Chapter 584 Monster Horde
["Another High Beast passed by our hideout. Monsters keep ignoring us."] Sun Demos reported.
It had been a few days since the monsters of the Untamed Jungle started ignoring Sun Demos, the Demon Monkeys, and Tatjana's people. Several High Beasts have been sighted in the northern area of the outer rings. They've been seen hunting the invading forces of the Zentika Empire.
Currently, the tension in the Savannah Region was rising, but Michael couldn't make a move. Too many High Beasts followed by thousands of monsters passed through his territory every day. They didn't attack his subjects and ignored his territory, but that worsened the predicament. Michael had a bad feeling about this.
The monsters of the Untamed Jungle started to ignore him. How could he not be confused and worried?
It didn't take long before Michael's premonition came true. The High Beasts, more than a dozen of them, lead more than ten thousand monsters outside the Untamed Jungle to obliterate the enemy, the forces of the Zentika Empire, who dared to invade their territories over and over again.
Michael didn't quite understand why the High Beasts reacted like this against the Zentika Empire while ignoring him and his subjects, but the turn of events was not great.
He traveled to the border close to the Zentika Empire's northern camp and watched as the Beast Wave bulldozed the camps.
A humongous truck-sized serpent that was dozens of meters long smashed head-first into the first camp's walls. It charged only once, but that was enough to destroy the camp's wall. The huge serpent released tremendous energy through its head, shattering the fortified camp walls at once.
Hundreds of arrows poured onto the humongous serpent, but they were repelled easily. The serpent's scales weren't even scratched. They glimmered faintly, looking like polished onyx in the afternoon sunlight.
It didn't take long until the polished onyx-like scales stopped glimmering, dirt and blood covering the deadly beauty. The humongous serpent charged into the camp, swallowing some Soldiers alive, while bulldozing others with its heavy body. It was attacked from all sides but the onyx-like scales seemed near indestructible.
It took more than a dozen Tier-3 Knights to inflict some scratches on the surface of the High Beast. The serpent barely noticed that someone tickled it before its tale swept the Knights from the ground. The Knights were flung through the air like they didn't weigh anything. One of them crashed heavily into a massive tree, breaking the unfortunate man's spine in one go. The other Knights were luckier. Their faces smashed heavily into the soil, merely dirtying it.
No bone in their bodies was broken and they had yet to sustain heavy damage.
The Knights jumped up, ready to block the serpent's next attack when they noticed that the High Beast wasn't paying attention to them. The High Beast slithered to the center of the camp where the Commander and other powerhouses were.
Before the Knights could even think about intercepting the black serpent, dozens of beasts appeared next to them. A huge Wolf appeared in front of a young Knight, pouncing at the young fella without mercy. The wolf's claws ripped through the young Knight's throat three times in quick succession. The Knight was trying to scream for help and raise his weapons, but the energy in his body dispersed rapidly.
It took mere seconds before the world around him turned dark. He died, just like that.
The wolf kicked the lifeless body away in disinterest and turned around to face its next prey. However, before the wolf could lock onto its next target, a bony Gorilla brushed past the large wolf. The Gorilla flung a corpse through the air, picked up the wolf's dead prey, and hurled it across the camp. The corpse smashed into a group of Soldiers, the impact pushing them to the ground.
The Gorilla roared, enjoying the scenery and death around it, and charged ahead. The wolf, who would have attacked the Gorilla back in the Untamed Jungle, ignored the monster. It kicked the ground and charged past the Gorilla with its superior speed.
The enemies teamed up to obliterate their common enemy…
A Lionheart Awakened could be seen coating his entire body in black flames. The flames spread through the surroundings and burned everything in its path, whether friend or foe. Two allies, who didn't heed the Lionheart's warning, approached him and were burned on the spot. They wanted to help the Lionheart as he dealt with a dozen monsters simultaneously, only to fall victim to the black flames.
The Lionheart burned the monsters around him to cinder and didn't hesitate to charge ahead.
He was just about to aid his friends and colleagues when a sapphire-blue panther appeared in front of him. The panther's sapphire-blue fur was coated in large streams of water that shot forth with incredibly high pressure. The Lionheart had to erupt a wall of fire to block the high-pressure water stream. He retreated, his eyes widening in terror when he realized that the water pressure was not the only issue.
