"Where are you looking!"
Bador struck out with his axe, and Eugene, snapping back to attention, barely dodged it.
After one axe swing, a battered and bruised Bador didn't pursue. Instead, he hoisted his giant axe and looked at those two hill-like giant Puchis in the distance, laughing heartily.
"There are actually Puchis this big. These Puchi players really have a lot of tricks up their sleeves!"
Then, he looked at Eugene with ill intent: "Dead bat, are you about to abandon the grand army and slip away alone?"
Bador deliberately mocked him like this precisely because he feared Eugene would truly slip away upon seeing things go south.
This guy, relying on his advantage in military strength, had been suppressing and beating Bador for quite a while now.
If he didn't beat him back, Bador wouldn't even be able to enjoy the taste of Delicious Mushrooms!
However, Bador was overthinking it.
Setting aside the fact that if he abandoned these several thousand Demon-kin elites, Dean would fight him to the death.
For Eugene himself, he had brought over more than half of his own foundation. Unless it was an absolute last resort, he wouldn't run away alone.
The giant Puchis were indeed shocking, and being pincered from both sides was extremely dangerous, but it was far from a dead end.
This was his first time seeing giant Puchis. He had seen them in Sigmund's battle reports before, but he hadn't expected the Northern Territory to have them too.
Moreover, the giant Puchis before him were even more massive than the one that blocked the passageway in the Dragon's Roar Valley battle report.
If they could explode, the power would presumably only be higher, not lower.
But this wasn't a valley with only a single narrow pass like Dragon's Roar Valley; it was a relatively open plain.
The mobility of the giant Puchis was visibly clumsy. As long as they kept their distance in time, it would be fine.
The threat from the engaged dwarves was similarly not great. He could stall Bador, and the other dwarves were already spent forces from the previous attacks. When they retreated, even if the dwarves wanted to pursue, they probably wouldn't have the strength to do so.
The truly troublesome ones were the fresh reinforcements that poured out of the giant Puchi's belly.
The numbers weren't considered huge, but they were entirely capable of entangling them.
And in the distance, after crushing the Empire army on that side, Louisa was already organizing her troops and hurrying toward this side.
If they truly got encircled, then they were truly finished.
Currently, on the opposite bank of the Luo River, there was still a final reserve force meant for dealing with unexpected situations. The adjutant in charge had reacted quickly and was already attempting to bypass the destroyed ice surface to come from the other side to reinforce him.
It was still a race against time.
Only the goal had changed from crushing the dwarves in a short time to escaping the encirclement within a time limit.
He decisively abandoned the soldiers still engaged in the dogfight and issued a breakout order to the other troops.
Facing the pincer attack of Bador and two other dwarves, his pale palm suddenly clenched.
Those two dwarves howled in pain. Blood mist seeped from within their bodies, and they collapsed weakly onto the ground.
Those who dared to charge forward were all experts among the dwarves, so they weren't directly killed by this forced blood-drawing move, but they were temporarily incapacitated.
As for Bador.
He similarly clenched his hand fiercely. A burst of blood mist immediately exploded from the wounds all over Bador's body. But this didn't affect his roaring downward swing of the battle axe in the slightest, drawing a wound across Eugene's chest.
Followed by endless attacks from the giant axe, giving Eugene no more chances to draw blood.
"Yes, yes, exactly like this! Let us fight to the final moment!"
However, taking advantage of a gap while dodging, Eugene summoned the fresh blood around him, simply and brutally washing over Bador's body, pulling open the distance once again.
Except, when he tried to forcefully draw blood again, the wounds on Bador's body merely spurted a little extra blood.
Eugene abruptly turned his head. In midair was Louisa, who had arrived a step ahead relying on the high-speed flight capability of her blood crystal wings.
At such close distance, Eugene finally confirmed Louisa's tier as well.
Palace tier, but her blood control ability was exceptionally strong.
However, what puzzled him was this.
He actually felt the power to control blood coming from the Puchis flying pu-pu behind Louisa as well.
Absurd.
