The strike team led by Popov rapidly deployed into an annihilation formation, swarming forward with frenzied cries over the secure comms channel, much like a pack of starving wild dogs. They knew that hesitation in this critical moment was fatal; otherwise, their comrades, scenting the whiff of military merit, would descend and tear these Romanians apart into their most rudimentary single-celled components. Their hard-won credit would shrink!

"Popov. May your life be choked with pleasure!" Medusa spat the most vicious curse at Popov, her eyes suddenly blazing with brilliant green light.

Vast clouds of thick, green mist billowed out from around Medusa, and from within the strangely fetid fog, countless hissing sounds erupted. Immediately following, a massive swarm of monstrous snakes poured forth. These creatures bore a close resemblance to King Cobras, yet they were entirely pitch-black, their scales, even on their bellies, being a glossy, inky black. Though their bodies were only a little over two feet long, their heads accounted for half their length. They emitted enraged hisses, and the venom sacs on either side of their enormous heads bulged violently, transforming into structures resembling two glider wings. Utilizing these massive, feathered wings, they rapidly skimmed through the air, rocketing toward the Romanians ten kilometers away like a flight of black arrows.

Gliding could only sustain these ferocious, terrifying snakes airborne for less than a kilometer. However, just as their bodies began to descend, they would violently whip their powerful tails down toward the treetops. With a sharp crack, branches as thick as a man's wrist were instantly shredded. Using the force generated by this lash, their bodies would leap hundreds of meters high, and simultaneously, their forward gliding speed would increase significantly.

In the blink of an eye, this impossibly numerous swarm of monstrous snakes swept past Popov, who was frantically leading his subordinates, closing rapidly on the Romanians.

Popov cursed wildly over the comms channel, enraged: "Medusa! You filthy tramp, why are you stealing my experience points?"

Medusa, who had already donned her combat armor and was racing forward with her own subordinates, snarled back, "You brute, you’re the one stealing my glory! Is it easy for me? You lot are about to become Generals, and I’m still stuck as a Lieutenant Colonel—do you even have the nerve to complain?"

Popov suddenly burst into hysterical laughter, laughing so hard his battle armor nearly slammed into a massive tree trunk.

Medusa's true might lay in the inexhaustible numbers of various poisons she commanded. Often, she alone could wipe out a Roman army numbering in the thousands. But when calculating military merits, the higher-ups in the Military Law Bureau refused to acknowledge kills made by her venomous creatures. In their view, those Romanians had simply been unlucky enough to stumble into a nest of toxins, allowing Medusa to pick up easy kills. Therefore, although Medusa had killed more Romanians than any other veteran in the Hell's Angels Mercenary Corps, her official military credit remained the lowest.

"Laugh, laugh, laugh yourself dead, you ghost!" Medusa shrieked madly, manipulating her armor until it transformed into a streak of black light, rapidly closing in on the Romanians. Her armor was a custom model—the Heracles Lightning-Class—devoid of any high-yield weaponry, equipped only with two specialized heavy-magnetic daggers. Medusa herself was the greatest area-of-effect weapon; her swarm of venomous insects could effortlessly overwhelm everything alive within a radius of several kilometers.

That contingent of Romanians had settled on the grass by the riverbank, unpacking their personal liquor and fine foods, gathered together as if for a picnic. They admired the dry beauty of the river scene while savoring their delicacies. As for the Elven warriors, they sat astride their massive pythons, gnawing on fresh fruit while cautiously scanning their surroundings.

Suddenly, all the giant pythons writhed restlessly, turning their attention simultaneously toward a single direction.

The Elven warriors snapped their heads up, staring in terror at the dark cloud streaking down from the sky about a kilometer away. That cloud, spanning nearly a thousand meters across, was composed of countless bizarrely shaped venomous snakes. Even from this distance, their horrifying hissing had already carried over to them.

Before the Elven warriors could issue a warning, countless vipers plummeted down, instantly engulfing every Roman, every Elf, and all thirty of the giant pythons gathered by the riverbank. The sheer number of these snakes was so immense that they formed a sea of serpents several hundred meters wide and over a dozen meters deep on the shore.

Piercing screams of agony rose from beneath the thick carpet of snakes. The Romanians, moments ago enjoying their feast, were instantaneously plunged into boundless hell. Countless vipers tore frantically at their bodies, injecting mutated venom furiously into their flesh. A mere milligram of the venom from these aberrant snakes was enough to kill a dozen elephants, yet each bite these Romanians sustained from Medusa’s controlled creatures delivered over half an ounce of venom.

In the blink of an eye, these Romans had been injected with seven or eight kilograms of snake venom. The massive dose of potent toxin obliterated their cellular structure, and their bodies instantly dissolved into pools of black, foul blood that splashed everywhere. The Elven warriors, whose constitution was marginally better than the Romanians', struggled for only a few heartbeats under the ravenous assault of the snakes before they, too, vanished into the thick serpentine mass.

The thirty white pythons thrashed and crushed the ground beneath them, their bodies protected by scales nearly two inches thick, which perfectly shielded them. They twisted and churned rapidly across the earth, crushing large numbers of snakes into black plasma, which then dissolved into green mist that spread outwards. The giant snakes opened their massive mouths and shrieked madly; the toxic fumes slowly entered their bodies, and gradually, the pythons' movements became sluggish. Realizing their bodies were slipping from their control, the pythons instinctively turned to flee toward the river.

"Don't even think about escaping!" Medusa shrieked in delight. "The credit is mine!"

The green mist writhed and merged, and in an instant, a terrifying, monstrous python, over three hundred meters long, burst forth from the dense vapor. This venomous serpent possessed nine massive heads, and from its venom-dripping jaws, more than a dozen fangs, several meters long, emitted a piercing, cold green gleam in the morning sunlight. The python silently lunged toward one of the white pythons, opening its cavernous mouth to strike directly at the vital pressure point near its seventh segment.

From the side, countless rays of cold light flashed. Nearly a thousand skeletal monsters, standing about two feet tall, visible as pure bone without flesh or skin, hopped out of the river with eerie cackling sounds. Though small, these skeletal fiends possessed three pairs of long arms, and on their deathly white finger bones, they clutched six razor-sharp dissection blades, attacking the thirty giant pythons like maddened wraiths.