Chapter 287: Beastman Pursuers

Kill who... first?

When Kolzim said this, it wasn’t just Ron’s group who was stunned—even the other Centaurs were dumbfounded.

What kind of crazy logic was that?

"You idiots!" Kolzim swung his Longsword in a rage, pointing it at Ron’s party. "We can’t take on the Beastmen head-on right now! If we don’t kill them first, are we just going to let the Split Tooth Tribe team up with these guys and pincer us later?!"

As if waking from a dream, the Centaurs finally understood. A few of them immediately nocked arrows to their bows, preparing to attack Ron and his companions.

But it never happened. Just as Ron watched a Centaur take aim at him, a thick, heavy spear shot out from the dense woods to his side and rear, bursting through the air with chilling killing intent and instantly piercing the Centaur’s skull!

Immediately after, a horde of creatures charged howling from the forest. They had low foreheads, pig-like faces, and long, ivory tusks jutting from their lower jaws. These Beastmen, accustomed to moving in a hunched posture, were organized and disciplined. About thirty or forty of them, commanded by what appeared to be a Priest, surrounded both the Centaurs and Ron’s party, watching the two hostile groups with malicious eyes.

"Damn it, just like I said!" Kolzim glared furiously at the leading Beastman Priest. "You old hag! To think you’d even work with humans to wipe us out!"

The Beastman Priest was taken aback at first, but when she saw Ron’s party, a wicked smile spread across her weathered face. "Kolzim, your brother must have kicked you in the head. The side effects are clearly still lingering."

"But no matter. Lads, kill them all! The only ones leaving here alive will be the warriors of Gewushen!"

"Form up and face the enemy!" At this point, Zandia couldn’t worry about anything else. The young Centaur leader gripped her spear tightly and charged headfirst toward the Beastman encirclement. Inspired by her bravery, the other Centaurs joined the fray.

Kolzim shot Ron a cold glare. But compared to these "collaborators," as he saw them, the Beastmen of the Split Tooth Tribe were clearly the greater threat. Thus, he had no choice but to temporarily abandon his plans for Ron’s party.

The Beastmen, however, didn’t care about such distinctions. Their orders were "only Beastmen leave alive," so while their kin tangled with the Centaurs, several burly Beastmen swung their weapons and charged toward Ron.

In this terrain and at this range, the Centaurs’ deadliest charge was impossible to execute. Although they were physically stronger than the Beastmen, the Beastmen’s more agile bodies allowed them to hold their own in one-on-one combat without losing ground. As a result, the Centaurs quickly found themselves in a grueling fight, and the Beastmen even had warriors to spare for an attack on Ron.

"Ha! Now I know where the wounds on that Centaur corpse came from!"

Sera swung her sword and cut down a Beastman. An ally of the fallen Beastman tried to sneak up on her from behind, but the Barbarian sidestepped, letting its weapon swing wide. Seizing the opening, she grabbed the attacker and locked it in a headlock under her arm.

"It was this kind of Double-headed Axe! That Centaur must have been disemboweled because it dodged one side of the attack but ignored the threat from the other end!" Sera used her momentum to swing the Grip of the Vast Wave with one hand. Wherever the heavy blade passed, the Beastmen dared not challenge her. Only the one trapped under her arm was still trying to struggle free.

"Stay still!" the Barbarian roared. As her knotted, muscular arm tightened abruptly, Ron thought he could faintly hear the sound of bones cracking.

The once-ferocious Beastman instantly went limp like a ragged doll and was casually tossed to the ground by Sera.

"Who’s next?!" The Barbarian raised the Grip of the Vast Wave high and let out a war cry even wilder than the Beastmen’s. For a moment, not a single Beastman dared to come within three meters of her.

"Grip of the Vast Wave... Rusaike..." The elderly female Beastman Priest had not joined the battle, merely leaning on her staff at the rear and observing the field. When Sera intimidated the tribesmen, the old Beastman turned her head, her murky eyes, hidden beneath drooping eyelids, fixed on the greatsword in Sera’s hands.

’If I’m not mistaken, that sword comes from a powerful Beastman Tribe. For the Split Tooth Tribe, it would be an ancestral treasure. Why is it in the hands of a human Barbarian?’

The Beastman Priest made her decision almost instantly. She raised her staff, its tip beginning to glow with Spiritual Light, and pointed it at Sera’s back while no one was paying attention. ’The fate of the Centaurs can wait. Getting that greatsword is the priority now!’

"Curse..." Her shriveled, withered lips, puckered like a chrysanthemum, moved up and down. The Priest believed this towering giant had to be the strongest of the group. As long as she could incapacitate her, the rest would be nothing more than meat for the slaughter. But just a second before her Curse took effect, five slender fingers pressed down on her staff.

The power of the curse vanished abruptly. The Priest’s eyes widened in surprise as much as they could, but the other person’s face was shrouded in mist, its features completely obscured by Magic.

"For a Beastman Priest, you’re the most useless one I’ve ever seen, only daring to hide in the back and curse your opponents," the intruder—face obscured, but with a build suggesting an Elf—floated in mid-air, taunting the Priest in fluent Beastman tongue. "You know, the existence of creatures like you is precisely why most races evolved a middle finger."

The Priest struggled to pull her staff from the other’s grasp and tried to use the opportunity of speaking to begin Casting. However, her opponent wasn’t falling for it. No matter what kind of Magic the Beastman Priest tried to use, the Elf would always nullify it with the most casual of gestures, erasing it from existence.

"Guards? Where are my guards!" Realizing that the power she had taken pride in for most of her life was suddenly useless, the Priest cried out in a panic. Several Beastmen engaged in a fierce battle with the Centaurs immediately broke from the fight, brandishing their weapons and charging the Elf to protect their Priest. But without exception, they all froze in place after just a few steps. They seemed to have been petrified, yet they hadn’t turned to stone, and their eyes could still move normally.

"What are you idiots doing?! You—" The Beastman Priest, about to berate her inexplicably frozen tribesmen, stopped short, stunned. It might have been a trick of the light, but for a brief instant, the light in the clearing seemed to dim.

When the light returned to normal, she finally understood why her guards couldn’t move: a winding Thorn Chain was wrapped around each of their limbs and necks. One end of it was held in the hand of a pale-skinned Elf. The Priest raised her staff to resist, only to feel a cold sensation on her own neck. The impossibly long Thorn Chain had, at some unknown moment, coiled around her throat as well!

"I’d advise you not to make any sudden moves," the pale Elf whispered, leaning close to the Priest’s ear. "Or perhaps, old woman, you’d like to dance with me too?"