Chapter 1 The Appearance of the Beast Tide

A bizarre scene unfolded at Black Crow Fortress and the nearby Great Wasteland: the battlefield seemed frozen, with only a tide of blackness slowly surging.

Not only were the human soldiers' attention drawn to the beast tide, but even the irrational Chaos monsters and the black plumes of smoke in the wasteland became eerily sluggish, as if these mindless entities were also deterred and hesitant—only a handful of scholars vaguely realized what was happening: it was the suppressive effect of the light of order.

The light that suddenly shone from the horizon was pure light of order. It spanned the entire battlefield and was now weakening the power of the Chaos storm outside Black Crow Fortress. Its influence was so great that even the Flame Spire above the fortress paled in comparison.

And in this strange, temporary "silence," the tide from the distant earth continued to surge forward.

The beast tide, millions of subspecies advancing mightily. This was an army unlike any in the secular world of humans. It lacked the orderliness of humans, the soaring morale of orcs, the splendor of elves, and the imposing strength of winter giants. It didn't even resemble an army, because it was a beast tide, a tide of water, a tide simply and slowly grinding across the entire land. Bizarre and varied savage races shoved and pushed forward, with no banners or formations in sight. Only the instincts of beasts and the iron-fisted rule of the tribal chiefs maintained its forward momentum. Such an "army" presented only chaos and disorder, yet from this chaos and disorder came a chilling aura.

Continuing south from the southern border of the Kingdom of Taros, one had to cross a great wasteland after passing Black Crow Fortress, then a belt of hills, and finally the boundless Black Forest. This forest was so vast and fraught with danger that even the frontier barbarians who lived on the fringes of the kingdom's rule dared not venture deep into it. Thus, only today did the people of Taros suddenly realize just how terrifying a force was hidden in the forests of the kingdom's southern border.

Such a tide, if it had appeared before Black Crow Fortress in the past, would have brought an alarm and commotion no less severe than a Chaos invasion.

But now, this beast tide arrived bathed in the light of order—the dark, savage army was bathed in light, and even every beast was tinged with a layer of holy light. The holy light stretched into a continuous expanse, undulating like an ocean. Within each group of beasts were more than one leader-like figure, wielding various scepters and amulets. These amulets were like the holy artifacts of humans, and a large portion of the beast tide's light of order was released from these "holy artifacts." These hundreds or thousands of light sources combined to form a legion-level barrier of order without any blind spots.

Holy light of order and hideous, ferocious magical beasts were linked together—no one in the world could have imagined such a bizarre sight.

Philip leaned on his greatsword, seemingly having forgotten the pain of his injuries. For a moment, he even thought he was dead—and was witnessing the strange and bizarre afterlife.

But he would soon know that what he was seeing was irrefutable reality, and a scene that would be recorded in epic poems.

The tide continued to advance, already overflowing the circle of giant stones in the Great Wasteland. Those giant stones disappeared silently, tracelessly, like sandcastles destroyed by waves.

In the uppermost level of Black Crow Fortress, an adjutant shouted, "General! General Ulysses! They're here!"

The highest ruler of Black Crow Fortress, Grand Master of the Kingdom's Black Blade Legion, Ulysses Dukehn, stood like an iron statue before the window, gripping his longsword, expressionless: "I know."

"They will overwhelm Black Crow Fortress!"

"I know."

"Then we..."

"Then we will die in our duty."

As all this was happening, the battle above Black Crow Fortress had resumed, like a machine gradually accelerating from a standstill. As more Chaos monsters gathered from the smoke and dust, the stunned soldiers were awakened one after another by reality, and the entire battlefield slowly "thawed" from its previous eerie stagnation. Shouts of battle and explosions reappeared everywhere.

And at the moment the battle restarted, the beast tide continued to advance, unstoppable.

It overflowed the "Long Wind Stone Ring," then slowly climbed up the wasteland stone beach. Then it overflowed the wasteland stone beach, overflowed the dried riverbed, overflowed the Yellow Stone Plateau, and bit by bit submerged the former defensive line, now the ruins, outside Black Crow Fortress.

It finally had to slow its pace slightly—because the sharp point of the Chaos storm was gathering in front of it. The battlefield of Chaos and Order blocked the beast tide's path. If it wanted to continue forward, it had to be drawn into this battle.

The beast tide paused slightly, and then, it seemed, some leader gave an order. The magic apes began to beat their animal-hide war drums, the ogres puffed out their cheeks and blew their heavy horns, the goblin elders frantically shook terrifying staffs made of skulls and thighbones, and the giant-toothed lizards, under the whips of lizardman riders, emitted piercing screeches. A terrifying wave of sound almost blew away the thick clouds in the sky. Then, the magical beasts began to pounce on those Chaos monsters.

