Half an hour later, the Naga Legion crawled out of the damp, cold Emerald Marsh and stepped onto the dry soil of human territory. They were clearly unaware that a human army was lying in wait, prepared for their arrival.
Leading the horde was an exceptionally tall Naga, its upper body covered in dark purple scales. It clutched a bone staff topped with a massive black crystal—a Tier 4 Naga Priest. Its scarlet tongue flicked in and out as it hissed raspy commands, urging the legion to hasten their pace.
"All units, prepare!" Leylo commanded. He drew his knight's longsword and pointed it forward. "Mammoth Knights, advance!"
With the order given, twenty-one Mammoth Knights moved like twenty-one mobile fortresses toward the Naga Legion. Each step of these behemoths caused the earth to tremble, accompanied by deafening roars. Behind them, the main infantry force—composed of knights and squires from both Blackstone and Amber Territories—gripped their weapons and followed with a war cry, forming an unstoppable torrent.
The front-line Naga warriors were visibly terrified by this momentum, and their formation began to waver. The Naga Priest let out a piercing screech, attempting to stabilize the ranks, but it was too late.
BOOM!
A few hundred meters from the Naga ranks, the Mammoth Knights began their charge. Like a red-hot iron plow, they slammed brutally into the center of the legion's line. Bone spears snapped, short blades shattered, and the flesh-and-blood bodies of the Nagas proved fragile beneath the mammoths' iron hooves and tusks. A massive gap was torn open instantly.
The following infantry poured through the breach, engaging the Nagas on both flanks in a bloody melee.
"Cane, the left wing!" Lillian's crisp voice rang out. "Amber Territory knights, with me!"
Cane raised his sword and led the Blackstone cavalry like a swift whirlwind, flanking from the left.
"Ed, the right wing!" Leylo nodded to Ed.
"For Blackstone!" Ed roared, leading Leylo's cavalry in a fierce assault from the right.
With a hundred elite knights on each flank, the human forces struck the weakest points. The Naga flanks buckled almost instantly, collapsing like a dam bursting under a flood.
High above, Lillian's Pegasus Mage Squad occupied a dominant position over the battlefield.
"Ice Spikes!"
"Fireball!"
"Chain Lightning!"
The mages chanted their spells, sending whistling ice, falling fire, and crackling bolts of electricity downward. The magic fell like the Reaper's scythe, harvesting the lives of the legion below. Any Vampiric Monstrous Bats that tried to harass them were shot down by the Pegasus Knights Leylo had assigned for protection, falling to the ground in mid-screech.
Lillian joined the fray, her red robes fluttering as she hurled massive fireballs into the densest clusters of monsters. The resulting explosions caused devastating casualties. High above, Lady Elena chanted a powerful incantation, her raised staff glowing with a brilliant crimson light. A rain of fire covering three hundred meters descended like meteors.
Fire fell from the heavens like divine punishment. More than two hundred Naga warriors writhed in the inferno, charred to cinders. The tide of battle turned instantly; under the multi-dimensional assault of the human army, the Naga Legion suffered heavy losses and their lines began to retreat.
Seeing the situation turn dire, the Tier 4 Naga Priest let out an angry howl. It thrust its bone staff upward and drew a shimmering dagger with its other hand, plunging it without hesitation into the center of its own forehead!
Squelch!
Blood sprayed, and its forehead split open. A bloodshot, massive vertical pupil radiating a sinister light snapped open!
Hiss!
An invisible, mountainous spiritual shockwave rippled out from the priest like a tide!
"Ah!"
The first to be hit were the charging Mammoth Knights and their mounts. Within two hundred meters, knights felt a stabbing pain in their brains, as if pierced by countless steel needles, leaving them dizzy and sluggish. Even the Tier 3 Mammoths, despite their thick hides and iron wills, let out piteous cries. Their massive bodies swayed, and their forelegs buckled; several slammed into the ground, unable to rise!
A few Pegasus Knights plummeted abruptly from the sky as they were struck by the pulse. The momentum of the central front ground to a halt.
"Not good!" Leylo's expression shifted. "Alex!" He made an instant decision. "Take four Storm Griffin knights and execute that priest!"
"Yes, my Lord!" Alex, who had been waiting for his moment, finally received his task. He urged his Storm Griffin forward, diving like a bolt of yellow-brown lightning from the high altitude, heading straight for the priest.
Behind him, four Storm Griffin knights beat their wings and leveled their lances. The speed of the griffins was staggering, creating fierce gales as they moved. Their lances glowed with battle qi.
The Naga Priest sensed the lethal threat from above and tried to summon its guards, but the nearby Nagas were also reeling from the spiritual shockwave. It could only feebly raise its bone staff to cast a defensive ward.
But the strike was too fast! Alex led the charge, his lance whistling through the air, locked onto the sinister eye in the priest's forehead.
Squelch!
The lance shattered the magical barrier. The brief resistance gave the priest enough time to flinch to the side, but the lance still pierced its shoulder. The massive force sent the Naga flying. Alex abandoned his lance, leaped from the griffin's back, and unsheathed his knight's sword.
A flash of silver light followed the priest's tumbling body. It was a strike as fast as lightning. Alex decapitated the priest in mid-air.
Alex had two nicknames: "Fast Sword" and "Swift Wind."
The Naga Priest let out a short, piteous wail before its massive body crashed into the dirt, silent forever. Alex kicked off the ground, grabbed the severed head, and pulled a cord at his waist. His body soared back into the air, returning to the Storm Griffin's saddle.
This was a tactic Alex had developed after bonding with the griffin: using a rope to connect his belt to the saddle, allowing him to leap off to kill enemies and return quickly.
With the priest's death, the spiritual pressure over the battlefield vanished. The affected knights and beasts recovered instantly. Seeing their leader fallen, the remaining Nagas lost all will to fight and began to flee in terror.
"Cavalry, pursue for two thousand meters! Do not enter the marsh!" Leylo ordered.
An hour later, the battle was over. The field was a wreck of Naga and beast corpses. The Blackstone-Amber coalition had achieved a total victory with minimal casualties.
As night fell, Alex approached Leylo, holding an object wrapped in clean cloth. "My Lord. This was taken from the forehead of the priest."
Leylo unwrapped it to find a fist-sized, dark red ocular crystal. Its center held a dark vertical pupil that seemed to retain a trace of sinister life, radiating a faint, cold aura. This was the so-called "Eye of the Magic Snake"—a bizarre magical item embedded into the body and fueled by the sacrifice of one's own life-blood.
"This thing is cursed," Lillian remarked, leaning in to look. She could feel the chaotic mana within. "Embedding that into your forehead like that priest did... eventually, you'd lose your mind."