From the top of the base's tallest building, Bai Zemin had a view of almost everything going on in the surrounding area for miles around.
From afar, while his blood shield prevented the enemy bone arrows from reaching him and the large blood barrier prevented the bone arrows from hitting the building and knocking it down, Bai Zemin watched very carefully everything taking place before his eyes.
His dark eyes reflected the ugliness of mankind, once again.
He witnessed how a grown man abandoned an old man who was probably his father or perhaps his grandfather.
He saw how a young man abandoned the person who appeared to be his injured mother in an attempt to run faster.
He witnessed how a man abandoned his wife and also how a wife abandoned her husband.
'In times of light, everyone is a friend. But in times of darkness, no one is likely to be with us'.... This was a very old phrase that Bai Zemin always liked and in the past thought he knew perfectly well. But it was only after the Soul Record came to Earth and forced everyone's lives to change that he realized what true darkness was and what the word loneliness really meant.
It was not about the darkness that could be cleared with a beacon of light, it was about those moments when one was lost and without guidance.
It was not about loneliness that could be solved by going to a crowded place, it was more about sentimental and mental sadness; those moments when you realized that you were really alone and with no one to ease a little of your pain, when you can't even give yourself warmth.
As Bai Zemin's heart grew colder and colder, the voice of a girl pleading for his help brought him out of his inner thoughts.
There he saw her, one of the people who had also abandoned her loved one.
The girl was considerably beautiful when compared to the women who at this moment had lost the brightness and whiteness of their skin. However, in Bai Zemin's eyes, she was as ugly as those goblins.... No, even uglier than those goblins.
He ignored her cries and pleas, ignored her constant yelling for help.
The bone arrows continued to fall and soon covered the entire area around the building he was standing on.
The girl, who was just a normal average human, naturally failed to avoid the full-scale attack. Her body was hit by several bone arrows. The first arrow hit her right leg and the power behind the attack caused her entire leg to be torn off from the thigh down. The girl fell to the ground and barely had time to feel pain as she was immediately torn into an unrecognizable pile of crushed flesh.
In the end, abandoning her beloved did not do much good. All she succeeded in doing was dying with a guilty conscience, leaving behind a grief-stricken man, and running a couple of meters before finally being swallowed by the infinite darkness.
"How ironic." Bai Zemin spoke to himself as he used Blood Manipulation, "You ask for help from the one you somehow or other know you will not get anything from while abandoning those who were probably willing to give their lives for you."
Under his control and the consumption of a few tens of his Mana reserve, which could no longer be considered small, the blood shield that covered him and the second blood shield that was like an impenetrable barrier protecting the building began to twist strangely before forming a giant sword over a kilometer long that pointed towards the sky.
The goblin archers who were preparing the second round of ranged attacks stopped their movements and strange sounds came out of their monstrous mouths. Like the goblins carrying bone swords and spears, the archers raised their heads to the sky and in their pupils reflected the crimson radiance that the giant sword released only with their presence.
"Now that you have killed what you had to kill..." Bai Zemin's voice echoed throughout the now abandoned base as he stretched his hand upward and clung tightly to the hilt of the giant sword, "You can all go to hell itself."
His voice was ice cold and his eyes reflected no pain at the death of over three hundred survivors.
Bai Zemin did not consider himself a tyrant as many secretly called him nor did he consider himself a hero as others believed. He also did not consider himself the savior or future savior of the human race and even did not consider himself the greatest talent in history as Lilith had repeatedly said.
His thought process was simple and the reasoning behind his actions was just as simple. As long as his interests or those of his loved ones were involved, Bai Zemin would definitely step forward. However, if what was at stake was not his interests or did not affect him or his loved ones indirectly, then he would definitely not spend even half a Stamina point.
The more than three hundred survivors who died here today could be said to have died because of their own decisions and actions. They decided to stay behind, which in retrospect meant abandoning the faction of Bai Zemin and the security that living under his banner provided. Consequently, their lives no longer concerned him at all.
Like those survivors who wished to leave the Beginning Village, Bai Zemin never stopped any of them. But he would definitely not lend an allied hand if a zombie appeared before them after they decided to leave.
"You have only yourselves to blame for being in the place you shouldn't be."
It was uncertain whether those words were directed at the souls of the deceased humans or towards the goblins who glared at the giant sword that seemed to want to reach for the clouds in the sky.
"Kuoooo!!!" A fat and burly goblin carrying a large bone mace let out a loud and strange cry before rushing forward.
"Kuaaaaaaaa!"
"Kikikiki!"
"Human!"
"Handsome man!"
...
Each goblin in the goblin army let out distinct screams, howls, and words in a human speech before rushing forward in unison as if they were a huge tsunami with the desire to swallow the earth whole.
