Chapter 163: The Hunt [7]

The sky above the mountain crags was ablaze with hundreds of falling, fire-tipped arrows, descending like a rain of dying stars upon Tribe Leader Agrea.

Midway through their trajectory, the hidden Martial General of the Glorious Mythical Sect raised his hand beneath his low hood and snapped his fingers a second time.

SPARK-BOOM!

The faint, ordinary fire clinging to the arrowheads violently expanded into a terrifying sea of infernal heat.

The flames spiraled out of control, feeding directly off the hidden General’s dense fire mana.

The intense temperature warped the surrounding atmosphere, causing spatial ripples to distort the air as the flaming rain accelerated toward the solitary leopard-man on the cliff.

Agrea looked up at the inferno, letting out a heavy, resonant snort of pure contempt.

"Cowardly vermin," Agrea growled, his voice carrying the full weight of a seasoned warrior.

"Hiding your face while playing with ember sparks... do you truly think a wild fire can consume the mountain wind?!"

Agrea planted his feet into the solid bedrock and opened his arms wide.

His dense, violet-tinted mana erupted from his core like a geyser, surging directly into the surrounding natural currents.

"Wind Domain: Heavenly Tempest!"

WHOOOOOOSH!

A terrifying, mountain-shattering windstorm materialized around Agrea in an instant.

The gales whipped up tons of rock, dirt, and fine dust, obscuring the mountain ledge in a blinding, swirling cloud of debris.

Yet, as the gale collided head-on with the descending inferno, the sheer volume of thermal energy didn’t extinguish immediately—instead, the wild winds caught the flames, turning the storm into a swirling, blinding vortex of roaring fire and flying grit!

Agrea’s sharp, glowing feline eyes cut right through the chaos. With absolute precision and control over the wind nature, he thrust his right arm forward into the heart of his tempest.

FSHHH-CRACK!

From the swirling currents, four massive, condensed Wind Spears—each ten feet long and spinning at blinding speeds—condensed out of thin air.

The wind pressure around the spears was so immense that it sheared through stone outcroppings like a hot knife through butter.

"Return to your graves!" Agrea roared, throwing his arm downward.

THUNDER-CLAP!

The four wind spears shot down the mountain slope at supersonic speeds, leaving behind vacuum trails in the dust.

The impact was catastrophic.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The wind spears slammed directly into the dense formations of human hunters. Upon contact with the ground, the condensed air inside the spears detonated like massive kinetic warheads.

The shockwaves tore through flesh, chainmail, and bone without distinction.

Dozens upon dozens of mundane human archers and foot soldiers were instantly turned into shredded, crimson mist.

Blood, broken limbs, and shattered armor rained down upon the rocky slopes.

While the surrounding Martial Warriors managed to leap backward or use their reinforced bodies to survive the peripheral shockwaves, even the Martial Masters leading the platoons were forced to cough up blood, their chest plates cracked and their internal organs rattled by the sheer force of a Martial General’s elemental strike.

Agrea’s eyes burned with cold, unyielding malice.

He had no intention of allowing his enemies a moment to catch their breath.

Without pausing for half a second, Agrea raised his left hand, his claws digging into the air as he commanded the surrounding currents once more.

FSH-FSH-FSH-FSH-FSH-FSH!

Six more massive wind spears materialized around his body, humming with lethal, violet-tinged mana.

Without aiming at any specific target, Agrea unleashed them blindly into the crowded, torch-lit mountain paths below!

CRACK-BANG-SPLATT!

The six wind projectiles ploughed indiscriminately through the human host, carving wide, bloody trenches through the ranks.

Screams of agony filled the night air as human bodies were impaled, severed, and thrown over the cliffside into the abyss below.

Seeing his army being systematically slaughtered by a single beastman, the primary Martial Master commanding the hunt wiped blood from his mouth and drew his heavy broadsword, his face twisted in desperate rage.

"HE IS DRAINED! HE CANNOT SUSTAIN THIS POWER FOREVER!" the Martial Master screamed, his voice echoing across the crags.

"CHARGE! ADVANCE AND OVERWHELM HIM! A HUNDRED GOLD PIECES FOR THE HEAD OF AGREA!"

"KILL THE BEAST!"

"FOR THE GOLD OF KAELOS CITY!"

A bloodthirsty battle cry erupted from hundreds of surviving hunters.

Driven by a volatile mix of terror, greed, and fanatic hatred, the wave of humans charged up the narrow stone pathway, swarming toward Agrea like ravenous wolves.

Agrea stood his ground at the cave threshold, his face stone-cold as he watched the oncoming wave.

A Martial General was not an existence to be trifled with by mere numbers.

Agrea’s connection to the Wind Nature had reached its absolute climax through decades of life-and-death combat.

Agrea swept his double-headed spear in a wide, horizontal arc.

"Tornado Cleave!"

ROAR!

A hundred-foot-tall tornado surged forward from his spear, sweeping up the pathway and tearing through the front ranks of the rushing hunters.

Men were lifted into the air, their bodies crushed by the centrifugal force before being hurled against the mountain cliffs.

Yet, despite the grotesque display of violence, the human hunters did not stop. They pushed forward over the fresh corpses of their comrades, closing the distance step by step.

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

Suddenly, a coordinated salvo rang out from the middle ranks.

Dozens of Martial Warriors—the elite infantry of Kaelos City—focused their internal mana cores simultaneously.

They thrust their hands forward, unleashing dozens of compressed, high-velocity Mana-Infused Aerial Bullets—a signature long-range martial technique taught strictly within the military academies of Kaelos City.

The dense projectiles of raw, white mana whistled through the night air, aiming for Agrea’s vital points.

Agrea’s feline instincts kicked into overdrive.

"Could this be what killed my precious Yaller?" Agrea frowned. "Damn this despicable scums"

He spun his heavy spear like a shield, the whirling metal deflecting several mana bullets into the cliffside with loud CLANGs.

Instead of remaining on the defensive, Agrea exploded forward, stepping straight out of the defensive circle!

BOOM!

His physical speed reached a blinding threshold as he plunged directly into the dense crowd of charging hunters.

What followed was a horrific, grotesque display of martial supremacy.

Agrea moved like a silver blur among the human soldiers. His spear thrusts were lightning-fast, piercing three throats with a single strike.

His iron claws tore through iron breastplates, disemboweling Martial Warriors before they could even raise their blades.

Heads rolled down the stone steps like fallen fruit.

Decapitated torsos collapsed onto the bloody rocks, showering the pathway in hot, crimson gore.

A single beastman was holding back an entire army, transforming the mountain ledge into a brutal slaughterhouse littered with hundreds of human remains.

It was a bizarre, terrifying spectacle that sent chills down the spines of the surviving human officers.

Meanwhile, standing far in the rear, comfortably positioned on a high stone ridge overlooking the massacre, stood the hidden elder of the Glorious Mythical Sect.

He watched the slaughter unfold with his hands tucked into his long sleeves, his lopsided, predatory grin broadening as he observed Agrea’s heaving chest and the subtle tremor beginning to form in the leopard-man’s spear-arm.

"Not yet..." the elder whispered softly to himself, his dark eyes flickering with absolute, cold-blooded patience.

"Bleed a little more, beast... exhaust your mana core just a little further..."