Although vampires could transform not only humans—the success rate of transforming other races was lower, but occasionally there were vampire Lizardmen, vampire dwarves, and the like.
But no matter how unorthodox, those transformed were at least humanoid intelligent lifeforms, right!
What is going on with these Puchis?
Let alone humanoid, Puchis didn't even have blood, right!
The blood control ability of each of these Puchis wasn't strong, but gathered together, they could inexplicably and perfectly fuse this control together. Coupled with Louisa's power, it actually truly disrupted the blood control arts of him, a Duke.
Eugene realized he couldn't fight anymore!
"Dead rat trying to run?" Bador discovered Eugene's intention in an instant and actually directly threw his axe, not caring how he would fight afterward without a weapon.
Runes lit up on the spinning giant axe. Wheel-shaped wind blades whipped up around it, whistling as they greeted Eugene's head.
Eugene, who was just preparing to explode his blood to accelerate and leave the battlefield, didn't dare to take this thrown attack head-on. He could only stop his movements and prioritize dodging.
Then, Little Pig charged down, raising the already activated red and black greatsword, and cleaved down aimed at his head.
Eugene could only draw his own blood, condensing it into a weapon to block.
However, in just a single clash, his blood weapon had a portion shattered.
"Magic Crystal Battle Armor!"
He knew about this thing; after all, it was on the portrait the spy brought back after narrowly escaping death.
But previously, he truly hadn't paid too much attention to it.
For this kind of full set, there were at least dozens of magic crystal nodes all over the body. Not only did it require a large amount of magic crystals of the same level, but it also required cutting and processing precious magic crystals.
High-level ones were too expensive to use, and low-level ones didn't have much effect. Ultimately, it was just something that had long been phased out.
A complete set was instead less threatening than those simple magic crystal armors with only one or two nodes and a simple structure.
Although the effect of that kind was much weaker, the activation requirements were lower by more than a notch.
Yet now, he only felt that the A-grade magic crystals embedded all over Louisa's armor were almost blinding his eyes.
Have the dwarves gone crazy, bringing out all the stock in their inventory just to screw me over?
Why don't they take it to deal with Levi, who borders them?
Equipment suppression, or rather, financial suppression.
Eugene didn't dare to clash forcefully anymore, constantly dodging instead.
But after Bador retrieved his axe and rejoined the battle, the situation became completely one-sided.
Moreover, the Demon-kin bringing up the rear were already either dead or injured. Seeing that he was about to be ganged up on, Eugene could only grit his teeth and get ruthless!
Little Pig slashed off one of Eugene's arms, and Bador spun his axe and swept off one of his legs.
But at the same time, fresh blood exploded from Eugene's body. His entire person turned into a scarlet blood shadow, breaking away from the battlefield at extremely fast speed. In a short time, he even crossed over the regrouping troops that had just withdrawn and flew toward the south.
"Damn it!"
Bador smashed his axe into the ground, thought about it, then picked it up again and chased after Eugene's troops who hadn't run far yet.
Little Pig, on the other hand, was much calmer, methodically directing the pursuit.
She wasn't worried that Eugene or his troops could run away.
This wasn't the edge of the fungal mat, but the hinterland, a full week's journey away from the edge; it was the Boss's territory.
From the moment they stepped onto the fungal mat, their fate was already sealed.
All the soldiers of the Mushroom Fortress excitedly pursued these walking contribution points. Only No. 4 was squealing anxiously in the mycelial network—its body was too heavy; it simply couldn't catch up!
...
The speed of the blood shadow was extremely fast. Although this escape method of consuming bloodline power came at a massive price, the effect was indeed good.
In just a few hours' time, Eugene flew over a distance that would take a full four days to travel.
After slowing down, Eugene didn't dare to delay, flying toward the south with all his might. As for the army under his command, he could only hope more of them managed to run out.
From afar, Eugene saw Dean, who had hurried over with his personnel after receiving the request for reinforcements.
Dean also saw him, shocked by his miserable appearance at this moment.
However, before the two had time to speak, a dark shadow skimmed past, and Eugene, who had just survived a disaster, disappeared on the spot.
(End of Chapter)
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