Chapter 232: One Vs All

The voice was unnervingly calm, yet it resonated with absolute clarity directly inside the minds of everyone present across the ruined battlefield. All heads snapped instinctively toward the distant edge of the wilderness, watching as a solitary, imposing Humanoid lizard walked steadily towards them. Clutched tightly in one of its massive, scaled hands was the trembling form of the small monkey, its battered head firmly secured within the reptile’s unyielding grip.

?"Is that...?" Elizabeth muttered, her eyes wide with sudden realization.

?"Stay back behind me!! The concentrated killing intent bleeding out of this single monster completely dwarfs anything I have ever encountered in my life!" Katherine reacted instantly, stepping squarely in front of Elizabeth with her crystalline blade raised.

?THUD!

?The Chief Lizard came to a slow, deliberate halt. Its predatory gaze swept disdainfully across the humans standing a short distance away, before drifting to the vast sea of shredded monster corpses littering the ground:

?"Utterly pathetic. You miserable creatures couldn’t even manage to breach their barrier," it muttered with deep disgust, lifting the cowering monkey up to eye level.

?"It-It’s not entirely our fault, My Lord! These humans possess terrifyingly strength and skills!! Your units should have supported us from the flanks, but they stupidly threw away their lives in that mass suicide play!" The monkey babbled frantically, completely ignoring the thick streams of blood leaking from its battered body.

?"Fools. My loyal soldiers willingly offered their life essence to secure my ultimate victory—it was an infinitely honorable passing. How dare you insolently label their sacrifice as stupidity?!" It roared, its voice vibrating with lethal fury.

?"We failed you, Lord Havock." The black-skinned humanoid female whispered, landing heavily a short distance behind him, smoke still curling from her scorched black hair.

?"You are all fundamentally useless. It appears this Lord will simply have to finish this trivial task with his own hands." Havock hissed. With a casual, effortless clench of its fist, the monkey’s skull shattered like a fragile watermelon. But instead of the lifeless corpse dropping to the earth, the entire body, bones; and blood, instantly disintegrated into millions of glowing red particles that streamed directly into the Chief Lizard’s body.

?"Still... insufficient." Havock rumbled. It slowly stretched both arms outward toward the blood-soaked battlefield, and the next microsecond, every single fallen carcass of the SSS-Rank variant monsters shattered into identical red energy clusters, converging like a crimson storm to plunge into the lizard’s chest.

?"Very well. This mass should suffice." It murmured with a twisted, cruel smirk, pointing a single, clawed finger directly at Katherine:

?"Die, human."

?A tiny pinprick of crimson light materialized at the tip of its finger—and in the blink of an eye, it ballooned into a terrifying, skyscraper-sized beam of concentrated red death, hurtling toward Katherine with insane, reality-warping velocity.

?"Get out of the way right now!!!!"

?Marianne instantly activated Warrior Flash to boost her agility by 300%. She materialized in a blur beside Katherine and Elizabeth, throwing her full body weight against them to shove them violently to the side just as the apocalyptic beam tore through the air where they had stood a fraction of a second prior.

?"....?!"

?BOOOOM!!!!

?Every single thing caught in the beam’s trajectory—from solid earth and scattered monster remains down to the massive defensive barrier surrounding Silverspire—was instantaneously vaporized into nonexistence.

?"...?!"

?"The barrier..."

?Everyone stared in sheer horror at the colossal, gaping tear ripped into the glowing energy dome. The protective shield flickered violently, spiderwebbing with angry fissures before shattering completely, letting out a final, mournful chime as the entire barrier network around Silverspire collapsed into nothingness.

?"A single casual attack completely obliterated a barrier that even a hundred combined SSS-Rank combatants couldn’t crack in a coordinated attack?!?" Elizabeth exclaimed, the color draining entirely from her face until she looked like a corpse.

?"What sort of monster are we even looking at?" Katherine asked, hauling herself back to her feet with the help of her sword. She cast a grateful glance toward the general:

?"Thank you, Guild Leader Marianne... That attack would have vaporized both of us instantly."

?"Think nothing of it—just keep your senses sharp and stay alert," Marianne panted through gritted teeth, her knuckles white around her sword hilt as she stared down the approaching horror:

?’This monster is undoubtedly a true Ex-Rank creature; can we even defeat it?’ She thought grimly, before shouting over her shoulder toward Denise up on the ramparts:

?"All spirit cannons—lock coordinates onto that target and fire at maximum strength!!" She shrieked at the top of her lungs.

?"Understood!!" Denise yelled back, his voice tight with panic.

?BAM!!

?All twenty heavy spirit cannons mounted along the stone wall swiveled in unison, locking their glowing barrels onto the single reptilian figure standing in the ruins, and—

?BOOOOM!!! (X20)

?They synchronized their firing circuits, unleashing twenty devastating streams of concentrated energy blasts simultaneously straight into Havock’s position.

?BOOOOM!!

?A massive, deafening mushroom cloud of smoke and pulverized stone erupted from the impact zone, kicking up a blinding wall of grey dust that forced every defender to throw their arms up to shield their eyes.

?When the dust finally began to settle, they peered through the haze, expecting to see a crater of mangled flesh—only to find Havock standing completely unblemished in the exact same spot, framed by a colossal, circular crater that spanned hundreds of meters. The lizard hadn’t even been forced to take a single step backward from the combined artillery strike.

?"....?!"

?"How on earth is its physical defense that high?!!" Denise muttered to himself in utter disbelief, his hands trembling on the sighting controls.

?"Is that truly the absolute limit of your species’ pathetic defiance?" Havock mocked, slowly stepping out of the crater with its cold eyes locked hungrily on the humans.

?"Oh? I can sense several more powerful energy signatures rapidly approaching our coordinates... Delightful. At least you brought a few appetizers to keep me amused." Havock added, a cruel grin spreading across its reptilian snout as it crossed its arms over its chest.

?"We finally made it!!"

?".....?!"

?The surviving soldiers clinging to the perimeter snapped their heads toward the inner city streets, watching in a wave of collective relief as Tyson, Daniel, Owen, Eren, Gavin, Danica, Richard, and the remaining elite SSS-Rank awakened fighters flew towards them.

?"We managed to bridge the distance just in time," Daniel announced, landing heavily upon the cracked earth and fixing a grim, furrowed gaze on the Chief Lizard.

?"There is no mistaking that aura... This thing is a genuine Ex-Rank nightmare." Tyson added quietly, his fists clenching hard.

?"Do we possess the strength to suppress an Ex-Rank?" Danica asked, leaning heavily on her carved wooden walking stick as her eyes calculated the odds.

?"That question is entirely irrelevant at this stage; if we can manage to inflict enough sustained damage to force it into a retreat, the ancient family forces should arrive with reinforcements. For now, our only plan is to hold this line at all costs." Owen declared, his aura flaring to life.

?"That remains an astronomical ’if’ under these conditions." Eren noted grimly, his sharp eyes tracking every microscopic muscle twitch in the lizard’s frame.

?"We can achieve it if we coordinate our strikes without reservation! There is zero time left for hesitation—attack now!!"

?"...?!"

?Everyone whipped their heads around toward the source of the battle cry, their jaws dropping in utter astonishment as they caught sight of the Celestial Warriors, still encased in pristine white armor and mounted on their glowing warhorses, recklessly charging headlong toward the terrifying Ex-Rank entity without an ounce of self-preservation.

?"Support them immediately!! Focus all ranged suppression spells to provide covering fire and shield the Celestial Guild!" Daniel bellowed, instantly snapping into commander mode.

?"Understood!!!" The remaining long range forces roared in unison, pouring their remaining energy into their weapons.