Chapter 493 - 435: Legendary Half-Beastman Black Blade

Leech’s gaze fell back upon the banner of the Golden Holy Grail. He nodded and said, "Of course. We must raise a brand new banner, Your Highness."

’If I’m going to put on a show, I have to see it through.’ From now on, he had to truly treat Lisu Muma as Princess Sophia.

In truth, even if she really were Princess Sophia—and the princess of Leon City at the height of its power, at that—he wouldn’t have been too afraid of her.

The desert was too weak compared to the Four Realms, like a no-man’s-land that had been intentionally forgotten. Although it held some rare and precious things, the unbearably dry weather, unpredictable seasons, and land ill-suited for farming made it completely uninteresting to the nobility.

If a real war had broken out back then, Princess Sophia would have been unable to fend off the warhorses of the steppes, the long spears of the Eastern Gorge, or the axes of the Giant’s Foot.

After Mama City completely changed its banners and publicly announced the return of Princess Sophia, things grew quiet again.

On a positive note, Leech’s Palace Level Corpse Ghosts were finally ready. He planned to return to the Eastern Gorge once the refinement process for all the Corpse Ghosts was complete.

Leech sat on a chair, Isis standing beside him and holding the Golden Holy Grail. He gently closed his eyes.

Kaqi. His full name was Karl Vollovich Kendo Monet Lishun Aldoan Qi. To be precise, "Karl" was his given name, "Valivov" was his father, "Kendo" was his grandfather, and so on, all the way back to "Qi," the founding ancestor.

On the Panbo Continent, Kaqi’s family wasn’t considered powerful. Some powerful Half-Beastman nobles had names that were forty or even fifty names long! Otherwise, Kaqi wouldn’t have received an assignment that was tantamount to exile. It was a bit like when Leech had sent his younger brother, Leo, to East Port—it looked like a promising opportunity, but in reality, it was the end of his future.

Unlike the information from his conversation with the elf girl, Bai Lu, the understanding of the Panbo Continent from Kaqi’s memories was much clearer.

Compared to the Lu Leiyi Continent, it was a much more "magical" continent, home to all sorts of wondrous animals and magical plants. Humans were an unequivocally weaker species on that landmass.

The other races possessed intelligence equal to that of humans, but their natural talents were far superior.

As for the common trope in stories that humanity’s greatest advantage is its fertility, that didn’t hold true here at all. It takes a human at least fifteen years to grow from birth to adulthood, and many beastmen species had a similar maturation rate, on top of possessing far greater natural talents.

And that wasn’t even mentioning the truly superior and perfect races, like the elves.

Unfortunately, Kaqi’s memories contained little information about elves. He had been too young during the campaign against them, and by the time he was powerful enough, the elves had already vanished without a trace.

Perhaps the luckiest thing for humanity was that they and those other races were separated on two different continents. Otherwise, they would have undoubtedly been at the bottom of the food chain.

Just as Bai Lu had said, the Half-Beastmen were endless. Their fertility was immense, especially among the shorter Half-Beastmen. Unconstrained by marriage or morality and with almost no natural predators, they grew and spread like a virus, an invasive species.

They were strong, they bred quickly, and nearly every animal was a source of food for them... including their own kin.

Kaqi hadn’t been as high-ranking as Leech initially thought. If it weren’t for his Palace Level strength, he never would have been appointed legion commander for this operation.

’It took nearly ten months to cross the sea. Kaqi’s mind is much more reliable than a Demon Beastman’s, so that timeframe should be accurate. It should be... Looks like this world is much larger than Earth.’

Leech gave up digging for more information about the Panbo Continent. It was difficult to find anything useful; most of it was just Kaqi’s grievances about being wronged and bullied as a minor noble, right up until he became a Palace Level Half-Beastman and finally avenged his past humiliations.

If Half-Beastmen had any concept of marriage, his story probably would have included the classic trope of a fiancée breaking off their engagement only to be humiliated later.

The only useful piece of information was that the Half-Beastmen were not a monolith. Kaqi’s expedition had been a secret operation, which was why they hadn’t brought a larger force with them.