To form the great blood sword Bai Zemin only had to consume a little over two hundred Mana points, which had not exhausted him at all. He held tightly to the grip of the blood sword, and under the control of his Blood Manipulation skill, it was extremely simple to lift this object that under normal circumstances would have crushed him.
Instead of cutting immediately, he waited and watched the goblins.
400 meters...
The goblins' faces were suffused with ferocity and bloodlust. However, these beasts proved that despite being ferocious and insane, they actually had a certain level of basic intelligence that set them apart from the rest of the creatures mankind had faced so far.
300 meters...
The female goblins shrieked and howled towards the sky while the naked lust in their eyes made one wonder if death would not be a reward rather than a punishment compared to falling into the hands of these beasts.
200 meters...
The goblin archers again fired a second round of arrows. All of them aimed at the large building and the only structure standing for two kilometers around.
By the time the goblins entered the 100 meter range, Bai Zemin didn't bother with protecting the building this time and simply slashed with the huge blood sword straight ahead.
"Die!"
His bellow followed by the splitting of the wind and the constant explosions of the air bursting wherever the heavy sword passed resounded like thunder heralding the arrival of the storm in the middle of the summer day.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!....
Wherever the blood sword passed, the bone arrows were burst and turned into small white fragments that rained powerlessly to the ground. Thousands of arrows were pulverized under the power of the blood sword but its downward speed and destructive power were not reduced at all.
From the distance, the survivors riding in the buses and trucks squeezed to look through the small holes that were left open around the thick armor covering the vehicles and looked out with eyes filled with fear.
The gunmen and soul evolvers unconsciously stopped their steps for an instant as their eyes widened in shock.
The blue pupils reflected a huge red line representing the huge blood sword descending from the sky as if it was the punishment sent by the gods. Her sweet pink lips were slightly parted, showing a small glimpse of her pearl white teeth for a brief moment as she muttered, "Truly a monster."
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!
The huge blood sword finally touched the ground and the earth split into thousands of pieces.
Collapsed buildings were pulverized and cracks spread far and wide for approximately five kilometers of what not long ago was the foundation on which thousands of human lives depended for survival.
The length of the sword was over 1000 meters, so even though Bai Zemin did not use Gravity Manipulation at all, the damage caused by the destructive power that a weapon of such magnitude had certainly could not be underestimated.
[You have absorbed the Soul Power of Wild Archer Goblin level 13.]
[You have absorbed the Soul Power of Fierce Spear Goblin level 15.]
[You have absorbed the Soul Power of Barbarian Sword Goblin level 20.]
[You have absorbed the Soul Power of First Order Bestial Hobgoblin level 31.]
...
All the goblins that were within the 1000 meters long and 20 meters wide range of the blade of the huge blood sword were immediately torn apart. The only thing the beasts saw was a flash of red in their eyes before everything went black.
Countless green messages flashed in Bai Zemin's retina, informing him that he had absorbed the Soul Power of thousands of goblins. Glowing orbs of different sizes flew in his direction and attached themselves to his soul, making it constantly stronger and firmer.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
...
The shockwave spread out for hundreds of meters in the form of a giant fan and the bodies of all the goblins burst into a mist of hot blood that slowly vaporized and ascended into the clouds.
Flesh, blood, and white bone fragments flew everywhere turning the ground into a canvas and the world into a bloody painting capable of terrifying the bravest man on Earth.
The giant blood sword glowed and under the control of the skill Blood Manipulation, its form collapsed to morph into thousands of blood whips ranging in size from 10 meters to 300 meters long.
Bai Zemin descended from the top of the now almost completely crushed building and the blood whips swayed around him as if welcoming the lord and master of blood.
In front of him, a huge army of green goblins stared at him with bloodshot eyes. This goblin army seemed to have been split in two as a kilometer long bloody path marked a clear delineation between the two sides.
The goblins howled towards him and seemed eager to charge. None of these creatures seemed to be aware of the apparent difference in power.
However, before the beasts rushed forward, five powerful auras burst from the back of the army more than three kilometers away and they all automatically froze in place.
The goblins seemed to momentarily awaken from their state of madness as they immediately shuddered and lowered their heads with fear-filled eyes. Then, the beasts looked back and backed away as strange low sounds came from their saliva-filled mouths.
It was obvious that unlike in most cases, the goblins actually had a clear hierarchy of power just like humans. Unlike the beasts that occasionally worked together to confront other enemy races before they started slaughtering each other, the goblins were united by a chain of command in which the weakest obeyed the strongest.
* * * * * * *
Thank you very much to everyone who voted for Blood Warlock with their Golden Tickets! <3