strength, the crimson knight-general walked into the inferno, letting the flames lap away at him. He stretched out a greedy hand towards the Bloodtailed Other, as if he were the suicidal lover ready to die with his beloved.

Many of the students stared, mouth agape.

"Is he crazy?" Qin Yue asked in a trembling voice.

Was he trying to cuddle with a freaking monster?!

"He must be plotting something! There's something odd about that altar!" the First Princess shouted.

"Stop him at all costs!" Lan Lan shouted.

Jiang Qing'e was the first to act. Perhaps only her power was well-preserved at this stage of the battle. Heavy sword in hand, she leaped fearlessly towards the smoking, black altar.

The crimson knight-general was well-prepared for her attack, sending out an energy barrier that completely stopped her.

The other squad leaders joined in, trying to break down the barrier with their meager reserves of energy, but it was not working.

Finally, they gave up and hopelessly watched the scene unfolding on the altar, weapons hanging tiredly by their sides.

"What is he doing?" Lu Ming asked, watching with sick fascination.

This time, even Li Luo could only look at them and shrug. The crimson knight-general did not seem like he was going to save the Bloodtailed Other, but was rather killing it in a different way?

Wasn't that... rather unnecessary?

"He's bonkers," Sun Dasheng said flatly. "If he just wants to kill the Bloodtailed Other, he might as well have let us do it!"

"Surely not..." Li Luo watched the black altar closely. "There must be something else that we're missing. It's not going to be good news for us."

They were quite spent of energy, so they had chosen to watch passively to see what would unfold, gathering their strength for a time when they knew better how to act.

Li Luo spotted a dark, sticky sludge being separated from the Bloodtailed Other as the fire burned away at it.

The crimson knight-general seemed extremely excited to see this process happen. In a trice, he shed his crimson armor and reached out eagerly to scoop the black substance up with his hands. He then applied it on his skin.

The moment it touched his face, the black slime came to life, wriggling as though it were a mass of worms. It burrowed its way deep into the crimson knight-general's skin.

Soon, his body was a trypophobic mass of bloody holes, his face a twisted expression of agony and pleasure.

"Come! Come! Come into my body and let us be one!" he cackled dementedly.

More and more of the black slime continued to enter his body.

The students looked on in horror. Who would be crazy enough to welcome the corruption into their body? The power source of the Others was born of pure evil, and once it entered one's body, it would corrupt everything within like a plague. They had spent their whole lives avoiding even a speck of this corruption—why would he now lap it up like a drug?

Did this guy even want to live anymore?

Even the most elite and worldly of students such as the First Princess and Lan Lan were completely aghast at this development.

While they reeled in horror and shock, the crimson knight-general began to mutate. His body started to engorge rapidly and his eyes turned red.

A human face appeared in the middle of his chest, the exact replica of the Bloodtailed Other's own human face from before.

Bone burst through flesh like a seedling through topsoil, turning from a deathly white to glossy black.

The crimson knight-general was gradually losing his humanity.

But in return, he was being granted a dark power that they could sense within him, growing at an accelerating rate.

"Is he trying to merge with it and absorb its power?" Lu Ming wondered.

Jing Taixu frowned. "I've never even heard of such a blasphemous thing! Would he even be human? Or Other?"

"He would be insane," Sun Dasheng told him.

Li Luo was starting to sweat. They were in real trouble now. He could sense it.

Boom!

Black power continued to roil around the crimson knight-general, blooming out of him and being absorbed back in. The sky turned dark around him, as though light was being leached away.

The crimson knight-general's voice growled out from within the receding light. "Good and evil cease as one. True form, arise!"