Chapter 113: Saving Hanging City

With the Beast Net in hand, Terrence slapped the net somewhere onto the draconic serpent’s massive body. Yet, the anticipated fluid animation of it being absorbed and disappearing into his Beast Sanctuary simply didn’t happen.

Terrence crouched down quickly as he readjusted his balance against the slow slithering motion of the draconic colossal serpent.

’What the hell...’ Terrence thought, completely lost in thought over what to do next.

He looked around as his environment turned into a dizzying blur from the constant movement. Noir was right beside him, planting his sharp claws firmly into the scales while the non-stop, dizzying motion continued.

Biting his lower lip, Terrence summoned Avery, planting himself tightly to the scale of the draconic beast as well.

"Do you have any idea of what we can do?" he asked his beasts, but they were just as clueless as he was.

Different ideas rushed into his mind, but they were mere delusions and completely useless concepts against a monster of this scale.

Sticking with what he had planned since he first jumped, he raised his hands, and Avery lifted him up into the air, flying him back to a standing platform of the Hanging City.

He became breathless during the fast ascent, and as soon as his boots touched the familiar metallic platform, his weakened knees became noticeably shaky as he reshifted his balance.

"What to do..." Terrence muttered under his breath.

The slithering colossal draconic serpent still hadn’t noticed them. Or perhaps it simply wasn’t paying any attention to mere humans, who were nothing more than tiny insects to its eyes.

This was at least good news for now. Without being triggered, the threat to the hanging settlement remained far lower.

Lying battered on the metallic ground nearby was the city’s guardian in a severely weakened state. In all the chaos, no one even paid attention to his critical condition—merely because of the fact that they didn’t even know he was the legendary guardian in the first place.

Soon, Winter’s small militia arrived at the outer edge of the city’s first-floor platform. Every single eye among the people Winter had gathered was filled with sheer, paralyzing horror.

As huge as this beast was inside the crack of the shattered earth, stretching its kilometer-long crimson body across the terrain, its colossal weight dragged against the concrete structures, sending heavy shockwaves directly to the militia’s location.

"How on earth are we going to kill this beast?" Winter mumbled to herself, openly admitting inside her mind that she was terrified. This was the exact impending threat she had prepared for, yet she had ultimately still failed to prevent it.

Adorned in her heavy tactical gear, her usual calculating eyes resurfaced the moment she spotted Terrence standing a short distance away. She unsheathed her sword and quickly approached him.

"How do we put it down?" she asked, her voice laced with the tiny shred of hope remaining in the person she believed to be truly reliable.

She turned around to face the militia of at least twenty tamers, all standing with their beasts by their side as they stared up at the Red-Scaled Draconic Serpent.

"Do not be fretful! This is Terrence, and he has proved himself to be reliable time and time again when it comes to dealing with catastrophic danger!" she shouted, her voice echoing all the way to the back of the militia’s formation.

The militia she had formed in such a short time felt their heavy hearts lift slightly. Their beasts hummed with various surges of elemental energy as they prepared themselves for an all-out assault.

"Stop." Terrence spoke up suddenly, catching Winter completely off guard.

"What? But we have to kill it soon! Or else, this whole city will be erased from history!" Winter frantically replied, spreading her hands open in sheer confusion.

Terrence had finally made up his mind. All of his past combat experience told him that this was a fight impossible to win through brute force, but there was still something strategic they could accomplish.

"Look closely at the engineering of this city. Does launching a full assault seem like a wise decision if it triggers the monster?" Terrence said in a somewhat flat, yet intensely calm tone. His eyes were entirely devoid of panic; while he explained, his mind was playing out every possible scenario—like what if the beast suddenly lashed out, or what if it started moving further away from the rift it had just exited from?

"This city doesn’t sit on solid ground—it’s suspended in mid-air by massive steel cables with an old history. Do you really want to gamble on those holding up during a fight?"

Winter’s brows furrowed deeply as she faced Terrence. Every bit of her martial instinct objected to standing down, but her sharp, calculative mind told her to trust his judgment. It made total sense after all.

"So, what should we do instead?" she asked, taking a deep breath.

Terrence pointed a finger straight down below, targeting the dark, deepest part of the earth’s cracked surface.

"You’ve spent your whole life fighting against beasts and clearing dangerous rifts. A beast of that size is completely impossible to injure with our current firepower. Wherever it came from, it should simply return there."

He took a massive, steadying breath.

"I think I don’t have to explain every single detail to you, right?" Terrence continued, locking eyes with her.

Winter reluctantly nodded, while the surrounding militia members looked at him with a fresh wave of awe and deep respect. He remained so eerily calm despite the massive calamity laying right before the city.

"We have to execute a non-lethal operation and contain it back into its original place. We are going to lure it right back down into the rift, and to do that, I need every bit of your help." Terrence’s sharp eyes fell upon the assembled militia.

There was a clear, unspoken message within his gaze that the tamers received loud and clear. And just by hearing those firm words, everyone instantly understood their assignment.