Chapter 260: Crimson Rot, Message Delivery

"Outsider, do you still have no intention of handing over your remaining two companions?"

The masked elder shook his staff, staring at Wang Yu, who stood motionless before them. His voice, low and grating, carried a tone of persuasion, as if he hoped to nudge Wang Yu toward the "correct" course of action.

"..."

Wang Yu said nothing. He simply stood his ground, facing the encroaching members of the Crimson Clan.

"My patience is limited. If you just stand there, I won't—"

"Cough, cough, ugh!"

The elder’s tone grew irritable, but suddenly, a masked figure beside him began to cough violently, the sound cutting off the elder’s threat.

"What is wrong with you? Get up! We still have to deal with this outsider."

The body of the masked man beside the elder seemed to lose all strength, collapsing to the ground. He braced himself with his hands, emitting constant sounds of coughing and retching.

The elder, initially uncomprehending, struck the man’s head with his staff, trying to force him up to join the others in surrounding Wang Yu. But the fallen man’s condition only worsened after the blows.

A chaotic mess began to spew from his mouth; undigested food, foul-smelling and mixed with bright red blood, splattered onto the ground. Along with the blood and food, there were brown, hair-like strands tangled within the bile.

Clutching his throat with both hands and slamming his chest against the ground, the masked man seemed to be trying to force something out of his own body.

But clearly, weakened as he was, he could do nothing. His struggles faded, and he collapsed face-down into the pool of his own sickening, bloody filth, life or death unknown.

"Ugh, ugh!..."

The other masked men near the elder began to exhibit similar symptoms. First came the coughing of blood and vomiting, followed by a rapid deterioration of their condition.

Those with the strength of a low-level squire or below lost the ability to move within minutes. Those at the mid-level squire rank or higher were still struggling, frantically beating their chests and throats, though they were unable to remain standing for long.

"What is happening? What is wrong with you all!?"

The elder turned his masked head in confusion, looking at the fallen figures around him, his voice filled with astonishment.

No one answered. From the start, these masked men had barely spoken a word; even when tainted by the poisonous mist Wang Yu had released, they had only emitted meaningless coughs and groans. The elder’s inquiry naturally met with silence.

"It’s you, isn't it! You damned outsider, this is your doing! How dare an outsider offend the Crimson Clan? Everyone who isn't dead yet, get up and fight!"

The elder’s surprise curdled into rage. Without any analysis, he pinned the blame squarely on Wang Yu—and as it happened, he was right.

"..." Wang Yu maintained his good habit of avoiding useless chatter during battle. He remained silent, watching the elder and the masked men collapsing one by one, his eyes filled with contemplation.

"Cripple Mist"—that was the name of the poison Wang Yu had released. It was a relatively basic toxin, its primary difficulty lying in its colorless, odorless nature, making it nearly impossible to detect without supernatural perception.

Its toxicity was straightforward: the poison permeated the skin, entered the capillaries, and traveled through the circulatory system to every part of the body.

Various harmful substances within it would quickly paralyze the victim’s muscles and respiratory system. Inability to breathe combined with uncontrollable vomiting was the hallmark of this poison.

Those whose constitutions were not strong enough to purge these components from their bodies would inevitably lose all ability to act, collapsing into helpless, limp heaps.

Wang Yu’s "Chariot Force" had already extended and blanketed the area with this subtle poison the moment he sensed the malice from the Crimson Clan.

The surrounding woods were, in fact, completely enveloped by the Cripple Mist. If Wang Yu willed it, any enemy within that range would be thoroughly besieged by the poison controlled by his Chariot Force.

"Thump!"

The elder slammed his staff against the ground, producing a dull thud.

With that sound, the state of the masked men who were at the squire level or higher shifted.

They stopped struggling on the ground or making pained noises. Instead, they swayed, obeying the elder’s command to force themselves to their feet. Ignoring the effects of the Cripple Mist, they charged toward Wang Yu.

Some raised their spears, hurling them toward his position, while others brandished blades and sprinted to surround him.

"These fellows' state is very wrong. The pain caused by the Cripple Mist should be enough to make them scream. Even if those with strong wills could endure it, it is impossible for every single one of them to be like this..."

Wang Yu thought silently, though his movements did not slow by even a fraction.

The Chariot Force erupted. The speed of the spears shot at him plummeted; after traveling less than a meter, they hung suspended in the air.

He waved his hand, and the spears flew back, accelerated continuously by the Chariot Force. Their kinetic energy surged, making them far faster than when they had been thrown at him.

The masked men who had thrown the spears likely never expected an enemy who was clearly a knight to possess such a technique. They had no time to react, their bodies instantly pierced by their own reflected weapons.

Sharp spearheads tore through chests, shattered bones, and shredded organs and flesh, pinning several masked men to the ground at a downward angle.

Having killed their original owners with the returned spears, Wang Yu’s figure blurred, and he began to move at high speed.

His refined battle aura combined with a physique that had touched the threshold of a Grand Knight—or rather, had already stepped into that realm—pushed his speed to a level that these masked men, none of whom were official knights, could not possibly track.

The ground shattered as he moved, his figure blurring into afterimages. When he reappeared, he was behind a masked man. They stood back-to-back for a heartbeat before Wang Yu delivered a backhand elbow strike that snapped the man’s spine, leaving him bent at an unnatural angle.

He did not stop. His arm muscles tensed, and a simple straight punch tore through the air.

"Snap, crack!"

The fist ruthlessly pulverized the neck of the masked man in front of him. Head and body parted ways instantly; the body collapsed forward from momentum, while the head flew off into the distance.

