Malla peeled herself from the cracked wall, not like a person rising, but like a nightmare given flesh separating from its mooring. Blood, dark and viscous, streamed from the deep, jagged gouges that had been her forearms just moments ago. Yet, even as Elisha watched, the wounds were already knitting with terrifying, unnatural speed, the skin rippling and sealing itself with a grotesque efficiency that made his stomach clench.
—it was the signature, one of the many dreadful gifts the Prairie’s intermingled bloodlines had never let the wider world forget.
ROAAAAAR!
Elisha’s ears rang from her roar. It wasn't just a shout; it was a single, deafening bellow that seemed to carry the weight of millennia: the memory of the first horned child born of a Rank 9 Golden Bull and a human maiden, the tenacious bloodlines that followed, and the diluted, yet still potent, gifts that made every Beastman born, even the 'mixed' generations, inherently stronger, faster, and deadlier than the purest human prodigy.
And sometimes, far, far less sane.
Malla’s crimson eyes, currently blazing with unrestrained bloodlust, snapped and fixed on Elisha with laser-like precision.
“You…” she snarled, the single word thick and wet with pure, undisguised murder-lust. Her lips peeled back from perfectly human, yet predatory, teeth. “You look tender
She didn't run; she launched, the speed of her charge blurring the distance between them. The heavy thud of her hooves against the stone floor echoed like war drums.
Elisha met her monstrous momentum with a desperate, low-slung kick aimed not at her body, but at the joint of her knee, three white snakes of Qi encompassing his attack. The impact was like a cannon going off, but it was he who paid the price. The force hurled him backwards like a discarded child’s doll, his combat boots scoring fresh, deep grooves into the unforgiving stone floor as he skidded.
He twisted mid-air, using the momentum and the wall as a momentary springboard, and then his personal burst of speed.
Elisha appeared right behind Malla.
The white blade of his sword, forged in the fires of the Praetorian Forge, sliced out. It met the leathery, unnaturally tough surface of her forearm, a strike he intended to sever.
*Steel bit deep—*then, sickeningly, .
The wound closed almost as fast as it opened, muscle fibres beneath the tearing skin writhing and interlocking like angry, pale snakes. His sword was momentarily locked, a tiny fissure in an already-repaired wall of flesh.
Before Elisha could capitalise on Malla's momentary defensive stance, Ocelot vanished.
.
The surprise attack was delivered from an impossibly tight angle. Elisha spun, his white sword leaving Malla and meeting the black steel of Ocelot’s weapons in a blinding storm of sparks. Dozens of blows were exchanged in mere heartbeats, the sound a mechanical chatter against the heavy silence of the crypt. Ocelot’s spinning disc-tonfa, meant to cleave and crush, screamed towards his own back.
Malla’s heavy, iron-shod hoof was already there, descending from above like a falling mountain.
Elisha threw himself violently sideways, a desperate, graceless lunge that saved his life. The attacks of the other two Praetorians collided instead, an unplanned, terrible synchronicity of destruction. The shockwave of the impact, metal against hide-covered bone, cracked the already fractured floor in a starburst pattern.
The three combatants separated violently, each leaping back to establish a momentary distance, all breathing hard, the rhythm of battle a jagged, frantic thing.
Ocelot wiped a thin line of blood from his whiskers, his unnerving smile widening. He surveyed the two combatants: Elisha, covered in dust and sweat, and Malla, her eyes still smoking with malice, like a bored spectator at a gladiatorial match.
“Well, this is unexpected,” Ocelot chuckled, tilting his head. “I honestly thought you two were working together. Turns out Rolando really did betray us, and it looks like someone snuck in too.” His gaze flicked between them, a swift, mercenary assessment, like a merchant weighing gold. “Tell me, little dragon… if I hand you Sagat’s hidden treasures, whatever trinkets he stashed away, instead of this woman, will you let me walk away with my wanted prize?”
