Chapter 496 - Dominating All The Way

The Alphama Mountains had been the domain of the Alphama direct bloodline Blood Race for thousands of years. They reproduced, fed, and slumbered there, while occasionally descending into the human world to raid, capture blood sacrifices and offerings, and conduct the Blood of Immortality ceremony.

They were the ancestral stronghold of the Blood Race's northern branch in the entire empire. No predator in all of Shire County, or indeed any city along the Alphama Mountains threatened the direct Blood Race, and there were scarcely any supernatural forces capable of suppressing them.

Hence, the Blood Race acted like overlords in the Alphama Mountains. Their influence easily controlled the underworld of half of Shire County, as in the case of Count Bain.

Needless to say, that was doubly true of the seat of their stronghold. The entire Alphama Mountains served as a playground that no other forces dared venture, be it the Mercury Hunters who opposed the Blood Race, or the Dark Hunter Organization, the largest official supernatural power in the open.

Yet unexpectedly, sudden changes had now arisen. A certain faction, one rife with malice, had boldly invaded the heart of the Alphama Mountains. They were like a searing, flame-tempered blade thrust ruthlessly into a block of hardened suet. Their onslaught was unstoppable, marching on without pause and crushing everything in their path!

The direct Blood Race that had long deemed the Alphama Mountains their unassailable dominion were caught entirely off guard. They retreated step after step, as their peripheral patrols and gathering sites were completely wiped out without causing so much as a ripple.

The direct Blood Race looked at one another in dismay as the outskirts of their territory turned dark block by block. Their territory was not only being lost, but they could not even relay any news.

Only a handful of Blood Race managed to flee, and none of them had been front-line combatants. They had merely glimpsed, from a distance, those black-clad figures routing and slaughtering their fellows like lambs to the slaughter while raving like demonic fiends. Terrified to the core, they fled at once.

As a result, more than half an hour into the battle, the Alphama direct Blood Race still had no idea how strong the enemy was or how many of them there were. Nor did they know the enemy's identity or aim.

They were effectively blind. All they could do was wait for the mysterious adversaries to crash onto their doorstep.

In the later years of the Hongli Empire, there were two major strongholds of the Alphama direct bloodline Blood Race in the Alphama Mountains.

One lay near the Lusa Falls, where Cassius had, on his first visit to the Ao Yin ruins, discovered an underground passage by a tree next to the waterfall. There was also a village housing the Blood Race community around a kilometer downstream from the creek formed by the Lusa Falls.

The other site was located in a cave two kilometers above the Lusa Falls, at a gorge that served as the true lair of the Blood Race. The cave led directly to the outskirts of the Ao Yin ruins.

Deep within the ruins lay a blood pool where numerous ancient monsters slumbered. When Cassius ventured into the Ao Yin ruins for the second time, he had gone in with Feng Liusi and Saint Feinan as a trio, openly fighting their way inside.

Now the time had come for him to invade the Ao Yin ruins for the third time. Compared to the first haphazard flight and the second headlong exploration, Cassius was far more composed and self-assured on this third foray.

Moreover, with the Treatment Ward storming the front lines and three commanders serving as vanguards, Cassius found himself with time to spare.

The green grass stretched near the winding stream flowing down from the Lusa Falls.

A figure in a long coat made his way forward at a leisurely pace, pausing as though taking in the scenery, projecting a somewhat aimless air. Moist, refreshing air drifted toward him, ruffling the hair at his temples.

Cassius maintained his customary impassive look, his boots pressing into the soft earth.

Nearby, the shouts of combat reached his ears, mingled with the shrieks of Blood Race in agony, wailing desperately for mercy. In the next instant, the muffled sound of blades slicing into necks cut those howls short.

Numerous black-clad figures by Cassius's side charged around him, their footfalls dull and forceful. They resembled a raging torrent of destruction, fierce and unrelenting.

Wielding a variety of outlandish weapons, they beheaded or dismembered every blood-red figure that dared approach, preventing them from breaching the barrier they created. There was an impassable ten-meter-wide perimeter around Cassius. The doctors of the Treatment Ward instinctively formed a guard to cut down any blood drinkers who sought to encroach upon or offend the Director of the Treatment Ward.

Cassius glanced at the string of mutilated corpses drifting in the stream, limbs severed and the waters turning crimson. His gaze flickered slightly, recalling the earlier time-travel when he, Feng Liusi, and Saint Feinan stormed the Blood Race's lair.

