Chapter 97: It continues

The beastman king, King Valadin, leaped through the air, activating the artifact called The Crown. The artifact amplified his already abnormal speed, pushing his beastman physique beyond its natural limits.

He held his massive axe over his head, aiming directly at the enormous creature that was currently destroying multiple buildings with its countless limbs. Every movement from the creature sent pieces of stone flying through the streets.

"How dare you!"

Valadin shouted as he swung his axe downward with all his strength. The attack struck the creature with tremendous force, creating a small explosion upon impact and sending dust and debris in every direction.

BOOM!

The creature didn’t even react.

"No effect, huh?!"

Valadin grunted before clicking his tongue. He tightened his grip around the axe and immediately launched another attack, his body disappearing for a moment before reappearing beside the creature.

BOOM!

"Still no damage?"

Valadin descended back onto the ground, his feet cracking the stone pathway beneath him from the force of his landing. He looked around at the soldiers desperately fighting the creatures, their attacks continuously failing to stop them.

"Everyone! Where the hell is Kory?!"

"Kory is on his way, sir!"

A soldier shouted while keeping his palms open, continuously firing a barrage of attacks toward the creature. Spells and weapons struck its body one after another, but none of them seemed capable of penetrating its defenses.

"Tsk!"

Valadin gripped the hilt of his axe even tighter. The Crown around his body began releasing a dark red aura, and the pressure surrounding him suddenly increased.

"AARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

The beastman king screamed as the aura suddenly erupted from his body. The ground beneath his feet began cracking, while the surrounding stones were pushed away by the overwhelming pressure.

The soldiers nearby stopped attacking for a moment. They knew exactly what their king was preparing to do.

"Now let’s see if you can defend against this!"

Valadin leaped through the air once again, leaving behind a trail of dark red aura. His muscles tensed as he raised his axe high above his head, gathering the overwhelming power of The Crown into a single attack.

He swung his axe downward.

The attack didn’t immediately hit the creature. Instead, the force released from his weapon tore through the air itself, creating a massive explosion that shook the surrounding buildings.

For several seconds, nothing happened.

Valadin remained in the air, staring into the smoke. The battlefield had become completely covered in dust and debris, making it impossible to see what had happened.

Then something moved.

A figure suddenly came flying out of the dust at an abnormal speed. The figure crashed through a building, destroying the entire structure before continuing through another wall.

"King Valadin!!!"

The soldiers shouted in horror.

Before anyone could react, another figure suddenly appeared. She moved so quickly that the soldiers couldn’t even track her movements, and in the blink of an eye, she reached the destroyed building and caught Valadin before he could crash into the ground.

"Father!"

Kory shouted as she carried the massive beastman king over her shoulder before landing on the ground. Valadin coughed heavily, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth.

"Kory..."

"Father, are you alright?"

Valadin slowly raised his head and looked toward the enormous creature. His eyes were filled with disbelief as he struggled to understand how easily his strongest attack had been stopped.

"I even used the artifact..."

His voice became quiet. "And it didn’t even make a dent."

Kory’s expression changed.

"Then..."

"This isn’t something we can fight."

Valadin clenched his fist. His eyes remained fixed on the creature that continued destroying everything around it without even acknowledging their existence.

"This is a battle... a one-sided battle."

Kory immediately looked toward the soldiers and the civilians fleeing through the streets. The entire kingdom was descending into chaos as people desperately searched for somewhere safe to hide.

"What should we do?"

"Evacuate everyone."

Valadin looked toward the battlefield one last time. His grip around his axe loosened as he finally accepted that continuing the fight would only result in more deaths.

"Don’t try to fight them anymore."

Kory nodded. "Understood."

She immediately began giving orders to the soldiers, directing them toward the evacuation routes. The beastmen warriors who had previously been fighting the creatures slowly began retreating.

For the first time in generations, their kingdom was running from an enemy it couldn’t even understand.

"We can’t fight them! We must retreat!"

---

A demon soldier screamed while running through the streets of the Craterian territory. Several demons were already injured, their bodies covered in blood as the massive creatures continued advancing through the crimson landscape without slowing down.

"Great Render! Even using blood essence, we can’t fight it!"

Another demon shouted.

The warriors had already used their strongest techniques. They had combined their blood essence, weapons, and magic in an attempt to stop the creatures, yet none of their attacks had managed to seriously injure even one of them.

The demons began retreating toward the crater. They had no idea where they could possibly escape to, but remaining in the open would only mean certain death.

Then something strange happened.

The light above them began disappearing. One by one, the demons stopped moving as they realized the darkness spreading across the land wasn’t caused by clouds.

"What...?"

A warrior slowly looked upward.

The light from the top of the crater had suddenly grown dark. Everyone looked up almost at the same time, their expressions slowly changing as they realized something was blocking the sky.

The lunar satellite that normally hung above the world was nowhere to be seen. Instead, something else had appeared within the darkness above them.

A massive object slowly emerged from the empty sky. Then another appeared beside it. And another.

The objects continued appearing until they covered almost the entire sky. From the ground, they looked like gigantic ships floating within the darkness of space, their enormous silhouettes blocking the light from above.

A demon warrior slowly lowered his weapon.

"What... are those?"