Malla’s heavy horns lowered, scraping the air. The madness that had fueled her initial charge sharpened into something far colder, a predatory calculation.
However, Ocelot kept his mouth running: “Third-generation Sacar goat,” he crooned, spinning one tonfa until it became a shrieking black disc. “Still believes the old stories. Tell me, beast, how many of your kind did we chain in Avi-Sena before the Overlords descended? How many cities did they burn to glass just to keep your filthy blood free? Rhodar only tolerates you because the real monsters would flatten the continent if we tried again. One day the leash returns. And I will buckle it myself.”
The words struck deeper than any blade.
Malla froze.
For one terrible heartbeat, the madness in her eyes crystallised into something ancient, ancestral, incandescent.
“My grandmother,” she whispered, voice cracking the ceiling with its volume, “was born the year the Overlords tore the sky open above Luztar. Ten thousand slavers for every horned child they touched. Ten thousand pyres. Ten thousand screams.”
She turned, not towards Elisha, but towards Ocelot.
The temperature in the room plummeted.
“I will paint these walls with your intestines,” she promised, “before I ever wear iron again.”
Then she charged.
Hooves pulverised stone. Horns lowered like siege lances. The very air screamed in her wake.
Ocelot’s manic smile faltered for the first time. However, he felt in control. Nothing like an enraged beast, easier to handle than a calculative one.
Elisha was hyper-aware of his surroundings, every muscle coiled. He was taking care of the direction to the cells where Nerion and the others waited for rescue; and, most pressingly, to the sonic boom that was Sagat, the monstrous Legate, who was already shaking the very foundations of the mountain above them.
He didn’t hesitate. He knew that his only chance for living was to join the maelstrom of the chaotic battle.
Three predators collided in an explosion of blood, steel and horn.
The mountain itself trembled.
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And far above, Sagat’s sonic boom finally shattered the dawn sky like the wrath of an angry god.
The mountain screamed as Sagat returned.
He punched through the entrance tunnel at supersonic speed, the shockwave of his arrival collapsing lesser passages behind him in avalanches of dust and screaming stone. His roar rolled ahead like artillery:
“RHODAR INVASION! TRAPS! KILL ANYTHING THAT MOVES!”
Mercenaries scattered, faces white. Runes flared. Bombs armed themselves with hungry clicks.
Sagat did not slow. He blurred through corridor after corridor, tiger-striped cloak snapping like a war banner. The stench of slaughter hit him first: bowels, blood, burnt hair. Bodies lay in pieces, some still twitching, some smeared across walls in red abstracts. Beastman work. Malla’s work.
His face twisted into something inhuman.
He reached the central cavern in heartbeats, boots cracking the floor with every landing. Dozens of surviving Tigers knelt, awaiting orders.
Then the first distant explosion came, rolling thunder from the outer tunnels. Then another. And another.
Rolando’s voice echoed faintly behind the blasts, laughing.
Sagat snarled. No time.
He spun towards the hidden vault corridor, already calculating escape vectors and the “gifts” for the Rhodarian dog.
And stopped dead.
Every hair on his body rose at once. Cold sweat burst across his skin like frost.
Ten paces ahead, blocking the passage, stood an old man.
Ragged cloak. Bare feet caked in cave dust. A smile missing half its teeth.
A beggar anyone would step over in the street and forget the next minute.
But Sagat’s instincts, honed across centuries of slaughter, shrieked the same word over and over:
The kind that ate Legates for breakfast. Minutes crawled by in suffocating silence. Sagat did not breathe. Did not blink.
Then footsteps, unhurried, arrogant, echoed from the main hall behind him.
Rolando strode in, cloak scorched, one arm cradling a dying companion, the other companion limping. Blood streaked his handsome face, but his smile was a razor.
“Hahahaha, Sagat, my dear Sagat. You do have exquisite taste. Luminous pearls everywhere. Your mercenaries were… spirited. Cost me three shields and half my patience. But worry not. I’ll make sure to get my due… with interest.”
