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Book 7, Chapter 16: The Demonic Beasts’ Counterattack (1)

No matter what had taken place in the past, the current battle was still ongoing.

The humans and the Harpies had both penetrated deep into Beast territory at this point, leaving behind long scars on the ground. Their trajectory was right on course for the Skywild Plains.

This advance was both unrelenting and dangerous.

The nearby Beasts hadn’t even been fully cleaned out, yet large swaths of territories had been conquered.

This high-speed advance towards the Skywild Plains left them quite vulnerable to being surrounded. In addition, whether their opponent would appear after they reached the Skywild Plains was still unknown.

Even though these two races had each agreed to allow observers to accompany them on the advance, was this observation method reliable? What if they were bought, or deceived?

Or what if one side changed direction at the last possible moment, leaving their opponent to face the Beasts as they searched for an opportunity to strike?

There were too many different possibilities.

After all, military battles were all about mutual deception. Any tactic that allowed one side to put the other in the ground was fair game.

Not to mention that neither Su Chen nor Eternal Night would feel bound by a piece of paper.

Yet these two leaders quite uncharacteristically seemed to have developed a sense of honor. Both sides, under their command, continued to advance at a breakneck speed towards the agreed-upon destination.

Within the untamed forests of the northwestern region of the continent.

The sun shone brilliantly in the sky, causing the trees below to cast a massive shadow.

Sky City trundled along quite slowly.

It wasn’t that they were conserving energy; they were merely harvesting the nearby resources.

Large numbers of Harpies flew in and out of Sky City at every moment, harvesting all of the nearby resources like worker bees.

And three more floating cities were following closely behind Sky City.

One looked like a giant dragon boat, with two large wings and a thousand two hundred oars sticking off the side. Every flap of its wings sent tremendous gusts of wind flying violently everywhere. At the very front of the dragon boat was the face of a ferocious Beast.

This was the Origin Energy Demonic Tower

The Origin Energy Demonic Beast was the fourth Floating Point to be drawn up. It was constructed from the skeleton of an Origin Beast. This particular Origin Beast was known as the Fierce Serpent, a giant flying snake with the body of a dragon. Its roars pealed like thunder, and it naturally only had one eye.

As such, its skeleton possessed innate control over air. The Harpies had constructed the Origin Energy Demonic Beast using its skeleton as the core ingredient.

The second was a star-shaped Floating Point.

It was called the Harpy Star, the second Floating Point designed by the Harpies, and the only Floating Point that had been created by the efforts of the Harpies themselves.

The entire Floating Point was actually a gigantic Origin Formation, with roughly thirty thousand Harpies living inside and ensuring the operation of the formation.

The Harpy Star, unlike the other Floating Points, didn’t rely on a core. Instead, the Harpies fueled it with their combined strength. The price for this was that maintaining it expended lots of manpower and resources. The Harpies had even lost two legendary Arcana Masters over the creation of this Floating Point.

This was also the largest price that the Harpies had paid, and it left a bad taste in their mouth. Some extremists believed that creating the Harpy Star was the biggest mistake that the Harpies had ever made, seeing as they had stagnated for almost a thousand years as a result.

Even so, it was still given such a name.

And for this reason, the Harpies never attempted to construct a similar fort ever again.

The third appeared much stranger.

It looked like a giant bug slowly floating through the sky. However, its body was covered in holes, and its eyes had been gouged out. Countless Harpies flew in and out of these holes, as if they were worker bees.

This was the Brood Mother that the Harpies had obtained from Flat Sky City.

After twenty years of fostering, the Brood Mother had grown to a tremendous ten thousand feet in size. Even though it appeared incredibly bloated, it was capable of containing a million soldiers at once. Eternal Night thus gave it the name Mother of All Bugs.

Actually, the Mother of All Bugs wasn’t even complete yet despite the fact that the Harpies had been nourishing it for twenty years.

They had only brought it out in advance because of the abundance of resources present, which the Harpies could feed to the Brood Mother. In addition, with Sky City having regained its mobility, the relative importance of the Mother of All Bugs had drastically gone down. They wouldn’t possible spend a hundred years to raise this Floating Point; instead, using this opportunity to complete it sooner rather than later was the best decision.

The three Floating Points flanked Sky City like satellites, serving both as its guards and also as its power amplifiers.

When faced with such an impressive array, the powerful Demonic Beasts could only retreat.

Even so, this retreat was not without limitation. After all, the Demonic Beasts did have their own pride.

Within the Perpetual Daylight Palace.

Lonely Skyleap hurriedly entered while Eternal Night was sitting at his seat taking care of some miscellaneous matters.

“Your Majesty.”

“Speak.” Eternal Night didn’t like wasting his breath while working on official business.

Lonely Skyleap was aware of this habit of his and said straightforwardly, “The Demonic Beasts are here.”

“Hm?” Eternal Night paused whatever he was doing. “They’re all here?”

