Chapter 251 – Katherine's Monstrous Soul Golem

  Soldier Linus:

  The dawn revealed a battlefield that felt like a waking nightmare. Chaos surrounded me as screams, blood, and the relentless csh of swords filled the air, while the e-hued sky seemed to moisery.

  “Hahahaha!” cackled a small woman, her appearance deceptively harmless at first gnce. But her deranged grin and the bloodied cleavers in her hands told a far more siory. Her blonde hair shimmered in the m light, a grotesque trast to the savagery of her as.

  The cleavers were attached to wires she wielded with uny skill, spinning them like deadly ons. Each rotation was a death sentehe wires sliced through the air with a pierg whistle, and soldiers fell to pieces, their cries of agony punctuating the chaos.

  “e on! Step up and face the butcher of the family!” she screamed, her words drenched in a twisted ugh. The cleavers dahrough the air, and the anguished cries of her victims echoed across the battlefield as limbs were severed and lifeless bodies dropped to the blood-soaked ground.

  Further ahead, an even mrotesque sight seized my attention. A squad of mages was locked in a desperate struggle against a creature straight out of a nightmare. Quadrupedal and covered in pulsatiation, the monster advanced relentlessly, spreadiru in its wake. Its body was cloaked in vines, algae, and thorn-covered roots that shed out at anything brave or foolish enough to approach.

  On its back was the most horrifyiure of all: a massive ivorous pnt with razor-sharp teeth and a twisted, devilish grin. Its tentacles writhed across the battlefield, dragging soldiers to their doom. Those who resisted were bitten, their flesh ripped apart in a savage dispy of brutality. Yet, as the mages’ fmes began to gain the upper hand, the creature roared in pain, its body slowly succumbing to the inferno.

  “Who the hell are these maniacs?!” I shouted, trying to keep my distance from the woman with the cleavers. She seemed unstoppable, single-handedly dismantling aire squad, and no one dared to approach while her lethal wires spun with supernatural precision.

  Not far from her, two twin girls fought with enormous battle-axes. The bdes were engulfed in blue fmes that scorched everything in their path. The pair moved in perfect harmony, their movements morbidly elegant, smashing and iing soldiers in what resembled a chraphed dance of death.

  "These damn maids are insane!" yelled a soldier o me, his voice tinged with despair. As he spoke, I sed the battlefield, desperately trying to make sense of the age.

  My gaze returo the green monstrosity. It tis rampage, its tentacles dragging the wounded into its tooth-filled maw. That thing was the greatest threat on the field, and the mages battling it were nearing their limit. If they fell, we stood no ce.

  "We 't let the mages fall!" I shouted to the men around me. We were all exhausted, but there was no choice.

  "I'm a bat mage," one soldier said, panting but resolute. "If we bine our strength, we take that monster down!"

  "Attaation!" I anded, mustering the st shreds of ce within me. I g my rades, bloodied, dust-covered, and terrified. But in that moment, we had no choice but to act. Together, we advanced in a final, desperate attempt to turide of what felt like a lost battle.

  "The pnt soldiers are ing again!" someone shouted, their voice thick with urgend fear. We instantly shifted into formation, ons and spells at the ready to face the grotesque creatures.

  The animated pnt soldiers charged, their movements clumsy yet disturbingly effective.

  The mage beside me raised his hands, juring a fiery bst that engulfed one of the ied soldiers. Another man rushed forward with his sword, slig through writhing vines and roots that shed out like serpents.

  The mage beside me raised his hands, juring a fiery bst that ed one of the ied pnt soldiers. Another man lunged forward with his sword, slig through vines and tendrils that writhed like serpents. The battle was frantic, each move a desperate attempt to survive.

  “If the pnt dies, the trolled soldier dies with it!” the mage shouted, his voice filled with determination. For a brief moment, hope flickered among us.

  “You’re fetting something important…” A soft yet menag voice echoed behind us. “The pnts are ected. I kly when my daughters die.”