But the first to arrive at the battlefield was not the lizardman cavalry riding giant-toothed lizards, but a beam of intense light from some corner of the beast tide.

This beam of light cut through the darkness and exploded above Black Crow Fortress, and countless runes and silver lines spread out from the point of explosion in all directions. In an instant, hundreds of Chaos claws were reduced to ashes by the power contained in the light.

This first strike immediately stunned the defenders of Black Crow Fortress, taking them by surprise. Many of the rank-and-file soldiers might not yet know what had happened, but the commanders and scholars and mages in the upper levels of the fortress immediately recognized the origin of the light.

"It's a high-level divine spell from a Sanctuary monk!" Ulysses' advisor, a balding middle-aged scholar, exclaimed, dropping his staff to the ground. "A seventh-level divine spell, 'Heavenly Strike'! There's a bishop-level Sanctuary monk in that army!"

The lord of Black Crow, who had been prepared to die bravely, could no longer remain calm at this point. He rushed to his advisor: "Are you sure?"

"Divine spells cannot be faked, my lord," the scholar stared out the window, at which point the second and third beams of light had already flashed across the sky above the fortress, erupting in flashes slightly less powerful than 'Heavenly Strike'. "No one but the Sanctuary people can learn such divine spells, and no magic or talent skill can produce this effect other than this divine spell... That was 'Holy Shockwave' and 'Aurora,' and the two attacks arrived almost simultaneously... There's more than one Sanctuary cleric down there!"

At this point, there was no need for the scholar to explain. Ulysses himself could see the scene in the beast tide.

The beast tide had arrived below Black Crow Fortress. At this distance, many details could be seen.

Near the "main formation" of the beast tide (if this legion really had a main formation), there was a small group that was out of sync with the surrounding aura. That group constantly released various divine spells to attack the Chaos monsters in the sky or to assist the magical beast tribes charging in front. Their clothing and the power they used were particularly conspicuous: Sanctuary people.

"People from the Theocracy..." General Ulysses' eyes almost popped out. "How did they suddenly pop up here..."

At this moment, a messenger suddenly pushed open the door and shouted loudly, "My lord! They are helping us resist the Chaos monsters!"

"I can see that they're fighting Chaos," Ulysses said loudly without turning his head, but immediately realized the other meaning in the messenger's words. "Wait, are you sure those magical beasts are helping to defend Black Crow Fortress, and not just planning to tear down our castle along with the Chaos?"

"Absolutely true, my lord," the messenger gasped. "Those... magical beasts have already formed a defensive line outside the fortress. They are... forming formations to help us block the weak points on the city walls. And there's a dragon, that dragon just landed at the west city tower, and it said a sentence."

Ulysses' expression changed: "What did it say?"

He had already seen a black dragon flying above the beast tide. As a knowledgeable kingdom noble, he could of course tell that it was not an inferior subspecies of dragon, but a true adult dragon.

He had no idea why a noble adult dragon would be mixed in with a large group of magical beasts—although the scale of this group of magical beasts was indeed a bit unbelievably large.

"It said..." The messenger stammered for a moment, but under Ulysses' sharp gaze, he still spoke, "It said, 'The Head Wolf has decided to shelter your castle. You must immediately prepare a pot of braised spare ribs, and offer it to the Head Wolf after the battle is over.'"

"And then?"

"And then it flew away..."

Ulysses and his advisor and a group of commanders looked at each other.

"Does anyone know what braised spare ribs are?" The renowned "Lion of the Southern Border" stared at his staff with wide eyes.

Everyone shook their heads.

The sounds of explosions and shouts of battle were constantly coming from outside the castle.

Through the window, one could see that the army of magical beasts had already launched an unprecedentedly large-scale battle with the Chaos monsters. Subspecies wearing all kinds of tattered equipment were fighting red-eyed with those deformed and twisted monster claws. Powerful elemental creatures were stirring up seas of fire and giant waves, transforming the terrain outside the fortress piece by piece. Even the black dragon had returned to the battlefield, and was constantly bombarding a black plume of smoke in the air, with powerful dragon breath exploding in spectacular bursts of fire on the smoke column.

Ulysses turned his head and glared at the messenger.

"Go! Ask everyone! What exactly are braised spare ribs!"

The messenger nodded blankly and turned to carry out the order, but Ulysses stopped him again, "Wait!"

The messenger turned back, at a loss.

Ulysses took a breath: "Go to the kitchen first."