Chapter 189: It’s Already Too Late!! He is Here.
Chapter 189: It’s Already Too Late!! He is Here.
Woolie’s hoof came down like the judgment of god.
BOOM!!!
The entire battlefield shook as violet and crimson thunder exploded outward from the point of impact. The Black Dragon’s skull, already cracked and half-sunken into the earth, finally gave way under that last stomp.
A sickening crunch echoed through the ruined battlefield as its huge body convulsed once, twice, then went completely still. The black flames that had once burned so arrogantly around it flickered weakly for a few breaths before dying out altogether.
The whole battlefield fell silent as everyone looked at Woolie, who was standing on top of his opponent.
Raiden stared at the corpse of the monster that had haunted them for so long and found himself unable to speak. That damned lizard had chased them through the jungle, crushed them into the dirt, forced them to run for their lives like prey, and nearly killed all three of them more than once.
Even just minutes ago, it had still looked like some untouchable calamity. But now it was dead, like really, really dead. Its head was buried in a crater, its body charred and twisted, and the ugly arrogance in those golden eyes had disappeared forever. It was deader than dead.
All the soldiers and humans of the battlefield cheered loudly after seeing him dead. It felt like a huge burden had been lifted off their heads.
But the celebration was cut short, as a thunderous roar tore across the battlefield, so full of pain and fury that even the nearby humans flinched.
The three Diamond-Tier Terra Beasts fighting Isadora and Yuna froze mid-battle, their eyes snapping toward the corpse of the Black Dragon.
For a moment, the savage hostility in their faces vanished and was replaced by something much uglier.
Despair.
The armoured lizard let out a low, broken growl. The silver-fanged panther’s whole body trembled. Even the spiked hound, who had looked ready to bite through Godzirra’s throat a moment ago, staggered back as if its legs had gone weak beneath it.
Farther behind them, the injured Red Berserker, who had only just dragged himself halfway up from the ground, stared at the dead Black Dragon with bloodshot eyes and then released a roar so mournful that it made the blood of everyone on the battlefield run cold.
"No..." the panther spoke, its voice full of disbelief. "No... no, no, no..."
The spiked hound slowly turned its head towards the humans, towards Woolie, towards the corpse, and its expression twisted into complete hatred. "You don’t know what you have done!!!"
The armoured lizard slammed one claw into the ground hard enough to crack it apart, as it stared at Isadora and Yuna. "You fools. You have just invited a calamity upon your own heads!!"
Red Berserker, whose earlier arrogance had been smashed right alongside his skull, now looked almost mad as he forced himself up on shaking legs, breaking into an arrogant laughter.
"Hahaha!!! Just wait for your death!! All of you!! Every single one of you will die here today with us!!"
The panther spoke in a low growl as he faced them. "You should not have done that...you should have let him live...you should have bowed your heads and prayed he spared you."
Their words rolled across the battlefield like a curse, and what made them frightening was not just the hatred in them. No, it was the despair.
None of those beasts sounded like they were threatening people out of pride anymore. They genuinely felt terrified and afraid of something.
Raiden felt that they weren’t afraid of the three tyrants in the sky that were still fighting. No, those were maybe semi-mythical Terra Beasts, but they were still Diamond Tier. Whatever would scare them was something even scarier.
Raiden’s expression tightened as he thought about that.
’Something has gone really, really wrong. But what can scare them so much?!’
These were Diamond-Tier Terra Beasts. A few moments ago they had been fighting like bodyguards willing to die for their so-called young master, but now that he was dead, they sounded terrified because something far worse would happen to them because they had failed.
This reaction was not limited to them either.
Across the battlefield, the countless Terra Beasts who had formed the horde began to panic. At first it was only a few of the closer ones, the beasts who had personally witnessed the Black Dragon’s death.
They stepped back with frightened whimpers, their bodies shivering as they looked from the corpse to the sky and then back again. Then more of them started reacting. One by one, then in clusters, then in entire waves, the beasts began turning around and running away in panic.
It was pure chaos.
The same horde that had been charging at the human lines with mindless violence moments ago was now breaking apart in every direction.
Bronze and Silver beasts trampled one another in their desperation to escape. Gold-Tier beasts, which should have had more discipline than that, were no better.
Some roared, some shrieked, some didn’t even dare make noise at all and simply fled with their tails tucked low. The sight left every soldier and Battle Master present frozen in shock.
They were not retreating because their commander had died. They were retreating because they were afraid. Afraid of whatever was coming.
John, still standing farther back with a bloody partner, looked at the scattering horde with a pale face. "I got it...He’s really the leader..." he whispered hoarsely. "Not those semi-mythical monsters... him. That Black Dragon was leading all of the Beast Horde. He was the key commander!!! Not those Three Terra Beasts, but him!!!"
All the humans flinched after hearing John’s words. The atmosphere had changed once again. Victory should have tasted sweet, but a solemn mood fell over the crowd instead.
The Black Dragon was dead, the beast tide was breaking, and Woolie had just done the impossible. Isadora and Yuna had held back the Diamond beasts, beating them up easily, while Old Man Sol and Tobias had the upper hand in the fight in the sky.
By all logic, this should have been the moment where everyone breathed out in relief.
Instead, nobody relaxed or cheered.
The words spoken by the enemy had affected the field too deeply. Every person who heard them was now glancing around with tense eyes, trying to understand what sort of existence could make Diamond-Tier Terra Beasts despair at the death of their master rather than go berserk in revenge.
Woolie himself stood over the Black Dragon’s corpse with thunder still crackling over his black wool, his chest rising and falling from exertion.
Even he could feel it. His ears twitched once, and his narrowed eyes swept over the fleeing horde, the three grieving protectors, and the sky above them.
Neva climbed slightly higher up Raiden’s shoulder and held onto his collar more tightly than before. Even the little one had gone quiet now as she fixed her eyes in the distance.
Phoenix circled overhead with blazing wings, while Godzirra stood like a moving fortress beside Yuna, both of them no longer pressing the advantage.
They had also felt something as they fixed their eyes on horizons with tense faces. Isadora’s eyes narrowed dangerously as she looked at the panther and the lizard. She did not like mysteries like this one
"Speak up!! What do you mean by disaster? What is coming? Who did we provoke?!"
Instead of replying to her, Red Berserker started a bitter, broken laugh that sounded more painful than any roar. Blood dripped from his mouth as he looked at Woolie.
"Enjoy this while you can, little Emperor," he sneered. "You have killed the one being whose death should never have happened in this place."
The armoured lizard lowered its head in fear as he spoke,
"We failed our young master."
The silver-fanged panther’s body started trembling in fear. "And now all of us die."
"What do you mean by those words??" He started over a question loudly, causing his opponent to just shake his head as he looked up in the sky.
"It’s Already Too Late!! He is Here."
Those words had barely settled over the field when the light above them changed.
Raiden felt it first as a sudden chill crawling across his skin. Then the battlefield dimmed.
The fires were still burning, the storm clouds still moved, and the Phoenix still shone like a miniature sun in the sky.
And yet, despite all that, a massive shadow suddenly spread across the broken land and swallowed everything beneath it. The shadow was so massive that it covered the whole battlefield, blocking out the sun.
Feeling the gigantic pressure, Raiden took a deep gulp before slowly turning his head upwards, with every head on the battlefield turning upwards with him.
And what they saw made their blood run cold.