There is always a premonition before a great battle; it comes from the instinctive feeling of life, the fear of death, the fear of the passing of life.
Apart from Benji, no one else in the Gulu Clan knew the purpose of the altar, nor did they know who Leo, who was presiding over the altar, was.
But they knew that there were 300,000 Dark Night Army outside, and many more experts several times their size were rushing towards them, ready to crush them by any means necessary.
Despairing gazes turned towards Benji. Seeing their ancestor, death was not so terrible. Did they think they wouldn't die if the Dark Night Army didn't come?
But isn't it a bit too desperate for the entire clan to perish here?
Benji felt the despair in those eyes. These were his descendants, the future of his race, and they were all about to die. What could he do?
Time ticked by, and before I knew it, the tremors that had been raging for almost three days had lessened. Had the awful earthquake finally ended?
The raging waterspout that swept through the entire Gloomy Forest gradually subsided, and without the support of the wind, a massive amount of rain, like a celestial river falling, crashed down.
This should have been two days' worth of torrential rain, but it all fell in ten seconds, turning the Gloomy Forest into a vast expanse of water in an instant.
The raging flood, carrying the might of heaven and earth, mercilessly destroyed everything. Taking advantage of the difference in terrain, the floodwaters rose several meters high, creating a deafening roar, like the howl of death echoing continuously above the forest. The power of nature always inspires awe in life.
In the past, such a giant wave would have drowned countless lives.
But now, in the Gloomy Forest that has long since become a dead zone, how much life is left?
The disaster that has lasted for more than two days has already cost the Gloomy Forest over 60% of its life. Even the remaining 40% who didn't die in the disaster have already fled. With such a devastating catastrophe and hundreds of thousands of people caught in the chaos of war, anyone who doesn't run away would be a fool.
All the Gulu looked at the devastated, Gloomy Forest, their eyes turning red; this was their home.
The once- Pearl of Jeft is now devoid of even a single intact plant.
The once dense forest, which used to block out the sky, can now only lie on the ground, barely clinging to life, its mangled remains, broken by the wind and rain, are constantly being bombarded by the floodwaters.
There's nothing left.
The fruit tree that used to be my favorite, my favorite flower, my favorite secret hiding place...
The dark clouds in the sky had disappeared, and even the sunlight was no longer being drawn to the altar like a domineering black hole.
" The Dark Night Army has reached the edge of the forest, but due to the recent flood and the damaged forest, their progress is slow. It is estimated that it will take them three to four hours to enter our territory."
Benji nodded slowly with a solemn expression. The flood and the completely collapsed and broken forests had changed the terrain, and the routes that had been explored before were long gone.
The harsh terrain wouldn't affect a few night squads entering; at most, it would make things a little harder. But for an army of 300,000, it would be absolutely impossible to move an inch.
Benji's anxious heart eased slightly. The destruction of the forest wasn't necessarily a bad thing; at least it would buy them a few more hours.
He turned back to look at Leo on the altar, wanting to tell Leo the good news.
But Benji's expression instantly worsened, because with his Demigod cultivation, he could clearly feel, as if lighting a lamp in the dark, that the altar was absorbing energy at an incredibly slow pace.
If the altar absorbed energy at the speed of sound before, now it's like running on two legs. The difference in speed isn't just a multiple, it's a terrifying difference of heaven and earth.
Benji instantly realized that all the strange phenomena had suddenly disappeared.
"Impressive tactics; they even know how to restrain the altar's energy absorption."
This immediately dashed their good mood, which had been dampened by the harsh environment, and the few hours of delay were far less than the time their progress had slowed down at the altar. In this situation, the odds were against them.
Compared to Benji's vague perception, Leo's perception was much clearer. Just now, a powerful external force intervened, forcibly dispersing the energy density of the Gloomy Forest and reducing the altar's energy absorption rate to 25% of its original speed.
This means that it takes four times as long to absorb the same amount of energy.
At this point, the energy accumulated within the altar had reached 88%.
"Boom boom boom boom"
Just two hours later, a tremendous rumbling sound came from the edge of the desert. Accompanied by the ground shaking, huge figures, each thirty meters tall, slowly walked towards the desert. Their black shells looked like several slowly moving hills being pushed forward.
It's the Dark Night Demon Elephant.
A collective gasp filled the air within the Gulu army, followed by panicked screams that threw Benji's carefully constructed formation into disarray.
No wonder they were so afraid. The Dark Night Demon Elephant is a war behemoth bred by the Dark Night Temple. It is over fifty meters long, weighs tens of thousands of tons, and has a level two strength. Every step it takes causes the earth to shake.
In this completely destroyed, Gloomy Forest, the massive, mountain-like Dark Night Demon Elephant is the perfect road roller, turning every step it takes into a wide, smooth road.
