Lord: I can see loyalty.

After nearly ten minutes of fierce fighting, the Haro barbarian soldiers suddenly stopped their attack, as if the tide were receding.

They quickly retreated to the edge of the forest, but did not leave completely. Instead, they crouched in the shadows like wild beasts awaiting orders, their eyes fixed on the village entrance.

"Something's not right..." Glenn leaned on his sword, his chest heaving, sweat mixed with the enemy's blood dripping from his chin.

It was so quiet that even the sound of the wind seemed to freeze. This inexplicable pause was more unsettling than a frenzied attack.

It's like... they're waiting for something.

"What...are they waiting for?" The one-eyed captain spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva, his hand gripping the machete with bulging veins.

There was no response, but the answer soon emerged from the depths of the forest.

At first, there was a thick, nauseating stench, like corpses piled up for months.

Immediately afterwards, the light in the entire forest seemed to dim, and a thick darkness began to flow from the shadows of the giant trees.

But it wasn't a shadow; it was a swirling, churning mass of black mud, almost the size of a small carriage.

It has no fixed shape; sometimes a pus-filled bubble rises on its surface, and sometimes a crack appears, revealing a deeper darkness beneath.

Its movement is even more bizarre; it doesn't crawl, but rather seems to devour everything in its path...

Wherever it passed, the lush wild grass in the forest withered and shrank instantly, and the low shrubs seemed to have been drained of their vitality, their branches breaking apart.

Even a small tree, as thick as a bowl, will eventually become part of it as it slowly spreads over it, its bark peeling off and its wood rapidly turning black and softening.

What's even more striking is that, in the center of that churning, dark mud, several faint, eerie lights are slowly flickering, like his eyes.

"By the Holy Light... What, what the hell is that?!" The tall, thin captain's slender sword tip trembled slightly, his voice hoarse. The farmers behind him were even paler, barely able to hold their pitchforks.

Even the fiercest one-eyed creature felt a chill run straight to the top of its head—the instinctive fear humans feel when facing the unknown.

Glenn's face darkened as he recalled Ronan, the King of the Forest, speaking...

"It was like a huge pool of living black slime, large enough to fill half the cave. It emitted a stench of decay and...whispers."

Could it be... this very thing? The source of all the strange powers of the Haro tribe?

"Calm down!" Glenn growled, forcibly suppressing the panic in his heart.

He knew that if he showed even the slightest sign of panic, the crumbling defensive line behind him would collapse instantly. "Archers! Give it a try!"

With a few whooshing sounds, several daring archers trembled as they released their arrows.

The arrow sank into the black mud, then disappeared without a trace, like a stone sinking into the sea, swallowed up by darkness in an instant.

The black mud monster seemed to be awakened by this slight provocation.

The few points of light suddenly brightened, locking onto the village entrance defense line, especially the tall Glenn standing at the very front.

The next second, its seemingly clumsy and slow body suddenly began to accelerate!

It didn't run like a human, but rather surged like a black tide, seemingly about to devour everything, and crashed down on Glenn!

The speed was so fast that no one except Glenn could react in time.

"Get out of the way!" Glenn's pupils contracted, and his muscles exploded instantly as he leaped to the side and backward with all his might!

boom--!

The ground where he had been standing was swallowed up by black mud, and the solid earth instantly became as if it had been corroded by strong acid, emitting hissing white smoke.

If it were to collide head-on, the consequences would be unimaginable.

Glenn landed and rolled, then half-knelt to his feet, a fierce glint in his eyes—he couldn't let it get close to the defensive line!

He gripped the hilt of the greatsword with both hands, channeling all his power into his arms. Taking advantage of the moment when the black mud monster slightly contracted after its slap, he roared and charged forward two steps, raising the greatsword high above his head.

puff!

A disgusting sound came from the mud, and the greatsword was deeply embedded in the black mud, almost splitting it in two!

The sword felt sticky and strange, as if it had cleaved into a large mass of rotting flesh and tree roots.

"Will it work?" Glenn was about to catch his breath, but his expression changed the next moment.

The black mud that was split open did not scatter and splash, but instead, as if it had a life of its own, it spread upwards along the blade.

Immediately, the mud on both sides of the wound quickly moved and gathered together, and in just a few breaths, the terrible crack was completely healed!

"What...what kind of monster is this?!" a militiaman cried out in despair.

Glenn gritted his teeth, his eyes flashing with even more ferocity. This was the first time he had encountered such a troublesome enemy. Since he recovered so quickly... he would cut him until he couldn't recover!

He held nothing back, lowered his waist to gather strength, and his greatsword transformed into a whirlwind, sweeping horizontally, slashing vertically, and parrying diagonally!

The heavy sword, accompanied by gusts of strong wind, slashed fiercely into the black body time and time again!

Pfft! Pfft! Sizzle—!

The nauseating chopping sounds continued incessantly, and black mud fragments were occasionally flung out by the force, landing on the ground still twitching slightly like living things, emitting an even stronger stench.

The monster seemed somewhat dazed by the continuous, storm-like blows; its massive body continued to deform and dent.

It was as if the frequency of the flickering light in its eyes had become disordered, causing it to stop moving forward and even begin to slowly retreat.

"Alright! Captain! Chop it down!" Seeing this, the militiamen's morale soared, and they all raised their bows and arrows to assist.

However, just as Glenn was chopping down with all his might again, trying to completely flatten this disgusting thing.

clang!!!

A completely different, crisp sound of impact suddenly rang out!

Glenn felt a jolt in his arms, and a tremendous force caused blood to gush from the wounds on his hands.

The greatsword seemed to be stuck by something, and struck some extremely hard object solidly!

He was startled and instinctively tried to pull his sword back, but felt a pulling force coming from the depths of the black mud.

Glenn grunted, his arm muscles bulging, and with all his might, he finally managed to pull the greatsword out of the sticky bindings.

The sword drew out a large amount of black, viscous substance, and deep within the wound that had been cleaved open and was quickly trying to close, Glenn witnessed a scene he would never forget:

There were countless bones, densely packed and crisscrossing, but they were not the skeleton of this monster.

That clearly comes from a human head!

They were wrapped together by black slime, forming the monster's twisted skeleton.

What made Glenn lose all strength in an instant was that among the skeletons, there was a deformed and rotten head, but the face was still barely discernible.

The head was small, it was a woman's head, with a terrified face and light brown eyes...

Despite enduring countless hours of erosion, despite having half its face covered in black mud...

But Glenn recognized him.

Those were the outlines that had surfaced countless times in his painful memories, those were the familiar faces he hadn't seen in so long.

It was his mother's head.

The battlefield seemed to freeze at that moment. In Glenn's world, only the head in front of him remained, watching as it was slowly enveloped by the black mud once again.

The color drained from his face, and the composure he had maintained in the face of formidable enemies for so many years began to crumble.

Glenn's hand, gripping the greatsword, began to tremble uncontrollably. His lips moved slightly, but no sound came out.

"Gren...Gren?" The one-eyed captain who was closest to him noticed something was wrong.

Following Glenn's blank gaze, he also saw the pile of bones in the black mud, but he didn't understand why Glenn was reacting so dramatically.

The black mud monster seemed to sense Glenn's emotions, and at the same time, it uttered a muffled whisper, its wounds began to heal faster, and its gaze locked onto Glenn once again.

Glenn remained frozen in place, seemingly oblivious to the danger that was about to strike again.