Chapter 796: The fifth day of the development trial (part 8)
Chapter 796: The fifth day of the development trial (part 8)
"Clang!", continuous clinking sounds could be heard as the bear blocked the spears that were aiming at the seconds in command with his claws.
"Whistle!", unfortunately while the bear managed to save some of the important subordinates, whistling sounds came from the east as the war chariots made their second appearance of the day, shooting arrows at the animals, wounding some and killing a couple of unlucky ones.
But that wasn’t what caught the bear’s interest, but the sight of a slender and harmless-looking white haired girl who was sitting on the back of a horse that wasn’t pulling on a chariot, she was leading at the front instead of Sarina and Selene who remained at the camp, that was of course Vivian.
"It’s her, all the dead animals charge, go kill that white haired creature!", shouted the bear, he might not be used to having wisdom, but he isn’t stupid, so it was obvious for the bear that this was done with the intention of further reducing the size of his army by dividing them in order to give chase to Vivian.
Unfortunately, he had no choice but to take the bait, because she is their priority target, someone that the "beings in the sky" personally warned him about, as to how Aster knew this would absolutely work, that’s easy, he already had the idea ever since the existence of the dead animals became known to him.
And he further confirmed it when the bear chose to sacrifice the living jackals rather than the remains of the dead animal army, they were really afraid of Vivian, also don’t get it wrong it was the white-haired girl the one that came up with the plan to draw away the dead animal army by using herself as bait.
Originally, she wanted to simply ride a horse and deal with the dead animals by herself, but of course Aster wouldn’t allow that, also the girls of the war chariot unit immediately stepped up to "escort" her and that’s how the situation developed, of course the bear didn’t know that much.
’Just like the beings in the sky said, when cornered they start only caring about themselves, to think the enemy’s leader will sacrifice their most dangerous combatant just to alleviate the pressure on their side, even if she takes down all the remaining dead animals so be it, that was their purpose anyway’, in his mind Vivian’s life in exchange for the remaining ninety or so dead animals, including the seconds in command and one of the dead animal kings, the lynx one to be more accurate, was a good deal.
As to why the dead lynx king was the one chosen, that’s because Guardian would have an easier time suppressing him, so the bear would rather keep the dead wolf king at his side.
"She actually wanted to drive away ninety enemies alone, for someone that looks so meek, she sure is quite a fierce girl", said Valentina to which Alice who was clinging to Aster’s arm like usual added.
"Humph, I bet she just wanted to score some extra points for a "reward" from Aster", the wild dragon princess’s words made a few girls gaze at Aster.
"Ahem, let’s not waste this opening that Vivian has created for us, besides support staff and archers, everyone prepare for close range combat", said Aster to then jump down from the platform, followed by all the girls that were also on the platform at the front of the camp.
Of course, that doesn’t mean there were no people watching the battlefield, there are platforms on the eastern and western walls as well after all, but all the animals are focused on the northern wall which is the one that faces the forest.
"Crack!", listening to the cracking sounds coming from the logs that were blocking their charge, the bear smiled, finally he was about to break through the enemy’s defenses, though the large army he had with him, has been reduced to a bit more of a third of its original size, once the walls fell, his army should be able to crush the two-legged creatures.
"Lit up the arrows", but then the bear felt a sharp gaze fall on them from above, where forty flaming arrows were suddenly aimed at them.
"Everyone spread, those who aren’t fast enough go back to the grass-filled area!", shouted the bear.
As animals who are covered in fur, it is incredibly easy for them to catch on fire and once that happens, they’ll be finished, what’s more the fire could be spread quite fast, so the bear was really wary of the "black substance" which was pine tar.
’Damn, we were so close to open a path through their defenses!’, inwardly screamed the bear, now imagine his expression when he saw that the archers weren’t shooting the flaming arrows, instead of that, the gates that have been a pain in the ass to deal with for him, opened from the inside.
"You!", unfortunately the very second the bear thought of ordering the animals to charge not only did a dozen of flaming arrows land on the path directly ahead of the bear and the other kings, but a whistling sound made his eyes contract like needles.
"Clang!", the bear slashed his claws in front of his face and was barely able to block an arrow that was aimed at his right eye, the strong impact of the arrow almost made the bear fall backwards, but ultimately, he managed to destroy the arrow producing some sparks in the process.
’Had I been a few dozen of meters closer to them, I might have missed the timing to block that thing!’, thought the bear to then look at the platforms where Kana was aiming at him with her bow, naturally she was the one that shot that dangerous arrow at the bear.
"Unless you want an arrow to the head, obediently wait for big brother’s arrangements", said Kana, which to the bear and the other king’s disbelief they understood.
With the monstrous composite bow that Aster had crafted for her, within a hundred meters she had a decent chance to kill even king level animals and within two hundred meters she was sure to wound them, the only exception to that being the bear, to whom Kana could only wound within a hundred meters and past that she could only annoy him.
Perhaps if he was less than twenty meters away from the little girl, she would be able to kill him so long as someone created an opportunity for her, the bear who was already furious, nearly lost it when he saw human after human come out of the enemy camp.
