Novel Full Chapter 1622: First Hurdle (1)
Chapter 1622: First Hurdle (1)
Rex climbed back to his feet and took a look around.
He panted through his mouth as he realized all the weaker voidal monsters were backing away.
None of them dared to attack again, even with a lance stabbing his chest, opting to go around him and Haxel instead. And some that chose to stay behind glared at them with bloodlust, hovering around them in a circle.
It was a sight that cracked a smile on Rex’s lips.
Can they make it less obvious? They’re waiting for the stronger voidal monsters to come and help them.
Rex checked the chain sudden quest window and realized that he had reached one thousand kills.
No wonder these voidal monsters were glaring at him with hate.
But he has no intention of stopping.
He still needs to kill a lot more voidal monsters to complete the first chain sudden quest.
Grinning with the thrill of battle, Rex grabbed the dark lance of pure voidal energy—embedded in his chest. With a sharp twist of his wrist, he snapped it easily. Then, he reached behind him and seized the other end and broke it the same as easily.
As for the corrosive shaft still buried inside his chest, he flooded it with life energy.
It hissed and crackled until eventually, it evaporated into nothing.
Once the remnants were gone, his regeneration surged into action, knitting and sealing his wound.
Just like that, a fatal strike was neutralized completely.
It was nothing for Rex.
Beside him, Haxel had also recovered from the dark lance.
Unlike Rex’s way, which was tidy and left no scar, Haxel pulled out the dark lance brutally with his hand.
He didn’t even tend to the wound and simply took a step forward and growled at the monsters ahead.
His blood-red veins hissed and glowed as steam escaped his form.
Rex could feel directly that Haxel had gotten stronger compared to how he was minutes ago.
As the name of his Echo suggests… He’ll get stronger the angrier and the more pain he experiences.
Just like me, or almost like me, I should say.
Rex smiled inwardly, finding that his taunt was a success as Haxel seemed to be engrossed in the battle, forgetting what he was doing earlier. Now, Rex also got a glimpse of his power, and more importantly, he also got help in fending off the horde.
Focusing back ahead, Rex flared his chest and claws—also growling at the incoming horde.
His eyes were fixed on the horde and then to the three Special Voidal Knights.
I’m going to kill more than them, especially those three.
Swoosh!
A sudden gust of whistling wind slammed into Rex’s side, sharp as a slap and lanced with power.
Before he could react, a vertical crescent life energy slash tore past him with blinding speed, howling through the battlefield like a phantom scythe. It left behind a clean, searing trail of devastation, slicing through the horde of voidal monsters with surgical precision.
Flesh split.
Bones cracked.
Limbs flew.
Every single abomination was cut down mid-roar, cleaved in half before any of them could sense what struck them. The ground trembled beneath the weight of the death, the once-chaotic battlefield with all voidal monsters circling Rex and Haxel, was carved open by that single, merciless arc.
Rex blinked, blood still dripping from his face—the wind of the attack still biting at his cheek.
His eyebrow was raised as he slowly turned, glancing over his shoulder.
Haxel did the same.
Both of their eyes met for a fraction of a second before fully turning to look behind them.
A figure stood outside the iron walls.
It was April.
She stood calm and poised amid the carnage, her nodachi crackling with energy—long, elegant, and also glowing like a drawn line of lightning. Sparks danced along its edge, causing the air around her to warp with residual power.
April gazed at them with unshaken eyes, her stance unyielding.
Once she got their attention, she straightened her posture and sheathed her nodachi.
“Our mission is to lead them,” She said, loud enough for them to hear. “And we’re falling behind.”
Haxel growled like a beast, his veins still glowing with the molten gleam of lava for blood.
He was offended that a lesser descendant of nobility like April was telling him what to do.
Beside him, Rex’s shoulders relaxed as he scratched the back of his head.
Even before turning around, he already knew that the slash came from her Spirit Genesis.
Rex had seen her use it before and recognized it instantly.
It was hard to calm down the throb of battle and blood inside him, but April was undoubtedly correct.
“You heard her,” Rex said, heading back to his soldiers. “It’s enough.”
Haxel clicked his tongue in displeasure before he, too, headed back to his soldiers, leaping and landing right behind the iron walls. Since the mission’s details were clear from Rick’s briefing, they shouldn’t be fighting for too long.
Or else they wouldn’t be able to catch up with the Voidal Monarch.
Once Rex and Haxel returned to their respective sides, the funneling of the voidal monsters went without a problem. At such an early stage of the Voidal Monarch, the Pawns and Knights have the instinctive desire to always stay close to their monarch.
Even the carnage Rex and Haxel did earlier was forgotten.
All of the voidal monsters charged after the Voidal Monarch, herding themselves into a straight line as the formidable iron walls funneled them forward. Even the Special Voidal Knights didn’t deviate from formation.
Instead, they surged ahead, bypassing the others, and raced toward their monarch.
Once the last voidal monster passed, Rex and Haxel barked their commands in unison.
Like sharing a single mind, the soldiers from both sides advanced, closing the opening from behind the horde and locking into position. In perfect coordination, they formed an arrow-shaped formation: with the body composed of Haxel’s soldiers as agreed, while Rex’s soldiers formed the arrowhead behind the charge.