Then, he stopped.
Saw Sagat’s rigid back.
Followed his gaze.
And felt his soul laid bare.
The old vagrant turned his head with lazy curiosity. Sunken eyes, the colour of winter graves, met Rolando’s.
The Monarch’s knees nearly buckled.
Killing intent, thick as tar, poured into the cavern. Not directed, not yet, simply present. The air itself seemed to bow. Luminous pearls dimmed as if ashamed.
Rolando’s Heart and Will, forged in a hundred battlefields, cracked like thin ice, two names echoing in his mind:
He had felt one only a few times before, and those times from men who could erase cities with a thought.
Sweat poured down his temples. Qi surged in frantic circles, trying to push back the invisible tide. After agonising seconds, he managed to wrap a trembling sphere of his own Monarch Will around himself and his two wounded men, barely enough to move.
He dropped into the lowest bow his pride allowed.
“Greetings, Senior,” he croaked, voice trembling despite himself. “This junior has no quarrel with Senior. If Senior has business with this mercenary, please allow this junior to assist. A misunderstanding, nothing more.”
Inside, he screamed curses that would have blistered steel. An Emperor. Here. Now. I should have waited for my Tribe reinforcements. It was too late now; he had already rushed for glory like a starving dog.
The old man, Mikael, scratched his stubbled cheek with dirty nails and gave them both the same toothless, almost kindly smile.
“Youngsters,” he rasped, voice like dry leaves over graves, “I’m going to ask a small favour.” He lifted one gnarled finger. “Stand very, very still for a few minutes. That’s all.”
His eyes flicked to the ceiling, as if listening to something only he could hear. “If everything goes as I hope… nobody has to die today.”
Internally, Mikael’s heart thundered. He knew better than anyone he was little more than a
His Qi reserves were a joke. The drop of Millennial Stone Milk had let him stretch this Domain for perhaps several minutes at most. Were he in this prime, This Will Domain would be more than enough for him to smother them with ease. That was the difference between mid-tier and high-tiered Warriors. A close to insurmountable difference.
Fortunately, they didn’t know that he wasn’t at his peak.
And these earned minutes, Mikael thought, watching the distant corridor where the children’s fate was being decided, would be enough. They had to be.
The cavern held its breath. Two apex predators stood frozen like statues, sweat carving rivers down their faces, while a toothless old beggar held their lives in the palm of his trembling hand.
The dungeon air was thick with fear-sweat, rust, and the faint, sickly-sweet perfume that clung to the chained woman like dying roses.
Nerion padded forward on silent feet, drawn by something older than curiosity.
The woman’s beauty was wrong: too perfect, too still, like a statue carved from moonlight and malice. Chains of black iron bit into her wrists, yet her eyes—ancient, glacial—watched him without blinking.
“Beautiful Big Sister,” he whispered, voice soft as falling ash, “are you okay?”
Roxy’s hand clamped his shoulder like a vice.
“Don’t. She’s killed four guards already. One touch and you’re dead, Nerion.”
However, Eliana’s small voice cut through the tension.
“Please… she protected me. Every time they came for me, she threatened to rip their souls out. She’s weakening fast. Their boss is waiting until she has nothing left… then he’ll break her.”
Ailan’s fists clenched. “We free her. Now,” his young heart eager to protect the person who had protected his sister.
The beautiful woman remained perfectly still, her thoughts locked away. Nerion nodded, taking a final, determined step toward the cage.
Then he froze. His head snapped towards the dungeon entrance. Every instinct screamed inside him.
The others turned. Horror soon ensnared their young hearts.
Framed in the doorway stood a mountain of copper fur and muscle. Arms too long, knuckles dragging, tail flicking like a whip. Ron filled the entire archway, fangs glinting in a lazy smile.
