NOVEL WEB Chapter 424: The Night the Serpents Burned
As Julian's arrows rained down from above, those on the ground already sensed the looming catastrophe.
The battlefield shifted in an instant. Moments earlier, the monstrous beasts had charged with terrifying momentum. Now, one by one, they began to retreat. With a flicker of distortion, the shapeshifters reverted to their original forms—massive serpents—bolting for the exits in a frenzied stampede. A chain reaction followed. In a heartbeat, the entire pit was filled with over a hundred thousand Blackscale Serpents.
Their sudden emergence crushed the scattered fire oil pouches on the ground, dousing their enormous bodies in volatile liquid.
"Sigil of the Wild Legion… Suppress!"
A rune of earthen-yellow light manifested above Ethan's head. Its glow splintered into thousands of threads of shimmering energy, covering the entire sand pit. The serpents, just beginning to flee, were forced back to the ground by invisible pressure. The sky above them flashed—and roared.
Then came the arrows.
Hundreds of thousands of fire-wreathed arrows materialized in midair, as if summoned from the ether. The sand pit was bathed in their light, each shaft a tongue of fire hurtling downward.
They were no longer arrows.
They were fire incarnate.
When the blazing bolts struck the serpents, the flames ignited in full force. Whoosh! A towering inferno surged skyward. The shrieks began immediately.
"Ahhh! No! Help! Let me out!"
Inside the pit, the serpents writhed in pain. Bathed in fire oil, they thrashed wildly, rolling in the sand to no avail. One might have smothered the flames alone—but in this frenzy, any extinguished fire was quickly reignited by another flaming body crashing into it. It was chaos, a chain of self-destruction fueled by panic and fire.
At the edge of the pit, Ethan stood calmly, eyes flickering with calculation. 'These creatures really are tough... even that didn't finish them off.'
He raised a hand.
"Another wave of fire oil."
His voice was level, almost indifferent.
Across the pit, Brute's eyes flared with fury. The beast general's crimson pupils locked onto Ethan as he urged his massive Warhawk into a charge.
"You dare—!"
"Ethan," whispered Priestess Dana urgently at his side, "that's Brute. Three years ago, he placed third in the Tournament. Afterward, he entered the Blood Rite Pool and emerged mid-Transcendent rank—awakened his bloodline. Three years of growth since then? He's stronger now. Be careful."
But Ethan didn't even look at her. Instead, he chuckled and addressed the stunned War Gods beside him—Vogemoth and Gilded Blaze.
"Gentlemen, the show's been fun. But now someone wants to kill your City Lord. What do you say we do about that?"
Above them, twenty thousand fire oil pouches began to fall.
Still mid-air, the pouches ignited under the heat, bursting open before touching the ground. Flaming oil rained down like liquid meteorites, coating every inch of the sand pit and every inch of the serpents. The screams grew more shrill, more desperate.
Dana turned her head away, gagging at the sight. Vogemoth and Gilded Blaze exchanged a look—brief, but loaded with meaning. They had seen enough.
Ethan wasn't just asserting dominance. He was testing them.
At that moment, Brute was nearly upon him.
But before Ethan could even blink, the two War Gods moved.
"You—!"
Brute's last word was cut off as Vogemoth appeared behind him, clamping a massive hand around his throat.
Crack!
Gilded Blaze's palm crushed his skull like dry bark. No flourish, no drawn-out battle. Just raw, overwhelming power. Brute's lifeless body dropped into the inferno, vanishing into the pit below.
Ethan, still gazing at the flames, had seen everything.
This feeling... this strength...
He exhaled slowly, the exhilaration rising in his chest. Now he understood why people on Earth would sacrifice everything—laws, morals, conscience—for power.
For Ethan, though, it was just a pleasant sensation.
[Ding—System Notification: Quest "Shifting Allegiance" progress: 2%. Protagonist must continue to work harder.]
He paused.
Only two percent?
After wiping out an entire beast tribe?
That was the first time the quest had shown any progress. How many more would it take? Millions? Tens of millions?
If that was what it required, Ethan wasn't sure it was worth it. He would never slaughter innocents for a reward. But... notorious tribes? The ones that ravaged the lands, pillaged cities, and fed on civilians?
Those would burn.
Julian landed beside him atop his Black Qilin. Silent. Respectful. Vogemoth and Gilded Blaze, despite their age and power, approached cautiously, uncertain.
They had lived for thousands of years, but this man… This Ethan...
He was terrifying.
A hundred thousand pureblooded beasts—wiped out in a single night. The Blackscale Serpents were gone. Erased from the Sea of Death. Their royal bloodline, extinct.
The flames began to die down. The screams faded. The sand at the bottom of the pit had melted, solidifying into glossy obsidian.
Ethan's gaze lingered on it.
His Soul Sense slipped through the ground, probing deep. Outwardly, he remained calm—but inside, he was thrilled.
Beneath the molten surface, buried under layers of earth and bone, was what the rumors had hinted at.
An underground city.
He searched further—until he found them.
Boxes.
Dozens of them, identical to those he'd seen on the Clearspring City convoy. But these weren't marked for Clearspring. The inscription on their sides was different:
"Hurricane City."
He recognized the name. The quadruplet sisters had pointed it out during a shopping trip weeks ago.
Each crate brimmed with spatial pouches. His Soul Sense couldn't pierce them—such items had to be opened directly. But there was no doubt: this stash dwarfed the loot from the convoy raid.
It was a supply cache. Left behind by Hurricane City for the Blackscale Serpents—either as payment, or as trade for resources from other tribes.
Ethan turned with a smile. "Gentlemen, I won't be going down. You two can handle the collection."
Vogemoth and Gilded Blaze hesitated—then nodded and vanished into the pit. Within seconds, they found the tunnel from which the serpents had emerged and descended into the depths.
Julian moved closer. "Letting them gather the supplies—aren't we just handing it over to them?"
Ethan smirked. "I told them to collect it. I never said they could keep everything. Let's see how honest they are."
He glanced at the horizon. "Leave a portion to maintain the array. The rest of you—set up camp here. Dawn's coming. We rest, then move to the next target tonight."
Julian nodded. "Understood."
He had to admit—he hadn't expected the Blackscale Serpents, one of the dominant tribes in the region, to fall so easily. The fire oil tactic was brutal… and devastatingly effective.
Honestly, Ethan hadn't expected it to go so smoothly either. The credit, in his mind, belonged to Uncle Jed and the Black Qilin.
But there was still something bothering him.
Why had Uncle Jed collapsed after that burst of power?
Ethan had used several high-tier healing techniques on him, but none had worked. There were no injuries. No signs of internal trauma. It was as if… he had just shut down.
He'd have to wait for Jed to wake up and explain.
Two hours passed.
Vogemoth and Gilded Blaze finally resurfaced, their figures rising from the pit's depths. But what greeted them was not the desolation they'd left behind—it was a fully formed military camp.
The flag of Beastfall City flew in the center. Soldiers bustled about, lighting fires and preparing food. None of them stopped the two War Gods—instead, they simply nodded politely.
The two looked at each other, increasingly bewildered.
Where had all these people come from?
And during the battle earlier… those flaming arrows… they had seemed to appear from nowhere, tearing through the sky as if summoned from another realm.
Not even War God-rank powerhouses could fully grasp what had happened.
How could they know?
The firestorm had been unleashed by twenty thousand Illusionary Qilins—each one Transcendent rank—woven together in a grand illusion array.
A secret that few would ever understand.