A Methodical Execution

Trapped with no way out, Gruen abandoned all control of his battered Legion amid the cannon fire and the screams of his own kind.

He threw back his head, opened his split jaws, and greedily swallowed the Blood Moon light pouring from the sky like blood.

The rules of the Blood Moon Period bore down on him, and the Third-Tier Peak Commander slipped fully into a frenzy.

The last shred of a general's reason drained away. Only the instinct to kill remained.

His already massive body swelled again as his bones cracked.

Dark red bloodlines bulged beneath his gray-black fur, one after another, as though something scalding were pushing outward through his flesh.

Consecrated Mistfall Shells had already eaten his fur and flesh into pale, mottled patches. But as Blood Moon Power flooded his body, even wounds rotted deep enough to expose bone began to writhe. Clumps of dark red flesh curled outward, forcing his split skin back together.

Clutching his bone-backed Battle Axe in his right claw, Gruen no longer looked like a Commander. He was a flesh-and-blood war machine gone utterly out of control, trampling the severed limbs of his own kind as he launched the most savage of straight-line charges toward the Sacred Flame Altar on the cliff!

"Roar—!!!"

The first obstacle in his path was the bottomless Holy-Silver Bone-Eater Trench.

Gruen roared, launched his enormous body into the air, and cleared the first collapsed fissure.

But Old Valley's terrain had long since been blasted apart. When he landed, his right foot sank deep into a corrosive mire of Acid Mud and Holy Silver Powder.

"Ssssss—!"

Yellow-green and white smoke billowed up, carrying a sudden stench of charred flesh.

Holy Silver and strong acid bit into his flesh together. For a lower-tier Demonic Beast, that alone would