Arthur unhesitatingly rejected the other side's ultimatum demanding a withdrawal.
Three flamboyantly dressed messengers rode to within three hundred meters of the enemy castle. Drawing in a deep breath, they loudly conveyed Arthur's will to a demon commander on the battlements—a commander clad in black armor, with four spiraling horns protruding from his forehead. The esteemed Prince of the North Sea would never withdraw his troops. Every abyssal creature in the castle had to surrender to Arthur, or once the castle was breached, all abyssal creatures would be sent to the stake.
The demon commander gave a muffled snort and waved his hand.
Above the castle gates, three heavy stone blocks suddenly slid backward, exposing three pitch-black arrow slits. With a dull CRACK, pure steel ballista bolts as thick as a child's arm and over two meters long shot from the openings, striking the three messengers squarely in the chest. They were blasted from their mounts and carried more than a hundred meters through the air before being nailed firmly to the ground.
The demons' distinctive cackling laughter echoed from within the castle. Black flames burned atop the towers at its four corners, while rings of thick, gloomy black halos—like footprints left by the dead—gradually emerged from the castle walls, forming an exceedingly bizarre circular magic barrier around the entire fortress.
"I can already smell the fragrance of your delicious flesh and blood. I shall wait quietly for the moment you are roasted to seven-tenths doneness and served upon my table." A low, hoarse, thoroughly unpleasant voice came from inside the castle. "Creatures of the surface, you are seeking your own deaths."
Lin Qi stood at a tower window, gazing into the distance at the messengers pinned to the ground like butterfly specimens, then slowly shook his head.
Arthur was