Chapter 205: Humiliation
"Stay close! Don’t let the tearing torrent swipe you into the void!"
Inside what seemed to be a massive, violently jagged hole ripped directly into the fabric of the sky, a group of Demi Gods flew forward.
They moved completely in sync, holding a flawless, solid military formation as they pierced through the raging atmospheric storm.
For fully realized Demi Gods, aside from strict formality and grand royal ceremony, the use of transport battleships was all but unnecessary.
They possessed the innate, gravity-defying ability to fly freely through the skies using their own dense spiritual energy.
More importantly, their highly refined physical bodies were exponentially tougher than any unaided, reinforced alloy ever forged on the planet.
In fact, if they had foolishly brought a normal military battleship into this chaotic, restricted airspace, it would have been instantly annihilated.
The violent, unpredictable storm winds surrounding them right now carried enough kinetic force to effortlessly shred a reinforced metal hull into floating scrap in mere seconds.
Only bodies tempered by divine laws could possibly withstand the crushing atmospheric pressure of this dimensional tear.
"Hmm."
Ethen stably flew through the roaring, stormy passage, entirely under his own power.
His dark eyes were sharp and incredibly focused as he carefully watched the subtle movements of absolutely everyone in the group.
There were exactly thirty of them in total.
Thirty incredibly powerful, highly arrogant Dragon Clan Demi Gods, moving seamlessly together through the raging storm.
They were flying straight through what looked like a literal, physical hole carved directly into the heavens above Reverse Scale City.
The current situation, if casually narrated to absolutely anyone back in the Bastion or the human territories, would sound completely absurd.
It sounded like the setup to a morbid, suicidal joke.
Here Ethen was, a solitary, isolated human completely surrounded by thirty bitter Dragon Princes and veteran beast-kin Demi Gods.
He had willingly walked right into the absolute heart of enemy territory without a single human ally to watch his unprotected back.
They were flying straight through the middle of an active, highly lethal Disaster Land, heading towards God knew where.
Of course, Ethen wasn’t stupid, nor was he blinded by the sheer, overwhelming spectacle of the magical environment tearing apart around him.
He thoroughly knew exactly how incredibly dangerous this highly hostile setup truly was.
He could feel the thick, suffocating killing intent constantly leaking from the armored dragons flying in formation right beside him.
They were all just waiting for the perfect, deniable opportunity to strike him down and claim it was a tragic environmental accident.
Unfortunately, Ethen had absolutely no other choice but to play along with their deadly game right now.
To safely ascend to the rank of an Angel and successfully save Adam’s fading life, he desperately needed to become overwhelmingly powerful.
He needed to improve his cultivation base and his physical parameters in every single aspect, rapidly and without hesitation.
Staying completely safe behind the high, fortified stone walls of the Bastion would never accomplish that monumental goal.
Comfort and safety bred stagnation, and stagnation meant that his loyal summon would eventually die from the God Almighty’s residual energy.
"We are rapidly approaching the main entrance. Remember the absolute rule, don’t touch the grass upon entry!"
At the very front of the tight, flying formation, Jiao Shen’s commanding voice rang out sharply over the deafening, roaring winds.
The elite group of dragons immediately became noticeably more cautious, tightly drawing their protective auras closer to their armored bodies.
One after another, their glowing, rapidly moving bodies disappeared directly into a strange, shimmering membrane.
The translucent barrier completely covered the dead end of the stormy passage, rippling like disturbed water whenever someone passed through it.
Ethen didn’t hesitate for a single second, immediately diving forward and following the hostile group directly through the glowing barrier.
Wormhole Disaster Land.
Upon safely breaching the barrier and reaching the other side, an impossibly large, endless stretch of vibrant grassland instantly came into view.
The strange, alien terrain was eerily illuminated not by a sun, but by the distant, freezing reaches of what actually seemed to be deep space.
Ethen was immediately physically shaken by the impossible, mind-bending sight stretching out endlessly before him.
He drastically slowed his flight speed down, his eyes moving rapidly across the strange, shifting environment as he desperately tried to understand where they were.
It genuinely felt exactly like they had been suddenly teleported completely off the planet and cast into the great beyond.
There was absolutely no normal, blue sky hanging above them to offer a sense of grounding or familiar direction.
There was no familiar, curved horizon in the distance to tell them where the earth ended and the heavens began.
There was only an endless, suffocating expanse of pitch-black darkness filled with millions of distant, glowing stars.
The cosmic, freezing void completely surrounded the enormous, floating stretch of land directly beneath their hovering feet.
The grass itself seemed to softly glow, surviving in an environment that should have instantly frozen it solid.
"Strange..."
Ethen muttered quietly to himself, forcing his racing heart to calm down as he kept his spiritual senses on absolute maximum alert.
"We will be hunting primarily Mythical Rebets today," Jiao Shen proudly announced, his voice echoing strangely in the void.
He addressed the newly separated hunting teams, his tone shifting into one of intense, competitive arrogance.
"Whoever successfully hunts, kills, and retrieves one first automatically wins first place in the noble exhibition."
"The only accepted evidence required for the final victory is the completely fresh carcass of one. No old trophies allowed."
He gave a mockingly polite, highly exaggerated nod directly towards Ethen before his personal group of five flew away.
They shot off into a completely random direction, quickly disappearing into the tall, glowing grass of the cosmic plains.
"Let’s go. Don’t fall behind."
One of the heavily armored Dragon Princes, a massive, heavily scarred young man named Chi Gang, signaled the remaining hunters.
