Chapter 199: Young monsters
"Fucker!!!"
The word tore from his throat raw and hot.
Burning in the sky above the forest, Zeke’s eyes glowed with fury as his ignited form grew to 8 meters in height. The fire that clung to him wasn’t the warm kind. It was the hungry kind. The kind that ate everything it touched and asked for more.
He looked down.
Far below through the canopy, the wounded beast was still moving. Still trying to drag itself away through the dirt and broken roots.
’No you don’t.’
—woosh
He blasted down, dropping from the sky like a comet, and as he fell a spear of flames formed in his grip, sharpening itself against the wind, condensing until it had a point like a needle.
—crack!!
It pierced clean through the beast, pinning it to the forest floor.
’Gnaw!!’
The beast whimpered once.
Then it stopped moving.
[You have slain a tyrant]
The notification blinked in the corner of his vision. Zeke didn’t look at it for long. He rose slowly from the smoking corpse, his body trailing embers, and seated himself atop it like a throne.
"That’s four."
He exhaled.
"One more."
The weariness sat at the edge of his bones. Not weakness exactly. More like the particular tiredness of a body that had been burning at full capacity for too long.
5 tyrants.
He let that number sit in his head for a moment.
5 tyrants at the exalted stage.
It felt and looked like a pipe dream even now, standing in the middle of it. Zeke himself hadn’t thought it possible when they first discussed the task. But he had seen Enzo do something similar once, back when he was a star weaver in Rune City. He’d watched from a distance and thought the man was suicidal.
Turns out he was just willing.
All it had taken was the willingness to die trying and weapons far above your grade.
’Easy to say in theory.’
"It’ll be hard to replicate with Demi gods though," Zeke muttered to himself, his voice low.
He was staring into the dark stretch of forest ahead.
A horrifying scream erupted from somewhere deep in the trees.
Not an animal sound. Something bigger. Something that understood what it meant to lose.
Then the darkness split.
A beam of light shot through the forest like a javelin, blinding fast, and Zeke’s eyes narrowed as it passed.
’That speed....’
"He’s fast," Zeke muttered.
He already knew who it was. The light signature. The direction. The complete absence of hesitation in the movement.
Enzo.
,,,,,,,,,,,,,
[You have slain a tyrant]
[Syphoning star essence]
[Loading stats
Name: Enzo Malvaran
Rank: Exalted(peak)
Star essence: full
Class: Shadow Hunter
Skill: Shadow step, call of the wild, night vision....]
"Nice."
Enzo looked at his stats without expression for a moment.
Then the corner of his mouth pulled.
A wave of accomplishment moved through him quietly. Not the loud kind. The kind that settled in the chest slow, like warmth after cold water. Killing creatures gave star essence directly. He had known that much. But the higher the tier, the more essence could be absorbed and the tyrants had been generous.
Back on Gaia he had killed a quasi Demi god demon. Just that one kill alone had shunted him to the later stage of exalted. It had been an ugly fight. One he hadn’t been sure he’d walk away from.
Coupled with these five tyrants, he was ready.
Energy wise, the next voyage was no longer a question.
"And this."
He turned the key over in his other hand. The surface of it caught what little light existed this deep in the forest. It looked ordinary. Old. The number etched into it was not.
One.
Only one person could enter.
(I should go to the rendezvous point. It’s almost time.)
He tucked the key away and started walking. The forest was quieter now. The kind of quiet that came after a hunt, when the surviving creatures had decided they had somewhere else to be.
He had barely reached the agreed point when another ray of light flared bright in the distance.
He stopped.
Watched it.
"Hehe."
He shook his head slowly.
"Petty."
......
Some hours later.
The campfire crackled between them.
"You three aren’t human. I swear it."
Leon’s voice was flat. He wasn’t really complaining. It was more the tone of a man who had accepted something deeply inconvenient and was still deciding how he felt about it.
He looked at all three of them from across the fire.
They had agreed from the start that this would take time. That this was the kind of task that would require patience, calculated risk, and the full use of their divine weapons just to make it possible. A reasonable estimate had been a week. Maybe more.
It had taken them less than two days.
And Leon was the only one still behind.
"Hunting and head on head battles are two different things," Zeke said from where he sat, shoulders relaxed, arms resting across his knees. "Besides. We all finished today. You can still do it."
He shrugged like it was obvious.
He wasn’t wrong.
Leon had finished four tyrants in two days with no hidden trump cards, no secret abilities they weren’t aware of. Just his mind working faster than most people’s bodies. Strategic genius wasn’t the phrase Zeke would normally use out loud but it was the accurate one.
Four tyrants in two days on pure calculation alone.
One left.
"Sigh."
Leon muttered it under his breath, quiet enough that if you weren’t paying attention you’d miss it.
"I’m the only sanctified weaver here. This is embarrassing."
He had already completed his third voyage. He was sanctified. And here he was, sitting at a campfire being gently comforted by a group of exalted weavers who had somehow outpaced him.
"Heheh."
Enzo smiled at him. Not cruelly. Just the particular smile of someone who had just realized something.
"No need to dwell on it. Here." He leaned forward slightly. "We’ll pick a tyrant for you to kill."
Leon stared at him.
He said nothing.
......
While this was happening.
Far from the fire.
Far from the warmth and the easy laughter of three men who did not yet know what they were walking toward.
"They are all but done."
The voice came from shadow. Just shadow. A silhouette pressed against the cold stone of a high chamber, clothed so completely in darkness that only the twin points of its glowing eyes marked where a face should be.
"I’ll be free. Finally."
The word came out soft.
Final.
Like something that had been held in for a very long time.
On the other side of the room, untouched by hands for as long as the chamber had stood, a suit of armour covered in cobweb hummed.
Not loudly.
Just a low vibration. Something stirring beneath the dust and the long silence and the weight of years stacked on years stacked on centuries.
Thousands of years.
It had been thousands of years since the doors to this castle opened. Thousands of years since living breath filled these halls, since footsteps echoed on these floors, since something alive had looked at these walls and understood what they meant.
Maybe finally.
Maybe now.
He would leave his inheritance to someone worthy.
Maybe finally, the dark emperor would rule over an army once again.