Chapter 161: The Hunt [5]
High above the tree line of the rocky crags, where the air grew thin and cold, the ancient cave system of the Crimson Spotted Leopard-Kin tribe was surrounded.
Night had fallen over the mountain, but the darkness was shattered by the glow of thousands of flickering torches.
Below the cave entrance, an overwhelming army assembled by Kaelos City stood in tight, discipline-bound ranks.
There were no songs of glory, no rhythmic drums—only the cold, heavy clinking of iron armor and the terrifying, silent malice of a hunting party prepared to slaughter a whole clan.
At the front lines stood thousands of mundane human soldiers, their bows drawn, arrows aimed high at the dark mouth of the cave.
The iron tips of their arrows were wrapped in oil-soaked cloth, blazing with bright, orange flames.
"Loose!" a commander bellowed.
THWIP-THWIP-THWIP-THWIP!
A deafening roar filled the sky as a sky-blocking rain of flaming arrows arced over the cliffside, descending like a falling constellation of death.
The arrows slammed into the stone entrance, bouncing off the rocks and burying themselves into the dirt threshold.
The Leopard-kin sentries stationed near the mouth yelled in alarm, shielding their faces as they retreated deep into the dark mouth of the cavern.
They scrambled backward, seeking refuge within the stone depths where the iron tips could not pierce them.
However, hiding inside the stone was precisely what the true mastermind intended.
Standing amidst the sea of mundane hunters, draped in a high-collared crimson cloak that masked his face, stood a tall figure.
It was the hidden elder sent by the Glorious Mythical Sect—a genuine Martial General.
The elder raised his hand, his slender fingers emerging from his sleeves, and casually snapped his thumb and middle finger together.
CRACK-SPARK!
The hidden elder possessed an inherent, terrifying affinity with the element of Fire.
The moment his fingers snapped, invisible threads of dense, crimson mana surged out from his mana cores, flying across the battlefield and linking directly with the thousands of mundane fires burning at the cave entrance.
BOOM!
The scattered, ordinary flames suddenly detonated into a towering wall of infernal fire!
The flames spiraled wildly out of control, roaring like a hungry beast as they fed upon the Martial General’s pure mana.
Driven by a sinister, unnatural force, the fire did not merely burn at the entrance; it condensed into a torrent of roaring heat that swept into the cavernous tunnels, surging deep through the subterranean halls like a tidal wave of molten brass!
The stone walls turned bright red under the terrifying temperature.
Deep inside the tunnels, the older warriors and tribe elders froze in terror.
A mundane bowman could fire a flame, and a Martial Master could project his mana into short-range elemental strikes—but to control scattered flames from hundreds of yards away and force them to surge through stone tunnels like a living snake?
Only a Martial General possessed such horrific reach over nature.
"A Martial General!" an elder gasped, his pale face reflecting the approaching fire. "They brought a Martial General!"
"Retreat! Fall back into the deep chambers!" another elder roared, grabbing two crying children by their clothes. "Rush deeper into the subterranean halls lest you be turned to ashes!"
Panicked screams tore through the subterranean refuge.
Women, children, and elderly Leopard-kin scrambled through the narrow passageways, their hearts pounding in absolute horror.
Yet, the infernal wave moved too fast.
The unfortunate, slower beastmen at the rear of the retreat were caught by the roaring tongue of fire.
The moment the crimson flames touched their skin, their bodies were instantly engulfed.
Terrifying, agonizing wails echoed through the winding stone paths, shaking the bedrock as dozens of Leopard-kin were burned into blackened ash in less than three breaths.
"Mother! MOTHER!" a young boy screamed before his voice was cut short by the inferno.
Panic spread like a contagion through the tribe.
Strong, battle-hardened warriors who had survived decades of monster hunts now shuddered where they stood, their weapons trembling in their hands.
The suffocating reek of burnt flesh and scorched fur filled the closed air.
"Silence!"
A voice like thunder reverberated off the cavern walls, instantly drowning out the cries of panic.
Stepping past the fleeing tribesmen, the Tribe Leader—Agrea, the fierce, towering Crimson Spotted Leopard-man—marched toward the approaching inferno.
His muscular frame was clad in weathered silver chestplate, and his sharp, feline eyes flickered with a violent, unyielding light.