He aggressively pulled the specific hunting team Ethen was assigned to towards his massive side, establishing immediate dominance over the group.
Without waiting for Ethen’s confirmation or readiness, Chi Gang immediately shot forward through the cold air.
He moved rapidly towards a steep, jagged hill in the far distance, his heavy armor clanking loudly in the eerie silence of the void.
"Sigh."
Ethen didn’t have the luxury or the free time to safely marvel over the impossible cosmic landscape anymore.
He immediately pushed his dark aura outward, propelling himself forward and following closely behind the hostile vanguard.
...
Mythical beasts.
In the normal, structured mortal world, wild creatures that successfully survived and entered Tier 4 were formally referred to as Demi God Beasts by the World’s Will.
They possessed high-level intellect, complex reasoning, and a true consciousness.
This made them fundamentally different from ordinary, instinct-driven beasts that simply hunted and bred based on primal urges.
A Demi God Beast could actively plot, set complex traps, negotiate, and understand the intricate flow of battle just as well as any human general.
But in some highly corrupted, spatially twisted places strictly contained within the Nether Realm, there existed another terrifying type of beast entirely.
These were chaotic creatures that possessed raw, catastrophic physical power incredibly similar to actual Demi God Beasts.
These incredibly rare, highly dangerous environmental anomalies were widely classified by hunters as Mythical Beasts.
They weren’t necessarily physically stronger or intellectually smarter than standard Demi God Beasts on paper.
In fact, most of them completely lacked the high-level sentience and tactical reasoning that made Demi God Beasts so notoriously difficult to corner.
But their unique, highly corrupted existence, bizarre biological mutations, and chaotic magical characteristics made them completely different.
It made their harvested body parts, rare bloodlines, and condensed energy cores extremely valuable on the underground black market.
"These guys are very notorious for immediately going into a violent, unstoppable frenzy when gathered closely together."
Chi Gang lay completely flat on his stomach against the grassy ground, carefully masking his massive spiritual presence from the valley below.
He looked closely over the sharp ridge of the hill, his vertical pupils focusing entirely on a large group of feral beasts.
They were loitering aimlessly across the open, starlit plains directly below their hidden vantage point.
"These definitely aren’t the specific Rebets we’re actively looking for to win the exhibition, but we absolutely can’t underestimate them."
The grotesque, heavily muscled creatures below moved constantly, completely unable to remain still for even a single second.
Their heavily armored, spiky bodies violently brushed against one another as they paced nervously through the glowing grass.
They wandered aimlessly around the strange, starlit grassland, occasionally snapping their massive, frothing jaws at the empty air.
"These specific creatures are highly valuable to high-ranking members of the Beast and Demi Human Clans."
Chi Gang’s golden eyes narrowed sharply as he coldly, mathematically evaluated the chaotic, highly aggressive pack below them.
"Trading just one of those intact carcasses to a newly ascended Angel would be extremely profitable for whoever successfully completes the sale."
Ethen lay in the grass nearby, listening completely silently to the prince’s tactical breakdown.
His face remained entirely neutral, his expression utterly unbothered by the subtle, baiting words dripping from Chi Gang’s mouth.
He had already clearly realized that absolutely everything breathing inside this twisted, cosmic place had immense market value.
Even the random, feral beasts they weren’t actively interested in hunting for the competition could instantly become highly valuable resources.
The exact moment they were safely taken outside of this spatial Disaster Land, their biological parts would fetch an absolute fortune in the Bastion.
"Friend Algar, do you perhaps have a reliable, safe way to quickly disperse them for us?"
Chi Gang’s sharp eyes drifted provocatively towards Ethen, a deeply mocking, challenging glint clearly visible in his reptilian gaze.
From the exact, overwhelmed way Ethen had looked around in pure shock when they first arrived, the dragon could easily tell the truth.
He knew for an absolute, undeniable fact that this was the human’s very first time stepping foot inside a real Disaster Land.
Ethen simply didn’t know how the twisted, chaotic natural rules actually worked in an environment with no sky and no horizon.
He didn’t know the unique, highly dangerous combat characteristics or the hidden frenzy triggers of these specific feral beasts.
And he certainly didn’t know the invisible, highly lethal spatial dangers constantly hidden within the cosmic environment itself.
Even if the human was widely known as a notoriously good, brutal hunter back on the standard, muddy battlefields of the border...
Against something completely alien and inherently chaotic that he had never once encountered before, he was absolutely bound to fail.
Chi Gang was clearly, desperately waiting for that exact moment of arrogant failure and utter humiliation to finally occur.
He wanted the human Envoy to boldly step forward, trigger the horde, and be instantly ripped apart by the frenzied beasts.
It would be the perfect, flawlessly executed environmental accident, completely removing the human without dirtying the Ao Clan’s hands.
Unfortunately for the scheming dragon prince, he wasn’t able to successfully bait Ethen into taking such reckless, ego-driven action.
Ethen didn’t rise to the obvious provocation, entirely refusing to let his personal pride dictate his survival instincts in an unknown realm.
He simply shook his head slowly, offering the disappointed dragon a perfectly calm, deeply apologetic smile.
"I don’t have a safe, reliable way to draw them away from our designated path."
He casually glanced briefly at the violent, snapping beasts below, studying their chaotic movements before looking directly back at Chi Gang.
His voice was smooth, completely lacking any shame or embarrassment at admitting his current limitations.
"Since you are the experienced veteran of this domain, I’ll just have to completely depend on Your Highness to lead the way."