Chapter 201: What’s The Play???

The split-second Evren’s fingers twitched, his mind slammed back into his physical body. The world rushed in all at once... the smell of burnt ozone, Amber’s ragged breath, and the cold shadow of the massive bone scythe falling toward their necks.

There was no time to dodge.

Evren reacted on pure instinct.

He shoved Amber and Zephyra backward with his right hand, clearing them out of the direct path of the blade.

At the exact same second, he threw the flat of the Frost-Bane Cleaver upward with his left arm, locking his muscles with Titan Body Density to take the blow.

CLANG-CRASH!

The collision sounded like two speeding trains crashing head-on. The heavy bone scythe didn’t cut through the steel cleaver or Evren’s reinforced body, but the kinetic force behind a twenty-five-foot Level 102 monster was beyond anything he had ever felt.

The violent shockwave blew Evren clean off. His left arm guard shattered into metal scraps, and with a sickening crunch, his left shoulder popped out of its socket while two ribs cracked under the blunt impact.

Evren, Amber, and Zephyra tumbled twenty feet through the air, crashing hard onto the cavern floor. Evren hit the stone, skidding several yards across the gravel before coming to a stop. He coughed violently, spitting a mouthful of dark red blood onto the rock.

"Master!" Zephyra scrambled to her feet and blinked to his side. Her hands trembled as she wrapped dark shadow mana around his waist to help support him.

Amber pushed herself up a few feet away, clutching her remaining dragon-bone saber. Her lip was split, and blood trickled down her chin as she shouted, "Evren!"

Evren gritted his teeth, sweat dripping from his forehead. His left arm hung limp at his side, and a sharp, burning pain flared in his chest with every breath he took.

"I’m fine," he grunted.

He didn’t waste time complaining; he grabbed his limp left forearm with his right hand, took a sharp breath, and violently shoved the dislocated bone back into the socket.

POP.

Evren let out a harsh hiss through his teeth, clenching his jaw until his molars ached. He reached into his spatial ring, pulled out two vials of high-grade healing potion, and popped the corks with his thumb.

He downed one in a single gulp and tossed the other to Amber. The cold red liquid spread through his chest, dulling the sharp throbbing in his cracked ribs and stopping the internal bleeding.

Behind them, the Calamity Beast turned around completely. Furious that its mental trap and execution strike had failed, the twenty-five-foot monster let out a guttural, ground-shaking roar.

Its four purple eyes burned with raw fury. The beast reared back and slammed its two front hooves into the bedrock with the force of an earthquake.

BOOM!

A wave of distorted purple light rippled through the stone floor, and the cavern’s gravity completely flipped upside down. Loose boulders, gravel, and discarded weapons suddenly floated off the ground, drifting rapidly toward the high ceiling.

Forty hunters on the front line lost their footing, their boots lifting off the stone as they scrambled helplessly in mid-air. "What is happening?!" one of them yelled in panic, waving his arms as he floated upward.

The Calamity Beast didn’t give them time to figure it out. It swung both bone scythes at the same time, unleashing two massive, crescent-shaped waves of distorted air that whistled across the chamber like giant guillotine blades.

Silas Drake poured his remaining golden aura into his rapier, forming a wide golden shield in front of his floating men.

CRASH!

The crescent wave struck the golden barrier and shattered it like thin glass. Drake was thrown backward into a massive stalagmite, coughing up blood as his armor dented against the stone.

Three heavy tanks floating beside him took the secondary blast, crashing hard into the cavern wall with groans of pain. The entire front line was completely scattered.

"Not on my watch," Evren muttered through clenched teeth. He ignored the dull ache in his ribs and stepped forward, channeling his mana into his Gravity Domain at maximum power.

BOOM!

A fifty-meter ring of heavy, crushing downward force slammed over the entire combat area. The beast’s gravity inversion was forcefully smashed back down by Evren’s SS-Rank domain.

The floating boulders crashed onto the floor, and all forty hunters slammed back onto their boots with solid thuds, regaining their footing on the solid stone.

Drake pushed himself up from the rock, wiping blood from his nose with the back of his gauntlet. He looked at Evren with grim relief and shouted, "Thanks! That beast is trying to wipe the whole room!"

"Form up!" Evren shouted over the noise. "It’s getting ready to charge!"

The forty hunters scrambled into defensive formation, locking their shields together behind Drake.

Amber stepped up to Evren’s right shoulder, her single dragon-bone saber resting loose in her hand. Her broken blade was gone, but her eyes burned with intensity.

"Evren, what’s the play?" she asked. "That thing’s armor is still absorbing elemental magic."

"We don’t use magic on its front," Evren replied, his eyes locked onto the beast. "We lock it down physically. Amber, Zephyra, the second its charge is stopped, take the air and the shadows to hit the lower two spinal vents."

Zephyra nodded from behind him. "Understood, Master."

Fifty yards away, the Calamity Beast lowered its massive head. Its four thick legs dug into the cracked bedrock, carving deep trenches into the stone as its weight shifted forward.

Both bone scythes began vibrating at terrifying speed, blurring the air around them into gray, whistling shears.

Evren’s Kinetic Flow traced bright red vectors across his vision. The trajectory was unmistakable... the monster wasn’t aiming for a single person, but preparing a full-speed trampling charge straight through the center of the cavern to crush every hunter in one sweep.

Evren knew standard alloy shields and human muscle couldn’t stop a twenty-five-foot Level 102 monster moving at full speed.

He reached into his spatial ring with his right hand and pulled out a fist-sized, dark blue core covered in pulsing aquatic veins... the Level 75 Mutated Abyssal Hydra Regeneration Core.

"Drake!" Evren yelled over the deafening hum of the vibrating scythes. "Get your assault squads ready with steel chains and harpoons! The second its charge is halted, pin all four of its knees to the floor!"

Drake’s golden eyes widened in disbelief. "The second it halts?! How the hell are you going to stop a charging mountain?!"

Evren didn’t waste time explaining. He stepped directly into the path of the oncoming monster, planted his boots into the cracked rock, and channeled a massive surge of his mana straight into the dark blue core.

"Beastlord Core Manifestation!" Evren commanded.

The hydra core in his hand erupted in blinding, deep-blue light. A massive glowing circle flared across the cracked bedrock, burning ancient runic patterns into the stone.

A deafening screech tore through the cavern, echoing with ancient abyssal fury.

From the glowing circle, a colossal sixty-foot spectral serpent burst into existence.

The spectral hydra towered over the cavern, made of swirling dark-blue mana and shimmering scales. Its huge necks spread out, burning with bright purple eyes and dripping green, corrosive venom.

The Calamity Beast charged forward like an avalanche, but the spectral hydra roared and lunged directly into its path to crash head-on into the monster.