I Just Want to Farm, But My Beasts Keep Evolving!!

Chapter 181: On The Brink

"You bastard!! Stop harming my partner, get OUT!!!"

Raiden took the benefit of this period of weakness and hurled himself towards Woolie, but the Black Dragon saw that too.

With a roar, it charged forward through the collapsing pressure field, using sheer weight and power to force its way through as cracks spread across the invisible barrier around Woolie. The Platinum beasts behind it followed half a beat later, all of them sensing that this was the moment to overwhelm him before the awakening completed.

The horned sabertooth lunged first from the left, and the giant mantis leapt high from the right. The three-tailed hound lowered its body and rushed like a scaled bullet, and even the fortress-like boar began shaking the battlefield with its charge.

Looking at them, Raiden almost swore. What kind of Platinum Beasts were they, ganging up on a small Silver Tier sheep??

This was exactly the kind of situation he hated most. Right now, he was facing pressure from all sides. Woolie was hurting, his life was flickering, and enemies were closing in from all sides. Enemies that were well above their pay grade.

"Neva!!" he shouted sharply. "Don’t hold back. We need to buy him some room!!"

Neva had already started moving before he finished speaking. Her tiny body rose from his shoulder in a burst of pink light, and the sky above them started filling with radiant weapon circles once again.

But unlike the earlier Heavenfall barrage, this time, she opened fewer gates, just ten. But unlike the previous gates, these gates excluded much stronger pressure.

Long spears of light appeared first, slamming into the ground between the charging Platinum beasts like divine barricades. Then came great swords, lances, halberds, crescent blades, and rotating glaives, all falling in precise angles that cut off paths, broke momentum, and forced the incoming monsters to either slow down or crash through under heavy damage.

The sabertooth tried to leap over the wall of weapons and almost lost half its shoulder to a descending axe of light. The giant mantis sliced apart three glowing spears, only for two giant swords to pin one of its sickle-arms to the ground for a brief moment. The scaled hound dodged left and right through the rain of weapons with frightening speed, but Raiden was already waiting for that.

Using Seven-Star Steps, he shot forward through the chaos, picking up a halbred made up of light and met it head-on.

Bang!!!

His blade clashed against its fangs with a metallic shriek, and the impact sent pain screaming through his arms, but he did not retreat.

Instead, he twisted his body and kicked one of Neva’s fallen spears of light with all his strength, sending it angling sideways into the hound’s flank. The beast howled as the weapon exploded on impact, throwing it off course just long enough for Raiden to get in close and slash one of its front legs open.

"Yeah, yeah, come on then!! I am already having a terrible day, so one more ugly dog won’t make it worse!!"

The hound snapped at his face and nearly took his head off.

Raiden threw himself backwards, rolled once through blood and dirt, and came up panting. His arms were screaming at him in protest. He had broken multiple bones in both of his hands already, unable to raise them once again. But he forced himself to stay awake.

To his left, the fortress-backed boar had smashed through Neva’s weapon barricade and was still charging straight toward Woolie. To his right, the Black Dragon was forcing its way through the pressure field step by step, black flames leaking from its jaws and eyes full of murderous intent.

Woolie let out another sound then, but this time it was not a howl.

It was a strained cry. The giant wolf-shadow behind him flickered.

Raiden’s heart dropped.

"No!! Not yet!!!"

He could see it clearly now. Fenrir had taken over Woolie body, but he was losing control over it far too quickly. Woolie’s body, as a vessel, was way too weak for him to descend properly. If he kept overstaying his welcome, Woolie’s body would collapse from within.

The Fenrir pressure had bought them a few breaths. Maybe ten. Maybe less. If the Black Dragon reached him before they used those breaths well, then this Chapter of their lives was ending very badly.

Raiden made the decision instantly.

"Woolie!! I know you are in there. Wake up and fight back!! You can do this!!" he shouted while parrying another lunge from the scaled hound.

"Neva, make me a road! Straight back to the human line! I don’t care how ugly it looks, just clear me a damn road!!"

"Shaaaa!!"

Neva’s whole body lit up brilliantly. This time, hundreds of smaller weapons formed in rapid succession, carving a narrow path through the surrounding tide. Swords of light shot forward horizontally, cutting through Bronze and Silver beasts like paper. Heavy hammers crashed down on larger monsters trying to block the route, and long spears pinned down anything that survived the first wave.

It was crude compared to her earlier divine display, but much faster, much nastier, and exactly what they needed.

The Black Dragon saw the plan at once. Its roar turned murderous as it lunged forward with all its might.

At the exact same moment, the giant Fenrir-shadow behind Woolie opened its jaws wide, and all the crimson-violet lightning around his body combined into a new type of energy before it surged forward in one unstable blast.

Boom!!!

The result was instantaneous as it exploded across the battlefield like a collapsing storm. The charging Platinum beasts were all thrown off-balance for a brief instant.

Raiden’s eyes sharpened. That half-second was enough.

"NOW WOOLIE!! BOTH OF US ARE WAITING FOR YOU, SO WAKE UP!!!"

Raiden shouted with all his powers as he felt the bond between him and Woolie resonate stronger than ever before.

Woolie’s body had already stopped moving, maybe because he physically could not.

The moment he released that burst, blood sprayed from his mouth, and the giant wolf-shadow behind him shattered into mist.

His body sagged forward, almost collapsing on the ground, but Raiden was already moving. He grabbed Woolie with one arm in mid-fall, shouted at Neva to hold on, and used Seven-Star Steps with every last ounce of mastery he had.

He shot down the corridor of light and death Neva had carved for them.

Behind him, the Black Dragon roared with such fury that the shockwaves shook the entire battlefield. Black flames exploded outward, swallowing whole sections of the beast tide and human no-man’s-land alike as it gave chase without the slightest care for its own allies.

The Platinum beasts followed behind like a moving wall of disaster, smashing through the wreckage Neva had made.

Raiden could hear them, he could feel them, but he did not dare look back.

Every step felt like his body was breaking apart. His lungs burned. Blood kept slipping down his chin. Woolie in his arm, had already stopped moving, and that alone was enough to make panic rise at his throat. Neva, hovering near his shoulder, kept summoning smaller blades of light behind them one after another, trying to slow the pursuit, but the dragon burned through them almost instantly.

The Black Dragon was closing at a much faster speed than he was running, and they were not out, not even close. Then, just as the distance between the Black Dragon and Raiden was about to close up completely, a new roar burst across the battlefield from above.

Bang!!

A golden blur descended from the sky. And the Black Dragon, which had been gaining on them with horrifying speed, was suddenly struck from the side by a huge claw wrapped in blazing wind, throwing it away sideways.

The Saviour was here.