“A Beastman of Rhodar,” Roxy breathed, daggers already in hand, sweat icing her spine.
Ron’s nostrils flared, scenting the room.
“Oh? A mercenary and five tasty brats. Sagat’s captives as well? It doesn’t matter, I’m afraid. Orders are orders: no witnesses.”
Silvestre, Ailan, Lucca, and Eliana felt the shiver of pure, unconcealed malice in his smile. They were trapped, facing a problem beyond their collective strength.
Nerion’s eyes went star-wide instead.
“Woooow… you’re a real Beastman! You’re huge! Those arms are longer than Big Brother Elisha’s legs! And your tail—does it wag when you’re happy?”
Ron blinked. Then puffed his chest, flattered despite himself.
“Heh. Kid’s got taste. Yes, little one. I am Ron of the Sacar Tribe, Praetorian of Rhodar. Proud blood runs in these veins.”
Nerion trotted closer, head tilted in pure wonder.
“Tell me the story! Please! My big brother says the first Beastman was born from a really powerful Golden Bull who loved a human girl. Is that true?”
Ron knelt, copper tail curling with pride.
“Exactly right. Lord Golden Bull, a mighty Beast Lord, took human shape, loved the maiden, and their son came out horned and perfect. Shunned at first, he grew to Legend, founded the Great Tribe of Taurus. From such unions we all descend: stronger, faster, prouder.”
Nerion was practically under his chin now, eyes shining.
“So cool… Big Brother Beastman, we’re just lost kids. The bad men locked us here. We’re so hungry. Could the mighty Beastman help us escape? Pretty please?”
Ron’s smile turned gentle, then razor-sharp.
“Sorry, kid. Commander’s orders. No one who’s seen us leaves alive. Especially Ansaran brats. But I promise, your deaths will be painless. A warrior’s mercy.” Ron, a true soldier of Rhodar, would never disobey his commander. The material they sought was too valuable; no witnesses could be allowed to escape.
A single tear rolled down Nerion’s cheek.
“Sniff… you know what?”
He looked up, voice tiny and heartbroken.
“You’re actually kinda ugly.”
Ron’s brain stalled, processing the insult, the words incomprehensible against the backdrop of flattery. His brow furrowed, “What did you…”
Nerion vanished.
Reappeared between Ron’s legs.
And drove every ounce of Qi into the most honourable strike a six-year-old genius could deliver: a perfect, rising uppercut straight into the Praetorian’s dangling, oversized testicles.
The sound was wet, meaty, and utterly catastrophic. Ron’s eyes bulged. A strangled wheeze escaped his throat. Bile rose.
Lucca was already moving, double-leg flying kick to the back of Ron’s knee.
Silvestre charged like a meat cannonball, Qi exploding in his fist, slamming into Ron’s lowered guard.
The Praetorian flew, crashing into crates.
Roxy blurred behind him, twin daggers plunging deep into his torso. A flawless ambush and combo. However, their success was shortly lived. The daggers stopped dead, blades trapped in muscle like ironwood.
Ron’s eyes bled red.
Every hair bristled. Muscles ballooned. Arms lengthened further, knuckles dragging sparks across stone. He looked less man, more primaeval ape.
SLAP!
A casual backhand caught Roxy mid-breath. She flew, bones shattering like dry twigs, blood arcing in a crimson ribbon.
Ron plucked one dagger from his flesh and flicked it.
The blade pinned Eliana’s calf to the floor. She screamed.
“Well,” he rumbled, voice a landslide, “never drop your guard in enemy territory. Excellent acting, kid. I’ll remember to return the favour… tenfold.”
Ailan and Eliana stared in naked horror.
Nerion, Lucca, and Silvestre formed a trembling line.
Then Nerion’s eyes glazed for a fraction of a second, a voice only he could hear.
He made one tiny hand signal behind his back.
His brothers’ faces hardened in unison.
The next heartbeat would decide who left this dungeon breathing.