Chapter 73: Hanging Corpses! Torn-Apart Limbs!
Author’s note: This extra chapter is due to one of the novel’s fans subscribing to Patreon yesterday
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At that very moment, the beast tide reached the defensive lines.
The beasts slammed into the Elite Soldiers' formation, while the iron-jawed hyena charged straight at Piedra, and at the same time, the other fronts were receiving the dense beast flood.
Just a moment before, everything had been calm...
And in the next instant, battle erupted across every corner of the Territory.
In the sky, at a height neither the walls nor the giant ballistae could reach, several black dots streaked past rapidly, slipping through the defensive lines with ease while every weapon remained occupied targeting the beast tide below.
On the ground, Kaiden's situation was nothing to envy.
Four beasts pounced on him all at once, their open jaws aiming for his vital points. The closest was a gray wolf lunging straight for his throat, close enough that he could smell its foul breath mixed with the remains of its last meal.
There was no time left to raise an earthen wall between himself and the beasts.
But...
Who said Earth Wall was his only option?
The instant all four jaws snapped shut together...
Kaiden vanished.
The beasts tore through nothing but a fading afterimage he'd left behind.
At that same moment, four stone spikes shot up from the ground at lightning speed, striking all four beasts with astonishing precision, piercing straight through their bodies at once.
A howl!
Their cries lasted only a moment before the spark of life faded from their eyes, gone before they even understood how they'd ended up as hanging corpses.
Splat!
Blood surged into the air, drenching Kaiden as he reappeared two meters from his previous spot. Blood splattered him from head to toe, but he didn't even bother wiping it off, simply turning his gaze to the dense horde crawling forward past the four corpses.
The beasts that had arrived a fraction of a second too late froze involuntarily at the sight of what had happened to their companions.
Their eyes locked onto that slender, blood-soaked figure, and for the first time since the attack began, their instincts screamed danger.
That creature wasn't easy prey...
It was a predator capable of killing them in an instant.
"That was close..."
Kaiden murmured, exhaling calmly.
He knew the mistake had been his own. He'd gotten absorbed in dealing with the boar and forgotten, if only for a moment, that he was standing in the middle of a battlefield swarming with beasts. Had it not been for the Epic-rank skill he'd recently obtained, that mistake would have cost him dearly.
He raised his eyes again and noticed the frenzy that had filled the beasts' eyes had eased somewhat. They no longer charged at him mindlessly — instead, they circled him warily, roaring, as if trying to reassess their opponent.
Kaiden used those brief moments to check on the fronts that worried him most.
Fortunately, the Elite Soldiers had managed to withstand the initial shock. They'd taken shelter behind Piedra's massive body, while the shield bearers had sealed both flanks of the formation tightly. Even though the beasts surrounded them from every direction, they held their ground stubbornly, refusing to let the formation collapse.
Swords and spears kept thrusting out through the narrow gaps between the shields, slicing into beast jaws or limbs whenever they drew close, while the shields themselves remained an impenetrable wall against the attacks.
As for the archers atop the walls, they weren't firing at random. They watched the battlefield carefully, directing their arrows to support their comrades below — any beast that tried to leap into the formation dropped dead before it ever touched the ground.
In truth, the real support wasn't coming from the archers, but from the small white-haired mage.
Nora's face had flushed red from sheer exhaustion, sweat beading on her forehead before trickling down into her eyes, which had turned red in turn. She no longer even had the luxury of wiping the sweat away — her arms stayed stretched forward to keep Pool of Light active without interruption.
The only moment she moved one hand was to pull out a mana recovery potion and down it in one gulp, then snap her hand back into position as fast as possible. Even those few seconds put tremendous strain on her other arm, and Kaiden had noticed her fingers had begun to bleed each time she repeated it.
Nora wasn't the only one fighting under crushing pressure.
At the front of the formation, Piedra was locked in an unfair fight against the iron-jawed hyena.
It wasn't that the hyena was stronger than her — it was that it had complete freedom of movement, while Piedra was forced to hold her ground to protect the Elite Soldiers behind her. The beast exploited this cunningly, circling her with startling speed, then lunging with its iron jaw at her joints and the softer, less armored parts of her body before darting away again.
Despite the many wounds she'd taken, Kaiden didn't consider stepping in.
Piedra possessed a terrifying defense, one that even surpassed the Rare-rank boar's. Most of her injuries were superficial, and thanks to her immense toughness, she'd managed to drag the hyena into a long war of attrition — and for now, that alone was enough.
So Kaiden turned his attention away from the Common-rank beasts surrounding him and refocused on the Rare-rank boar.
The beast stood in a pool of its own blood, its belly torn open, some of its internal organs badly damaged, yet it remained fixed in place, pawing at the ground with its front hoof and snorting furious breaths.
Kaiden knew exactly what it intended to do.
Another charge.
But this time...
He wouldn't give it the chance.
At his signal, new earth spikes shot up from beneath the ground, but the boar had learned from the previous attack. The instant the spikes surged upward, it leaped aside with a speed utterly disproportionate to its massive size, dodging the strike completely.
ROOOAAAR!
The beast let out a furious bellow, then charged at Kaiden with everything it had, as if it meant to crush the source of its pain into pieces.
Kaiden reacted instantly, raising several earthen walls in succession in its path.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The boar smashed through all of them with its tusks and hardened skull without slowing down, but when it broke through the last wall...
It found no one there.
Kaiden had vanished.
Using the cloud of dust left behind by the shattered walls, he reappeared silently atop the rubble, having left a small mana-charged gift in his previous spot.
The boar didn't realize it until it was too late.
A sharp earth spike shot up from beneath its belly, piercing easily through the open wound left by the earlier attack. The moment it settled inside its body, its tip burst into dozens of smaller spikes, spreading in every direction, shredding everything they encountered inside it.
CRACK!
A massive gush of blood erupted from its mouth as its body convulsed violently.
THUD!
The giant boar collapsed to the ground like a mountain crumbling all at once. The attack didn't even give it time to let out one final cry — its internal organs, including its heart, had been completely shredded.
The first Rare-rank beast...
Had fallen.
In the next instant, a massive surge of experience flowed into Kaiden, raising his level twice in succession, while his mana filled back up completely without needing a single potion.
A faint smile spread across his blood-soaked face.
So far...
The battle was going exactly as he'd planned.
Or so he thought.
While he believed everything was still under his control, he had, in fact, already made a major strategic mistake...
A mistake he would soon pay the price for.
End of Chapter 73.
I have a big announcement: starting from Chapter 86, which I’ve just published on Patreon, illustrative images have been added. These may consist of one or several images; for example, Chapter 86 contains two images. These images depict new characters, objects, or even the protagonist’s pets, buildings and so on, or even maps. This is currently a trial period, but it will most likely continue in all future chapters, and this applies only to the serialised version… Patreon subscribers.
Of course, the offer is still on: for every new subscriber, an extra chapter!