Now, he had come to do it once again... Though, he was no longer flanked by those two comrades. He now commanded the imposing forces of his own Treatment Ward. For a moment, filled with the sense that circumstances had shifted, Cassius felt briefly sentimental.

"So you're their leader?! Die!!!" On his right, a formidable Blood Race elder suddenly lunged out from the thick forest. Its black robe tore to shreds in a moment, unleashing a bestial roar.

When it unleashed its blood blessing, its muscles swelled and reshaped it into a tall, half-man half-bat monster covered in dark red bristles. The Blood Race elder barreled in, unleashing a savage strength that knocked back two of the Treatment Ward's guards.

Its blood-red eyes were fixed on the leisurely strolling Cassius, a towering rage burning within as though it would devour him.

Boom.

It smashed a deep crater into the ground as it kicked off. The Blood Race elder accelerated with a

whoosh

, its giant claws slicing the air with a bang. Its movements were so swift that an afterimage lingered in the air. All it could see was that black-clad man straight ahead.

"I will kill—"

However, the figure's furious charge halted abruptly as it dropped headlong to the ground. Though its fist was still raised, it could no longer move; it was dead!

How did it die? No one could say as no one had seen clearly. All anyone could observe was the Blood Race elder charging madly at Cassius and collapsing once it drew within five meters.

Hiss, hiss... hiss, hiss...

A disturbing sound arose, as if innumerable insects were gnawing something. A column of blood mist rose from the elder's corpse, as massive waves of bloody vapor shot skyward.

In the blink of an eye, the mist dissipated, leaving only a pale skeleton on the ground. The surface of that skeleton bore countless tiny tooth-like bite marks.

Cassius did not so much as glance at that skeleton but lightly brushed his left hand across the stream's surface. Suddenly, the Blood Race corpses drifting down the stream seemed to ignite. Blood soared into the air and coalesced into a roiling scarlet fog. It spread over a long, narrow area extending for kilometers over the Lusa Falls. It hovered in midair above the Lusa Falls, as though forming a crimson cataract in the sky.

Boom!

Then, the crimson cataract shattered, covering everything in the vicinity at once. The battlefield stretched for kilometers between the Treatment Ward forces and the direct Blood Race, and they were all enveloped in darkness, unable to discern friend from foe.

Yet in the very next moment, everyone heard the echo of something like insects gnawing and scuttling near their ears.

Hiss, hiss... hiss, hiss...

A sudden, inexplicable dread welled up within them.

"Aaaahhhh!!!"

"This fog!"

"The fog's devouring people! Carter just got consumed!"

"No! No! My arm, my leg!"

"Get out, hurry, get ou—

argh!!!

"

One tragic cry after another rang out within the choking fog, sending shivers down the spine. Countless Blood Race dissolved into the blood mist like sugar into water.

Some stood dumbfounded, half of their skull already vaporized, brains gone, leaving only a fraction of a horrified face. Others tried sprinting away in panic, yet the faster they ran, the quicker they dissolved.

Their flailing arms were reduced to two stumps, followed by both legs disintegrating on the spot. They crashed to the ground, rolling in disarray until they were but a torso writhing in the dirt like a maggot, faces frozen in terror and eyes filled with profound despair.

Hiss, hiss...

Another wave of blood mist rose from the fallen Blood Race corpses, drifting slowly skyward until it merged seamlessly with the swirling fog that filled the area. Thus the blood-mist grew denser and dissolved its victims even faster, leading to more dying Blood Race and ever thicker blood mist.

The deadly feedback loop persisted until every last Blood Race collapsed.

Then, the mist receded like the ocean's low tide along the shore. As swift as the crimson fog had descended, it departed just as abruptly. A swirling gust funneled it away, carrying it into the heavens where it vanished without a trace.

The multi-kilometer battlefield now only contained glimmering white skeletons, all frozen in the final contortions of their agony. Both the Treatment Ward's forces and the blue-eyed hunters' faces registered utter bewilderment.

They quickly realized this terrifying method had been unleashed by their own side, and their morale soared as they charged onward toward the lair. By the stream, Cassius calmly withdrew his left hand, the crimson hue fading from his fingertips.

Indeed, this was the move he had refined and perfected. Not only did it stem from the newly created moves in Southern Dipper Sonic Snake Fist, but Cassius had also revisited and reworked certain moves from the Southern Dipper Red Falcon Fist, invented back when his martial arts were still in their infancy.

