Chapter 232: This Emperor Will End This Fight In 3 Minutes!!!

The pressure that rolled across the battlefield felt like standing underneath a collapsing sky.

Twelve Platinum-Tier Terra Beasts, all connected through Darius’s amplified crest, began glowing with the same storm-blue light, their bodies swelling with borrowed power that pushed them dangerously close to the edge of Diamond Tier.

The three-headed hyena’s growl became a chorus of madness, the stone crocodile flipped itself back upright despite the damage it had taken moments earlier, its cracked scales already knitting back together unnaturally fast as a blue light flashed on its body.

"These Beasts are healing!!!," Theodore exclaimed, his voice tight. "The crest isn’t just boosting their power, it’s accelerating their recovery too."

"Wonderful." Raiden exhaled as he glared at the incoming enemies with a serious expression on his face "So now I have to actually use one leg as well to keep up."

Rose slithered up his arm quickly, her golden eyes narrowed with focus.

"Hiss Hiss..." The blood inside them is boiling, Rai Rai~ This power is too much for their bodies to bear, and it’s destroying them from the inside. It’s not natural at all.

"Yeah, I figured." Raiden reached up and scratched under her tiny head absentmindedly, causing her to close her eyes and enjoy the moment.

"Alright. I have a new plan. Theodore, keep doing what you’re doing. Neva, protect Aria no matter what. Rose, you’re with me."

"Hiss Hiss!!" Finally!!

Before he could say anything else, the ground exploded beneath one of the amplified beasts, a massive earth-type badger the size of a small house, tearing straight up from underground directly beneath Woolie and Aria.

"WOOLIE WOO!!" Not on my watch!!

Woolie didn’t hesitate.

He slammed his tiny hooves into the ground, and violet lightning erupted around him in a perfect dome, catching the badger mid-lunge and sending it skidding sideways with smoke pouring off its fur.

"Nice one, Woolie!!" Aria cheered, clutching his wool tightly.

"Woolie Woo!!" Of course!! This Emperor never fails to finish his job!!!

But even as he said it, his eyes flicked toward the rest of the battlefield, toward Theodore struggling against two amplified wolves at once, toward Neva’s light shield straining under the combined assault of wind and stone, toward Raiden and Rose weaving between attacks that were clearly getting faster and stronger and growing even more unpredictable than before.

Watching them fight, something in Woolie’s chest twisted painfully.

He wanted to help.

He wanted to fight.

But Raiden had told him to protect Aria, and Emperor Woolie always, always kept his promises, even when every fibre of his tiny, fluffy body was screaming at him to charge into the fray and remind everyone exactly why he deserved his title.

A Gold-Tier Terra Beast broke through Theodore’s line, sprinting toward Aria with his sharp claws pressed high.

Woolie’s body tensed immediately, thunder crackling around his horns as he prepared to intercept, but he never got the chance; a crimson whip shot out from nowhere, wrapped around the Terra Beast’s ankle mid-sprint, and yanked him clean off his feet before slamming him face-first into the dirt hard enough to make the ground crack.

Boom!!

"Hiss Hiss~" Rose doesn’t need help watching the boring ones. Rose can multitask.

( ˶ˆ ᗜ ˆ˵ )

Raiden, several feet away and currently holding off the stone crocodile with one hand while dodging wind blades from the eagle with the other, called out without even turning his head. "Show off."

"Hiss!!" Learned from the best~

The battle stretched on, and on, and slowly but surely, the strain began to show.

Theodore’s movements grew slightly slower as his breathing grew heavier, sweat dripping down his face despite the cool forest air. Garuda’s wings, which were once sharp and precise, started clipping trees on the way down. Lily also flickered in and out of visibility more frequently now, a clear sign her energy was running thin.

Neva’s light shield flickered too, cracks spreading across its golden surface like shattered glass barely holding together, as she remade a new one.

"Sha Sha..." These bad guys are really persistent...but I will beat them all by myself!!

(⁠ ⁠╹⁠w╹⁠ ⁠)

Rose’s blood constructs, while still devastatingly effective, required more and more force to maintain against beasts that kept healing themselves the moment they took damage.

And Raiden, despite his effortless smile, had started to actually sweat, as his movements grew slower and slower with every Terra Beast he pushed back.

Darius, watching from a safe distance with his arms crossed, allowed himself a small, satisfied smile.

"You can feel it too, can’t you?" he called out. "This crest doesn’t just boost power. It removes their limits entirely. They’ll keep fighting until their bodies collapse, with no exhaustion, no fear, and no hesitation?? How long do you think your little group can keep up with that?! 5 minutes?? 10 Minutes?? Half an hour?? Sooner or later all of you will fall at my hands!!"

