CHAPTER 854: ON THE PRECIPICE OF DEFEAT

The Hellhound Abominations took full advantage of surprise. They burst through the mountaintop’s defenses in a storm of claws, tentacles, and gnashing maws, hurling themselves straight toward the energy towers and the clusters of Rebellion fighters defending them.

Tentacles whipped through the air, striking with the precision of whips, barbed tips slicing through enchanted armor as though it were cloth. Claws the size of scythes ripped through shields and flesh alike, severing limbs in a single swipe. Wet, twitching tendrils shot from cavernous maws, latching onto soldiers’ throats and dragging them screaming into rows of serrated teeth. Flesh tore, bones snapped, and fountains of blood painted the ground.

In moments, formations that had stood firm for hours dissolved into chaos. The screams of dying soldiers mixed with the wet, ripping sound of flesh being torn apart.

The monsters did not fight like beasts. Their movements were shockingly coordinated—eerily intelligent. They advanced with precision, optimizing their numbers and power to inflict the greatest chaos and bloodshed possible. It was as if some unseen mind guided them all, turning them into a single, many-limbed predator.

But they did not have the mountaintop to themselves for long.

The Reapers—biological weapons of the Xaos Kingdom stationed as the vanguard against the rising horde—launched themselves at the Hellhounds. The clash was monstrous and cataclysmic. Tens of thousands of living weapons slammed together, talons and claws rending flesh, armor, and bone. Fangs sank deep, tearing chunks away; tails and tentacles lashed like whips of steel and sinew.

The formation above the mountain range had been designed to be tightly packed—an impenetrable wall of firepower to maintain a constant barrage on any force trying to advance. Now that barrier was under direct assault. The Hellhounds and Reapers were evenly matched, their strength and savagery canceling each other out. Neither could overwhelm the other, and so their brawl rampaged unchecked across the mountaintop, shattering defensive lines and halting the relentless rain of fire that had kept the horde at bay.

"Dammit!" Grand Marshal Anglius roared, his voice a mixture of rage and frustration. Everything had been going according to plan. The battlefield had been under control. But these creatures had changed everything.

The Corruption Army’s ability to advance undetected was not new—they had shown it before in the frozen wastes of Antartik, when they infiltrated dangerously close to the Ice Cube fortress. But never had they demonstrated the power to cloak themselves from the scanning force fields spread across the mountain range itself. That was new. That was terrifying.

There was no time to dwell on how they had done it. What mattered now was retaking control of the mountaintop—fast.

"Squadrons One through Ten, with me!" Anglius bellowed. "Help the Reapers cut those monsters down! Squadrons Eleven through Twenty, get to the energy towers and secure them. The rest of you—spread out across the mountain and keep the barrage on the horde! We cannot let them reach the peak!"

The Grand Marshal’s voice carried over the roar of battle as he charged forward, halberd in hand, leading the Bloodline Soldiers—now fully ascended Nightmare Kings—and thousands of elite Xaos troops into the fray. If the mountaintop was still in chaos when the horde arrived, they were all dead.

The golden giant moved with impossible speed for his size, each sweep of his halberd cleaving Hellhounds in half. Dozens died every second beneath his strikes, their bodies erupting in bursts of dark ichor. But there were too many, far too many. The defenders managed to restore some of the barrage, but it was weaker now, too scattered to halt the sheer momentum of the approaching tide.

Anglius ground his teeth. This wouldn’t be enough.

With a silent command, the Scout Drones dived toward the horde’s front lines. Upon contact, they detonated in a chain of blinding explosions, each one lighting up the mountainside. Hundreds of thousands of drones went up in fire, taking with them a vast swathe of abominations. The blast gave the soldiers at the peak a brief, precious breath.

But the respite didn’t last. The horde reformed, its momentum building again.

That was when the Xaos Tanks moved. They had been firing from the mountaintop for hours, their massive cannons pounding the enemy below. Now, they descended—colossal, heavily armored behemoths thundering down the slopes, crushing everything in their path. Their guns roared in all directions, shells tearing apart abominations by the tens of thousands. The ground shook beneath their advance, the smell of burning oil and alien flesh filling the air.

They plowed deep into the enemy lines, but it was a one-way charge. The horde swarmed them like ants over prey, ripping armor away, prying open barrels, tearing into the inner workings. Each tank fought until it could move no more, then detonated in a final act of defiance, the explosion obliterating anything nearby.

It worked. The horde’s momentum faltered again.

But Anglius clenched his jaw. The Scout Drones had been built to be expendable; they had always been destined to explode. The Xaos Tanks were different—each one represented a massive investment of resources and firepower. Losing them was a heavy blow. Still, it had been his only card to buy the defenders a moment to breathe.

The combined actions of the Marshal and his forces pushed the frontlines back. But this brought its own problem—the horde, pressed tighter together by the assault, advanced in a dense, writhing mass, so close-packed that there was no space between them. They surged forward as if fusing into a single amorphous monster, roaring and clawing at the slope, their momentum now a solid wall of destruction.

Grand Marshal Anglius pushed himself harder, his halberd reaping Hellhound Abominations with brutal efficiency. Thousands fell beneath him and the Nightmare Kings, but the sheer number of enemies made it clear—they wouldn’t finish in time before the main horde reached the summit.

At the base of the mountain, Atila smiled. His body was battered and bleeding, his fight against the Divine Avatar leaving him unable to claim victory. And yet, there was satisfaction in his eyes, a glint of triumph as momentum gleamed there.

"This is our power," he said, voice dripping with pride. "Wisdom. Strength. Unquestionable obedience. Something your kind will never have."

He could not win this duel, but if he could force Overlord to watch thousands of his soldiers torn to pieces, that would be a victory in its own right.

Overlord’s face betrayed nothing—no rage, no frustration, no cold anger. His eyes were distant, aloof. But that didn’t mean he did not act.

In the next instant, the Omniscient Gaze ignited within him, divine calculations flooding his senses. Power surged through his body, his form blurring with speed and precision so absolute that Atila had no time to react. Sword strikes flashed, severing tendons and carving into flesh. Atila’s arms fell limp, his body racked with pain. Then Overlord’s foot drove into his chest, ribs snapping as he was hurled back into the mountain’s base.

Atila barely had time to gasp before a flash of steel pierced his chest, pinning him to the rock. His breath caught, pain flaring through his body. Fear began to creep into his mind. Instinctively, he summoned abominations, pulling their flesh and bone into a protective shield around himself. Somewhere deep inside, he was afraid Overlord would come for the killing blow.

But the Divine Avatar didn’t move to finish him.

Instead, Overlord simply gazed at him.

And then—Atila saw it. A faint curl of the lips. A small, subtle smirk. On anyone else, it would have meant nothing. On the emotionless face of the Divine Avatar, it was terrifying.

The next moment, Overlord vanished, streaking into the sky without another glance at Atila.

Confusion churned in the Corruption General’s mind.

But everything became clear the next second.