They all drew upon the piercing technique Scarlet Fang Gun, which was originally derived from a spiral-finger spear style. Meanwhile, his Crimson Waterfall Explosion now bore an entirely new look. He had simplified its name to Crimson Waterfall, turning it into a wide-area killing technique.

Its principal inspiration came from the perfected Death's Fang Force exhibited by that Blood Vulture Dominator Fist elder during the destruction of the dark creature test site in Florence, with its reproductive, transmissive nature.

Drawing insight from that, Cassius used Death's Fang Force to disintegrate the many Blood Race corpses in a single gesture, causing a blood mist to form and gather in the air. However, Death's Fang Force continued to propagate within that mist, incapable of persisting forever but lasting for a notable interval.

That swathe of Death's Fang Force-laced blood fog became the Crimson Waterfall, bringing its horrifying dissolution effect over a broad area. Moreover, because Death's Fang Force converged in a transfusive way to target Blood Race energy, it only destroyed the Blood Race themselves.

Thus, while the Treatment Ward personnel and the Blood Race alike were caught in that waterfall, the former remained unharmed, leaving only the Blood Race to wail and struggle in agony. Even though the blue-eyed hunters carried slight traces of Blood Race lineage, it was too diluted. At heart, they were human and unable to trigger Blood Race energy.

Clearly, Cassius's technique possessed a potent specificity and could adapt to most terrains. After all, Crimson Waterfall was a mist, capable of drifting anywhere the wind flowed. No matter how narrow the crevices or how winding the paths or structures, it could achieve specialized extermination.

Its only real drawback was its vulnerability to gale-force winds, a minor flaw compared to its advantages. Cassius had already taken this assault against the direct Blood Race as a testing ground for his newly created techniques. He used the Blood Race to assess the strengths, weaknesses, and efficacy of his Southern Dipper fist techniques.

Whoosh~

A gust of wind whistled by Cassius's ears as Fog Man darted down to land next to him.

He spoke in a concise, brisk tone. "My lord, the crucial outpost outside the Blood Race lair has been wiped out. Nine Serpents and Odo have led their forces toward the northern gorge of the Lusa Falls and are headed straight for the Blood Race lair..."

"Alright, let's go. We'll crush them all the way through." Cassius lowered his eyelids, gaze darkening. He glanced at Fog Man, who looked hesitant to speak, and spoke slowly. "Say what you're thinking..."

𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Fog Man laughed awkwardly and uneasily. "My lord, next time you wipe out so many Blood Race with that move, could you let me have a taste of the leftover blood mist? I promise, I can devour it all in one gulp... without wasting a drop!"

Subconsciously, he swallowed.

"

Heh...

sure..." Cassius laughed, patting Fog Man on the shoulder. "As long as you don't regret it later... I'll give you a bit to sample first. Once you've finished, hurry up and catch up."

Cassius crooked a finger, and the body of a Blood Race straggler just slain by the Treatment Ward doctors soared out of the distant woods, propelled by Qi. With a light tap of his fingertip, the Blood Race corpse was stripped of its bones, leaving only a gelatinous mass of blood mist floating in midair.

Swoosh...

Cassius's form vanished at once, and the nearby doctors of the Treatment Ward followed, their steps uniform and forceful.

Left behind, Fog Man stared at that cluster of blood mist, swallowing hard. He gulped down the viscous mist in one breath with foolhardy abandon. A look of bliss flashed across his face, and he grinned from ear to ear.

However, in the next instant, his smile froze, and the scene turned horrifying.

"Mmph... aaaaaah..."

A massive surge of bloated blood mist blasted out the right side of his body like an explosion of swamp gas, enveloping the sky and the forest. It tore through everything within dozens of meters like a raging gale, even stripping the grass from the ground.

Fog Man trembled violently where he stood, as if on the verge of pouring out every shred of energy from his body. His Qi weakened dramatically.

Half a minute passed before the volcano-like eruption of blood mist finally ceased. Fog Man stood naked, with the right side of his vaporous form extremely feeble, flickering like an afterimage on the brink of vanishing entirely.

He hovered foolishly in midair, his face contorted in the relief of a narrow escape.

He gazed at the direction in which Cassius had departed, mumbling under his breath. "Never eat what shouldn't be eaten... I've got to keep my mouth in check and control my lunatic impulses. I can't let myself end up self-destructing! I understand now... I see the lord's deeper meaning..."

A glint of understanding ignited in Fog Man's eyes, as though a realization had dawned upon him.

"I'll remember this lesson forever..."