Elven cultivators

As Lord Kou Tao finished speaking, the eyes of the other lords all turned to Maris.

Their eyes held expressions of surprise, doubt, or a hint of anticipation.

Everyone knows that we are now in a desperate situation.

If Maris really had any way to turn things around, even if it was just giving them a way out, they would be willing to swallow their anger and listen.

But Maris simply leaned back in her chair, expressionless, and made no move to speak.

The hearts of all the lords sank.

Lord Kou Tao opened his mouth, about to ask another question, when a voice suddenly rang out from the corner.

"Don't worry, I have a way to deal with the army of Nine Nether City."

The voice was hoarse and low, with a cold and dry quality that seemed inanimate.

Everyone's expression changed simultaneously. Following the sound, they saw a shadow in the corner of the council hall suddenly bulge out, as if something had pushed it open from the inside, and then it quickly condensed into a blurry human-shaped outline.

Two dark red spots of light suddenly lit up in the outline of the eyes, like two clusters of smoldering embers, sweeping coldly over everyone present.

The lords were taken aback.

The Grylite lord was the first to react, leaping abruptly from his seat. A hazy gray glow appeared on his stone-like skin as he roared in a gruff voice, "Who are you?"

The other lords also placed their hands on their weapons, staring in horror at the shadowy figure.

On their own turf, someone was able to sneak up so close without them noticing.

This means that if the other party had murderous intent, they could have attacked them when they were completely unprepared.

Of those present, probably very few could have escaped.

The shadowy figure chuckled and said, "I am a partner of Vian City."

The lords turned their heads in surprise and doubt, only to notice that Maris and the other dark elf matriarchs all had solemn expressions, showing no sign of surprise.

Clearly, they already knew about this guy's existence.

The lords exchanged glances, their faces instantly turning grim.

By this time, they had begun to vaguely sense that something was wrong.

This war with Nine Nether City may have been a meticulously crafted conspiracy from beginning to end.

They've been outmaneuvered by those damned dark elves!

But now it's too late for regrets.

On the battlefield outside, their soldiers are still being slaughtered.

The most urgent task is to find a way to resolve the current predicament.

As for settling scores later, that can wait until they're still alive enough to leave this battlefield.

Lord Kou Tao, the merman lord, frowned as he stared at the dark figure and said in a deep voice, "What method do you have?"

The shadowy figure did not answer, but instead turned its head slightly to look at the water curtain suspended in the air.

Everyone followed his gaze, and their pupils suddenly contracted.

In the water screen footage, the battlefield underwent a strange transformation at some unknown time.

The corpses lying on the ground were silently emitting wisps of grayish-white mist.

Like threads drawn from each corpse by an invisible hand, they converged from all directions toward the same area in the center of the battlefield, quickly forming a massive cloud of mist.

The sudden anomaly quickly attracted the attention of both sides.

A loud horn sounded from the rear of the Silvermoon Clan army.

Upon hearing the sound, the disciples of Taichu City did not hesitate and immediately left the battlefield. Their figures flashed and disappeared underground, vanishing into the rock strata in the blink of an eye.

The elven army at the front also decisively stopped their pursuit at the sound of horns, and began to retreat in an orderly manner.

The routed underground coalition soldiers, seeing this, thought the enemy had retreated. Just as a sense of relief at surviving a disaster welled up in their hearts, before they could even rejoice, they heard a strange howling sound coming from behind them.

They looked back and saw that the grayish-white mist suddenly swirled up, like a gigantic maw that covered the sky and descended upon them.

The soldiers touched by the mist didn't even have time to scream before their bodies visibly withered away.

His skin quickly lost its color, his muscles collapsed, his eye sockets became sunken, and his pupils became dilated. He looked like a dried-up corpse that had been drained of all moisture. In just two or three breaths, he collapsed and fell to the ground, where he did not move again.

The soldiers behind were terrified by the sight and scrambled away to escape to a greater distance.

But the fog spread faster than they had imagined. The grayish-white fog seemed to have a life of its own, spreading rapidly along the ground and swallowing up everything that could reach it.

Thousands of soldiers fell silently in the fog, like stubble cut by a sickle, disappearing row after row into the gray-white mist.

Apart from the dark elves who had been instructed to retreat to the edge of the battlefield early, the Alliance army was almost entirely swallowed up by this eerie gray fog.

Inside the command post, the lords' expressions all changed.

"Stop it!"

"Maris, what exactly are you trying to do?!"

"Are you all crazy? Why are you attacking our own troops?"

The dwarf lord of Dilo, who had been suppressing his anger, finally couldn't hold back any longer.

He suddenly drew his battle axe from his waist, his single eye burning with an almost overflowing killing intent.

"I knew I shouldn't have trusted you bunch of dark-skinned bitches!"

The moment the last word fell, he suddenly sprang up and pounced on the dark figure, his battle axe, wreathed in dark red light, slashing down fiercely.

The dark figure let out a cold sneer, and instead of dodging, reached out to grab the incoming axe blade.

