Chapter 413: Again Won

The Sand King slowly raised his right hand. The endless desert suddenly began shrinking. The mountain-sized prison compressed, a thousand meters... five hundred... one hundred... ten... The terrifying pressure increased without end.

The Nightmare Beast roared desperately. Its bones cracked one after another. Its muscles collapsed. Its organs were crushed into pulp. The giant sphere of sand continued shrinking until it was no larger than a human head.

The Sand King gently clenched his fist.

The sphere instantly shattered. Black dust drifted into the wind. The Nightmare Beast had completely disappeared from existence.

---

At almost the same moment, the Mist King arrived at the Shadow Fang Pack.

The battlefield there was equally desperate. Lyra stood covered in wounds. Her breathing had become ragged. Standing opposite her, the Blood Reaver let out an earth-shaking roar. Its crimson muscles continuously expanded and contracted. Every wound upon its body healed within moments, and the more it bled, the more terrifying its aura became.

The surrounding battlefield had already become a sea of corpses. Hundreds of elite werewolves had failed to stop it.

The Blood Reaver suddenly charged again. Its enormous fist descended toward Lyra. Just before the attack landed, a white mist silently drifted between them. The fist passed straight through it.

It froze. The mist slowly gathered together. The familiar figure of the Mist King appeared before Lyra.

"You’ve worked hard," the old man smiled faintly. "Leave it to me."

Lyra immediately retreated without hesitation.

It roared furiously. Its body expanded once again before launching itself forward. Its fists, elbows, knees, and shoulders became deadly weapons. Yet every attack struck only drifting mist, again and again.

Its attacks became increasingly frantic. The more it failed, the angrier it became. Its berserk ability continuously pushed its body beyond its limits. Its muscles swelled unnaturally. Its heartbeat became deafening. Steam poured from every pore.

The Mist King quietly watched, allowing the commander to exhaust itself.

Finally, its movements slowed.

The Mist King gently sighed. "A body without a calm mind... will always destroy itself."

The surrounding mist silently flowed toward the commander. The Blood Reaver let out a savage roar. It welcomed the mist. It believed nothing without physical form could harm it.

The next instant, its roar stopped. The mist had entered its body through every breath it had taken. Inside its veins, the seemingly harmless mist suddenly condensed into countless razor-thin streams. Like invisible blades, they sliced through every artery and tendon.

Its regeneration activated immediately, but it could not heal as the destruction spread throughout its body. Its heart split. Its lungs collapsed. Its spine shattered.

The giant commander’s body froze. A look of disbelief appeared upon its savage face. Then, without another sound, its enormous corpse crashed onto the battlefield.

The earth trembled as another commander fell.

The surrounding mist quietly dispersed. The Mist King’s expression remained unchanged.

Almost at the same moment, golden sand drifted across the horizon as the Sand King arrived. The two old kings looked at one another. Neither spoke. No words were necessary.

Both of them turned toward the Golden Valley Pack.

"The Plague Monarch is the most troublesome among the five commanders," the Mist King said calmly as he drifted forward within the mist. "It commands the undead. The longer the battle drags on, the stronger it becomes."

The Sand King nodded. "But Aurelia should be able to handle it, right?"

"Let’s go and see."

Both kings immediately accelerated toward the Golden Valley Pack.

A few minutes later, the familiar outline of the Golden Valley Pack appeared on the horizon.

Yet neither king sensed the overwhelming aura they had expected. There was no deafening battle. No endless army of zombies.

They exchanged a glance before immediately descending onto the battlefield.

The sight before them caused even these two legendary kings to pause.

The battlefield had become a graveyard. Hundreds of zombie corpses lay scattered across the plains. Many had been sliced cleanly in two.

Others had been divided into dozens of perfectly smooth pieces. There were no signs of explosions. No burn marks. No crushed remains. Every corpse bore the same terrifying characteristic: impossibly clean cuts.

Even the surrounding mountains bore enormous black lines running across them, as though the world itself had been sliced apart.

Standing quietly at the center of the battlefield was Aurelia. Her white cloak fluttered gently in the breeze. There was not a single wound on her body. Liora was resting nearby.

In front of her lay the Plague Monarch’s massive corpse, nearly twenty meters tall.

Its enormous body had been severed into countless fragments. Green blood covered the earth. Its countless tentacles had long since stopped moving.

The Sand King looked at the corpse and smiled helplessly. "So... we hurried here for nothing."

The Mist King merely chuckled. "It seems so."

---

Several minutes earlier...

The Plague Monarch stood atop a mountain of corpses. Unlike the other commanders, it possessed intelligence. Its emerald eyes calmly overlooked the battlefield.

Countless zombies gathered beneath its command. Whenever one zombie died, its corpse immediately dissolved into dark green energy before flowing into the Plague Monarch’s body.

The commander slowly stretched out one hand. The earth shook violently. Thousands of dead zombies rose once more as plague carriers. Green mist continuously spread across the battlefield. Every tree it touched instantly withered. The grass turned black. Even the stones gradually cracked. The plague rapidly expanded toward the Golden Valley Pack.

Standing before the city gates, Aurelia silently surveyed the battlefield. Her calm gaze swept across the battlefield before stopping on Liora.

Liora was locked in a fierce battle against the Plague Monarch. Her giant form was covered in wounds, while countless zombies surrounded her from every direction. No matter how many she crushed, more continued rising from the countless corpses scattered across the battlefield. The endless undead army was steadily wearing her down.

The Plague Monarch smiled. Liora’s struggle had already convinced it that victory was inevitable. Against an endless undead army, even the strongest warrior would eventually fall.

