Sipusa Star.
The sky above the planet had taken on a strange, ominous dark hue.
The once-fresh air was gone. In its place lingered only the thick, suffocating stench of blood and scorched fur that clung heavily to every breath.
Countless wrecks of Borisin Beastships and Cloud Knights' warships lay scattered across the ground like broken toys.
Sipusa Star was a world of exceptionally lush vegetation. Vast primeval forests of towering giant trees blanketed its surface. Some of these ancient behemoths stretched thousands of meters into the sky, making the soldiers fighting beneath them appear no larger than ants.
After a brutal aerial clash with the Borisin fleet, the Cloud Knights had been forced to retreat deep into one of these endless forests.
Yet even a forest this immense could not fully conceal the movements of an army numbering in the millions. The Borisin's keen senses could easily pick up marching tracks and the scent of their prey.
These bloodthirsty wolves pursued their targets relentlessly, like shadows that refused to be shaken off.
The Cloud Knights continued searching for defensible ground even as they fell back. However, time was rapidly running out.
Outside the primeval forest, the number of Borisin forces continued to swell at an alarming rate. Their numbers had surely surpassed a billion by now.
Having lost air superiority, the Cloud Knights could no longer prevent the Borisin from deploying troops via Beastships, allowing them to slowly form a tightening encirclement around the forest.
The net might be wide for now, but it was becoming more tightly woven with every passing hour.
Not even a mouse could hope to slip through such a cordon undetected by the Borisin's heightened senses.
Once the encirclement fully closed and the space began to shrink, it would spell the end for the millions of Cloud Knights trapped within.
Fortunately, fortune had not completely abandoned them.
Jingliu had discovered a peculiar natural formation: a towering cliff face. Across from it stood a solitary mountain, nearly completely surrounded by sheer precipices and separated from the mainland by a seemingly bottomless abyss.
From above, the layout resembled the innermost ring of three concentric circles.
It was as though the abyss had been carved out of existence itself.
The peak of the solitary mountain wasn't perfectly flat, but the slope was gentle enough, and it was still covered in massive, towering trees.
If they could successfully cross the chasm and establish a defensive line there, the Borisin — now deprived of their flight vehicles — would become easy targets should they attempt to cross.
Before the enemy encirclement could fully close, the Cloud Knights still had enough time to transfer their forces across using military climbing grapples.
Countless soldiers silently offered their gratitude to the artisans of the Zhuming Xianzhou. It was those specialized tools, designed for the most unforgiving battlefields, that had given them this fighting chance.
What followed were several days of relentless, bloody combat.
The Borisin never hesitated to attack even when the enemy held the high ground. They had more than enough expendable forces to throw into the meat grinder.
"HOLD THE LINE!!!"
At the front, the Cloud Knight commander's hoarse roar was almost swallowed by the savage, bloodthirsty howls of the oncoming Borisin.
Jingliu stood at the very edge of the cliff, anchoring the front of the defensive line. Her longsword had long since grown dull and chipped from constant use, its blade stained a deep, dark purple from layer upon layer of dried blood.
She breathed heavily, her eyes reflecting the endless tide of wolves leaping desperately toward their position.
The Borisin lacked proper equipment and could only rely on primitive charging leaps to assault the high ground. While airborne, they made for easy targets… yet they did not care.
Wave after wave crashed forward, only to be shot down and sent plummeting into the endless abyss below.
As the battle dragged on, the expeditionary force's greatest natural defense — that terrifyingly deep abyss — was slowly being filled.
These mad Borisin were driving their Artifact Beasts and war slaves into suicidal charges without hesitation.
The bodies of those slain by the Cloud Knights were now serving as the foundation for a gruesome bridge of flesh and bone.
In just five short days, a mountain of corpses had risen from the depths of what was once a despair-inducing chasm.
Dark red blood flowed endlessly down the pile of bodies, forming rivers at the bottom of the abyss.
Their lithe-rock arrows and blazing crossbows… every long-range munition the Cloud Knights possessed had been completely exhausted.
The surviving Borisin now climbed over the rotting meat and crushed bones of their fallen comrades and beasts, digging their claws into the mountainside as they scrambled upward.
Their eyes were bloodshot, drool dripping from their maws. Like demons crawling straight out of hell, they devoured the Cloud Knights' defensive line step by bloody step.
