I Built a Divine Zoo in Another World

Chapter 126: The King’s Guards (5)

The five corpses of the Royal Guards had not even completely hit the ground when Clavor raised his sword, pointing it at the three remaining monsters.

The blade was still dripping with black blood, and the silver glow of the mana surrounding it pulsed at a rapid rhythm, as if the weapon itself were alive, hungry for more battle.

His eyes held no satisfaction. There was no pride in his chest as he looked upon the bodies piling up around him.

Each fallen Guard represented not a victory but an obstacle overcome on the path toward something greater. Only determination.

A calculated coldness born from years of battle, from knowing that the enemy did not care how many of its soldiers died, so long as it emerged victorious in the end.

"Count!"

Clavor’s voice cut through the air like his sword, firm and unwavering. It was not a request. It was a statement, an acknowledgment that the moment had arrived.

Hark responded immediately. His body, though covered in wounds and streaked with poison, straightened with the rigidity of a man who still had far more strength to give. The spear in his hands spun, its golden tip tracing an arc through the air.

"Let’s finish this."

There was no need for more words. The two had fought together long enough to know exactly what the other would do. Clavor shifted his weight onto his front leg, preparing to charge. Hark adjusted the angle of his spear, aiming for the space between the three Guards.

Their eyes met for a brief instant, and within that glance lay the entire strategy they needed.

The two charged.

The ground exploded beneath their feet. The earth, already soaked with blood and torn apart by battle, gave way beneath the force of their launch, leaving small craters where they had been standing. Chunks of soil and grass were blasted backward like shrapnel.

Mana surged through their bodies like rivers of light. Clavor shone with a silver radiance, every vein illuminated from within as though his blood were made of liquid sunlight. The energy concentrated within his sword, causing the blade to vibrate with such intensity that it distorted the surrounding air.

Hark, meanwhile, was enveloped in a golden glow that flowed along the entire length of his spear, from tip to butt, leaving a luminous trail wherever it passed.

Their speed was so overwhelming that, for an instant, Lukas lost sight of both of them. His Eagle Vision, which normally allowed him to follow even the fastest movements, was momentarily overwhelmed by the intensity of the mana they released.

He blinked, forcing his eyes to adjust, and when he opened them again, the two warriors were already halfway to the Guards.

The three monsters noticed their approach. There was no hesitation in their movements, but there was something resembling caution.

The speedster, whose lean, elongated body seemed made entirely of muscles and tendons designed for motion, was the first to react. Its gray skin shimmered with a metallic sheen, and its hind legs coiled like springs.

Its body vanished into a gray blur. Its speed was so extreme that the air around it seemed to bend, creating shockwaves that rippled in every direction.

The soldiers who tried to follow it with their eyes felt nauseous, their brains unable to process the sheer speed of its movement.

The speedster completely circled the soldiers’ formation, its footsteps so light they barely touched the ground. Within seconds, it had crossed the clearing’s perimeter and appeared behind Hark, its claws outstretched to tear through the warrior’s armor from behind.

But the Count seemed to have expected exactly that.

Without even looking back, Hark spun his spear. The movement was so swift that it seemed to have been practiced a thousand times. The shaft of the weapon, reinforced with golden mana, collided with the monster’s body in the middle of its charge. There was no time to dodge. There was no room to retreat.

The impact was brutal. The crash echoed through the clearing like the crack of nearby thunder. The speedster’s body, which only moments earlier had been moving at an impossible speed, was abruptly halted in its path.

The force of Hark’s strike was so immense that the Guard was hurled backward, its body tracing an arc through the air before crashing into a centuries-old tree.

The wood cracked beneath the impact. The trunk, which had taken decades to grow, split down the middle, and the tree slowly began to topple sideways. Leaves and branches rained across the clearing as the creature slid down the trunk, leaving a trail of black blood behind.

Before it could stand, before its eyes could even focus again, Clavor appeared before it. The warrior had crossed the distance between them in a single leap, his sword already descending.

The blade fell.

The cut was clean, precise, and surgical. The creature’s head rolled across the blood-soaked grass, its eyes still open in an expression of surprise that would never fade. The speedster’s body convulsed for a brief moment before becoming still, the mana sustaining its life slowly dissipating into the air.

The first of the remaining three had fallen.

The Guard covered in spikes let out a furious roar. The sound was different from the others, sharper, more piercing, like metal grinding against metal.

Its entire body began to vibrate, and the spikes covering its back trembled in unison, like bells on the verge of ringing.

Every spike on its back vibrated simultaneously. The air around the creature seemed to warp from the concentration of mana, and tiny black sparks began to leap between the spikes.

Then they launched.

Hundreds of black projectiles filled the sky. Each spike was as sharp as a sword blade, and every one carried a significant amount of black mana, making the impact even more devastating.

The storm of projectiles spread in every direction, but most of them converged upon the soldiers’ formation.

"Shields!"

The captain roared the command, his voice cracking through the air like a whip. The twenty soldiers immediately raised their defenses, their armor glowing with the light of the strengthening magic that was still active.

The sound of the impacts echoed throughout the clearing. It was like a hailstorm striking the forest, except every "hailstone" was sharp enough to pierce flesh and bone.

The soldiers’ shields trembled beneath the rain of spikes, some already beginning to crack under the relentless barrage.