The commander raised its hand. The undead army charged. The earth trembled beneath countless footsteps. Like a black tidal wave, they rushed toward the city.

Aurelia slowly drew her sword. She calmly raised it before her.

"I only need one step."

The next moment, she disappeared.

The Plague Monarch’s pupils suddenly shrank. Danger. An overwhelming instinct screamed inside its mind. It immediately erected dozens of flesh barriers before itself. Countless plague tentacles shot outward. The surrounding zombies leaped into the air to protect their master.

Unfortunately, they were all meaningless.

Aurelia appeared several hundred meters away. She merely swung her sword once.

There was no sword light. No energy wave. No visible phenomenon.

For a brief moment, the battlefield remained completely still.

The Plague Monarch smiled.

Then a thin black line suddenly appeared in the air before it. The line silently expanded. The space itself... split apart.

Everything standing along that path disappeared. The flesh barriers. The plague tentacles. Thousands of zombies. Even the air itself.

The Plague Monarch’s smile froze. Its left arm quietly slid from its shoulder. The space connecting its arm to its body had simply ceased to exist.

Its severed arm immediately regenerated. Countless corpses dissolved into green energy and restored its missing limb. It roared furiously.

Aurelia calmly watched. "As long as corpses remain... you can continue regenerating."

The Plague Monarch laughed mockingly. It believed Aurelia’s attack had changed nothing.

Aurelia slowly closed her eyes. Then she raised her sword once more. This time, she did not target the Plague Monarch. She targeted the battlefield itself.

A single slash descended. The earth remained unharmed. The mountains remained standing. Nothing appeared to change.

Then thousands... tens of thousands... hundreds of thousands of black lines appeared throughout the battlefield simultaneously. Every corpse. Every zombie. Every trace of plague. The very space they occupied had been divided. The world itself seemed to shatter into countless invisible pieces.

For a single heartbeat, time stood still.

Then everything collapsed. The endless zombie army silently separated into countless fragments. The plague mist vanished. The corpses were divided so completely that not even a single intact body remained to nourish the Plague Monarch.

The commander’s triumphant expression disappeared. Its greatest advantage had vanished. For the first time, fear appeared in its eyes.

"You..."

The Plague Monarch tried to retreat.

Aurelia looked at it quietly. "There is nowhere for you to escape."

She swung her sword one final time. A single black line crossed the battlefield.

The Plague Monarch immediately froze. A moment later, thin cracks spread across its gigantic body. Its head... torso... limbs... organs... every part of its body slowly separated. Not because its flesh had been cut, but because the space holding its body together had been severed.

Its regeneration never activated. Its plague never spread. Its countless abilities ended before they could begin.

The Plague Monarch quietly fell apart into thousands of perfectly separated pieces.

The final commander had fallen.

Aurelia slowly sheathed her sword.

Just then, two familiar figures landed behind her: the Mist King and the Sand King. Looking at the battlefield, then at the corpse of the Plague Monarch, both old kings smiled bitterly.

"It seems..." the Mist King laughed softly, "...our trip was unnecessary."

Aurelia turned toward them and smiled faintly. "Everything was under control."

---

Deep beneath the Blood Marsh, far below the battlefield, a vast underground city remained hidden within endless darkness.

The tunnels stretched for hundreds of kilometers, weaving together like the veins of a gigantic living organism. The walls constantly pulsed with crimson light. Countless cocoons hung from the ceiling, some empty, some still containing sleeping zombies, others already broken open, leaving behind only shattered shells.

An intelligent zombie walked silently through the endless corridors before respectfully kneeling outside a grand chamber. Cradled in its hands was a pulsating piece of living flesh. It was no ordinary flesh. Every commander and intelligent zombie that died on the battlefield transferred its final memories into this living archive. Only intelligent zombies possessed the ability to access those memories.

"My Lord. The latest battlefield reports have arrived."

A calm voice echoed from within. "Enter."

The zombie carefully stepped inside and placed the living flesh upon a massive stone table. Standing beside it was the Evolution King, the supreme commander capable of evolving any zombie within minutes.

He silently placed one hand upon the pulsating flesh. Instantly, countless memories flooded into his mind. Through the eyes of every fallen commander, he witnessed the entire battle.

The fall of the Iron Tyrant.

The destruction of the Blade Mimic.

The death of the Nightmare Beast.

The elimination of the Blood Reaver.

The annihilation of the Plague Monarch.

Nothing escaped his observation.

He watched the Sand King dissolve into endless grains that dispersed every physical impact. He watched the Mist King become intangible mist, allowing attacks to pass harmlessly through him. He even experienced the Golden Wolf Queen’s Royal Bloodline Ability, Space Slash.

Every movement. Every strategy. Every hidden ability. Even every mistake. He witnessed them all as though he had fought the battles himself.

When the final memory faded, a faint smile slowly appeared across his face.

"So... the Werewolf King’s army possesses more hidden strength than I anticipated." His crimson eyes gleamed with excitement. "Mist that cannot be grasped... sand that disperses every impact... and a blade capable of severing space itself. Interesting. They are truly worthy opponents."

There was no disappointment. No anger. Only quiet satisfaction.

The previous commanders had never been his true army. They had merely been experimental sacrifices, carefully prepared to force the werewolves into revealing every hidden card they possessed.

Now he understood both their strengths and their weaknesses. Most importantly, he already knew how to counter them.

"Excellent. Every sacrifice has fulfilled its purpose. It is time... for the final evolution."

Without another word, he turned and walked deeper into the underground city. The intelligent zombie immediately lowered its head. It did not dare follow.

Beyond this point lay the forbidden chamber. Even the commanders had never been permitted to enter.