"Madmen… These lunatics!"
Beside Jingliu, a frontline Cloud Knight soldier's hands trembled violently.
He wasn't afraid of death. What terrified him was this complete abandonment of biological instinct and reason.
This wasn't war anymore. It was a mutual slaughter, a harvest of lives on both sides.
Jingliu remained silent. She instinctively swung her sword, cleaving an incoming Borisin clean in two.
Warm organs and blood sprayed across her armor, which had long lost its original color.
Without even pausing to shake the blood from her blade, she thrust backward, piercing the throat of another Wolf Soldier attempting a sneak attack, then used a sharp twist of her wrist to sever its head completely.
How many had she killed by now?
She had lost count long ago.
"Captain! Defense Line Seven's armaments are nearly depleted!"
"Captain! Defense Line Three's energy shield has overloaded and collapsed! The wolves are breaking through!!"
"…Argh!!!"
"Kill them!"
"Fight to the death!"
The once orderly reports over the comms had devolved into screams of agony, the sickening crunch of breaking bones, and horrifying chewing sounds.
Despair spread through the surviving Cloud Knights like a virulent plague.
Holding out for reinforcements seemed like nothing more than a cruel joke against such overwhelming numbers.
The Borisin didn't need clever tactics. They simply needed to trade ten, or even a hundred, of their own lives for one Cloud Knight. Eventually, they would devour this entire expeditionary force until nothing remained.
A massive explosion suddenly rocked the battlefield.
Several giant Longbo Artifact Beasts had smashed a gaping hole into the right side of the defensive line.
Through the breach, many Cloud Knights witnessed a nightmarish sight: a dense tide of wolves pouring across the newly formed bridge of corpses and flesh like a bursting dam.
Even further out, at the edge of the primeval forest, more and more Borisin Beastships were landing.
Reinforcements from other packs had arrived after hearing of the battle.
The prey might be small, but the number of hunters was only increasing.
The prospect of sinking their teeth into Cloud Knight flesh drove these beasts into an even greater frenzy.
Jingliu's heart clenched tightly.
Looking around, the once orderly formations had fallen into complete disarray. More and more of her comrades were falling with every passing moment.
The weapons of those still standing were battered and broken, having lost nearly all their lethality.
Some soldiers fought with dead eyes, moving on pure instinct as they waited for death to claim them.
Others had become just as frenzied as their enemies, throwing themselves into brutal hand-to-hand combat.
Could they hold out for another ten days?
No… As Jingliu watched the beast tide surge forward like storm clouds swallowing a city, she gripped her chipped and broken sword tighter. A flicker of true despair finally appeared in her usually resolute eyes.
Under the Borisin's relentless suicidal assaults, the rate at which equipment was being destroyed far exceeded anything she had imagined.
Swords, spears, halberds — everything was gone. She had dulled every blade she carried.
Even the finely crafted longsword from the master artisans of the Zhuming Xianzhou had lost its edge.
Forgetting about waiting for reinforcements… she doubted she would even live to see the sunset today.
To make matters even worse, many of the veteran Cloud Knights were beginning to fall to mara at this critical moment, turning on their own comrades in fits of madness.
Those who remained sane were forced to tearfully carry out the Cloud Knight Iron Law, executing their afflicted brothers and sisters where they stood.
It was in this moment that Jingliu truly began to understand why Kanzaki had been so reluctant to let her join large-scale expeditions.
Compared to this hellish scene, the smaller battles she had experienced before were nothing but child's play.
The speed at which lives were being sacrificed here was unimaginably cruel — easily ten or even a hundred times worse than anything she had faced previously.
Soon, Jingliu lost her final weapon as well.
A sharp crack rang out as the last remaining half of her sword blade shattered against a Borisin's thick skull.
A massive Borisin roared and lunged forward, its razor-sharp claws carrying a foul wind straight toward her throat.
In its blood-red eyes, a Cloud Knight who had lost her weapon was nothing more than fresh meat ready to be slaughtered.
However, it was wrong.
Terribly wrong.
From the depths of Jingliu's blood-red eyes erupted a killing intent as cold and ancient as a ten-thousand-year glacier.
If she no longer had a sword… then she would become the sword herself.
She had to return alive.
She had to survive…
She must return alive to see her Master.