Chapter 216: I Missed You, Young Master
The battlefield of the Demigods had long since stopped resembling a desert. It looked like the world was ending. Entire sections of land had vanished beneath rivers of molten sand and collapsed earth. Gigantic craters stretched for hundreds of meters while storms of fire and lightning ravaged the skies endlessly.
In the center of the destruction, the horned beast battled two Demigods at once.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!
Hakim’s flaming fist collided against the beast’s claw once more, but this time, instead of lightning, fire exploded outward. Dark crimson flames. The instant they appeared, even Hakim’s expression changed slightly.
The heat tripled instantly, the desert below melted deeper, and the sky warped from temperature alone.
"What?!" Hakim shot backward through the air, narrowly avoiding a wave of crimson flames that erased a dune completely from existence.
The beast smiled and stomped downward.
KRAAAAAAAAAASH!!!
The earth exploded upward violently. Massive stone pillars erupted beneath Forta from all directions simultaneously, moving with impossible speed. They weren’t crude attacks either. They were precise.
Forta roared as his own earth element erupted outward.
BOOOOOOM!
The desert answered him. Gigantic walls of stone rose around his body while golden lines spread across the terrain like veins. The incoming pillars shattered against his defenses, but the force still pushed him backward.
"It’s using multiple elements now!" Hakim shouted.
"No," Forta answered grimly while crushing another incoming boulder with a punch.
"It was always capable of it."
The realization chilled them both. A multi-elemental Tier 3 beast, a Demigod among beasts, and one with intelligence rivaling humans. That combination was horrifying.
...
Far behind them, near the outskirts of the battlefield, Risa stood atop a massive formation of vines spreading across the desert like a living forest. Her eyes glowed bright green as countless glowing plants surrounded her.
This was her Zone Creation. A one-kilometer domain of healing life. Any injured warrior dragged into the zone recovered rapidly. Exhaustion faded, broken bones mended, and poison was purified almost instantly. Even the heat from the battlefield lessened inside her domain.
The vines moved constantly, protecting, healing, and supporting everyone inside it. And now, they extended toward Hakim and Forta as well. Green energy surged through the roots and entered their bodies remotely. Hakim immediately felt his burned arm recovering. Forta’s cracked stone armor restored itself.
Risa exhaled softly.
"Keep pushing them farther..."
The moment she finished speaking, the beast roared again.
ROOOOOOOOOOOOAR!!!
The skies trembled, while flames disappeared from its body entirely. The desert glowed as golden cracks spread outward rapidly. Forta’s eyes widened.
"MOVE!" He shouted too late.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!
The earth itself exploded. Entire sections of desert rose upward before collapsing violently inward like gigantic jaws trying to devour everything. Mountains of stone erupted beneath Hakim while molten earth burst from below Forta.
This was the earth element, perfectly controlled. The beast had switched again, and worse... It adapted frighteningly fast.
Hakim blasted through molten stone using fire propulsion while Forta wrestled against the collapsing terrain itself, veins bulging beneath his armor. The horned beast stood amidst the destruction calmly. It was clearly enjoying the fight. Only if they knew it was all a game for it.
Meanwhile, far closer to Senkeht, Bahamut cut another beast apart.
SHIIING!
Iron Fang cleaved through the charging wolf cleanly from skull to tail. Blood exploded across the battlefield while the corpse split into pieces behind him. Bahamut moved immediately afterward. His golden eagle eyes scanned the battlefield through the blood and smoke while his sword danced endlessly through flesh and bone.
A beast lunged from the side. He twisted, and his blade flashed: A head flew into the air. Another beast attacked from behind: his wings burst outward briefly.
FWOOOSH!
Golden feathers scattered as he spun and cut through three beasts at once. The warriors nearby stared in awe and terror. Bahamut wasn’t fighting like a human anymore. He fought like a predator. He didn’t waste movements. It was only slaughter. It wasn’t as if he tried to hide, but he was really holding himself back.
He suddenly froze. A voice echoed inside his mind suddenly. It was soft, calm, and strangely familiar.
"I missed you, Young Master."
Bahamut’s pupils shrank instantly. His sword halted midway through another strike. The battlefield noise dimmed around him. That voice: He knew it, like an instinct buried deep inside his soul. But the language, he couldn’t understand it, and yet somehow he understood perfectly. His heart started pounding violently as a strange warmth spread through his chest.
Then came another feeling. Fear. It was not ordinary fear. It was the kind that came with meeting something ancient, something deeply connected to you. Bahamut slowly turned his head toward the distant desert beyond the battlefield. Toward the storm, the battlefield of the Tier 3s. His gaze landed on the Tier 3 beast that was now using fire, lightning, and earth elements simultaneously.
"Is it also a chimera?" Bahamut asked himself as he took in the beast’s full appearance when something hit him.
"Wha-!"
"Focus, idiot!" The voice was deep, but it was still familiar. He would recognize that voice anywhere. It was Ren. He had thrown a scale of the wyrm at him. Bahamut turned to him and was more than shocked to see him in his humanoid form.
"It happened faster than I expected!" Bahamut exclaimed as he grabbed a cat by the tail and used it to bash a wolf away, killing both beasts.
"I love it! I’m taller than you like this! Hahaha!" Ren exclaimed as he kicked the supposed power solar wyrm a few meters away. The wyrm looked even more pitiful than the dead beasts.
"When are you gonna kill it?" Bahamut asked as he kicked a snake in the head, completely erasing it from existence.
"It’s crying for its child. It really had an egg, it seems..."
"Just kill it!"
"We can use it. It’s tameable."
"For once, you are right..."
"I’m always right. You fail to notice it."
"Meaning you are not always right."
"Motherfucker!"
