Help! I Think We Summoned A Demon King

Chapter 170: Paragon Beast

Anxious, but as prepared as they could ever be...

The heroes watched the surrounding woods as the vibrations of the earth grew louder and soon were accompanied by the low, heavy growls of something monstrous approaching.

GRRRRRRRRRRR...!

At some point during the beast’s rapid chase of its prey, it had also slowed down its pace as it had sensed the presence of those it was after, and rather than the sudden pounce out of the woods the heroes were expecting.....

A black wolf as large as the carriage Sylvara had ridden, with an intimidating horn on its forehead, protruding, visible fangs, and claws as large and sharp as garden shears, stepped almost soundlessly through the opposite end of the forest the heroes were monitoring.....

And it was only the crisp sounds of dry leaves breaking that alerted the group to the predator’s presence as they turned sharply in unison.

They all had their hearts pounding through their chest as they watched this monster step majestically in their direction on all fours.

"It’s....it’s huge!" Julia exclaimed as she held onto her shield tighter, visible signs of perspiration coating her forehead, accompanying her thundering heartbeat....

But she did not retreat, and none of them did.

This might be the biggest foe they had ever faced, but they were as prepared as they could be, and they too had a strong backing they could count on if things began to get out of hand.

The heroes had assumed that with them in front and drawing agro, the beast would lounge first at them... but contrary to their expectations, the next time the beast’s forward paw and claws made contact with the ground... it vanished.

At least, it looked like it vanished to most...

But it actually moved so fast that before their brains had time to process what had happened... it was already in front of one of the surviving adventurers with its claws brandished upward...

"NO, YOU DON’T!"

Julia yelled as she deployed her sub skill, with an orange shimmering translucent barrier instantly covering the young man, who had a look of horror on his face as the giant claw descended towards his head.

Julia’s barrier came up in the nick of time; even with how shocked the heroes had been at the beast’s speed, they still reacted in time, charging straight at the beast... but alas...

It was a futile effort....

Julia’s barrier broke apart like a sheet of paper as the beast’s claw cleaved the adventurer’s head clean off his shoulder with torrents of heavy crimson blood spurtling out into the air and bathing the heroes and the last two adventurers in its immediate environment.

"WHA...!" The last two adventurers turned as white as a sheet, seeing their teammate get brutally beheaded just like their party captain and tank before.....

And they weren’t the only ones who were....

Julia was frozen solid and shivering all over at what had just happened, and the others were also just as petrified as they watched the beast slowly turn to its next target....

"Snap out of it, guys!..... Or we are all gonna die!" Andrew yelled, drawing the heroes out of their clouded state after experiencing the first real human casualty since arriving in this world.

Before they even had time to recalibrate.... The beast’s claw was already cleaving through the air at yet another of the adventurers, completely ignoring the heroes...

That’s when they all understood that this beast was hell-bent on taking out all of the

Prey that had brought it all this way.

However, halfway through its speedy attack, the massive wolf saw a blur, and was almost too late in bringing up its paw to shield its large eyes where two twin daggers landed thunderously.....

BAHM!

The visage of a young lady in a sexy black leather body suit and glasses materialised in the air after the attack landed...

She twisted gracefully between the beast’s repeated attempts at smacking her away as she repeatedly aimed for both its eyes, producing light cuts all over the beast’s forelimbs as she moved with extreme reflexes, escaping attacks that would have shattered her.

Ava was not just equal in speed to Andrew; she was now a little faster, and that was without her going into her second form.

Right now, she had artifacts made specifically for assassins to boost speed and reflexes....

Added to her own very high reflexes as well.... Even though the beast was faster, all of its attacks barely grazed Ava while she repeatedly landed shallow cuts all over its arms.

GRRR!

The beast growled in annoyance, all of its attacks were just barely missing Ava, who was relentlessly cutting into it, but before it could get the time to go for a different attack....

Four massive arrows came spiralling with immense force, aimed for the beast’s eyes and ankles, and striking true on all marks, causing shallow but painful wounds to the beast as it stepped back, growling in irritation.

Seeing the opening that Ava and Erica had created, and following their training, Broddy ran with all the momentum he could channel as he slammed his massive body into the large beast’s back leg, with Ava vanishing out of the way....

BOOM!.

The wolf growled as it lost its footing a little and was forced to move backwards from its prey, just like Broddy had intended.

Following that, Jacob and Ariana, who had been waiting for this opportunity with the beast now secluded, channeled a massive amount of their mana pool as the entire area of a few meters around the beast was engulfed in repeated bombardment of fire and lightning.

All attacks struck true as the beast was simply that massive.

It growled repeatedly in frustration, continuously being pushed back with chars to its skin and burnt sizzling patches all over... but overall, the beast was, not surprisingly, still in great shape even with all those repeated attacks.

The hallmark of paragon realm entities was that even their least favored stats were in the triple digits....making them almost invulnerable to anyone of a lower realm.

But these heroes weren’t done yet....

As the raining attacks from fire and lightning began to slow down with Ariana and Jacob running out of mana....

Andrew and Roberto charged at the struggling beast, with Andrew aiming his attacks at the beast’s limbs, using his techniques and placing deeper cuts on its limbs, and Roberto going for the torso, tearing through the beast’s skin with repeated pierces, almost as deep as Andrew’s cuts, as he aimed more towards the beast’s underbelly.

The attacks continued as the beast was progressively pushed back.

Ava and Erica would attack from above.....

Broddy would create space and destabilize the target as Jacob, and Ariana would rain down elemental attacks...

Andrew plus Roberto would follow for close-quarters damage, with Julia bringing up her barriers to soften the multiple stray blows that land on the heroes as they pressed the beast more and more with its growls resounding through the forest amidst the endless attacks.....

But the beast must have had enough.....

Because in the next moment.... A sonic boom tore through the forest as all heroes were blown sky high, scattered in every direction through the forest.

Some slammed back first into trees, uprooting most from the sheer force of their momentum, and others crashed through the ground, tearing out the forest floor like a loaded cannon.

A circular perimeter of flatland took form with the beast at the center and all the scattered in every direction.

The forest descended into a sudden quiet, with the black wolf standing tall amidst the carnage it had unleashed, its large white horn glowing and pulsing with power.

The Heroes’ strategy had failed.