Ashen Dragon

But Adrian gritted his teeth and shook his head resolutely, "No, Your Grace, I can't run anymore, I have been running for too long."

Duke Franz was somewhat anxious, "Once the Dragon Worship Church's Five-Colored Dragon Legion surrounds us, you won't be able to escape! Our current forces cannot compete with them!"

Adrian, however, was confident, "Your Grace, I said we have been running for too long and can't continue to run any further, besides—"

His tone paused, gazing toward the center of Green Valley Town, "Who says we only have these forces now?"

Duke Franz's eyes revealed surprise, as if he was recognizing this young Paladin for the first time. He followed Adrian's direction.

All he could see was the earth trembling and shaking, and a tall stone pillar rose from the ground, engraved with vivid giant dragon sculptures and complex rune formations.

"This is..."

Franz's face changed dramatically, feeling an overwhelming oppressive force from the stone pillar, closer to Dragon's Might rather than the pressure from the Sun God.

"What is that?"

"Another one of those damned humans' tricks?"

Both the Green Dragons and Servant Monks of the Dragon Worship Church, as well as the humans and dwarves of the "Second Fadlan Front Line", were quite astonished at the sudden appearance of the stone pillar.

But soon, the runes on the stone pillar abruptly lit up, releasing a brilliant Spell Radiance, surging with an incredibly strong spatial fluctuation.

The surrounding sand and stones were swept up, a powerful storm ripping apart the dark clouds over Green Valley Town, making them instantly dissipate.

The space at the top of the stone pillar gradually twisted, folded, and tore, eventually forming a space vortex with a diameter of tens of meters.

"Oh God..." First published on MVLEMPYR.

Witnessing such a magnificent sight, the onlookers exclaimed, making all sorts of speculations.

At this moment, countless figures of diverse forms emerged from the space vortex, accompanied by excited shouts and roars.

"New instance, here I come!"

"Long live Cassius!"

"Quick, quick, quick, get ready to compete for monsters with those guild folks!"

Leading the charge were dozens of Knights riding Bipedal Wyverns, sweeping across the sky with the high-pitched dragon's roar.

Following them were Dragon Scale Cultivators in heavy armor, wielding chainsaw swords and blast arrow rifles, crashing to the ground and leaving deep pits on the stone paths of Green Valley Town.

Then came the muscular, rugged-looking bald monks, bare-chested save for their light linen trousers, nimbly traversing rooftops with wall climbing agility.

These beings from unknown spaces looked bizarre, with some barely resembling humans, while others were monsters draped in human skins—like the six-meter-tall bald monk with eight arms.

Their weapons were equally varied, leaving the "country bumpkins" from the South in awe without understanding.

Winter City favored Gothic architecture after being developed for nearly a century from the earliest human settlement of Aegostor, while the main city, Bod Gate, was the largest and most prosperous trade metropolis in the Sword Bay Region. It was a melting pot of nobles, commoners, and thieves, and adventurers labeled it as the "hotbed of conspiracies." The name Bod Gate came from a hero, Bodlan the adventurer of Gray Harbor, who explored continents beyond the Sword Sea and returned with wealth to establish a city here after leading a team. Based on residents' social statuses, Bod Gate is divided into the upper city of nobles and the lower district of commoners, along with the outer city strewn around Chenyi Mountain. The gate separating the upper and lower cities is called Bod Gate, which also became the name of the entire city, serving as a monument to the city's founder, Bodlan. Currently, Bod Gate is governed by a four-member council where each is a Grand Duke. If a vote ends in a tie, Elder Ravenclaw, the Great Duke, makes the decision. The upper city's law and order are maintained by the elite official police force, the Guards, while other areas fall under the jurisdiction of a mercenary group called the Flaming Fist. Elder Ravenclaw, the Great Duke, is also the supreme leader of the mercenary group, headquartered at the Bodlan Sea Tower, the strongest fortress against naval invasions around Bod Gate. Like a crescent moon cradling Bod Gate's economic artery—Gray Harbor, hundreds of merchant ships enter and leave daily, bringing gold coins but also greed and crime. The elevated upper city consists of the Castle District, Temple District, Manoburn District, and Wide Alley District, featuring various religious structures. The Miracle Hall and Supreme Miracle House are the centers of the God of Craft's worship in Bod Gate. The Miracle Hall showcases Gund's great inventions, while the Supreme Miracle House functions as a workshop. The lower district mainly features stone houses across six neighborhoods: Sea Tower District, Blonrich District, Steep District, Crowded Side District, East Road District, and Branpton District. Middle-class people generally reside in Blonrich District, near the upper city's elites, while the East Road District near Stone Lizard Gate of the outer city is more mixed, with bustling bars and cheap inns. Sea Tower District hosts the Flaming Fist Mercenary Corps, situated on the district's largest rocky offshore island built with the headquarters, Bodlan Sea Tower. Branpton District and Steep District are relatively rundown, serving as living communities for sailors and manual laborers. The outer city sprawls along the Chongsar River, teeming with temporary buildings, shantytowns, and slums, with Flying Dragon Crossroad, a stone bridge crossing the Chongsar River, as the landmark. Many vendors gather here, extending the bridge with wooden boards and adding numerous constructions on it. Law and order barely exist here, with even the Flaming Fist's protection severely limited, attracting poor people or criminals unable to settle in the city. Under the dim phosphor lights, moss on the sewer arches radiates an eerie green, with murky sewage lapping at boot soles, every step eliciting a sticky "gurgle." Purple-black sludge leaks from wall cracks, pooling toward the drains like veins—the neuro-corrosive substance unique to the Spirit Sucking Monster nests. Inhaling it induces auditory hallucinations for ordinary people, mimicking a multitude of tiny tendrils wriggling in the ear canal. Suddenly, a cracking sound of dislocated bones echoed from behind a broken cast iron pipe, as if something was twisting its way through a narrow space. The Spirit Sucking Monster struck from the water with a humanoid, pallid body swathed in plant detritus, its octopus-like head's tendrils vibrating at high frequency, emitting visible purple Mind Shock Wave ripples. The foremost guard's helmet dented, his eyes burst into a bloody mist from the pressure surge within the skull; the second guard was impaled by tendrils through the ear canals before even screaming, his spine yanked from the body like a marionette. The only surviving guard staggered back, his firing gun's roar swallowed by the collective sub-frequency shrieks of the Spirit Sucking Monsters. These creatures were evidently tactically trained. Two decoy individuals slapped the water with tendrils, raising a corrosive mist to obscure vision; the third dangled from the ceiling, attaching a sucker to a guard's skull, tendril tips piercing the foramen magnum with precision—not causing instant death, but manipulating the captive like a puppet, forcing him to turn around, his trembling hands loading ammunition for his comrades' firearms. At this moment, a fourth Spirit Sucking Monster used its knuckle bone blades to dissect the downed guard's chest cavity, extracting the warm liver to stuff into its mouth, with pale yellow digestive liquid dripping from its lower jaw, corroding the ground with wisps of green smoke. Three patrolling guards raised their lanterns just as the sewage erupted! The four spirit parasite hosts had not completely died. The guard's residual body twitched and climbed up, translucent Spirit Sucking Monster larva tendrils protruding from his neck wound, his pupils spreading into cloudy milky white, grabbing a dagger to stab at his former comrade, squeezing out a non-human synthetic voice from his throat: "Skull... for the master brain...". And the real horror was just starting to manifest—the distant sewage pool began to boil, more pallid figures surfacing, dragging with tendrils a dozen human captives encased in mucus cocoons, their faces twisting into silent screams beneath the shells.