“We only spotted four: the Inferno Sovereign, the Amber Sovereign, the Four-Faced Sovereign, and the Light Goose Sovereign. We don’t know where the Kucha Sovereign has gone.”

“Kucha disappeared?” Eternal Night frowned.

The name Kucha was not particularly awe-inspiring, but it was the oldest of the ten Beast Sovereigns currently alive. Apparently, this Sovereign was actually formed from a ten-thousand-year-old Kucha plant, the only non-Beast of the ten Sovereigns. Its power was immense, however, with some rumors claiming that it had broken into a realm beyond that of the Demonic Emperors, putting its strength on par with that of a Desolate Beast.

Eternal Night was suspicious of this.

Desolate Beasts were not permitted to exist in this environment. The stronger they were, the more quickly they would die. If Kucha was really that strong, there was no need for Eternal Night to fear. But if it was not yet at the level of a Desolate Beast, it would not have been eliminated by natural selection. That would be a more significant issue.

Kucha’s disappearance made Eternal Night slightly unhappy, but the fact that four Sovereigns were preparing to fight indicated just how seriously they were taking this battle.

After a moment’s thought, Eternal Night nodded. “That’s fine. No matter what Kucha is up to, he will be helpless when we deal with his compatriots.”

“Your Majesty is truly wise.” Lonely Skyleap flattered in a timely manner.

“If that’s the case, then let’s begin,” Eternal Night said faintly.

There was no spur of the moment decision to be made. Ever since they had entered this primal wasteland, they had been fighting. The only difference was in the intensity of the battle.

Signals began to blare, echoing through the sky.

The Harpies who were out harvesting resources returned to their stations when they heard the signal. Sky City’s guards and footsoldiers assumed their positions on the city walls, and the Arcana Masters entered their Arcana Technique Towers. In addition, the three satellite Floating Points drew closer to each other.

Off in the distance, an army of Demonic Beasts was surging in their direction.

There were so many of them that they blotted out the sun and the earth. Both were completely covered by the advancing Beasts, whose numbers seemed endless.

In addition to the four Sovereigns were three hundred Demonic Emperors, four thousand Demonic Kings, a hundred thousand Demonic Lords, and their countless subordinates. This kind of a force was no weaker than the sea of Sovereigns found at the Abyss.

The Beasts were typically unorganized and hard to gather. Even Sovereigns, who could be considered to wield actual influence, were typically only accompanied by one to two hundred thousand Demonic Beasts. However, that did not necessarily indicate that their numbers were limited so. In the fact of an invading force, the Beasts would gather into a terrifying Beast Wave.

Such an imposing force being assembled was definitely a rare sight.

These terrifying numbers were the main reason why the Demonic Beasts had been able to reign supreme over the Primordial Continent for so long.

Even if they were facing a newly mobilized Sky City, the Beasts weren’t totally helpless.

Today, they were going to make these Intelligent Race members pay for their arrogance.

Four giant palaces slowly revolved in the sky above the Beast forces.

One was shrouded in a black mist. Thousands of wailing faces appeared to fade in and out of this mist, and the walls of the palace even had a contorted face inscribed onto them.

One was in the shape of a giant clay oven, but the body of the oven was actually composed of fire. The palace was a beautiful representation of the element of fire.

One was smooth and round like an egg. There appeared to be no entrance or exit, but the “eggshell” would occasionally glow with a faint, imperceptible luster.

The final palace was impossible to identify, because it glowed with such an intense light that the form of the palace was completely indiscernible. The only thing for certain was that there seemed to be some kind of hole obscured by the dazzling light.

Four Sovereign palaces!

Next to the four Sovereigns’ palaces floated a few hundred smaller Demonic Emperor palaces. Beside the Sovereigns, these Demonic Emperors were the creatures with the highest status and political power.

And now, when faced with these relentless challengers, the old guard was finally beginning to mount their counterattack.

“Attack!”

“Destroy Sky City and capture Eternal Night!”

A raucous cheer rose up from the assembled Beasts as they surged forwards like a tidal wave.

Even though they had been waiting for this battle for a long time, the Harpy soldiers stationed in Sky City still couldn’t help but involuntarily tremble when they saw this oppressive wave bearing down on them.

The first group to attack were the creatures flying through the sky.

This aerial squad, composed of Scarletflame Vultures, Whitewinged Eagles, Three-Eyed Falcons, and Venomous Serpents, to name a few, took the lead to attack. Sky City’s barrier flickered and rippled under the assault.

Lonely Skyleap gave the command to fire the arrows. As a storm of arrows rained down from the sky, the first drops of blood were shed.

At that same moment, the rest of the Beast Wave had closed in as well. The Beasts ferociously leapt into the air like a rising tsunami, reaching heights of at least a thousand feet. The impact when colliding with the barrier of Sky City was no weaker than a tsunami, scattering “ocean spray” everywhere.

A spray of blood!