Chapter 63: First engagement

It was already approaching evening. The setting sun cast long, sweeping shadows from the giant rocks on the horizon, interweaving to form a dense network of dark corridors. Although faint sunlight still flickered above, the interconnected shadows bathed the passages between the rocks in near-complete darkness.

​A group of snakemen was slithering through these dark passages. The squad consisted of twenty snakemen with eight of them being Intermediate-rank snakemen, moving along the shadowed paths.

​Suddenly, a frantic rustling and scraping sound echoed from behind them. Hearing this, the group’s leader instantly recognized the noise: another band of snakemen was approaching. Judging by the loud, frantic slithering and shouting, it sounded like a massive horde, and they seemed completely enraged.

​The leader was caught off guard. Under normal circumstances, snakemen rarely gathered in such massive numbers. He couldn’t help but wonder: What could have made them so furious? Did they finally spot those sneaky humans who have been hiding like rats and are they chasing someone down?

​Curious, and hearing the commotion drawing rapidly closer, he ordered his group to halt and see what was happening. His subordinates obeyed without objection, pulling to the side.

​As the noise grew deafening, a thick cloud of dust billowed up from behind the horizon. Because snakemen lacked legs and slithered directly against the ground, their collective movement kicked up a massive dust storm, signaling that the crowd was even larger than he had imagined.

​The dust cloud was getting closer. Suddenly, around a sharp bend in the passage, a fast-moving shadow past the group’s perimeter. The figure moved with incredible speed, but being an Intermediate-rank creature, the leader caught a clear glimpse of it. To his surprise, it was just as he had guessed—a human dressed entirely in black.

​As the human darted past the edge of his group, the Novice-rank snakemen under his command failed to react in time. The leader allowed the human to pass, intending to order a immediate chase, when he suddenly noticed something terribly wrong.

​Inspecting his squad closely, he discovered two of his subordinates slumped on the ground—their throats slitted.

​Fury surged through him. Even though they were only Novice-rank subordinates, having two of his men silently executed right under his nose while he stood right there was a humiliation. Now he understood why the other snakemen were so furious; this human was playing extremely dirty.

​Incensed, the leader ordered his squad to join the massive chase.

​The figure in black was none other than Vesper. She had activated her Title boost, combining its swift movement with her Shadow Movement skill. Because the environment was draped in deep rock shadows, her movement speed received a substantial buff.

​She was the direct catalyst for this chaos, having deliberately provoked and pulled multiple groups of snakemen into a single, enraged trail. Glancing behind her as she ran, she estimated nearly a hundred snakemen were now hot on her heels.

​Ever since entering this slaughterhouse,they had learned a critical flaw regarding these creatures:the snakemen were slow even the Intermediate-rank snakemen had defensive enhancements and lacked raw agility. Leveraging this weakness, Vesper knew they couldn’t catch her in a short sprint. However, keeping up this pace was taxing on her stamina, so she needed to complete her objective quickly. Judging by the landmarks she had passed, she was almost at the destination, and the snakeman horde behind her was large enough for their plan.

​She maintained a steady speed, keeping herself just visible enough so the snakemen wouldn’t lose her track.

​Rounding a sharp rocky corner, Vesper suddenly bolted into an opening. Seeing their target dash around the bend, the snakemen surged blindly after her into the same valley.

​However, as soon as the horde poured inside, the snakeman leaders realized something was terribly wrong. What looked like an open pass quickly narrowed into a corridor-like choke point, culminating in a abrupt dead end.

​The human they were chasing had vanished without a trace.

​Instinct warned the Intermediate snakeman leaders that they had slithered directly into a trap. They were just about to issue a quick retreat order when a series of whistling sounds sliced through the air.

​Several snakemen instantly collapsed, shot dead on the spot. Panic rippled through the ranks. Looking up, they spotted a humans standing atop one of the towering rock walls, holding a bows and aiming directly down at them. It was Astra and her pawns.

