"Why... how could it be like this..."

Batu sat numbly amidst the ruins, his eyes bloodshot, lips cracked, yet he could not make a sound.

The battle was already over.

The Red Rock Broken Axe Coalition—the force proclaimed as the most elite heavy-armored force of the Northern Barbarian Race, now only had scorched earth and broken bones left.

The blood-soaked mud across the hills had not yet dried, the battle flags were tattered and rolled in the fireworks, armor and severed limbs were buried in the charred black grass slopes.

The air was filled with the stench of burnt fur and flesh, the corpses of wolf riders lay piled chaotically, a war axe stuck in the back of a warrior's head, flies buzzing and circling around the mountain of corpses.

Last night, they still had a force five times larger than the enemy, occupied the advantageous terrain, with high-built camps, well-prepared equipment, and cavalry lined up like a steel torrent in front of the slope.

The Broken Axe Clan even hung their ancestral battle flag in the center of the camp, swearing to "fight to the last drop of blood."

Moreover, for a whole month before that, the Frost Fierce Legion had been beaten into constant retreat.

People of the Broken Axe cheered daily, "the final battle is imminent," even the clan elders prophesied that Frost Fierce would hold out for at most one more day, and then it would be the time for the Northern Clans to divide the spoils of victory.

Everyone thought this was a crushingly victorious battle.

Yet, before dawn, the inner line had collapsed.

Without warning, without the sound of fighting as an alarm, the main central army seemed to be sliced open by an invisible sharp blade, breaking all the way through.

The initial anomaly was just a slight error… first, the communication suddenly cut off, the horn blower's bronze horn issued a sharp residual sound and then abruptly stopped.

Then the outermost guards abandoned their lines, some even turned and rushed towards their own main tents, like wild wolves charging into a sheep pen, their eyes filled with red.

He saw with his own eyes some familiar Fighting Energy warriors suddenly turn their spears, stabbing at their own brothers with ruthless and resolute actions.

That brother beside him had his throat slit, fell to the ground, a thick black blood gushing from his mouth, his eyes full of confusion, incomprehension, and despair.

He even tried to shout with his last breath "Why."

But no one answered him.

More warriors rushed out of the tents, but their eyes were frighteningly empty, as if their consciousness had been stripped away.

They no longer distinguished friend from foe, some even hacked their war axes into the necks of their horses, just to make them scream.

The tents exploded in the flames, burning with the mixed smell of blood and wine, forming a blood-colored burnt aroma, choking people, making it hard to breathe.

Shouts, roars, collisions, the sound of bones breaking, all intertwined into a symphony of hell.

Batu roared orders to assemble, but no one responded.

He crossed three fire walls to barely reach the central army, and all he saw were fragments and people switching sides on the ground...

This was not a defeat, it was a mental collapse.

The entire legion seemed, at the same moment, to have something steal their loyalty and rationality from their souls.

It was not magic. Yet even more terrifying than magic.

Because what they lost was their will as human beings.

Just when the Broken Axe camp was at its most chaotic and vulnerable, in the distant white mist, the warriors of the Frost Fierce tribe finally appeared.

They did not blow horns, did not shout, not even the thunderous sound of cavalry hooves.

They advanced silently from the morning mist like a heavy iron wall. Only those dead silent eyes under their eyebrows induced fear.

And when the first rays of sunlight shone down, it became clear that their battle armor was still stained with undried blood, and their long knives in hand glimmered with a chilling light...

They charged.

No roars, no slogans, yet more unsettling than any shouting.

The rhythm of their steps seemed like a funeral procession, not for themselves, but for those chaotic, lost, and unraveled enemies before them.

The Broken Axe warriors finally came to their senses, wanting to resist, but their formation had already collapsed.

They frantically raised their shields, but could not withstand the avalanche-like dense charge.

Long spears pierced into chests, blunt instruments shattered helmets, row after row of men were knocked down, trampled over.

The camp gate, like tissue paper, was smashed down forcefully.

"Retreat! Retreat!" a deputy commander screamed, but his voice was drowned out by the sounds of weapons slashing through the air and the cracking of flesh and bones.

The Frost Fierce Legion advanced across the battlefield like a cold plague, slowly consuming the entire camp, every step taken on the pool of blood, every strike imbued with undeniable determination.

They were not fighting, they were cleansing.

Like a band of "executioners" with no mercy for their enemies.

"How could... just like this..." Batu knelt among the pile of corpses, the world before him burning and collapsing.

His battle armor was already blackened by fire, his palm full of bloody mud and the hair fragments of his comrades.

His thoughts were still tumbling, chaotic images of the battlefield and the continually collapsing orders intertwined into a mess in his mind.

At this moment, a gust of wind swept over the scorched earth. Among the flying ashes, a figure walked against the wind.

Batu suddenly looked up, Titus Frost Fierce was already standing before him.

At that moment, Batu almost thought he was hallucinating.

No companions, just him alone, yet as if condensed from the anger of the entire battlefield.

The cloak slightly flared, carrying the scent of gunpowder and the stench of charred bone in the wind.

Frost Fierce was clad in heavy armor, devoid of any family crest or color, as if a garb crafted solely for death.

And on his face, aside from those eyes, calm to the point of deathly stillness, were gray-black lines like vines spreading from the corners of his eyes to the sides of his neck, coiling like withered branches etched onto his skin.

But the way he looked at Batu was like a lead weight pressing on his chest, instinctively making him want to avert his gaze, bow his head, and submit.

Batu breathed heavily, his chest heaving violently, his eyes full of bloodshot, the anger on his face gradually being overshadowed by an indescribable fear.

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