Chapter 82: Start cooking
The first creatures to reach within fifty meters of Joren were a pack of Rank One Windwolves, Voidbeasts known for speed.
There was no warning.
Puff.
Puff.
Puff.
More than a hundred heads dropped at once.
It was as though the scythe of death had brushed lightly across the front line.
Under Joren’s control, [Voidshard Array] became an invisible meat grinder. Wherever the beasts gathered most densely, slaughter followed.
[Ding! Rank One Voidbeast Windwolf killed. Bloodstars obtained: 10.]
[Ding! Rank One Voidbeast Carrion Hound killed. Bloodstars obtained: 10.]
[Ding! Rank Two Voidbeast Ironhide Lizard killed. Bloodstars obtained: 50.]
Notifications flooded Joren’s mind.
Within a few breaths, he had already gained more than a thousand Bloodstars.
To these low rank Voidbeasts, a Rank Three Psionic Master was a walking natural disaster.
That was why Joren had always valued Mental Force.
It was fast.
Efficient.
He did not even need to move.
Wherever his Mental Force reached became his killing field.
Within two thousand meters, every life was equal.
"Roar!"
A Rank Three Blazing Lion forced its way through the flying blades with its thick hide and charged straight at him.
Its enormous flaming paw rose overhead.
Joren did not even lift his eyes.
The thirty six blades scattered across the battlefield returned at once.
Click.
Click.
Click.
They locked together in midair, forming a transparent sword three meters long.
"Cut."
The giant blade came down.
The Blazing Lion could tear through a tank, but neither its body nor the blazing shield around it slowed the strike.
Both split cleanly down the center.
Blood sprayed across the ruins at Joren’s feet.
The remaining Voidbeasts faltered.
Fear appeared in those blood red eyes.
"Why did you stop?"
Joren frowned at the creatures hesitating beyond the corpses.
"If you are not coming to me..."
He raised his right hand and closed it around empty air.
The thirty six blades behind him scattered once more.
This time, they accelerated hard enough to produce piercing sonic cracks.
"Then I will come to you."
Joren attacked.
At some point, the soldiers of Antares Command had lowered their weapons.
The battlefield had become a performance for the Frontier Marshal alone.
"So this is a Psionic Master?"
Alar swallowed, his voice dry.
He had always heard that Psionic Masters were unbeatable among their peers and excelled in group battles.
He had never imagined group combat could look like this.
One man surrounding an entire horde.
"Not just any Psionic Master."
Kyo narrowed his eyes from the roof of the vehicle.
The cigarette between his fingers had burned down to the filter, yet he had not noticed.
"His precision is terrifying."
"Every blade is striking a weak point."
"Eyes. Throats. Hearts."
"How much calculation does that require?"
Ten minutes later, the Beast Tide that had once covered the ruins lay scattered across the ground in pieces.
The few hundred survivors finally broke.
They fled into the depths of the dead city with their tails tucked, scrambling as though they wished they had grown two more legs.
Too terrifying.
"They run pretty fast."
Joren looked at the rapidly rising number on his system panel, and the corner of his mouth lifted despite himself.
[Bloodstars: 14500]
This had only been an appetizer.
What would he gain after clearing the entire Fallen Zone?
He turned toward his soldiers and shrugged.
"All right. Clean up the battlefield."
The sound of the flying blades returning to their case was crisp and pleasing.
Jazz looked down at the heavy tower shield in his hands, then at the Voidbeast corpses cut into pieces across the ruins.
For the first time, he felt like an idiot.
He used to worry that Joren charged too quickly for him to keep up. As the team’s shield bearer, he had feared he would fail to protect him.
Protect him?
What a joke.
Joren could clear the entire horde alone. Jazz could barely keep up with collecting the bodies.
Kyo no longer looked lazy either.
As an officer of Sirius Bureau and a Half Step Rank Six expert, he understood just how brutal the cultivation of Mental Force could be.
For an ordinary Psionic Master, even the slightest increase required a top tier visualization method, months of meditation in a sealed room, and the patience to endure a level of monotony most people could not imagine.
What had Joren done over the past few days?
Killed people.
Seized an estate.
Showed off.
Made threats.
When he was not sleeping, he was cutting someone down.
Kyo had not seen him train his Mental Force for even a single minute.
Yet the moment he acted, he revealed the strength of a Rank Three Psionic Master.
Worse, the control was so smooth and precise that he looked more practiced than old experts who had trained for decades.
Kyo rubbed the stubble along his chin.
"Could this really be something people are born with?"
"Are some people truly chased by heaven itself and force fed talent?"
He suddenly felt as though his own decades of cultivation had been wasted on a dog.
If the old fossils in Alkaid Authority who treated Mental Force like their own lives saw this, they would probably suffer a stroke on the spot.
Kaia walked over and pointed toward the mountain of Voidbeast remains in the distance.
"Should we call the logistics vehicles and have them hauled away?"
"These are all valuable materials. A few of the Rank Three Blazing Lions are especially valuable. Their hides and crystal cores should fetch a high price."
Joren waved a hand.
"Cut off the valuable parts and take them with us."
"As for the rest..."
He pointed toward the field of fresh meat.
"Use what we have."
"Start cooking."
Kaia paused.
Cook here?
Inside the Fallen Zone?
Then she looked at Joren’s expression and swallowed the warning already on her tongue.
What was there to warn him about?
He had emptied everything within two thousand meters in only a few minutes.
"Yes!"
Before long, the abandoned stadium that had stood silent for a century took on an entirely different atmosphere.
Smoke rose through the ruins.
So did the rich scent of meat.
Dozens of field cauldrons stood in a row.
Thick white broth rolled inside them while large chunks of Voidbeast meat rose and sank beneath the surface.
Sizzle.