Ethan looked at him, confirming his suspicions.
“Oh, you're the subordinates of that fool Boulder.”
The Red-Scaled Sea Snake's slit pupils suddenly contracted.
Crack.
A crisp snap echoed across the plaza.
The sound was short and sharp, like a thick branch being snapped underfoot.
The Red-Scaled Sea Snake's body convulsed violently.
His slit pupils rolled up, exposing the whites of his eyes. His mouth, split all the way to his ears, gaped to its limit, and three rows of sharp fangs gleamed in the sunlight.
Then, his entire body went limp.
The tensed bone spikes went slack, and the dark green scales lost their luster.
【Life Energy +158. Current Life Energy: 3.25 million+】
Ethan released the Wizard's Hand.
The two-and-a-half-meter-tall corpse slammed onto the stone pavement, kicking up a small cloud of dust.
The moment the corpse hit the ground, the thousands of Red-Scaled Sea Snakes in the plaza moved in unison.
No one gave an order.
There were no hisses.
There were no roars.
They lunged simultaneously from the edges of the fountain, from the rooftops, from the street corners, and from the outer perimeter of the plaza.
Claws scraped against the stone pavement, and the friction of their scales produced a dense, rustling hiss.
Bone spikes vibrated in the air, producing a low hum.
Thousands of pairs of slit pupils flickered under the sunlight like a dense swarm of dark yellow pinpricks, resembling the eyes of a wolf pack lighting up in the dark.
The dozens of Red-Scaled Sea Snakes in the very front row charged straight toward the carriage containing Duke Leo and the Duchess.
Blake unsheathed his sword, throwing himself in front of the carriage with his greatsword held across his chest.
The Guard Knights around him drew their weapons in unison, the rasp of steel on scabbards echoing one after another until they merged into a single continuous ring across the plaza.
Though they were terrified, bewildered, and overwhelmed, they still stood tall in the face of these Red-Scaled Sea Snakes, who were Great Knight-level at the very least, remaining loyal to their duty.
“Protect the Duke and Duchess!”
Before Blake's roar could even fade, the ground split open.
Colossal vines erupted from the fissures with a thunderous boom. Each vine was as thick as an adult's waist, their surfaces covered in dark brown bark that seeped emerald-green light from the cracks.
The vines grew at a speed that defied the visual limit. In the blink of an eye, they wove a spherical fortress around everyone, centering on the carriage.
The Red-Scaled Sea Snakes leaping through the air crashed into the vine wall.
They were instantly dragged in and mangled.
The bark on the surface of the vines burst open, revealing the dark red wood fibers beneath.
Those fibers contracted and tightened violently like the muscles of a living creature.
The crisp snapping of bone spikes mingled with the roar of the growing vines. Dark green blood squeezed out from the gaps in the vine wall, splattering onto the stone pavement and releasing pungent white smoke.
Right then, the body of the first deceased Red-Scaled Sea Snake began to bloat like an inflated balloon. Its scales stood on end, and the muscle tissue beneath its skin swelled, tore, and exploded at a visible rate.
Boom!
The first explosion detonated on the plaza.
The sound was incredibly muffled and heavy, like someone beating a giant drum right next to one's ear.
A dark green fireball surged from the center of the blast. The shockwave tore the surrounding air into a visible white ring that rippled outward in all directions.
The dozen or so vines closest to the blast point were ripped to shreds by the shockwave.
Splintered wood fibers spun through the air, some still tangled with severed limbs and scales of the Sea Snakes. Dark green blood rained down onto the stone pavement, each drop sizzling with fist-sized puffs of white smoke.
Before the flames of the explosion could even dissipate, a second Sea Snake slammed into the vine wall.
Then a third.
A fourth.
A fifth.
Thousands of Sea Snakes charged from all directions, crashing into the vine wall, getting entangled by the vines, and then self-detonating.
The explosions were as dense as rolling summer thunder, one after another, layering over each other, making the entire plaza tremble.
Dark green flares rose and fell, casting a bizarre, gloomy green glow across the sky above the plaza.
The shockwaves hurled gravel, wood splinters, scales, and severed limbs in all directions, pelting the vine wall with a barrage of muffled thuds.
Inside the vine fortress, Duke Leo shielded the Duchess behind him. His right hand rested on the hilt of his sword, his knuckles whitening slightly from his tight grip, yet his expression remained completely unchanged.
Colin held his knightly sword, guarding the Leos. Although his eyelids twitched with every explosion and his body trembled slightly, he did not budge an inch.
Blake stood at the outermost edge, gripping his greatsword with both hands, his plate armor already covered in debris splattered from the explosions.
The Guard Knights behind him formed a semi-circular defensive formation, enclosing the Duke and Duchess in the center.
These knights, who were considered elite among ordinary humans, now appeared bewildered and tense. None of their combat experience could explain the scene unfolding before them.
Thousands of monsters capable of self-detonation, with each blast powerful enough to blow them all to pieces.
The only thing they could do was stand behind the vine wall and grip their swords tightly.
The entire plaza had turned into an explosive hell.
Dark green fireballs erupted one after another, their shockwaves overlapping and whipping up violent gales across the plaza.
Deep craters were blasted into the stone pavement, the largest measuring over five meters in diameter, with dark red, magma-like substances seeping from the bottom.
Shattered stone slabs were hurled dozens of meters into the sky by the shockwaves, resembling reverse-flying meteors under the glow of the dark green flames.
Large swathes of vines were ripped apart in the explosions.
The giant vines that had just burst from the ground were blown to pieces by the dense explosions before they could even strangle a few Sea Snakes.
The splintered wood fibers burned in midair, emitting thick, dark green smoke.
The smoke billowed over the plaza, illuminated by the flames into a bizarre, eerie dark green.
As the shattered vine fibers burned in midair, dark green sparks landed on the stone pavement, burning fist-sized charred pits into the ground.
Yet in the next instant, even more thick vines surged from the broken stumps, thicker than before and with heavier bark. Dark red wood fibers curled and grew rapidly at the ruptures, sealing the gaps seamlessly.
The newly grown vine wall was more than three times thicker than the outer layer. Its bark secreted a layer of emerald-green mucus. When the dark green explosive fireballs slammed into it, the splashing flames were smothered by the mucus, leaving behind only sizzling white smoke. Once the smoke cleared, the charred marks on the surface of the vines healed at a visible rate.
The vibrations inside the vine wall grew weaker and weaker.
By the time the final wave of explosions came from the perimeter, the sound had become muffled and flat, like someone beating a drum in the distance through several thick quilts.
Then, silence fell.
The explosions on the plaza ceased, and the rumbling echoes of the shockwaves rolled along the ground through the stone cracks, fading into the distance.
The outer layer of the vine wall began to peel back, unfurling layer by layer like flower petals to reveal the intact ground beneath.
Sunlight fell once more, illuminating the devastated plaza.
The entire plaza was completely unrecognizable.
The stone pavement had been blasted inside out, with crater upon crater overlapping one another, and muddy groundwater seeping from the bottom of the deepest pit.
The buildings surrounding the plaza had completely collapsed, leaving behind mounds of rubble and wooden beams.
Only half of House Leo's main castle remained, standing askew amidst the ruins. Several deep cracks ran through the walls of the main keep, exposing the fractured wooden framework inside.
The surrounding walls, stables, warehouses, and servant quarters of the castle had all been reduced to piles of rubble.
Colin's gaze swept over the ruins, his lips tightening.
Blake's grip on his greatsword loosened and tightened again.
Just then,
something fell from the sky.
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