Sipusa Star.
The sky took on a strange, dark hue.
The air no longer held the freshness of oxygen; only the suffocating, heavy scent of blood and the stench of charred fur remained.
Countless wrecks of Beastships and Cloud Knights' warship littered the ground.
Sipusa Star was a planet with exceptionally lush vegetation, its land covered in vast primeval forests of giant trees.
Some trees reached heights of thousands of meters, making humans beneath them look as small as ants.
After a fierce aerial battle with the Borisin Beastships, the Cloud Knights were forced to retreat into one of these primeval forests.
But even a forest this vast could not completely hide the movements of an army of millions.
Marching tracks and even scents would be picked up by the keen senses of the Borisin.
These bloodthirsty hungry wolves would doggedly follow the scent like shadows.
The Cloud Knights searched for defensible terrain even as they retreated.
However, time was running out for them.
The number of Borisin gathering outside the primeval forest grew steadily, surely exceeding a billion by now.
The Cloud Knights' loss of air superiority meant the Borisin could easily deploy troops via Beastships, forming an encirclement around the forest.
The circle might be large, but it was bound to be tightly connected.
Forget humans—even a mouse trying to dig its way out wouldn't escape the Borisin's senses.
Once the encirclement tightened and the range shrank, it would be the end for the millions of Cloud Knights.
Fortunately, luck had not entirely abandoned the millions of Cloud Knights.
Jingliu found a peculiar natural cliff.
Across from the cliff was a solitary mountain, mostly surrounded by precipices and cut off by a bottomless abyss.
Looking down from above, it looked like the innermost ring of three concentric circles.
It was as if the abyss had been hollowed out from thin air.
The terrain at the mountain's peak wasn't exactly flat, but the slope was minimal, and it was also covered in massive, towering trees.
As long as they could cross the chasm to establish a defensive line, the Borisin—having lost their flight vehicles—would be sitting ducks if they tried to cross.
Before the Borisin encirclement could close in, the Cloud Knights still had time to transfer everyone to the solitary mountain using military climbing grapples.
Countless soldiers were inwardly grateful to the artisans of the Department of Craftsmanship; it was those marching tools designed for special battlefields that had saved their lives.
What followed was several days of bloody combat.
The Borisin never backed down because an enemy held the high ground; they had plenty of expendable materials!
"Hold the line!!!"
At the front lines, the hoarse roar of the Cloud Knight commander was nearly drowned out by the bloodthirsty howls of the Borisin.
Jingliu stood at the very edge of the cliff at the front of the defensive line. Her longsword's edge had long since been dulled and chipped from use, its blade stained a dark purple by countless layers of blood.
She panted slightly, her pupils reflecting the tide of wolves constantly leaping toward them.
The Borisin lacked the equipment of the Cloud Knights and could only use the most primitive charging jumps to attack.
They became easy targets while in mid-air, but what did they care?
They still came in wave after wave, shot down one by one to plummet into the deep abyss.
As time passed, the expeditionary force's greatest reliance—the abyss of unknown depth—was actually being filled up.
These insane Borisin were actually driving their Artifact Beasts and war slaves into suicidal charges.
The corpses of those shot by the Cloud Knights became the filler for the deep chasm.
In just five short days, a foundation of flesh and bone had been built up from the bottom of the once-despair-inducing cliff.
Dark red blood flowed down the mountain of corpses, gathering into a river at the bottom of the abyss.
Lithe-rock Arrows, Blazing Crossbows... all of the Cloud Knights' long-range munitions had been exhausted.
The living Borisin stepped on the rotten meat and crushed bones of their slave Artifact Beasts and even their own kin, digging their claws into the mountain as they scrambled upward.
Their eyes were bloodshot and drool leaked from their mouths; like demons crawling out of hell, they devoured the Cloud Knights' defensive line at the cliff top step by step.
"Madmen... these lunatics!"
Beside Jingliu, a Cloud Knight frontline soldier's hands were shaking.
He wasn't afraid of dying, but of this madness that completely defied biological instinct.
How was this war?
