Chapter 799: The fifth day of the development trial (part 11)
Chapter 799: The fifth day of the development trial (part 11)
"Clang!", before the nearby animals could react, Alice’s legs tensed and she jumped high into the air, crossing several meters of distance in a single go, to then use her right knee which had a metal reinforced protector to hit the head of a wolf making its skull crack due to the impact.
"What are you doing you fools, attack her!", shouted a wolf second in command after seeing Alice kill two animals in a row.
"Awo...", a pair of wolves which had charged in response to the order of the second in command, tried to pounce at Alice to bite her neck, only for the wild dragon princess to extend her hands and as if previously discussed between both parties, perfectly grab onto their snouts to forcefully close their mouths.
"Crack!", a loud shattering sound followed by muffled pained howls made the other animals that were about to charge at Alice feel their legs weaken on the spot, the wild dragon princess... broke the snouts of the wolves with her hands.
"Tsk, what is this, you guys are too brittle, come on the least you could do to make up for getting in the way of my fun is contribute to my mission by enduring a few more attacks before dying!", said the wild dragon princess as she tossed the wolves which had fainted over having their snouts bent upwards to then stomp on their necks, killing them on the spot.
Alice’s manual put emphasis in using her body as a weapon, so she wouldn’t make any progress if she were to fight with a spear, therefore Aster had no other option but to make an exception and tailor some special equipment for her from the very beginning, well it was just a prototype so he basically used leather and metal plaques to make gloves, knee protectors and shoes.
This was different than the composite bow situation, because Kana did practice with spears and the like, well Alice did so too, but she directly stated that while she could defend herself with a spear, any physical activity that included a tool past a certain size was completely useless for her, you could say that her manual was as "cheeky" as her.
’She is such a high maintenance dragon princess’, thought Aster as he saw the wild smile on Alice’s pretty face.
After witnessing Alice’s horrifying strength display, the animals in her vicinity not only didn’t dare to attack her, but they actually turned around and tried to flee for dear life.
"Where the hell do you think you are going, go back and kill that red eyed creature!", roared the bear, then under the other living animal’s fear-filled expressions, the few lynxes and wolves that tried to escape lost the light in their eyes to then turn around and charge at Alice.
"Hoh, so you can even control them if needed, but if you were going to do that anyway, then why not turn every single one of your subordinates into dead animals, perhaps there was a limit to the number of them that the blue flaming board allowed your side to have", casually said Aster, which made the bear grit his teeth, that was indeed the case.
No more than half of the army could be composed of dead animals, so the supervisors backing the bear put some kind of "lock" on the living animals, making it so that if they tried to disobey or escape, the bear could control them.
Unfortunately, it didn’t matter, those animals were killed by Alice in a matter of seconds, and that wasn’t all, from the corner of his eyes the bear could see wolves and lynxes being forced back continuously, in fact there were others that had already killed more than three animals.
Among which, outstood a girl with white-silvery hair and blue painted nails which acted razor sharp claws, slashing and cutting through the limbs of the wolves and lynxes that approached her.
There was a couple of blond-haired girls, one with blue eyes and another one with purple eyes, that had originally carried three spears on their backs and wielded one with each of their hands, they suddenly advanced like a hurricane through the battlefield killing five enemies each by using their five spears in a single go showcasing their perfectly coordinated and talented skills for combat.
A girl with red hair and a permanent slight smile that had thrown some kind of powder out of her sleeves, which made a dozen of animals to be forced to close their eyes while the noses in which they relied instead, swelled, making it easier for others to kill them.
Then there was a girl with pink grayish eyes that by herself managed to block ten animals, though she only managed to kill two in the meantime, the other eight couldn’t get past the area she was defending.
’Damn it, their seconds in command are so strong... wait a moment, why did they leave warriors on their camp instead of making an all-out attack if they can overpower our side like this?’, thought the bear.
The bear thought of Alice, Mira, Agnes, Valentina, Mina and Alexandra whose performance was too eye catching as "seconds in command" of the enemy’s army, of course there were others who had killed more than three enemies in a couple of minutes like Camila, Tiana, Nerissa, Iris, Cayden and Eric, but they did so in different areas of the battlefield at the time, so they weren’t surrounded by corpses of animals, which is why they went undetected by the bear’s quick gaze.
’There must be something they want to keep safe behind those walls, perhaps they have wounded or maybe the elderly and children from the animal races that have allied with them!’, concluded the bear as he thought of a way to turn the battle to his favor again.
"Living kings, take half of your seconds in command each and charge, capture their camp!", shouted the bear, naturally he used his control over the animals so that they wouldn’t be afraid of the archers on the wall of the camp.
The living lynx and wolf kings as well as the jackal and desert snake king were surprisingly not controlled, but they still obeyed while half of their seconds in command followed without hesitation.
It’s worth mentioning that the kings had kept themselves out of the fight, they were waiting for the bear to deploy them when it was needed, which was now, the only exception was the dead wolf king which the bear kept at the back of the army, though he was alone because his seconds in command had gone with the dead lynx king to chase after Vivian and were all killed already.
