Chapter 206: Target Switch
Boom!!!
Boom!!!
Thunderous, deafening strikes rang out sharply through the cold air of the void.
Four heavily armored individuals struck forward simultaneously at a feral group of flying beasts beside a massive, jagged hill.
The sheer, overwhelming impact of every single attack violently shook the surrounding space.
It sent massive, visible waves of kinetic energy rippling through the starlit air like a stone dropped in a calm pond.
A Mythical Beast was, in absolutely all aspects of raw power and physical resilience, a true Demi God.
Its primal, echoing roar alone could strike an indescribable, paralyzing fear deep into the fragile hearts of anyone who heard it.
Its unhinged, feral rage could easily slaughter thousands of ordinary, mortal people without requiring much physical effort at all.
Just one of these creatures breaking into the human city would require a full military lockdown to contain the damage.
But that terrifying scale of destruction was only the case when they were faced against normal, ordinary people.
And by definition, a fully realized, heavily armed Demi God was absolutely not normal.
"Fall!"
One of the veteran Demi God Dragon Princes roared at the top of his lungs, his muscles bulging under his armor.
He aggressively swung his massive, heavy poleaxe downward, bringing the glowing blade directly onto the beast’s armored head.
The heavy weapon tore through its thick, heavily scaled forehead with absolute, brutal force.
It effortlessly split tough flesh and dense bone before continuing its arc deep into the creature’s massive skull.
"Jiao Dan La!"
Also known as the Killing Eastern Dragon, the specialized martial technique carried an overwhelming, unstoppable momentum.
The Dragon Prince violently twisted his entire body mid-air, using his core strength to leverage the heavy weapon.
He ruthlessly sent the enormous, dying beast crashing violently towards the glowing ground below like a falling meteor.
"Step back! Leave the flank to me!"
Ao Jin stepped forward smoothly from the rear of the strict military formation.
His right fist struck out with the speed and explosive force of a fired cannon.
Boom!
The massive, bone-crushing impact landed squarely against the armored body of another charging Mythical Beast.
The overwhelming kinetic force physically travelled through its entire muscular structure before violently snapping its thick backbone in half.
The creature’s enormous, terrifying body immediately went completely limp, dropping out of the sky like a cut puppet.
The exact same brutal, highly coordinated scene repeated itself several more times across the bloody battlefield.
Ethen sat quietly in the glowing grass, watching calmly from below as the group of four utterly decimated the pack.
They systematically slaughtered the small group of Mythical Beasts with absolute, terrifying ease.
Their strict battlefield coordination was genuinely frightening to witness up close.
None of the four Dragon Princes wasted even a single, unnecessary movement in their strikes.
Every single attack was perfectly deliberate, calculated, and executed with maximum lethal efficiency.
Whenever one of them successfully opened an opportunity or broke a beast’s guard, another immediately took bloody advantage of it.
Even against feral creatures existing at the exact same cultivation realm, the difference in actual, refined combat ability was obvious.
’These four are insanely powerful when they actually work together.’
Ethen smiled coldly to himself as he watched the group efficiently drag down the heavy corpses of the fallen beasts.
They quickly and methodically locked the massive, valuable bodies inside their glowing spatial storage rings.
The raw, physical strength of these veteran Dragon Princes was far, far beyond what an ordinary, newly advanced Demi God could display.
Sending him out hunting with some of the absolute strongest people in the entire thirty-man squad sounded completely logical on paper.
It sounded exactly like they were going out of their way to actively protect him from the dangers of the Disaster Land.
In fact, if this situation was viewed purely from the outside by a military tribunal, it looked completely, flawlessly innocent.
They were simply making absolutely sure the newly appointed human Envoy didn’t accidentally get himself killed by a stray beast.
But Ethen knew exactly what was really going on beneath the polite smiles and the supposed protection detail.
This was a carefully constructed, highly deniable execution ground.
"Now let’s rotate."
Chi Gang turned towards him, a wide, incredibly fake smile plastered across his heavily scarred face.
He casually flicked the dark blood off his heavy blade, his vertical pupils locking directly onto Ethen’s relaxed form.
"Envoy Algar, would you kindly like to step up and attack the next batch with us?"
Ethen had previously used the convenient excuse of not understanding exactly how Mythical Beasts fought to avoid contributing to the hunt.
He had claimed he needed to observe their movement patterns before stepping onto the active battlefield.
So the arrogant princes had gladly shown him.
Point blank.
They had perfectly demonstrated their absolute superiority and the beasts’ weaknesses right in front of his eyes.
Now, he logically had absolutely no reason left to refuse their polite invitation to join the vanguard.
"Sure."
Ethen stood up slowly from the glowing grass, casually brushing the dirt off his luxurious black robes.
"This time, let’s just try our luck with all of them at once."
He reached into his dark robes and pulled out a sleek, tightly woven set of gloves made entirely from dark Dragon scales.
He slowly, methodically put them over his hands, flexing his fingers to test the heavy, armored grip.
The group of veteran Dragon Princes immediately grimaced, their fake, polite smiles freezing completely on their faces.
Fighting just one enraged Mythical Beast at a time required immense skill, focus, and perfect execution.
Fighting two of them simultaneously required years of deep battlefield experience and flawless team coordination.
There were currently at least twenty-eight of those massive, feral monsters wandering aimlessly in the valley down there.
Aggroing all of them at the exact same time was nothing short of absolute, undeniable suicide.
