Chapter 742: Bloodfalls - 1

Chapter 742: Bloodfalls - 1

It seemed that the beast had been waiting for the attackers to tire and eventually leave. Perhaps it had even hoped that the inhabitants living on its back would somehow defeat it.

But when neither of those things happened, it finally made up its mind to move.

However, by now, its mana had almost completely run out after 10 days of nearly continuous attacks from the students of both academies.

And even though it recovered at a steady pace, its mana consumption was much higher due to all the metal manipulation and energy gathering it had been doing through its feet.

The interesting thing was that, unlike the Cragveil Colossus, this beast had little to no vegetation on its back. This meant that whatever energy it needed to move its body was gathered solely through years of absorbing earthen materials through its feet.

Needless to say, it was an extremely inefficient way of gathering energy. Even to move 100 kilometres in any direction, it would need to gather energy for months, if not years.

An extremely slow rate when compared to the scale of the world.

As a matter of fact, the place where the students had initiated their attack was where the Oreback Behemoth had been lying for nearly a century. Only after sensing the density of resources in the city a few dozen kilometres away, which had developed during its century-long slumber, had it decided to move.

It had risen to its feet, alerting the authorities in the city, who immediately contacted the Emperor.

However, for months, it had simply stood in one place, as if its body were still recovering from a century of sleep. And it was at that very location that the students had launched their attack.

When they attacked its head, it sat back down. Then, after 10 days, having realised that it could no longer defend itself against the attackers once its mana ran out—especially with most of its servants dead—it finally decided to move.

As it stood up, the surrounding ground shook violently. The tremors were so intense that Tavian had to manually focus on stabilising his arrays to prevent them from collapsing, even though their temporary base was 10 kilometres away from the beast.

The beast’s head slowly emerged from its shell as the 800-metre-long mass of muscle and bone appeared once again.

However, it hadn’t even emerged halfway when someone landed a crushing attack on its lower jaw.

The very next moment, another blow landed directly on the opposite side—above its head.

The impacts were so powerful that the soil and metal debris within a 100- to 150-metre radius cracked and scattered from the beast’s head, while its dense grey-black skin suffered severe internal bruising.

HWWWOOOOAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLRRRRRRRRRRRRRR~

The beast released a low, reverberating roar that could be heard hundreds of kilometres away. Those standing nearby had to cover their ears as the deafening sound washed over them.

However, the head continued to emerge, as it would be difficult for the beast to walk with its head tucked inside its shell.

As for the attackers, Leo had delivered the blow from below, while Azrakar had struck from above.

Azrakar landed near the point of impact and prepared for another strike, while Leo fell back before immediately flying forward at blinding speed to deliver another flying punch.

THUM! THUM!

GRRRRRRRRR~

The beast let out another unpleasant, low roar after the impacts and raised one of its feet to take a step forward.

Lily and Sylrael worked together to raise tough, pointed wooden spikes at the spot where the foot was about to land, nearly a kilometre away from where it had been lifted.

A single step covered more than a kilometre. Considering that its foot was also 600 to 700 metres wide, the total distance covered was nearly 1.5 kilometres.

Solvyr, Agnivar, and the other flame users fired dense streams of flames at the foot, attempting to melt off its metal coating while it was still in the air.

And although they succeeded to some extent, when the foot finally landed, it simply crushed through the wooden spikes as if they were made of sand.

However, they also noticed that the beast had stopped using metal manipulation to reinforce its damaged parts, whether on its head, the side of its body, or even its melted foot.

At that moment—

Both Leo and Azrakar retreated a short distance and took out their summoning crystals.

They threw the crystals to the ground, and as they shattered, large spatial tears opened above them.

Leo briefly caught sight of a beast core, more than a metre wide, sublimating into the thin air within the spatial tear as a massive beast formation took shape right in front of him.

In no time, an almost 50-metre-tall beast materialised in its spirit form. However, the interesting thing was that its body somehow looked almost identical to that of a physical beast, save for the faint transparency of its surface.

Vorthuun [Spirit] (Pseudo 5-star) — Super Bloodline

"Hm?!" Leo immediately realised that, unlike a temporary summon, this beast had been completely resurrected.

He even created some distance from it, thinking that it might attack him. However, a screen suddenly appeared at the location where he had smashed the crystal.

The Beast is tame and will follow every order of its summoner until the competition ends.

It can still be killed.

Leo didn’t wait any longer and turned his attention to the spirit beast Azrakar had summoned.

Zephyrax [Spirit] (Pseudo 5-star) — Super Bloodline

"An avian beast of the wind and lightning elements..." he muttered.

"Good, we have some advantage."

He turned back towards Vorthuun.

"I’ll call you Vorthuun from now on. Unleash your strongest flame-based attacks on the Behemoth. For now, keep your distance and aim at its head!" Leo commanded, pointing towards the beast’s head, which was nearly 1.3 kilometres above the ground.

But that was fine, as Leo had already seen Vorthuun’s attacks cover more than 2 kilometres during the boss attack phase.

Right now, their primary target was the head if they wanted to deal the most meaningful damage. Targeting the shell covering the beast’s body would be the least effective approach.

Meanwhile, the Zephyrax spirit beast—having a wingspan of over 100 metres—had already launched its attack, diving straight towards the top of the Behemoth’s skull.

SKRRAAAAAA!!!

Crackle—whoossh!

A swirling mass of lightning and wind crashed into the greyish-black skin that Azrakar had previously exposed. To everyone’s surprise, Zephyrax’s dive was strong enough to pierce through the dense outer skin layer of the behemoth—which had accumulated through its lifespan and actually punch through the last delicate layer deep inside, forming a wound.

The blood was red, just like that of any other beast. However, as if the previous blunt trauma from Azrakar had caused blood to accumulate in that spot, the moment Zephyrax punctured the wound, a high, rising fountain of blood shot into the air.