"Whistle!", while the other archers waited for the incoming around thirty animals to approach the wall so that they could shoot them without worrying about hitting an ally, Kana directly drew her bow and like a lightning, an arrow struck a second in command lynx which was protecting the lynx king by standing in front of him, killing him on the spot.
The little girl managed to shot down another two seconds in command, which stood in front of the wolf and jackal kings respectively, they no longer aimed to dodge Kana’s arrows, but directly used someone as a meat shield to take the fall for them, which the little girl found despicable.
In case you wonder why Alice and the others weren’t getting in those guy’s way, they were swarmed by a bunch of animals that abandoned their respective fights to block them.
Of course, like previously stated the bear only targeted the most eye-catching performers from Aster’s side, however a part of the reason as to why Nerissa, Iris and the others went unnoticed is also that they were fighting further from the camp than the others, so they wouldn’t arrive in time anyway, well, besides Alice who could cover many meters in a single go and Lina whose focus was speed, but they didn’t seem to care about the enemies getting close to the camp at all.
"Fire at will!", with Kana’s orders, the very moment the small "elite unit" conformed by the kings and seconds in command, the twenty arrows spread evenly and while they only managed to kill a couple of animals, half of the arrows still found their way into the bodies of their targets, hindering their movement.
Seeing the still above twenty numbered elite unit be about to reach the frontal wall of the camp, which had been damaged enough by the bear so that one more charge would allow the animals to break through, Kana not only didn’t seem worried, but actually smiled, as if she has been waiting for this.
"Mom, miss Selene, sister Ember, it’s our turn~", said the little girl as she jumped out of the platform, just in time for the gates of the camp to open and a dozen of horses with girls wielding spears, riding on their backs to charge out of it.
The group was led by Sarina who was riding on the mare and Ember whose appearance was perfectly timed so that Kana landed on her back, the filly was holding onto a spear with her mouth by the way.
"Thanks sister Ember", said Kana as she took the spear from the filly, she placed her composite bow and the couple of arrows which she had left on a bag that hanged at Ember’s left side and held the spear with both of her hands.
The kings saw a group of horses with those creatures on their backs suddenly come out of the enemy’s camp and gritted their teeth, they were too close to their target to retreat and also, they knew that the horses could out speed them, so showing them their backs was not a good a choice.
With the exception of the desert snakes who immediately turned around and left by rushing into the grass-filled area under the angered gazes of the other kings who had no option but to charge.
"Cowards, everyone charge!", said the wolf king which was also the first to step in, he jumped and actually aimed to throw the small creature which had instilled fear in them with those strange "flying sticks", in other words Kana.
"Awoooo!", only for a fierce howl to echo through the battlefield, as the previously bandaged wolf charged out of the camp, blocking in front of Kana to then clash with the wolf king on the air.
"Clang!", their claws collided for a moment before they exhausted their momentum, both wolves fell to the ground and rolled for a few meters before they got up to face each other, one could see the surprise on the face of the western wolf king as he recognized the previously bandaged wolf as the younger brother of the current dead wolf king.
"How are you still alive!", exclaimed the western wolf king, he saw with his own eyes how wounded that wolf which had managed to escape the fight by mere coincidence was, so, even if he didn’t get to see his corpse after he used his dead pack members to ambush him, in his mind there was no way he could have survived.
He was partially right, the wolf was in a horrible shape, honestly, he kept himself alive through pure willpower for at least a few hours before he reached the border of the forest where he was found by the girls of the sect and received emergency treatment, if the wolf had fainted even ten minutes before that, he would have died for sure.
Honestly, he shouldn’t be participating in the fight, because while his wounds have mostly healed, he needed rest to fully recover, but the wolf bowed his head and asked to be given the energizing potion made by Mylene so that he could fight one single enemy.
"I simply couldn’t have faced my ancestors in the "eternal forest" if I didn’t use my own claws and fangs to kill you, miss Kana, please leave this traitor to me", said the wolf to the little girl who nodded in response.
Fun fact, some animal races here actually had a concept of "afterlife" which they called "eternal forest" a place in which they wouldn’t need to hunt as they wouldn’t feel hunger, they wouldn’t grow old nor would they need to fight anymore, it was another instance of the animals here showing how different they were from their mortal counterparts which lived in other places.
"Mm, I’ll leave him to mister wolf", said Kana as she charged towards the jackal king and his seconds in command, Sarina targeted the lynx king and the other horses as well as their riders went after the lynx and wolf seconds in command and in case you wonder why Kana was going to fight against both the jackal king and his seconds in command, that’s because they didn’t separate and also the jackal king was the weakest among them, so in Kana and Ember’s eyes, he alone wasn’t worthy of fighting against them.
’Perfect, the plan worked!’, inwardly exclaimed the bear even though a new variable in the form of that wolf whose existence was unknown to him, had appeared, one of the kings and his seconds in command had managed to bypass what should be the last batch of warriors from the enemy’s side.
"Did I not tell you that in eight out of ten cases, those who believe themselves to be cunning are just idiots that think they are smarter than others".