A dark gray aura surged from its palm, enveloping the entire hand as if it were alive.

The next moment, a palm and an axe collided fiercely in mid-air.

The anticipated scene of a sharp battle axe severing a hand did not occur.

The dark red light on the axe blade dimmed and vanished silently the moment it touched the layer of gray-black mist, just like frost and snow under the scorching sun.

Immediately afterwards, the layer of grayish-black mist climbed up the axe handle and onto the arm of the Dilo dwarf lord.

To the astonishment of the crowd, the leather armor on his arm cracked and peeled off rapidly, as if it had been weathered for hundreds of years, revealing the skin underneath.

Then, even that layer of skin turned gray and dry in an instant, covered with fine wrinkles like old tree bark.

The dwarf lord of Dilo let out a piercing scream, staggered backward, and slammed his back against the wall with a dull thud.

He looked down and saw that his entire right palm had turned into a withered, grayish limb, as if it had been plucked from a long-dead corpse.

Countless gray-black lines are spreading upwards along the wrist, causing flesh to wither and veins to stiffen wherever they pass, and even the outline of the bones to show an abnormal grayish color.

He clutched his arm tightly, his face contorted in agony, and his gaze toward the shadowy figure was filled with terror.

The other lords all gasped in shock, their eyes wide with horror.

Kazmo may not be the strongest among them, but he is still a legendary-level character.

But he couldn't even withstand a single move from the shadowy figure before his arm was easily crippled.

This mysterious person's strength is incredibly formidable!

Even Maris's expression changed, a hint of seriousness flashing deep in her pupils.

She knew the shadowy figure was strong, but she didn't expect it to be this powerful.

This kind of power is at least at the level of a senior legend.

Previously, Maris had never heard of the Ring of Annihilation and thought it was just some secret organization that liked to hide in the shadows and do some dirty work.

But now it seems she clearly underestimated this "partner".

A veteran legendary level expert, in the Dawn Continent, would undoubtedly be considered among the top experts.

An organization capable of cultivating this level of combat power must have a solid foundation.

The Ring of Annihilation is probably much stronger than she imagined.

Maris suddenly regretted cooperating with the Ring of Annihilation.

I initially thought it was a mutually beneficial arrangement, but now it seems like we're trying to get something out of a tiger.

In the end, they might not even know how they were eaten.

The dark figure slowly withdrew his hand, a wisp of lingering gray-black mist still clinging to his fingertips as he fell. His tone was casual, as if he were chatting: "Why are you all angry? This is all for victory; it's a necessary sacrifice."

"Even if I hadn't intervened, they would have died at the hands of the Nine Nether City army anyway. I might as well make use of them and contribute to the resolution of the Nine Nether City crisis."

The lords' expressions were uncertain, and none of them responded.

The dwarf lord of Dilo coughed up a mouthful of thick phlegm streaked with grayish-black blood, his one eye glaring at the shadowy figure with shock and anger, yet he couldn't utter a single word.

The shadowy figure, with its unfathomable power, along with the seven dark elf matriarchs, would likely be no match for them in a real fight.

The shadowy figure didn't care and ignored them, turning its attention back to the water curtain.

In the scene, the grayish-white mist had engulfed tens of thousands of Alliance soldiers, and its size had expanded to a terrifying degree.

They no longer simply surged along the ground, but rather resembled an inverted sea of ​​gray-white clouds, heavily pressing down on the battlefield and almost obscuring most of the dome.

Inside the fog, countless distorted faces could be vaguely seen rolling and struggling, emitting silent screams.

The Silvermoon Clan's army had by this time retreated to a sufficiently far distance.

The Second Elder stood on a protruding rock platform, his gaze fixed on the almost solidified gray-white sea of ​​clouds in the distance, his brows furrowed into deep furrows.

Beside him, Cedric, Roman, Irene, and Darian all wore expressions of astonishment and uncertainty.

"What is that?" Elena asked in astonishment. "Was it created by the Crimson Soil? Why wouldn't they even spare their own people?"

No one answered this question.

They were also completely baffled by the inexplicable situation before them.

I have absolutely no idea what those underground creatures are up to.

The Second Elder's gaze darkened, and he was about to order the entire army to continue retreating when his expression suddenly changed, and he turned to look behind him.

Everyone else also noticed something at the same time and turned around in unison.

A beam of dark gold sword light shot through the air from a great distance, drawing a dazzling trajectory under the dark underground dome.

Roman's face immediately broke into a smile: "Anton is here."

The expressions of the others relaxed almost simultaneously.

At that moment, everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

With Anton here, everything will be much easier.

There is no problem he cannot solve.

The dark golden sword light swept across the battlefield in the blink of an eye, then stopped.

The light receded like the tide, revealing Anton's figure.

He hovered in mid-air, his moon-white robe fluttering slightly in the pervasive gloomy wind. His gaze swept over the corpses scattered on the ground and landed on the churning, gray-white sea of ​​clouds, and he raised an eyebrow.

"Such a dense aura of death."