The Serpent Enters the Trap: Shien's Meat Grinder

Deep within the roiling gray fog, among the ruins of several abandoned fiefs, a few faint patches of platinum flame flickered.

At that, the monsters at the very front went utterly mad.

For the Dark Races driven ravenous by the blood moon, a fiercely burning sacred flame had never been the greatest temptation.

What most easily robbed them of reason was a dying ember like this, one that seemed only a final breath away from being snuffed out.

It meant food lay ahead, and taking a bite would be easy.

The ghouls and low-rank monsters in the vanguard all opened their jaws, corrosive saliva dripping from the corners of their mouths.

They trampled their own kind's backs and severed limbs, desperately squeezing toward those few dying flames.

As soon as one fell, those behind pounced over it.

Nothing was visible in the gray fog. They did not care. As long as those specks of flame kept flickering, they would keep pushing forward.

Up on the ridge, Karen had kept his hand pressed to his sword hilt, frustration weighing on his chest.

Shien's orders had been absolute.

No head-on fighting, no entering the valley, no intercepting the enemy early. They were only to make brief appearances from the dark bunkers and ridges, strike once, then retreat.

When Karen first heard the plan, he had even thought it far too stifling.

As a holy knight, watching an entire beast tide pour in beneath his eyes while he could only stay on the high ground, harrying and baiting it, was maddening.

Thrum!

After a dull, shuddering vibration, heavy adamantine bolts suddenly shot out from blind spots, trailing short white streaks as they drove straight into the most crowded part of the valley floor.

The third-tier mutant they struck had no time even to