Raiden ducked under a swipe from the crocodile’s tail, rolled to the side as his leg swept out, throwing back the massive crocodile into the distance as it broke through several trees and shot Darius an unimpressed look.

"You know what’s funny?" he called back. "You keep talking like this is some grand trump card. But all you’ve really done is turn a bunch of animals into tireless zombies. You personally have done jack shit. I wonder how you even got the position of this Rop Disciple thing, and you expect me to remember the name of a coward like you?!! Ha, Peh!!"

Darius’s smile twitched as he saw Raiden spit on the ground, whose face was covered in disdain.

"Keep joking. See how funny it is when your friends collapse from exhaustion around you."

As if summoned by his words, one of the amplified wolves finally broke past Theodore’s defences, its jaws snapping shut around his sword arm hard enough to draw blood.

"Gah!!"

"Theo!!" Aria’s scream cut through the battlefield.

Woolie, who was watching this fight closely, felt his entire body go rigid.

For one long second, the world seemed to slow down as violet lightning began gathering violently around his small frame, thicker and darker than it had ever been before, crackling with an intensity that made the surrounding grass wilt just from proximity.

His eyes, usually filled with cheerful arrogance, had turned sharp and cold.

"Woolie Woo..." That little guy is hurt. I should go help him fight...

The wolf, sensing something was very wrong, tried to release Theodore’s arm and retreat, but it didn’t get the chance asvRaiden’s voice cut through the chaos like a blade.

"Woolie!!"

The little sheep froze mid-motion, lightning still crackling violently around him.

"You’ve been holding back long enough." Raiden’s expression had turned completely serious now, as all traces of his earlier lazy smile disappeared.

He didn’t want to do this, but with the increasingly bad battle situation, he had no other choice

"I want you to go and help him. But listen to me carefully, Woolie. No killing. You hear me?? These are still people, even if they’re being idiots right now."

Woolie’s ears twitched.

For a brief moment, the violet lightning around him flickered, as if his own excitement was struggling to contain something far darker trying to bubble up from underneath.

"Woolie Woo!!" Understood!! This Emperor will simply teach them a very, very painful lesson instead!!

"That works too."

Aria, still gripping Woolie’s wool tightly, finally let go.

Raiden took one look at the eager sheep that was standing in front of him before he turned around and looked at the battle situation, which was increasing and becoming dire in the distance. With a final sigh of resignation, he let out his final words.

"Go, Woolie. Go Wild."

The little sheep didn’t need to be told twice.

Boom!!

He shot forward like a violet comet, faster than anything else on the battlefield, as the ground cracking beneath each step as thunder rolled visibly through the air behind him.

The wolf that had bitten Theodore barely had time to turn around before Woolie’s horn connected directly with its side.

Crack!

Bang!!!

The resulting explosion of sound and light sent it flying clean across the battlefield, crashing through no fewer than six trees before finally coming to a stop, completely unconscious, smoke rising gently from its fur.

Silence spread across the clearing.

Theodore, clutching his bleeding arm, stared at the crater where the wolf had been standing just seconds earlier.

"...Woolie Woo?" Come on, humans, is that all you have? Come at me with your full powers!! Who is next?!

Woolie turned slowly toward the remaining Platinum-Tier beasts, violet lightning dancing hungrily around his small horns, his little tail swishing back and forth with barely contained excitement, causing them to feel a primal fear from the depths of their hearts, as they took an involuntary step backwards.

Darius, too, for the first time since the battle began, took an involuntary step backwards.

"That’s..." His voice wavered. "That’s just a single Terra Beast!! What is everybody else doing?!! Damnit, bring that damned sheep down for me!!"

Raiden, who was watching all of this happen from the back, finally allowed himself a tired but proud grin.

"You think you can take him on??" He glanced toward the small, fluffy figure crackling with lightning in the middle of the battlefield, looking utterly ridiculous and utterly terrifying at the same time as he let out a sinister smile. "I can’t wait until the fear of Emperor Woolie is carved deeply into your hearts."

Boom!!

As if responding to his words, a clap of thunder roared in the sky, crashing down on Woolie as his aura grew even more massive, covering the complete battlefield with utter domination!!

All the remaining eleven Platinum-Tier beasts turned toward the little sheep as one, their borrowed power surging violently in response to the sudden threat.

Woolie’s eyes gleamed. "WOOLIE WOO!!"

This Emperor Will End This Fight In 3 Minutes!!!