  We turned as one, our breaths caught in our throats. There she stood, a woman with a haunting presence, clutg an enormous pair of gardening shears that looked more like aioner’s on. Her eyes glimmered with a mix of disdain and sadistic delight as she surveyed the se. Behind her, more pnt soldiers emerged, their distorted bodies covered in pulsating roots, as if they were extensions of her very being.

  “You’re the damned mage who created these things?” I asked, my voice betraying the fear and rage bubbling inside me.

  “We already know how to deal with your pnt soldiers!” the mage beside me decred firmly, attempting to rally our morale. “They’re not intelligent. If we stick together, we take them down! And when we kill you, these things will fall with you!”

  The woman tilted her head slightly, as if p his boldness. A dark smile curled her lips as she slowly spun the massive shears, the metallic sound slig through the tense silence. She held the on with an uling ease, as though it were a natural extension of herself.

  “You’re quite clever,” she replied, her voice dripping with sarcasm and mockery. “But you uimate my daughters… and me.”

  The pnt soldiers began advang, their movements eerily synized. The roots around them came alive, stretg toward us with predatory i. The tension in the air thied, and the sharp sound of swords being uhed echoed as we braced ourselves.

  “Let’s kill her!” one of the soldiers yelled, charging forward with reckless determination.

  The woman’s smile widened. She raised her gardening shears and swung them in a wide arc, the calcuted motion carrying a chilling promise of death.

  “You know…” she began, her voice low but clear enough to reach us. “I once swore to leave this life of battles behind.”

  A deep sigh escaped her lips as she tightened her grip on the shears. “This life…” she tinued, bitterness g her words, “…took my husband from me.” Her pierg gaze locked onto ours, brimming with iy. “And yed me bato it. Remember that.”

  Before anyone could react, the grouh our feet began trembling violently.

  “What’s happening?” a soldier cried out, panic saturating his voice as we struggled to stay upright.

  “It’s her!” the mage beside me shouted, frantically attempting to cast a spell. “We have to kill her before it’s too te!”

  We tried to charge, but the tremrew stronger, breaking our formation. The earth around the woman began to rise, crag and splintering as if something monstrous was awakening.

  “You hurt my son…” she said, her voice eerily calm amidst the chaos. “And my girl and I… we’re furious. That boy is our treasure.”

  With those words, the groued in a cataclysmic explosion of force.

  ‘ROOOOOOAAAAR!’

  From the earth emerged a t, colossal creature. Its roar sent shockwaves through the battlefield, shaking us to our cores.

  A monstrous silhouette rose above us, a massive, grotesque scorpion-like beast with its twisted green body pulsating with life. One of its cws was enormous and muscur, built for crushing. The other was long, thin, and razor-sharp, glinting menagly. Its thick, deadly tail swayed bad forth like a pendulum of doom, poised to strike.

  "It 't be!" shouted a soldier beside me, his voice trembling with urained fear. "She's the Head Cutter! The woman who ahe scorpion i war! Everyohought she was dead!"

  Atop the monstrous scorpion, the woman stood tall and imposing, her gaze cold and unyielding. Her expression carried no traercy for her victims, only a deadly determination.

  The scorpion roared once more, its voice a deep, guttural sound that sent shivers down my spine. With a swift, lethal motion, its thin, razor-sharp cw darted forward. The soldier closest to the creature barely had time to react before it grabbed him. In a single, effortless motion, the cw severed his head. His lifeless body crumpled to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut, while his head rolled across the blood-soaked battlefield.

  "You hurt my boy," the woman said, her voice sharp and cutting. "And now, my girl and I will take every head that dares oppose us. Run… or you'll be ."

  Her words ighe spark of our retreat. Panic swept through us like wildfire, and we broke into a desperate, chaotic flight, scattering in every dire. The colossal terror chased after us with a shog speed, its massive form crushing everything in its path. The scorpion’s cws and deadly tail struck with terrifying precision, reaping lives with each swing and thrust.

  Every scream, quickly drowned out by the beast's monstrous roars, echoed the grim reality that few of us would live to ret the nightmare we faced on this battlefield.