​Lacking legs or abilities to scale the sheer stone cliffs, the snakemen were helpless against high-angle archers. The leaders made the split-second call to turn the horde around and escape the valley, aiming to open up enough distance to get out of arrow range.

​Because the crowd was so immense, turning everyone around took precious time. The Intermediate-rank leaders ordered their rear to hurl their spears upward, attempting to suppress the archer and buy time for the rest to break out.

​The suppression strategy partially worked. Up above, Astra and her Pawns had to dodge incoming spears, but they continued to shoot periodically, picking off snakemen with every volley.

​Just as the horde scrambled back toward the exit, they found their path blocked.

​Standing right at the narrow choke point were Magenta and Fiona. Without hesitating, both women summoned their Pawns. The Pawns were exact structural mirror copies of their Queens, though Magenta’s Pawns wielded standard-sized battleaxes instead of her over-exaggerated ones.

​The six armored figures lined up across the gap, standing firm like an impenetrable wall. They immediately activated their Titles.

​Trapped from both sides, the snakeman leaders had no room to hesitate; if they lingered, Astra and her archer Pawns would pick them off one by one from behind.

​ the snakeman leaders roared, ordering every subordinate to charges and break through the exit.

​Fiona glanced at Magenta. "I’ll take the initial impact. Follow right behind me."

​"Got it," Magenta agreed without argument.

​As the torrent of spears hurtled toward the narrow passage, Fiona and her Pawns raised their massive tower shields, triggering their Title boost of attack and defence along with their defensive skill, Force Absorption.

​A barrage of spears slammed violently into the shield wall. Even without a proper formation, the sheer weight of dozens of charging snakemen delivered a massive kinetic force. Though Fiona’s group absorbed the majority of the impact through their skill, the sheer force pushed them back half a step. Still, they held the line firmly, grinding the horde’s forward momentum to a dead halt.

​Exploiting the moment the snakemen recoiled, Magenta stepped forward past Fiona’s shield line alongside her Pawns.

​"Heavy Stomp!" Magenta shouted, activating her Title alongside her skill.

​She and her pawns simultaneous stomped on the ground where by shattering the snakemen’s formation, leaving the front line completely disoriented. Capitalizing on the opening, Magenta and her Pawns stepped right into the crowd, swinging their battleaxes in wide, lethal arcs with zero concern for their own defense.

​For ten intense seconds, the three of them functioned like giant meat grinders. Every wide sweep cut through multiple snakemen, leaving severed bodies in their wake. After this brief, brutal burst, Magenta and her Pawns promptly fell back behind Fiona’s shield line.

​That single ten-second counterattack wiped out nearly 40 of front-line snakemen, leaving a massive vacuum littered with bodies. Because the front rank consisted primarily of Novice-rank creatures, the sudden carnage caused their morale to plummet among the lower ranked Snakeman.

​Just as the snakeman leaders tried to stabilize the panicked horde for another push, two figures flanked the rear of their formation—one welding a spear, the other with two katanas.

​It was Velvet and Valeria.

​Flanked by their respective Pawns, both women activated their Titles and launched a surprise ambush on the snakemen’s rear. They deliberately targeted the disarmed creatures—the snakemen who had thrown their spears at Astra moments earlier and were left without weapons to defend themselves.

​Activating their Titles for maximum slaughter, Velvet and Valeria tore through the rear line. Caught in a double-ended pincers trap, the snakemen descended into complete chaos. The leaders were paralyzed, unable to coordinate defenses on both sides at once.

​After Velvet and Valeria’s quick, lethal hit-and-run engagement shifted away, more than half of the snakeman horde lay dead. The chaotic crowd of nearly a hundred was now reduced to around forty survivors.

​However, almost all forty remaining survivors were Intermediate-rank snakemen. Their core combat strength was still largely intact.

​Realizing that their subordinates Where almost wiped out the Intermediate-rank snakeman leaders stepped to the front to fight for their lives. By unspoken agreement, was made the battlefield was divided into two distinct engagements areas as the second round of combat began.