"What is this...", mumbled the bear as haw an army of two-legged creatures not that small when compared to his own army as of current, appear in front of the camp.
"Heh, as I thought, your intel came from watching over other participants, what a shame, because as you can see, we are not your average camp", said Aster.
Aster honestly expected the bear to have more accurate information about them, considering that the supervisors did everything they could to rush the last trial of the development week.
But after seeing the bear being taken completely by surprise over Guardian being at their side, their cooperation with the horses and the sturdiness of the walls, Aster was sure that the bear received information that was based on the observation of other participants, probably in the areas that were in charge of the black shadow or the red silhouette.
’I guess it makes sense, when we encountered those two, we were far from the camp and there weren’t that many of us in neither of the two instance and when the red cloud appeared back then, there was no camp and we had yet to be divided in groups, so they wouldn’t know anything about our camp’s development nor our actual numbers, so long as the blue flaming board was covering our backs of course’, thought Aster.
Only the blue flaming board knew about the specifics of their group, since it was the one that watched over them from the very beginning, perhaps if the red cloud hadn’t been acting so high and mighty it could have noticed that their group was abnormally large.
But that guy was James group’s supervisor and was destroyed by the blue flaming board as soon as it appeared, so probably if it joined hands with the other two supervisors, it must have thought that Aster’s group was as large as James’s original group.
Speaking of which, Wade actually gained more than what he "paid" for, because while his group entered as the "losers" of the fight over the entrance rights, they still came through a high-grade gate, so they were a group of a hundred people, according to James, the winners of the gate from which they entered could only bring a group of eighty and the losers were barely allowed to bring in thirty people.
So yeah, even as losers their group was larger than that of winners from the vast majority of gates, twenty extra pairs of hands are nothing to look down upon, especially in a place where people are restrained to become mortals, well in his case it was a group of eighty-nine people, since they left one guy to die and ten of the one hundred spots were taken by the second group of the Wanderer sect who ended up joining Aster’s group.
Of course, a larger group can be both a bless or a curse, depending on a variety of aspects, but in Aster’s case it was a bless, out of the original 250 plus Cayden’s group which added 15 extra spots as well as James, for a total of 266 people, 40 were archers on the platforms, another 10 were archers of the war chariot unit, 5 were driving the chariots.
Then out of the remaining 211 people, 30 were a part of the support team being non-combatants not as in they couldn’t fight after being trained by Camila and the others with the spear, but as in they had to dedicate their focus to tend to the wounded and other support-type tasks, 20 remained on the platforms of the eastern and western walls and 10 people were given a special role while Aster wasn’t planning to actively participate as much, so that leaves us with 150 people, between elders and disciples who came out of the camp to fight.
The bear’s army still had over three hundred animals left, so they of course outnumbered the enemy in a more than 2:1 ratio, however according to the information the bear received the enemy group should have had around 70 members, why 70 when the maximum number is 80 you ask, well, all the spots are rarely taken by a single force so in average the supervisors calculated that an outstanding group would monopolize 60 spots, and then they added an extra 10 out of wariness.
Never did they expect that Aster’s group was an anomaly with an initial 250 base size, in fact if Aster had wanted to, there could have been 350 of them, but that would give Wade and the ones behind of him an excuse to cause the sect trouble, so this way they couldn’t complain, besides what could be better than an isolated place such as this to clean out some trash.
"The sole "variables" are out of the fight, so just stick to what you have been taught, listen to your squad leader and you’ll be fine, of course I’ll be watching over the battlefield but I think none of you would like me to interfere in your fight", said Aster.
"Yes, senior brother!", brimming with fighting spirit, the girls of the sect answered in unison, making a few of the living animals feel afraid, they didn’t understand human speech so for them this sounded like the "battle cry" of the two-legged creatures in front of them.
’I see, the golden-eyed creature is their leader, then if he dies their side will collapse!’, thought the bear as he proposed himself to charge at Aster, only for a nimble and elegant figure to rush out and jump from one of the platforms, landing in the middle of Aster and the bear.
"You surely aren’t thinking of fighting anyone else before defeating me, right", said Guardian as she showed the bear her sharp teeth.
"Charge!", said both Aster and the bear at the same time, which resulted in both sides clashing.
...
But before we get to that, let’s take a small break from the main battlefield and follow a certain white-haired girl who was riding on a horse while followed by the war chariot unit and a whole bunch of dead animals.
Vivian guided the group far from the lake towards the mountain that protected the western side of the area that surrounded the camp, she didn’t give the signal to stop until they had passed a tree agglomeration which blocked the sight of the main battlefield.
"Here it’s fine", said Vivian as she signaled the horse to stop before jumping out of her back.
"Thanks for the help, war chariot unit you go block the retreat path once they approach, the "others" be ready", said the white-haired girl as she petted the head of the mare that acted as her ride for the sake of her plan.
"Okay sister Vivian, don’t worry if they try to escape, we’ll shoot them down", said the girl that was designated to lead the war chariots in Sarina or other leader’s absence.