"That’s incredibly dangerous."
Chi Gang was clearly taken aback by Ethen’s completely unhinged, suicidal statement.
He stared at the human, trying to figure out if it was a bluff or pure, unadulterated arrogance.
"No."
Ethen smiled brightly, completely unfazed by the sudden shift in the dragons’ aggressive demeanor.
"I just saw what you guys did out there. It seems easy enough for experts like us."
His dark, calculating eyes drifted downward towards the massive, chaotic group of beasts wandering below the hill.
"Besides, we don’t have to actually kill every single beast down there. Just grab the prize and get out."
There was a strange, incredibly chilling smile resting firmly on his handsome face.
The scheming Dragon Princes desperately wanted him to bite off significantly more than he could possibly chew today.
That strategy was completely, painfully obvious to anyone with a functioning brain.
They wanted him completely surrounded by just enough feral beasts that they could easily sneak a lethal attack into the chaos.
Then, they could return to the Bastion and loudly claim that they had accidentally failed to save the arrogant human in time.
It was the perfect, airtight alibi to present to the Dragon Council and the Almighty Gods.
But they hadn’t expected Ethen to boldly suggest something so incredibly dangerous that it broke their entire formation.
If he pulled the entire horde of twenty-eight beasts at once, getting even remotely close to him would fatally implicate the dragons.
They would be instantly ripped apart by the overwhelming numbers before they could even land a secret blow on Ethen.
"I..."
Chi Gang’s expression changed rapidly, cycling through deep confusion, intense frustration, and genuine hesitation.
Something was very, very wrong here.
He knew for a fact that Ethen wasn’t this stupid or blinded by his own battlefield ego.
The human had survived a direct strike from Duke Ao; he wasn’t a fragile, brainless amateur looking for glory.
But the dragons had gone through entirely too much political trouble and plotting to finally get him completely isolated here.
They couldn’t simply back out of the hunt now and return to the city empty-handed without looking like cowards.
"Let’s try it then."
After violently gritting his sharp teeth in frustration, Chi Gang eventually, reluctantly agreed to the suicidal plan.
Ethen simply nodded in quiet acknowledgment before casually moving towards the steep edge of the jagged hill.
As he prepared himself to drop into the valley, one of the other heavily armored Dragon Princes quickly pulled Chi Gang aside.
"What the hell are you actually thinking?"
The prince hissed quietly, gripping Chi Gang’s armored shoulder tightly.
Chi Gang subtly glanced towards Ethen’s relaxed back before lowering his voice to a bare, raspy whisper.
"Don’t worry about it."
A cold, incredibly dark smile slowly appeared on his heavily scarred face as the realization hit him.
"If things go completely sideways down there, he’ll just die miserably in the claws of the Mythical Beasts."
He paused, looking down at the massive, overwhelming horde of monsters pacing in the starlit grass.
"If he somehow miraculously survives the initial wave, we can just give him a little friendly nudge into the grave."
The absolute most important thing for their political survival was not to physically commit themselves to the deadly swarm.
If Ethen was brutally killed by the feral beasts, then he was completely killed by the feral beasts.
There would be absolutely no magical traces, weapon marks, or witnesses connecting them to his tragic death.
That plausible deniability was absolutely all they needed to safely return to Duke Ao and claim their reward.
Minutes later, the deafening, terrifying sounds of completely enraged beasts began drifting rapidly upwards from the valley.
Massive, earth-shattering roars violently shook the glowing grassland, vibrating through the cosmic air.
The very ground beneath the dragons’ heavy boots trembled violently, as if a localized earthquake had just been triggered.
The group of Dragon Princes immediately dispersed their tight formation, leaning eagerly over the ridge.
They looked downward with hungry eyes to see exactly what Ethen was doing to trigger the horde below.
They fully expected to see the arrogant human being ripped limb from limb in a massive pool of blood.
But no matter how carefully they scanned the valley, they couldn’t find him anywhere.
"Where the fuck did he go?"
One of the veteran princes frowned deeply, his vertical pupils contracting as he desperately scanned the chaotic battlefield.
They rapidly searched the surrounding area, expanding their spiritual senses to their absolute maximum limits.
Nothing.
There was absolutely no trace of Ethen’s physical body or his spiritual aura anywhere in the valley.
He had completely, entirely erased his presence from the Disaster Land, vanishing like a ghost in the night.
Instead of tearing into a human body, the deeply enraged, frothing beasts suddenly raised their massive heads in unison.
Their glowing, bloodshot eyes locked directly onto the only other living humans currently floating in the sky above them.
For a long, terrifying moment, the powerful Dragon Princes completely froze in absolute, paralyzed shock.
The feral beasts had found them.
And immediately, reacting to their exposed spiritual auras, every single Mythical Beast abandoned the empty area below.
Twenty-eight massive, Demi God-level monsters roared into the cosmic sky, charging violently towards the ridge.
"Fuck!"
Chi Gang’s expression changed from arrogant confidence to sheer, unadulterated terror in a fraction of a second.
The entire group of elite hunters instantly scattered in pure panic as the massive beasts surged into the sky right after them.
The trap had been completely, flawlessly reversed in the blink of an eye.
But there was still absolutely no sign of Ethen’s dark robes anywhere in the chaotic airspace.
He had completely disappeared from the board.
And the arrogant Dragon Princes were now the ones completely surrounded by the furious, bloodthirsty Mythical Beasts.