In his right hand, he gripped a heavy, double-headed steel spear.
Agrea came to a halt right before the rushing wave of fire.
In the fundamental laws of cultivation, the martial ranks were divided by absolute, unyielding boundaries:
• Martial Warriors could merely draw mana from their internal cores to strengthen their muscles and refine their bones.
• Martial Masters achieved complete mastery over their internal mana, learning to project it outward to augment their physical attacks and reach heights of terrifying speed and strength.
• But Martial Generals were beings who transcended internal mana—they were rulers who commanded a single source of Nature itself.
No Martial General on the mortal plane could command two sources of nature.
They either commanded the wild rage of Fire, the fluid grace of Water, the crushing weight of Earth, or the razor-sharp freedom of Wind.
And Agrea was a Martial General who ruled the Wind Nature.
Agrea raised his spear, taking a single, deep breath.
His body surged with a blinding, violet mana that crackled like living lightning across his leopard-spotted fur.
"BEGONE!" Agrea roared, thrusting his spear forward into the narrow tunnel!
WHOOOOOOSH!
A violent, hurricane-force gale exploded from the tip of his spear.
The wind roared through the cavern like a invisible dragon, colliding head-on with the invading wave of crimson fire.
Agrea manipulated the air pressure with incredible precision, starving the flames of oxygen while blowing the inferno backward out of the cavern mouth!
FZZZZZZT!
The roaring fire was instantly neutralized, extinguished into a harmless cloud of dark, billowing smoke that drifted out into the night sky.
Agrea stood amid the clearing smoke, his chest rising and falling smoothly as he held his spear ready.
Behind him, the four remaining tribe elders stepped forward, drawing their curved blades and taking up battle positions.
Their eyes were cold, filled with the solemn realization that their peaceful hideout had become a slaughterhouse.
War had begun, and there was no turning back.
They were given no time to breathe.
Before the smoke could even clear from the tunnel threshold, a heavy, rhythmic trampling of boots echoed from the entrance.
"CHARGE! LEAVE NONE ALIVE! CLAIM THEIR CORES!"
Hundreds of mundane, heavily armed human hunters rushed into the dark cave like a swarm of ravenous rats.
Their faces were twisted with greed, their eyes bloodshot with pure bloodlust as they raised iron swords, crossbows, and spiked maces, eager to claim the bounties promised by Kaelos City.
Agrea glared at the oncoming human wave, his sharp feline eyes narrowing into cold slits.
He felt no fear toward these men, nor was he surprised that they came.
What disgusted him—what burned deep within his noble chest—was the utter, irredeemable cruelty of humanity.
The human cultivators standing outside knew these mundane soldiers stood no chance against an A-class beastman tribe leader.
They were intentionally sending these thousands of low-tier men to their deaths—using their blood and corpses as meat shields to drain Agrea’s mana and clear a path for the true cultivators hidden in the rear!
"Sending your own kind to die just to wear down my spear..." Agrea growled, his voice thick with profound disdain. "How sickening."
Yet, as the leader of his dying people, Agrea had no luxury to spare his enemies.
He had to play the brutal script handed to him.
Agrea took a heavy step forward.
BOOM!
The spatial pressure inside the narrow stone tunnel groaned under his sheer presence.
Agrea tightened his iron grip on his spear, channeling his dense, violet Martial General mana through the length of the weapon until the tip glowed like a miniature star.
As the first wave of a hundred human hunters reached within ten paces of him, their swords raised high, Agrea executed a single, absolute thrust.
"Die."
THUNDER-CRACK!
A beam of condensed, compressed violet wind erupted from the spear, tearing through the air at blinding speed.
The atmospheric shockwave was so violent that the solid stone walls on either side of the tunnel cracked and shattered into fine dust!
SPLATT!
The first fifty human hunters didn’t even have the time to scream.
The moment the violet wind touched their bodies, their iron armor, flesh, and bones were instantly shredded into a misty, crimson paste.
Blood, shattered weapons, and severed limbs exploded backward into the crowd behind them, painting the stone walls of the cavern in a horrific, dripping shade of red.
Agrea lowered his spear, standing amidst the raining blood, his cold violet eyes locked onto the dark tunnel entrance where the true enemy awaited.