"Grrrr!", the dead lynx king which got angry after being forced to travel such a long distance, growled at Vivian, the twenty seconds in command, ten lynxes and ten wolves walked next to the dead lynx king, while the remaining normal dead lynxes and wolves moved in front of them obviously being the front line in case Vivian did something.
"You guys go, anti-toxin unit charge!", ordered Vivian and with those words, around twenty figures suddenly flashed out of the war chariots.
"Hissss!", they all were snakes more than two meters large and had that symbolic hood that identified them as members of the cobra race, they were the adult king cobras led by the three royal guards and of course the old king cobra king.
They had hidden on the war chariots and came to assist Vivian in fighting with the dead animals, as to why they were called "anti-toxin unit" when they are venomous, that’s because by innate the king cobras have high resistance against other toxins due to their own, but they weren’t the only ones here.
"Neeeigh!", with the cover of the clip-clop sounds made by the horses that pulled on the war chariots which were moving to block the retreat path as Vivian asked them to, a group of twenty black horses led by an unusually bulky black horse came out from the tree agglomeration nearby.
That was of course Mule and some of the captured black horses which hadn’t committed any serious crime, thus they were allowed to participate in the fight, horses aren’t resistant to toxins by innate but after their transformation at the hands or more accurately fangs of the now deceased king of fangs, they gained resistance to yin-oriented toxins.
And the corpse poison that the dead animals could produce is yin-oriented, so they became a part of the anti-toxin unit, besides the king cobras and the black horses there was an extra figure here, the large toad which had willingly chosen to sacrifice himself in exchange for Espi to not kill other members of his race, after she beat up the giant eagle’s son, the little wyrm didn’t have that intention from the very beginning though, after all the toads didn’t look appetizing for her, that little glutton preferred Sarina’s delicious food and desserts very much like Kana.
But the giant toad ended up being helpful in Mylene’s workshop, given that he produced poison that could be used for a whole bunch of things, also that guy already had shown to be rather self-aware and he was fed a lot of herbs by Mylene and which ended up helping him attain king level strength.
Just like the old king cobra and the young anaconda leader, who have king level strength even when not being kings themselves, the large toad became like that, of course he is weaker than them, in fact the old king cobra even as a non-king level is still stronger than Selene who just recently became a king, this is not only because he is older but also because of his experience, Selene took a break from being a warrior for the sake of her son, but the old king cobra has been fighting all his life.
Becoming a king comes with other benefits besides the increase in strength of course, which is why the old king cobra’s next goal is to reach that level which he wasn’t allowed to due to the suppression of the anaconda, if he even tried it, his whole race would have been wiped out in retribution, but Espi told him to do as he pleases, he was going to be her stand in, after all the little wyrm would rather spend her time learning craftmanship with Aster or eating and playing with Kana, instead of dealing with boring stuff, though she still planned to hold onto the title of the king of reptiles, the old king cobra could be the king of snakes.
"What!", the dead lynx king was taken by surprise, one thing was the anacondas, whose situation was miserable since they didn’t have anyone strong holding the fort for their race, the king of water beasts didn’t care for them as she spent all her time with the python race, so the lynx found it understandable that they had joined that surprisingly fierce white snake which had blocked his pressure earlier.
However, even the king of water beasts wouldn’t directly mess with the king cobra race, if the three royal guards and the old king cobra leader resolved themselves to die, they actually had a chance to kill her after all, of course their race would be wiped out afterwards which is why they didn’t do that, but as bad as their living situation was, they weren’t to be underestimated, which is why the lynx whose information was outdated was taken by surprise over their appearance.
What’s more, he also knew about the black horses, since one of the supervisors backing them was the red silhouette, however they were supposed be dead.
’The one leading them is damn huge, didn’t the being in the sky say that the king of fangs died at the hands of the enemy, so why is he fighting on their side!’, thought the dead lynx king as he saw mule use his bulky body to tackle a second in command wolf, sending it flying a few dozens of meters, breaking its neck in the process, the dead lynx king actually confused Mule with the king of fangs, which is understandable as he isn’t that far in terms of height as of current.
"Clang!", the dead lynx king returned to the real world as he was forced to use his claws to stop Vivian’s spear, to his surprise the fragile-looking white-haired creature in front of him actually made him take a step back.
"Damn it, use the power we were given by the beings in the sky!", shouted the dead lynx king, then a foul smell was emitted from the bodies of the dead animals as a thin layer of black liquid covered their skin and fur.
"Drip", whenever a drop of it fell onto the grass, it made it wither on the spot, that was corpse poison, which basically corrodes anything alive.
’What do you think, with this power we can’t be defeated by you...’, just as the lynx king was bragging to his insides, his eyes contracted as he saw Vivian casually punch a second in command wolf on the face with her pretty left fist.
"Hssss!", the black liquid that stained her hand instantly turned into black wisps which disappeared the next second.
"Mmm, it’s not as strong as I thought it was going to be, with your resistance to toxins and the single dose of the multipurpose anti-toxin made by sister Mylene you all took before the siege started, it will be fine, rip them to shreds but leave the lynx king to me", said the white-haired girl.