Chapter 261: The Omelette of Doom (2)

He had Profound Realm Path of the Mountain.

He had Profound Realm Path of Freedom.

He had Peak Realm Path of Killing.

And he had Stage 3 Spear Intent.

Against an early-Silver or even a mid-tier Gold combatant, he was a god in human clothing.

Against a Stage 3 Beast King?

A Stage 3 Beast King possessed a biological density that could absorb nuclear detonations. Its chitin was infused with primeval elemental marrow.

Trying to pierce its skull with a spear thrust—even an Art like the Line of Death—would be like trying to fell a sequoia tree with a rusty sewing needle.

"Yeah, absolutely not," Creed concluded cheerfully, kicking his legs out of the rock wall.

"Dignity is for people who aren’t being chased by an eight-legged skyscraper!"

FWOOSH!

The Wings of Freedom erupted behind his shoulders, blazing with ethereal, prismatic brilliance.

Creed didn’t just fly; he detonated outward.

With his Path of Freedom sitting firmly in the Profound Realm, he stepped outside the friction of the atmosphere, leaving behind a localized sonic boom as he turned into a midnight-navy comet, streaking across the treetops at Mach 4!

Behind him, reality tore open.

The Brood-Matron unleashed a barrage of Spatial Silk.

Hundreds of thick, translucent white cords, each the width of an elephant’s trunk, ripped through the sky!

Where the silk touched a tree, the tree was not bound—the space around the tree folded inward, crushing the wood into a dense, compressed ball of splinters!

SWOOSH! ZIP!

Creed weaved through the sky like a blue-bottle fly dodging a swatter.

He twisted, banked, inverted his flight at right angles, his hair whipping wildly beneath his navy headband.

A strand of silk brushed the tail of his coat, instantly shearing away a square inch of Master Vane’s expensive void-silk fabric.

"My fifty-thousand-credit suit, you overgrown flea!" Creed yelled over his shoulder, his voice lost in the hurricane winds. "I haven’t even paid off the dry cleaning!"

The spider screeched in response, spitting a sea of acid that dissolved a nearby mountain peak into steaming, green sludge.

And so, the chase began.

Five miles to the south, nestled within a tranquil, sunlit valley bordered by gentle crystalline streams, a four-man squad of second-year students from the House of Clubs was taking a breather.

Their leader, a bulky, square-jawed young man named Ronald, was sitting on a flat mossy rock, inspecting a fist-sized amethyst crystal his team had just extracted from a low-tier elemental badger.

His heavy earth-plate armor was unclasped, resting beside him.

"Good harvest, boys," Ronald grunted with quiet satisfaction, wiping sweat from his forehead with a linen towel.

"Three Stage 3 beasts in the first three hours. We play it safe, stick to the outer perimeter, and let the arrogant Diamond bastards go get eaten in the core. In fourteen days, we walk out with enough credits to buy our third-year spirit weapons."

Beside him, a lanky second-year scout named Toby sighed in relief, leaning back against a tree trunk.

"Man, Ronald, you’re a genius. I was terrified we’d run into some crazy high-tier territory right at the drop. The wild zone is peaceful. Serene, even."

"Peaceful?" Ronald chuckled, taking a sip from his canteen.

"Of course it’s peaceful. The powerful beasts are locked deep in the central fonts. As long as we don’t do something absurdly stupid, like provoke an ancient apex predator, nothing can disturb—"

BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM.

The water in Ronald’s canteen began to ripple.

Small pebbles on the grass started vibrating, bouncing two inches into the air.

Toby sat up, blinking. "Uh... Ronald? Is the tectonic plate shifting?"

THOOM. THOOM. THOOM.

The gentle birds singing in the trees abruptly dropped dead from the sky, their little brains ruptured by pure atmospheric pressure.

From the northern ridge, a lone figure in a midnight-navy coat came hurtling through the canopy at blinding speed, screaming at the top of his lungs:

"MAKE WAY, CITIZENS! BIOLOGICAL HAZARD INCOMING! DO NOT LOOK AT ITS LEGS, IT TAKES IT PERSONALLY!"

WHOOOOOOSH!

Creed blew past their campsite three feet off the ground, the backdraft from his Wings of Freedom sending Ronald’s plate armor cartwheeling into the stream, flipping their campfire upside down, and blowing Toby’s bandana straight off his head!

Ronald froze, his canteen still pressed to his lips. "What the hell was—"

SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

The northern mountain ridge shattered.

The seventy-meter Abyssal Brood-Matron burst through the granite peak like a battering ram, thousands of yellow eyes glowing with pure, unadulterated murder, spraying a torrent of black acid that instantly turned the entire crystalline stream into a boiling trench of poison!

The four second-years stared.

Their jaws dropped so low they nearly hit the turf.

"B-B-B..." Toby stammered, his eyes bulging until they were completely bloodshot.

"BEAST... BEAST... BEAST KING?!"

"RUN FOR YOUR LIVES, YOU IDIOTS!" Ronald shrieked, his voice ascending to an octave usually reserved for terrified toddlers.

The four second-years didn’t even grab their backpacks.

They didn’t grab their weapons.

They turned on their heels and ran like four headless chickens, their boots slipping on the grass as the monstrous arachnid thundered past, completely ignoring them because its gaze was locked entirely on the tiny, navy-blue speck flying ahead.

Two hours later.

Twelve miles to the west, in a dense bamboo forest shrouded in thick, cool mist.

Ronald, Toby, and the other two second-years were collapsed at the base of a hollowed-out ironwood stump, their chests heaving so violently it sounded like bellows.

Their uniforms were torn, their faces covered in mud and sweat, their eyes haunted by the ghost of cosmic trauma.

"We... we survived," Toby wheezed, clutching his knees, a trembling, broken laugh escaping his lips.

"It didn’t see us... it was chasing that crazy freshman with the headband..."

"A Beast King in the outer perimeter," Ronald muttered, staring blankly at his muddy boots, his soul hollow.

"The realm opened two hours ago. Two hours! Why is there a Bastion-destroying apocalypse roaming the beginner zone?!"

"It doesn’t matter," the third teammate said, lying flat on his back, staring at the grey sky. "He led it away. We ran twelve miles. We’re safe. We can finally rest..."

Pat. Pat. Pat.

Footsteps.

Light, rhythmic, rapid footsteps echoing through the bamboo mist.

Ronald’s head snapped up. Toby’s eyes widened in fresh horror.

"What the fuck is coming" they both said.