Chapter 233: This Emperor Runs Wild

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

As soon as Woolie uttered those words, a heavy silence fell on the battlefield.

Darius’ face turned multiple shades of red as he heard this valiantly provocative sentence.

"Good, good. I will make you eat your words!! Get that damned sheep!!"

"Roar!!!"

Driven by the power of the badge and the bloodline, the three-headed hyena was the first to rush out, his saliva causing the ground to melt as he advanced towards Woolie.

"Woolie, drive that mutt’s head into the ground!! Use Hell Step!!"

"Woolie!!" A devilish red-coloured fire that seemingly originated from Hell burst under Woolie’s hooves as he let out a resonant cry before he moved.

With each step, Woolie moved at a speed completely untrackable to the naked eye, leaving behind dozen craters in his wake, sizzling from the heat generated at his feet; he appeared directly in front of the three-headed hyena.

"How!!" All three heads of the hyena snapped their jaws towards Woolie at the same time, and the little sheep just jumped directly into the air, using its head as a ladder to climb on top of its body, leaving behind a charred spot on its head.

"Woolie Woo!!" Be a good little dog in your next life!!

BANG!!!

A crazy tornado of fire appeared under Woolie’s hoof as it extended on all sides before it compressed under Woolie as he slammed it down on Terra Beast’s back, causing it to buckle for a second before it was driven into the ground, causing a massive cloud of dust to rise.

A second later, the dust cleared, allowing everyone to see what happened. A big 5 m crater appeared on the ground with the three-headed hyena’s body lying inside it, completely charred and unconscious, his life and death unknown.

Looking at the scene, practically everybody felt their hairs rise on their end.

Aria, who was standing in the back, looked at the wristwatch on her hand and saw the time. Only 12 seconds had passed.

"A-Attack!! Everyone attack together and take down that little bastard!!" Darius’ loud voice cut through the silence as four more Platinum-Terra Beasts opened their mouths before firing their attacks.

BOOM!!!

Each of the breath attacks measured over 30 m in diameter, as they combined before forming an attack over 100 m, moving unhindered towards Woolie.

This gigantic wave of attack moved like an unstoppable beast on that battlefield, destroying everything in its path and leaving behind a giant trench in its wake.

Theodore, who was busy fighting his opponents, felt a little despair in his heart. This was not an attack an ordinary Terra Beast could resist. Using the power of Aria’s bloodline, these Terra Beasts had increased their powers so much, almost becoming as strong as a Diamond-Tier Terra Beast, causing him to feel a sense of despair in his heart.

Raiden, meanwhile, had a nonchalant look on his face, as instructed.

"Woolie!! Go all out. Use Twin Thunder Lightning!!!"

Hundreds of dark clouds immediately gathered on top of Woolie’s head as his body started shimmering in crimson and violet.

"WOOLIE!!!"

CRACK-BANG!!!

A twin pillar of violet and crimson lightning erupted from Woolie’s body, reaching straight to heaven as it pierced through the dark clouds, causing them to become even denser.

Just as the attack was about to reach Woolie, the thunder clouds flashed before a bolt of lightning hit it straight on.

BOOM!!!!

The explosion of violet and crimson lightning tore through the sky, meeting the incoming wave of combined breath attacks head-on. For a moment, the entire battlefield was swallowed in blinding light, and the sound alone was enough to make several weaker Battle Masters clamp their hands over their ears and drop to their knees.

BOOOOOOM!!!

When the light finally cleared, the massive trench that had been carved by the combined breath attack simply ended there, stopped dead in its tracks about ten meters from where Woolie stood, completely unscathed.

The ground around him was scorched black in a perfect circle, smoke curling up from the edges where the two attacks had cancelled each other out.

Woolie shook off the smoke clinging to his wool like a dog shaking off water after a bath.

"Woolie Woo!!" That tickled a little. Is that really all you’ve got??

Darius’s mouth hung open. He had personally witnessed the Clan Head’s crest turn ordinary Terra Beasts into monsters capable of levelling small hills, and this sheep had just stopped four of them combined without so much as stumbling backwards.

"That’s not possible." His voice came out strained, barely above a whisper. "That level of power... he should be Diamond Tier. There’s no way a Terra Beast this young could already be Diamond Tier!! This is IMPOSSIBLE!!"

"Woolie Woo!!" I’m not Diamond Tier, you idiot. I’m an Emperor. Try to keep up with the terminology.

A vein bulged on Darius’s forehead. He had never in his life been talked down to by Terra Beast, and the fact that this particular piece of damned beast kept doing it in front of hundreds of his subordinates made something inside him snap clean in half.

"Everyone!! ATTACK AT ONCE!! Don’t give it a chance to breathe!!"