  Katherine Evenhart:

  My girl and I advanced across the battlefield, tearing through the enemy squad with lethal precision. It had been so long since I’d used her in bat that the sight of her in a agai almost nostalgic. Ever since I left that war, I had only summoned my girl oo show Nate and Chloe what a Soul Golem truly was. Adrihna couldn’t use hers freely due to the danger, but my girl was different. She thrived in the chaos, hunting aroying every soldier that crossed her path.

  “That’s it! Let’s take their heads!” I shouted, feeling my girl’s roar resonate in response. We were perfectly in sync.

  As we moved forward, my gaze shifted to my pnt soldiers. I trolled them, sending them charging into the enemy ranks. There was a limit to how many I could keep active at once, and preparing the seeds in advance was critical. Each seed had been carefully pnted and cultivated to ensure maximum effi the battlefield. I had to modify the seeds to produts that would die, spitting out new seeds that were stronger and more attuo my mana. The process was delicate, and I couldn’t use magic to speed up their growth cycle.

  The ied humans had been impnted with my special Cuscuta seed, a rare parasitit that I had modified using ivorous flora. This was how I created the eggs and pced them within my pnt serpents, which then carried them to the enemy and transformed them into pnt soldiers.

  These seeds represehe pinnay parasitic spellcraft, an achievement that had taken years of refio perfect. The only way for them to develop faster was by feeding on their hosts, as they shared the biology of ivorous pnts. Eae was unique, a delicate work of magid patience, and now they were wreaking chaos aation across the battlefield.

  “The show is just beginning,” I murmured to myself.

  ‘BAM!’ Something leaped in front of us, and my scorpion came to an abrupt halt. Five figures stood before me, their gazes cold aermined.

  “So, you’re the one responsible for the chaos in our army,” one of them said, their tone dripping with disdain. “Men started attag each other while vomiting green snakes.”

  The speaker was a demi-human, likely a merary.

  They seem to be dangerous mages.

  Two demi-humans stood among them, one man and one woman. The female demi-human cast a disdainful g my scorpion before log her gaze directly on me.

  “We’re part of the Ten Fingers, the half that ushed outside the wall,” she expined, her eyes fixed on my golem. “A summoner… and skilled enough to trol a Soul Golem, no less. I didn’t even know a summoner with the pnt elemeed. I thought it was impossible. But apparently, I’m looking at the impossible: a human wielding a that belongs exclusively to the elves.”

  The other fes took bat stances, ready to strike. The woman tinued, her voice dripping with malice:

  “Summoners aren’t good at close bat. Without a natural mana armor, you’re just a regur person. You ’t even reinforce your ons. One punch from me, and you’re down. And when that happens, your army of trolled soldiers dies with you.”

  I kept my guard up while the man beside her smirked sinisterly.

  “From what I gather, your spell only is non-mages… Iing. A rather twisted magic. Maybe, once all this is over, I’ll find a fun way to repay the chaos you’ve caused.”

  ‘ROOOAR!’ My scorpio out a thunderous roar, ready for battle. I quickly assessed my options. Five powerful mages surrounded me, and I knew I’d have to fight them directly. I trusted my girl’s strength, but doubt lingered in my mind.

  The demi-human woman formed a floating brown sphere in her hand.

  “As a demi-human, I fuse water ah to unleash the mud element. Let’s see if your pnts survive my s,” she sneered, while the other fan cirg me.

  “You’re alone! Not even your pnt soldiers are nearby. If we kill you, your Soul Golem will vanish,” she threatehe mud sphere in her hand growing dangerously rger.

  “She’s not alone!” A sliced through the air, ing around the mud sphere and shattering it into a thousand pieces.

  “We’ve got her back!” a firm voice decred.

  I turo see Margaery and Martha stepping onto the battlefield.

  “Margie… Martha,” I murmured, relief washing over me at the sight of my two friends.

  “This battle is going to be iing!” one of the five mages said, a sinister smile spreading across their lips.

  And so, the fight began.