Lord of Winter: Beginning with Daily Intelligence

Chapter 870: Chapter 468: Monster

The darkness before dawn had yet to retreat, and the basin lay like a closed giant bowl, quietly waiting for its prey to fall inside.

Five thousand fully armed Heavy Knights charged down the slope at Kaelin’s roar.

It was a torrent of force that could not be ignored, with lances and longswords held high, like a steel forest advancing forward.

Kaelin rode at the forefront, his cloak billowing behind him.

He could feel his blood roaring in his ears, his chest filled with an almost suffocating excitement.

Crystal Rock City lay ahead; as long as they charged through, the heart of the Federation would stop beating this morning.

“Accelerate!” His order was swallowed by the battle cries.

“For the Empire!”

Five thousand knights roared in unison, their voices echoing repeatedly in the basin, as if trying to tear the night sky apart.

However, when the force reached the lowest point of the basin, nothing expected appeared.

No rain of arrows, no explosions, no dazzling Magic, no ambushers leaping from the shadows, not even the wind.

The world seemed to have been muted, leaving only the harsh breathing of warhorses, piercing in the empty basin.

At that moment, he noticed something was wrong. Kaelin raised his hand, just about to command the troops to regroup.

Suddenly, the feel beneath the horse’s hooves changed. What was once a hard, cold rock that clearly responded with vibrations.

In just a few breaths, it became soft and sticky, with an abnormal scorching heat.

His warhorse let out a sharp whinny, a sound stemming from instinctual fear.

The first row of knights began to slow down, followed by the second row.

The breathing of the horses became rapid and chaotic; some began to turn in place, some even tried to retreat, but were pushed forward by the flow of knights behind them.

“What’s going on?! A trap?!” A knight’s voice, overtly panicked, exploded in the ranks.

“Your Highness! The ground is moving!”

“Is this… a swamp?!”

Kaelin looked down, his pupils suddenly contracting.

The ground of the basin had not sunk into a mire but was slowly undulating.

Like a giant muscle breathing.

Golden liquid spread from the steeds’ hooves, revealing fine and regular patterns on the surface.

These were not cracks but more like… scales not yet fully opened, or pulsating veins beneath the skin.

For the first time, a chilling thought flashed through Kaelin’s mind.

They hadn’t charged into a basin but were stepping onto something’s body.

“Boom—”

An almost inaudible, dull roar echoed from the depths of the earth.

Kaelin’s pupils shrank fiercely.

He hadn’t sensed any Magic Power fluctuation or Fighting Energy burst.

Nothing, yet all the metal suddenly became heavier.

Not just a little, but as if pulled by an unseen weight, the gravitational force targeting steel multiplying dozens of times in an instant.

The knights didn’t even have time to comprehend what was happening.

The front legs of five thousand armored warhorses emitted dense and clear cracking sounds simultaneously.

“Crack, crack, crack—”

The sound of bones being crushed under unbearable weight.

The formation in charge disintegrated instantly.

The knights were pressed into the ground, uniformly and indistinguishably, like an invisible giant hand falling from the sky.

The heavy steel armor smashed into the liquefied ground, splattering the scalding golden liquid.

One knight was practically flung off, his knees hitting the ground hard, his vision stunned into whiteness.

He propped himself up with his sword, trying to stand, only to find the sword that had accompanied him through countless battles was now as heavy as a nail, dragging his arm firmly to the ground.

Steel had become an instrument of torture here.

The armor, originally meant to protect, now turned into iron coffins weighing thousands of pounds.

The knights struggled desperately, attempting to undo the clasps, remove the armor, but their actions were rendered completely meaningless.

The more terrifying transformation came as the temperature of the golden liquid increased rapidly.

Metal, being the best conductor, led the heat through the armor, mercilessly branding into flesh and blood.

“Ah! Ah! Ah!” The knights let out heart-wrenching wails.

Their skin sizzled under the iron plates, muscles spasmed, nerves burned, consciousness torn apart by the searing pain.

“Can’t… can’t get it off!”

“The armor is jammed!”

“The skin… skin is sticking to the iron… ah ah ah!!”

Desperate screams rose one after another, quickly weaving into a single sound.

The “For the Empire” that had shaken the valley minutes ago fully dissipated at that moment.

In its place was the wailing of five thousand men, welded in steel at the original spot.

The sound reflected in the narrow arc structure of the basin, with no escape, and no end.

The basin began to vibrate, at first with minute tremors, like the earth turning in its sleep.

Then this vibration became clear and heavy, carrying an indescribable rhythm, as if something colossal was slowly stretching its limbs underground.

Kaelin looked up, he saw the outlines of the surrounding basin, once rolling like black mountains in the night, were changing.

Dirt, gravel, large rock slabs slid off the mountain surface in pieces as if they had lost their grip, crashing into the still-churning golden molten liquid below with dull and abrupt sounds.

With the shedding of the outer shell, what lay beneath was no longer rock layers.

But a whole swathe of black, smooth structures glinting coldly under the reflection of molten gold.

Composed of Obsidian-like substance, thick, sharp, interlocking to form a massive framework beyond the measure of common sense.