It gave Rex a clear sight of whether any voidal monsters deviated.
I can also see what Haxel had in store from this position. I can make moves in response to him.
Not only that, he was at a complete advantage at this moment.
Flying above were the Seekers, retaining the barrier and clearing up the Black Rift’s shadow.
Rex’s already sharp vision wasn’t hindered by the Black Rift, allowing him to keep his focus on Haxel without issue. As they began to move, he glanced to the left flank of the formation, fixating his eyes on April, who stood on Haxel’s side.
His brows dipped into a frown, seemingly worried, but he had no time to think about anything else.
System, use the quest reward now.
<Affirmative.>
Swoosh!
“Hmm? What’s happening?”
“I feel… weird.”
“You feel it too? Something is happening to our bodies.”
Almost instantly after he told the System to distribute the reward, his soldiers began to feel weird.
Rex knew that the reward would give a temporary boost of agility and strength to all the soldiers in his legion that lasted until the mission ended, but he wasn’t expecting it to be like this. He could evidently see that some soldiers were swelling in size.
And the surprising part was that they seemed to be more hunched than normal.
It was almost as if they were turned into a partial Werewolf.
System, what is happening to them?
<Notice: Until the mission ended, the soldiers had been turned into a partial Half-Werewolf to enjoy the boost provided by nearing the user, the Royal Black Prince.>
Reading this, Rex inspected the soldiers again.
Fortunately, the changes weren’t much. Only a slight hunching posture and sharper canines.
Since the threat of being exposed as the one who destroyed Dragna Land and Dragna Sea loomed over his head, he was incredibly alert to anything that might give him away. It would be bad if these soldiers turned more Werewolf-like and Princess Davina noticed it.
“Move faster!”
Rex shouted the command.
He noticed that there are Pawns that slipped out since their formation got loose a bit.
Considering that their instincts were to stay close to the Voidal Monarch, the Pawns and Knights should not be deviating from their path, but reality wasn’t that simple. If the voidal monsters were too far away from their Voidal Monarch, the Black Rift could also get to them.
It happened quickly, too.
As soon as they were out of range of the Voidal Monarch, their connection was severed.
Once that happened, they became mindless, roaming about without a purpose.
And that would be dangerous for the bubbles nearby.
However, they also got stronger, nourished more by the Black Rift.
Due to that very reason, the formation must remain tight since the Voidal Monarch is really fast.
Naturally, the nobles were tasked with stalling the Voidal Monarch, buying time for the Pawns as well as the Knights to stay within range and ensure the legions weren’t overwhelmed. But stalling a Voidal Monarch was no simple feat.
Not even with the number of nobles Empress Morgana had assembled.
Attributing that the boost came from Rex, the soldiers quickly recovered—tightening the formation and also killing the Pawns that got out. Compared to earlier, the soldiers forming the arrowhead were now moving faster.
It wasn’t long before Rex and the legions drew near the heart of the storm, where the Voidal Monarch was being stalled. He could feel it in the air before he could actually see it. Ahead, not too far from him and the legions, were the nobles and the Voidal Monarch.
The Pawns and Knights had begun to surge forward with renewed urgency, frantically moving by an instinctual awareness that they were near their monarch. But it wasn’t the sight of nobles locked in the battle with the Voidal Monarch that struck Rex and the legions first.
It was the effect of the battle.
Kaboom!
Swoosh!
The shockwaves reached them in waves—violent pulses of force that tore through the land violently.
Rex could see the ground peeling open in long, jagged scars.
Even the air itself shuddered.
Each tremor hit harder than the last, throwing dirt into the sky and rattling armor like distant thunder.
Rex glanced above and saw the Seeker Flare, designed to protect them, begin blinking rapidly.
A clear sign that the power ahead had breached catastrophic levels.
Flashes of vivid, chaotic light lit the horizon, painting the battlefield in hues of violet, blue, and crimson.
Each one flared and vanished like lightning trapped in a storm cloud, and with it came a violent quake that surged through the earth. Rex’s pupils dilated when he saw the sky above them turned into water, an inverted sea that reflected them like a mirror.
Its surface flickered with power unlike anything Rex had ever seen before.
Changing nature like this… So, this is what a high-ranking Spirit can do.
Just then, dropping from the inverted water, breaking the surface was a streak of blue arc.
Marquess Darius descended from the sky, soaring with grace and impossible speed. Everywhere he moved, he left behind a radiant trail of clear blue water that twisted and churned like a living river in the air, refracting what little light remained in the dark sky.
Hovering above, his eyes swept across the legions below—then locked onto Haxel.
“Prepare to cross over the Lilyang Mountain,” He said with authority. “We’re going to move again.”
Hearing this, the legions’ entire body stiffened, but they tried to maintain their composure and kept the horde of voidal monsters at the center. All of them knew what Marquess Darius was talking about. It was their first hurdle in this mission.
To avoid getting too close to the bubbles, they need to take an unorthodox path to get to their destination.
No other choice.
And their first hurdle was this… they need to cross over a mountain, ascending the slope while keeping their formation tight.
It’s going to be hard and bloody.
Rex glanced over to Haxel when Marquess Darius flew away again.
And he saw Haxel was secretly smiling.
What’s he planning to do?