The sapphire-blue panther's water possessed special properties. It was infused with energy which increased the water's qualities drastically, especially the property to extinguish fire. The panther was not slow either. It kicked the ground and appeared behind the Lionheart after making a small detour around the dying firewalls.
The panther released several high-pressure water streams from a close distance and pounced at the Lionheart Awakened as well. The flames shrouding the Lionheart crackled loudly as the water extinguished them slowly. The black flames sizzled in despair and flared up again as the Lionheart unleashed his Soultrait once again. The black flames burst forth and enveloped the sapphire-blue panther, who hissed loudly.
In an instant, a bubble of water shrouded the sapphire-blue panther, the Lionheart, and his black flames, severing the flames' connection with the surrounding energy and oxygen. The sapphire-blue panther clawed the Lionheart, his fangs digging deep into the Lionheart's chest.
The Lionheart struggled to breathe. His muffled scream never reached anyone and it was only a matter of seconds before water entered the Lionheart's lungs.
The sapphire-blue panther willed the water around them to stream into the Lionheart's mouth, nose, and ears, filling the Awakened with water. The Lionheart's black flames flickered desperately but they grew dimmer. The flames evaporated some of the water around and within him, but the sapphire- blue panther's ability to conjure more water worked easily against the flames' weakening prowess.
The following seconds felt like an eternity to the Lionheart. His eyes widened in terror as he realized what was going to happen.
He was going to drown…die of suffocation tens of kilometers away from the closest river.
Many Soldiers and Awakened saw the disastrous scene in front of them. Their eyes were locked on their drowning comrade and superior, but they couldn't do anything. Their lives were on the line as well.
The situation didn't look good. The Soldiers were at a numerical disadvantage against the sudden Monster Horde. Even their strength was not on par with the monsters that attacked them out of the blue. The umpteen High Beasts would have been enough to annihilate the Zentika Empire's camps.
However, the High Beasts didn't move out alone. More than ten thousand strong monsters from the Untamed Jungle followed them.
'Is the Untamed Jungle trying to show the Zentika Empire that they're tired of its invasion? Or is there more to it?'
Before Michael got to know Sun Demos, Zeroa, the Bilrox Queen, and the Greater Nature Spirit, he would have compared monsters with ordinary animals. The only difference between monsters and animals was that monsters' bodies had been refined with origin energy.
They could grow stronger because their bodies could contain origin energy and absorb more to grow stronger. However, many monsters were more intelligent than Michael had thought before he entered the Origin Expanse. All monsters that managed to become High Beasts possessed the intelligence of a 10-year-old. They might even be more intelligent given that Zeroa and Sun Demos were still Tier-2 Monsters but intelligent enough to communicate.
Sun Demos felt like a jealous 8-year-old boy most of the time. However, at other times, Sun Demos showed a glimpse of more intelligence. Meanwhile, Zeroa was a Pseudo-Mythical Existence. She was a little bit smarter than Sun Demos, but she was still inexperienced and young. It had only been a few months since Michael managed to rescue her from the Kitsun Lord's grasp, allowing her to see the vast world of the Origin Expanse.
Michael took his experiences with intelligent monsters into consideration as he observed the umpteen High Beasts' course of action. The High Beasts attacked the strongest enemies, Awakened, and eliminated them one by one. Their targets were usually at a disadvantage against the unique powers of the High Beasts.
The massive black serpent targeted the Awakened whose physical strength was higher than the rest, the sapphire-blue panther countered the Black Flame Lionheart, while the other High Beasts did exactly the same. Meanwhile, the weaker monsters chose to bundle together and overwhelm the weaker Soldiers and Awakened with their massive numbers and overwhelming strength.
They bulldozed the four camps of the Zentika Empire in less than a day. Everything was utterly destroyed, and not a single life was spared. But the High Beasts were not yet done. They didn't invade the Zentika Empire, but they did something to demonstrate the Untamed Jungle's anger.
They dragged the corpses of the defeated to the border of the Untamed Jungle and created a line of corpses with the Soldiers and Adventurers of the Zentika Empire.
Even Michael couldn't help but shudder when he realized what the line of corpses meant.
–Cross the line, and you will end up just like them; A nameless corpse –
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