As expected, when the Dark Night Demon Elephant reached the edge of the desert, a massive, Dark Night Army immediately emerged from behind them.
There was no pre-battle persuasion to surrender, nor any religious ceremony; when those two nuclear bombs exploded yesterday, there was no possibility of reconciliation between the two sides.
The shame of the God of Dark Night's representative on Earth has been washed away by the blood of the entire race.
Intelligence reports that the Dark Night Army numbers 300,000, along with many civilians who followed.
The Gulu had no concept of the number 300,000, but when the desert was filled with Night Elf soldiers, and more troops kept pouring in, they finally gained a concrete understanding of this number.
There were so many, an overwhelming number. All I could see was a massive Dark Night Army; there was nothing else to see.
The air was filled with shouts of battle; the cold glint of blades reflected light brighter than the dim sunlight; the earth trembled from their synchronized marching, enough to kick up small pebbles from the desert.
"Stop them."
Benji roared in a hoarse voice, perhaps without even hearing the tremor in his own voice.
Only 70,000 members of the Gulu tribe remained, forming a three-layered defensive perimeter around the altar.
Faced with the surging, overwhelming Dark Night Army, they stood firm like an unyielding dam, neither side retreating, and the two sides instantly clashed.
In the blink of an eye, severed limbs and dismembered bodies were laid out in a layer. Neither side would give way, and the desperate mentality of attacking to the death meant that no one could leave the battlefield alive.
This is a battlefield where there are no winners. Life becomes the cheapest thing at this moment, and the fallen lives are nothing more than numbers that add to the battle record.
Blood gurgled like a murky stream, and before the fallen corpses could even close their eyes, their heads were crushed by countless large feet.
The sounds of blood and flesh splattering on the battlefield, along with the muffled thuds of swords piercing chests, echoed like the grim laughter of death's bountiful harvest.
This is the devil's lunch, the final lament of life; war is always the ultimate destruction of civilization.
Leo stood above the altar, watching the massive battlefield of flesh and blood. No matter how many lives were lost, whether you were a level one warrior or a nobody, you would be swallowed up by the desert within minutes.
The soft desert had long been turned into mud by flesh and blood, Benji's hoarse voice continued to command his only remaining Gulu Clan to defend.
Every one who died was his descendant, every one of his clansmen. He was heartbroken, but he was more like a gambler who had lost everything, having staked all his capital on the table. If he won, he would win everything; if he lost, he would lose everything.
He had to grit his teeth and hold on until the final card was revealed; every gambler firmly believed that victory would be on their side.
Two Tails, along with the other two level-two Gulu and himself, a level-three, who were in command from the center, did not enter the battlefield.
The Dark Night Army cannot take the initiative to attack until they have deployed opponents of level two or higher.
Unlike Benji's grief, Leo couldn't help but reveal a sinister grin as he looked at the fallen corpses.
Each corpse is the best nourishment; the energy within the corpse will be absorbed by the altar, accelerating the altar's energy reserves.
Although the Dark Night Temple reduces the energy density of the Gloomy Forest, as long as battles and deaths continue to occur here, the altar's energy absorption rate will not decrease.
From the thousand or two thousand who died in battle, to ten thousand or twenty thousand, the altar's reserves were increasing at an alarming rate, even faster than before.
The death of 10,000 insignificant lives increases reserves by 0.1%, and the total reserves have now reached 88.5%.
It is estimated that when the Gulu Clan is wiped out, the total energy reserves will reach 90%.
Leo chanted his incantation steadily and continuously, using a special nasal sound to stuff bottles of Black Pearl Potion into his mouth.
With an army of 300,000 and dozens of times more skilled fighters surrounding them, it seemed like there was no way out. However, Leo saw that the chances of success were still very high, and everything was within his expectations.
The battlefield remained deadlocked, but gaps had appeared in two directions. The commander of the Dark Night Army was no fool; he had secretly organized a small squad of first-tier combatants, and using special operations tactics, they successfully tore a small hole in the three-layered defenses of the Gulu Clan in no time.
Without any follow-up troop support Gulu Clan additional high-level combatants, the already stretched and pitiful fighting force would be completely torn apart within minutes.
Once the three-layered defense line is completely breached, the entire defensive perimeter will collapse. At that point, if attacked from both inside and outside, the entire race will be wiped out in an instant.
Leo saw it, Benji saw it, and the three of them, including the Two Tails fox, saw it too.
Even though the four of them, including Benji, were extremely anxious, watching their tribesmen rush forward one by one to try to plug the gap, they fell to the ground like moths to a flame. It was as easy for a first-level combatant to fight against someone who was not even a mediocre person.
Despite the dire situation, the four of them, Benji, remained motionless, knowing that even just one of them could have saved the battle.