The remaining seven Platinum-Tier beasts surged forward together this time, no longer taking turns, no longer testing the waters. The giant black bear swiped its claws in wide arcs strong enough to cut through stone.

The stone crocodile, having recovered from Raiden’s earlier throw, barreled in from the side with its jaws wide open. Two panthers moved in from opposite directions, aiming to pin Woolie between them, while a massive centipede burrowed under the ground trying to strike from below.

Woolie didn’t even blink.

"Woolie Woo!!" One at a time is boring anyway. Come, all of you, together!!

He planted his front hooves and let the lightning gathering around his body condense into around his body into something tighter and more concentrated than before. The violet sparks turned nearly white at the edges, crackling so loud it sounded like the sky itself was tearing apart.

The bear reached him first.

Woolie ducked under the swipe without even seeming to try, and the moment the bear’s claws passed over his head, he drove his head upward into its exposed belly.

CRACK!!

The bear folded in half mid-air and shot straight upward like it had been launched from a cannon, disappearing above the treeline before crashing down somewhere in the distance with a sound like a falling building.

The centipede erupted from the ground directly beneath him a half second later, its mandibles snapping shut on empty air because Woolie had already jumped, flipping once in midair before landing squarely on its head.

"Woolie Woo!!" Down you go.

BANG!!

The centipede’s head slammed into the dirt hard enough to crack the ground in a spiderweb pattern radiating outward for several meters. It twitched once and went still.

The two panthers, seeing their allies drop in the span of a few seconds, hesitated for just a fraction too long, and that hesitation cost them everything.

Woolie’s leg flicked, and a thin bolt of violet lightning shot out, striking both panthers simultaneously in the chest. Their bodies locked up mid-stride, muscles seizing from the electricity, and they collapsed in a heap on top of each other, smoke rising from their fur.

The stone crocodile was the last one standing, and it clearly understood by now that charging head-on was a death sentence. It skidded to a stop several meters away, its beady eyes darting nervously between Woolie and the four unconscious beasts scattered across the clearing.

"Woolie Woo?" What, giving up already? Come on, this Emperor was just getting warmed up.

The crocodile did not attack.

It turned around and ran, its massive body somehow managing an impressive amount of speed for something built like a boulder with legs.

"Coward!!" Darius screamed after it, though there was nothing he could do to stop it. "Get back here and fight!!"

The crocodile did not listen. It disappeared into the treeline, leaving Darius standing alone with three Platinum-Tier beasts down, four more collapsed around Woolie, and a rapidly growing sense that he had severely, catastrophically misjudged the situation.

Aria checked her wristwatch again, her hands trembling slightly as she did the math.

"Forty-one seconds," she whispered. "He said three minutes, and he’s already through more than half of them in forty-one seconds."

"Sha Sha!!" Neva’s eyes had turned into wide, sparkling stars as she watched from Aria’s shoulder. Big brother Woolie is so cool!! Neva wants to do that next time too!!

Theodore, still clutching his bleeding arm, could only stare. He had spent the last two days telling himself that Raiden was simply an outlier, a freak of nature that existed outside the normal rules everyone else had to follow. He had made peace with that. He had even started to feel a little better about his own progress, comparing himself to people his own age instead.

Then this happened, and every bit of peace he had built came crashing right back down.

"He’s not even using a technique name half the time," Theodore muttered to himself. "He’s just hitting things really, really hard."

Rose, still tying up unconscious Battle Masters nearby, glanced over at Woolie with something that looked doting look in her eyes.

"Hiss Hiss~" Not bad, little one, you have come so far.

But her whispers went unheard in the chaotic battlefield.

Darius, meanwhile, had backed several steps away from the battlefield, his composure cracking with every second that ticked by. He looked down at the storm-blue crest in his hand, the one given to him personally by the Clan Head, the one meant to guarantee victory against anyone foolish enough to stand against the Stormwind family.

It had done nothing.

"This can’t be happening." His hands were shaking now, not from anger but from genuine fear. "The elders said this crest would guarantee our victory. They said nothing could stand against a fully activated network of Platinum-Tier Terra Beasts."

Raiden, watching from the sidelines with his arms crossed, let out a low whistle.

"Y’know, I almost feel bad for you at this point." He didn’t sound like he felt bad at all. "You built your entire plan around numbers and borrowed power, but you guys forgot that you forgot to account for one thing."

Darius glared at him. "And what exactly is that?"

Raiden grinned, nodding toward the battlefield where Woolie stood in the middle of four smoking craters, thunder still crackling faintly around his horns as he searched for his next target.

"The Emperor Woolie!!!"

CRACK-BOOM!!!