His right hand paused, and his left hand reached to his waist. The Chariot Force delivered the assembled Meteor Iron Blade into his grip. He swept his left hand forward, and a cold, sharp arc of light cut across his surroundings.

"Squelch!"

Two more masked men were killed on the spot, the razor-sharp blade slicing through their waists and severing their bodies in two.

In a few short moments, nearly half of the dozen masked men were dead. This was the gap in strength; a ten-fold numerical advantage could not bridge the chasm between a squire and a Grand Knight.

Wang Yu’s current strength was not what it once was. The physical intensity of a low-level Grand Knight, the uniqueness of his body, the Chariot Force—these means combined placed him firmly across the threshold of what the various kingdoms defined as a "powerhouse."

He casually picked up two blades from the ground, tensed his arms, and threw them. The blades flew at a speed the masked men could not track. White flashes passed, and two more men fell, clutching their throats.

The Chariot Force applied itself to the blades, fine-tuning their trajectories. They carved a beautiful, bloody arc through the air, sweeping past the remaining enemies and slitting the throats of several men at once.

"Whoosh! Whoosh!"

From the woods behind Wang Yu, two green-glowing arrows flew out, piercing masks and burying themselves into the skulls of the last two remaining members of the Crimson Clan. In less than a minute, the dozen enemies who had surrounded him were all dead, their corpses littering the ground.

The only one left alive was the masked elder, who now looked utterly bewildered.

Wang Yu walked toward him. The elder showed extreme terror, retreating repeatedly, but the Chariot Force had already seized the earth beneath his feet, locking his legs firmly to the ground.

Wang Yu hadn't originally intended to kill anyone, but since the elder insisted on imposing his clan's rules upon him, he would not be polite in return.

If they wanted to use their own rules, Wang Yu had no objection. But if they tried to force them on him, that was unacceptable.

There were many races and kingdoms that tried to impose their own rules on others, but there was a prerequisite: one’s fist had to be hard enough, one’s strength great enough. Only then could one’s own rules become the rules that others were forced to obey.

These Crimson Clan members had no self-awareness regarding their own strength, yet they demanded others follow their laws. Dying for it was purely their own fault.

Wang Yu walked to the elder’s side and grabbed the robe draped over his upper body—unlike the others, who were bare-chested.

He tore it away, revealing the elder’s torso. Wang Yu fixed his gaze upon the man’s body.

It wasn't that Wang Yu had some strange obsession; he was simply trying to figure out one thing: why the elder had ignored his poison.

The elder had not shown a single sign of poisoning from the start, even though Wang Yu had blanketed the area indiscriminately. He wanted to know why.

"I see. To think such a body could still move... it is truly a miracle. Just what kind of thing is this 'ancestral spirit' of your Crimson Clan?"

Wang Yu muttered to himself, and the moment he laid eyes on the old man’s physical form, he understood why the poison had proven futile.

Putrid and festering—these words alone could summarize the old man’s body. His gaunt frame was covered in weeping, necrotic wounds of every conceivable size and shape; skin and muscle had ruptured and rotted away, exposing yellowed bones coated in a viscous, nauseating slurry. It was a mystery how such a creature could still draw breath, let alone move.

Yet, seeing him reduced to such a ghastly state, it was easy to grasp why he remained immune to toxins.

Wang Yu intended to uncover how the Scarlet Clan’s ancestral spirit had sensed their arrival, and by what means it had twisted their kin into such wretched abominations.

This chaotic decay bore little resemblance to the corruption described by Holo, but in Wang Yu’s estimation, the two were inextricably linked.

…………

In the Elven capital of Liaheim, within the "Eden Plains" courtyard of the World Tree, among the cottages where the Elders kept their vigil, one Elder studied a letter delivered by a Ranger waiting outside. He rubbed the parchment with his fingertips—a habit born of deep contemplation.

"Moira, is it? If the message comes from her, it warrants careful scrutiny, though the contents of this letter appear to possess little credibility."

The Elder tucked the missive back into its envelope, set it upon the table, and spoke to the empty room.

This letter had been sent to the Elders by Wang Yu and Avia, leveraging the connection between Moira and the Elven race.

It detailed their findings regarding the corruption in the Sorensen Mountains, along with a hypothesis as to why the blight had failed to spread for so many years.

Wang Yu had included a section regarding devils. In truth, during the Alastor Hellgate incident, when Wang Yu had confronted the devil residing within Penia’s spirit, he had asked if they were the architects of the Sorensen corruption.

The entity had admitted to it, even "kindly" informing Wang Yu that it was the work of "Devil Three."

However, to trust the word of a devil without understanding its nature would be the height of folly. To believe such a creature was to invite one’s own demise, so Wang Yu had dismissed the claim entirely, mentioning it in the letter only as a passing note.

"Devils, you say... how have these shadows of history become so commonplace? While the other information holds some merit, this specific claim is far too fantastical."

The Elder shook his head slightly. The mere mention of devils had caused his skepticism toward the letter’s reliability to climb another notch.

"Still, anything concerning the World Tree cannot be taken lightly. If the hypothesis holds that the World Tree has been feeding this—perhaps non-existent—'corruption' with its own vitality for all these years, then there must be roots channeling that life force..."

"Take a squad of Rangers experienced in handling the animated roots and investigate whether any of the World Tree’s tendrils extend toward the Sorensen Mountains."

Having reached his decision, the Elder issued the command to the Ranger waiting outside.

Receiving the order, the scout departed at once to carry it out.