In the eastern highlands beyond Greyveil, winds howled over jagged cliffs and shadowed valleys. The Skysea Faction's banner fluttered against the gray horizon, blood-red waves embroidered over silver silk. They had not come for honor, nor conquest. They had come to kill.
The beast was no ordinary threat. A horned predator with scales dark as slate and a body coiled like a serpent, it had nested within the Bonegrove Ravine. Local scouts dubbed it the Duskfang Terror—an Awakening Realm peak-stage beast teetering at the edge of evolution. Its essence pulses had already shifted, flickering with the unstable signatures of a breakthrough.
Should it ascend to the Reality Realm—the Foundation Realm (Human) equivalent for beasts—the devastation would reach every nearby province. Its spiritual roar alone could collapse towns. The Skysea Faction would not risk such a future.
They mobilized.
Four mid-stage Awakening Realm cultivators—all elders of the Skysea Faction. One high-stage Awakening Realm in dark obsidian armor—Grand Elder Dervan.
And twenty more early-stage warriors, all clad in steel-forged spiritplate and clutching talismans, pills, and weapons that shimmered with faint aura.
Grand Elder Dervan raised his spear.
"No one leaves until the beast's heart is ripped out."
They descended at dawn. Mist clung to their boots, and the air shimmered with tension.
The first scream came before the first blade landed.
The beast emerged not from the shadows, but from the sky—leaping with impossible speed, crashing into their left flank. A soldier vanished beneath its tail with a wet crunch. Blood sprayed across the cliffs.
"Formation! Form up!"
Lines tightened. Talismans activated. Barriers flared.
But the beast moved like a storm, smashing into the lines with the ferocity of a realm beyond its own. Each swipe of its claws tore steel and shattered bone. Three more warriors fell, one impaled mid-chant as he raised a barrier rune.
Grand Elder Dervan roared and surged forward, his spear igniting with thunder essence. He struck true—the spear sank into the beast's side.
It screamed.
But it did not fall.
It rolled, coiled, and launched back, eyes glowing violet-red. It lashed out, tail whipping through two more early-awakening realms cultivators like paper. A head flew.
"Damn it! Focus fire! Burn it!"
Five talisman unleashed flames, lightning, wind blades. The gorge lit with spiritual warfare. Trees burned, stone cracked, and the beast howled.
It bled. Black ichor steamed from its wounds. But with every blow, its essence fluctuated more violently.
"It's trying to break through!" one elder shouted.
"Kill it before it ascends!"
An Awakening Realm mid-stage cultivator charged with dual sabers. He ducked beneath the beast's lunge, sliced along its neck—a brilliant cut that severed part of the gill-like scales.
The beast retaliated.
Its maw opened wide, energy forming. A sphere—dense, humming, death.
A condensed breath attack.
The cultivator didn't dodge fast enough.
The explosion painted the valley in white-blue light.
When the smoke cleared, there was no body left. Just cratered stone.
Panic seeped in.
Grand Elder Dervan roared again, body glowing as he activated a blood-forged art. Veins pulsed red. His spear grew longer, heavier.
He struck.
This time, he pierced the beast's jaw and drove it into the earth. Runes from his weapon erupted.
The beast shrieked. Its body convulsed. The aura around it wavered.
"Now! All of you, now!"
Talisman users threw dozens of compressed arrays. Fire rained. Ice spears tore its hide. One brave soul leapt upon the beast's back, stabbing downward with a cursed dagger.
It writhed. Bucked.
Threw him into the ravine wall.
His spine cracked on impact.
The battle dragged. Bodies littered the gorge—half of the early-stage cultivators dead, some in pieces. One mid-stage awakening realm was bisected. Another crushed beneath a collapsed boulder.
But so too was the beast weakening.
Its eyes dimmed. Its tail thrashed with less force.
Then—
It began to chant.
A spiritual incantation. Ancient. Not human.
One of the elders gasped. "It's sentient. It's calling out—"
A tremor shook the land.
Dervan cursed. "It's drawing something! Finish it!"
The survivors, now only ten strong, launched everything they had. Essence drained. Talismans tore from their scrolls. Blood rituals activated. They became monsters themselves, faces wild with desperation.
At last—
A blade, forged of obsidian essence and lit with thunder glyphs, cleaved the beast's skull in half.
It collapsed.
The chant ceased.
Silence.
Then—a distant roar.
Far, far off, another beast screamed.