Leech sighed to himself. ’If they had brought a few tens of thousands more, the kingdom probably wouldn’t have been able to hold them off.’

He wasn’t exaggerating. Based on his understanding, the Lu Leiyi Continent had the means to withstand 200 Transcendents. But two thousand? If it came to that, Leech could only hope that if he died and got transmigrated again, he’d be sent back to Earth and not to another Otherworld.

’Mad Beastmen are the result of large-scale experiments on Half-Beastmen, artificially concocted and capable of being mass-produced...’

For Leech, this was definitely not good news.

He had been reminded by Isis before that the Extraordinary substance extracted from Mad Beastmen only made corpses physically stronger, a clear difference from the substance extracted from Demon Beastmen.

With Isis’s guidance, there wasn’t a significant difference in combat power for Extraordinary Corpse Ghosts created using Mad Beastman corpses as the base material. However, when using human bodies as the material, the Mad Beastman extract was far inferior to the Demon Beastman one.

’Mass-produced grunts. No wonder they’re so expendable.’

Leech had Isis sort through the 110 Extraordinary Corpse Ghosts, though it wasn’t a matter of great importance to him. Ever since he’d begun mass-producing Extraordinary Corpse Ghosts, they had become his basic units.

He filtered out a large portion of the meaningless content and began to focus on studying Kaqi’s combat experience. It proved to be very useful.

Kaqi’s ability was a form of control over strength. Leech guessed it might be the use of some special field, which allowed the Palace Level Half-Beastman to erupt with extreme speed and power, catch a boulder ten times his own size with one hand, and do so without shattering it.

It was like a perfected version of Jonney’s ability.

In terms of talent, Kaqi was absolutely top-tier. His understanding of strength, his training methods, and more were all an eye-opener for Leech.

’It seems the environment on the Panbo Continent is different from that on the Lu Leiyi Continent. Could it be that the two continents have different moons? Magic on the Lu Leiyi Continent only "came alive" after the Red Moon, but on the Panbo Continent, the air and environment seem much better.’

Leech couldn’t change the environment, but he could solve the problem by chugging potions. By using more Magic Potions and drawing on Kaqi’s experience, he believed it wouldn’t be long before he could break through to the next tier of life and become one of the legendary Palace Level beings.

’More potions, more potions. Something precious and energy-rich. Demon Beast Flesh would be best.’

’The flesh of the four-headed snake?’

’I can’t quite bring myself to eat it. Besides, the effect is only a tiny bit better than that High Magic Land island’s. That thing ate human flesh; psychologically, I just can’t stomach it.’

For now, most of the problems had been properly resolved. For example, the remaining Half-Beastmen had all been turned into Corpse Ghosts, and Jonney’s body had been restored. He had no heart, but his chest cavity had been filled with a large amount of gold.

’My coffers are empty.’

Leech sighed. He hadn’t sent anyone to the southern coast to deal with the Half-Beastmen’s ships. After reaching the Lu Leiyi Continent, the fleet was on the verge of falling apart. The cost of either forcing them into service or repairing them was simply too high. It was better to just leave them there to rot.

"What is it?" Leech asked, opening his eyes. He had just received a prompt from Isis, forcing him to pull out of his "My Life as a Half-Beastman" experience.

He had been especially engrossed in a story from Kaqi’s memories about the Sword Saint, ’Black Blade.’ Though not a Legend himself, he was hailed as the strongest Palace Level warrior below that tier. It was said that with a single swing of his sword, he could take down a whole group of Half-Beastmen of Kaqi’s caliber.

Kaqi had grown up listening to stories of Black Blade.

Leech was also quite interested in the tale of Black Blade slaying a Fire Dragon, though he wondered how much of it was artistic license.

Isis spoke from his side. "A fully-armed military force is approaching. Their banner is the Hawthorn."

"The Hawthorn Lord? Looks like he really did go over to the Water Buffalo Count’s side." Leech’s tone was light, showing no fear that this lord had sided with his enemy.