"Still, I must admit that for someone that used to be all brawl and no brain you got a decent grasp of tactics, first sowing discord and now you are trying to capture hostages, I hardly doubt you came up with this yourself, so there must be another fool who gave your "cunning" ideas to you", mockingly said Aster as he gazed at the sky to then add to himself.
’What a shame that the scummiest tactics are the very first I always prepare myself for’, naturally the previous was both a jab at the bear and at the supervisors whom he was sure were watching the fight.
The bear’s eyes contracted like needles, he thought that the desert snake king and his subordinates had managed to slip past the enemy’s detection, when they "retreated" earlier.
In truth the desert snakes had actually dived underground, while under the cover of the grass-filled area and took a detour to move towards the camp, once they were inside, they could use their poison to kill and take some hostages in order to make things more favorable to them.
That’s why the bear was happy to his insides, thinking he had managed to use the "wisdom" he was given by the beings in the sky properly, but after listening to the golden eyed creature, he realized that from the very beginning the desert snakes didn’t escape the enemy’s detection.
Back to the vicinity of the camp’s frontal wall, a completely normal and unnoticeable patch of "soil" suddenly had its brown color fade until it turned white colored, then a pair of pretty green eyes opened as the little wyrm who has been guarding the gate since Aster and the others charged out of the camp, made her appearance in the battlefield.
"Hissss!", a powerful hissing sound accompanied by an invisible wave of pressure, expanded in every direction with Espi as its center, now, in terms of intensity the lineage pressure that the little wyrm can use as of current is weaker than that of Guardian, which is understandable as it is not the lineage pressure that she as a spirit beast had used unconsciously before.
But a different version of it, attained through her own efforts in this place, however she does have an advantage over the lynx and the bear and that is the fact that, length wise, Espi’s pressure can cover more than thrice the distance those two can.
This is probably due to the difference in race, after all we are comparing what used to be a normal mortal bear and a normal mortal lynx that have evolved during only a few hundreds of years at most, while Espi is a dragon and has a noble ascendence according to what Aster can feel through their contract, so her race is probably quite old and has been around for who knows how many years.
In fact, the only reason as to why her lineage pressure can only cover three times the area is because she is restricted here, otherwise that number should have been a few times higher.
"Ahhhhh!", that was more than enough though, the talented little wyrm had spread her pressure sidewards in a rectangular shape to cover an even larger area, managing to reach the desert snake king as well as his seconds in command who had spread with a few dozens of meters of distance in between.
The idea was that if the eagle noticed one of them, they wouldn’t all be taken out easily like it happened with the spiders, never did they imagine that Espi could get to them in a single go like this, what a joke her pressure basically reached the whole northern wall of the camp, that was a kilometer from one side to the other no matter how fast the snakes moved underground they couldn’t go out of that range in less than an hour an it had been around ten minutes since they "escaped".
Also, even with the intensity of her pressure being reduced since the little wyrm focused in the maximum area she could cover, it was more than enough to make the five second in command desert snakes be unable to continue advancing to retort while bleeding from their eyes, nose and mouth.
"Don’t waste the opening created by Espi, fire!", said Angela who was among the girls that remained behind alongside the archers and others who were in charge to actually defend the camp from within and also protect the non-combatant animals, such as the baby cobras and the sole pregnant female cobra as well as the infant anacondas and young horses.
Five archers drew their bows and rained two rounds of arrows on the five second in command desert snakes, managing to kill them at the cost of ten arrows which were also their last ones by the way.
"How dare you!", the desert snake king who with the help of his own pressure as protection and the fact that the intensity of Espi’s pressure had thinned out, managed to not lose control of himself, emerged with bloodshot eyes in front of the little wyrm, his fangs aimed at her neck.
"Boooom!", only for a metal whip-like tail to land on him, the result was a loud thunderous sound as the whole upper body of the desert snake king was blasted away.
"Humph!", the little wyrm proudly snorted at the less than half corpse of the desert snake king, she had a bit of a hard time shaping her pressure and evenly spreading its intensity, so the snake king by mere luck was in one of the least affected points of it, which is why he wasn’t paralyzed though he was still bleeding from his mouth, when he emerged from underground.
’Aster could even control reptile spirit beasts with ease using his lineage pressure, I bet he can devise a way to train how to control this weird pressure while we are here~’, thought the little wyrm, her eyes cutely sparkled at the thought of training with Aster’s help, unaware that a certain wild dragon princess looked at her tail with interest after seeing her blast away half of the desert snake king’s body.
Feeling the gazes of a bunch of animals coming her way, Espi camouflaged herself and basically vanished from plain view, which only caused the animals a lot of fear not knowing where that white snake who had killed a king with such ease, would appear next.
"Damn it!!!", the bear who was in the middle of clashing with Guardian earlier, got distracted due to the little wyrm’s appearance and received a second wound from the lynx, this time it was a five claw slashing mark on his right leg which forced him to retreat a few meters in a rush.
"You kept that dead wolf behind for some special purpose right, use it now, otherwise you won’t get the chance", said Guardian as she glared at the bear, making the latter see red.