This was clearly a mutual harvesting of lives, both for the enemy and for themselves.
Jingliu remained silent, instinctively swinging her sword to cleave the Borisin leaping onto the cliff top in two.
Warm organs mixed with blood sprayed onto her battle armor, which had long since lost its original color.
Skipping the blade-shaking motion, she used a backhand thrust to pierce the throat of another Wolf Soldier attempting a sneak attack, then used a burst of wrist strength to lop off its head.
How many Wolf Soldiers had she killed by now?
She had long since lost count.
"Captain! Defense Line Seven's armaments are nearly exhausted!"
"Captain! Defense Line Three's energy shield has overloaded and shattered! The wolves are breaking in!!"
"...Argh!!!"
"Kill!"
"Fight them to the death!"
The once-orderly reports on the comms channel were quickly replaced by screams, the sound of breaking bones, and even bone-chilling chewing noises.
Despair spread through the remaining Cloud Knights like a plague.
The so-called 'holding out for reinforcements' was nearly impossible in the face of such overwhelming numbers.
The Borisin didn't need tactics; they only needed to trade ten or even a hundred lives for one Cloud Knight, and sooner or later, they would devour this expeditionary force until not even bone fragments remained.
BOOM—
A massive explosion rang out as a gap was smashed into the right side of the defensive line by several giant Longbo Artifact Beasts.
At that moment, many Cloud Knights saw a terrifying sight.
Outside the gap, the dense pack of wolves was like a bursting flood, pouring in across the bridge of corpses made of flesh and blood.
And further out, at the edge of the primeval forest, even more Beastships were landing.
Those were other Borisin packs who had heard the news and rushed over.
The prey was only a small morsel, but the hunters were becoming more numerous.
To fight for a bite of Cloud Knight meat, these beasts would become even more frenzied.
Jingliu's heart tightened.
Looking around, the once-orderly phalanxes were now in tatters, and more and more comrades were falling around her.
The weapons of those still standing were also severely damaged, having completely lost their lethality.
Some had lost the light in their eyes, attacking and counterattacking with numb instinct, simply waiting for death to arrive.
Others had become as frenzied as beasts, throwing themselves forward to engage Wolf Soldiers in hand-to-hand combat.
Hold out for another ten days?
No... Looking at the beast tide pouncing like dark clouds over a city, Jingliu tightened her grip on her chipped, broken sword, a flash of despair appearing in her eyes.
Under the Borisin's suicidal charges, the rate of equipment wear was beyond imagination.
Swords, spears, halberds... all were gone. She had even dulled every sword she carried.
The fine longsword in her hand, crafted by the master artisans of the Zhuming Xianzhou, had also lost its edge by now.
Forget holding out until reinforcements arrived; she likely wouldn't even see today's sunset.
To make matters worse, many of the older Cloud Knights were falling into mara affliction at this moment, lunging at their comrades in a state of madness.
Those who were still sane had to tearfully enforce the Cloud Knight Iron Law, executing their mara-stricken comrades on the spot.
Jingliu was beginning to understand why Qi Zhimu wouldn't allow her to participate in large-scale expeditions.
Compared to this scene, the small and medium-sized battles she had experienced before were mere child's play.
The speed at which comrades were sacrificed was so cruel; how could it be ten or even a hundred times higher than before?
Soon, Jingliu also completely lost her weapon.
CRACK—
That was the sound of the last half of her sword blade shattering against a Borisin's hard skull.
A massive Borisin roared as it lunged, its claws carrying a foul wind straight for Jingliu's throat.
In its eyes, a Cloud Knight who had lost their weapon was nothing more than a piece of tender meat waiting to be slaughtered.
However, it was wrong.
Dead wrong.
From Jingliu's blood-red eyes, a killing intent like a ten-thousand-year-old glacier erupted.
If she had no sword, then she would become the sword herself.
She had to return alive to see her Master. She had to survive... The disappearance of the paragraph comments has nothing to do with Haji Huan; it's a glitch on the platform. The content of the comments seen in the backend—I can't for the life of me understand what was sensitive about them, but they were hidden by the system by default.