CROAKKK!!

The monstrous Blighttoad leapt at Emery, a mountain of grotesque flesh and muscle propelled by unnatural strength.

In response, Emery’s three golden constructs moved in perfect formation, slamming their bodies into place and forming an unyielding wall before him. Thick metallic arms locked together, their combined mass creating a formidable defense line.

Without hesitation, Emery unleashed his power. With a surge of will, his body transformed—Twilight Form, and the full breadth of his [Elysian Roots] exploded outward, weaving into a massive, towering wall of living nature between himself and the beast.

The female barbarian perched atop the Blighttoad barked a laugh upon seeing this.

“Hah! A Fey? Even better!” Her eyes gleamed hungrily. “You’ll make a delicious feast for my children!”

Raising her tattered black flag once more, she channeled a dark surge of power into the Blighttoad. The monstrous frog responded immediately, bulging with strength as it crashed against the natural barrier. Vines snapped. Branches shattered. The golems were battered aside like battered tin soldiers.

The Blighttoad was unleashed in full fury.

The newly-recovered guard captain, despite his injuries, bravely rejoined the fray. He cast a powerful frost domain over the battlefield, lacing the ground and the Blighttoad’s limbs in thick, crystalline ice. Yet, even that barely slowed the beast. Every stomp shattered the frozen earth; every breath melted the surrounding frost.

Emery gritted his teeth. He could already feel the tide slipping.

“Senior Gelael!” he shouted across the chaotic hall. “How much longer?!”

The Ember Sage, his body wreathed in flickering dark flames as he continued to purge the parasitic infection, looked up with sweat streaming down his face.

“It’s a mature parasite! I need ten—no, twenty more minutes!”

“No!” Emery yelled back, “Five minutes! That’s all we have!”

Before Gelael could protest, a shriek of pure terror ripped through the hall.

It was Ivaris—the fat noble alchemist—his face pale with horror as the Blighttoad’s grotesque, barbed tongue shot toward him and the cluster of surviving noncombatants.

In desperation, Ivaris flailed his flaming axe through the air, striking nothing, his movements wild and panicked. The monstrous tongue cut through the battlefield like a whip, its tip glistening with a venomous sheen, and in a heartbeat, it was almost upon him.

Emery saw it happen—but he was too far. Not fast enough to intercept.

But he had prepared for this.

As the tongue lunged to split Ivaris in two, something unseen altered its trajectory. It veered off at the last moment, slamming into the ground beside him with a deafening crack, flinging Ivaris backward in a heap of tangled limbs and terror.

The tongue recoiled and struck again, this time aiming precisely for the fallen alchemist—but once more, it missed by the barest fraction, whistling just an inch above his head.

Ivaris scrambled across the blood-slicked floor, soiling himself in sheer terror, his expensive robes darkening as he fled on all fours like a frightened animal.

Before the Blighttoad’s third attack could descend, thick cords of Elysian roots erupted from the ground, wrapping around Ivaris’s waist and yanking him away to safety, pulling him behind Emery’s defensive line.

The female barbarian’s expression twisted from triumph to fury.

She leaned forward atop the Blighttoad, her eyes narrowing in suspicion. When the beast hesitated yet again, she finally understood.

Her gaze snapped to Emery, blazing with anger.

“You! How dare you messing with my children!”

But Emery stood firm, his breathing steady despite the chaos around him.

The tactic he used was risky, but vital.

Instead of targeting the powerful beastmaster directly—a being far beyond his level—he had used his Spectral Gaze to attack the Blighttoad itself.

Drawing on the enslavement path knowledge he had learned from Mo Yan, he infused his gaze with a subtle but potent spirit assault, exploiting the creature’s enslavement runes to scramble its senses.

It wasn’t enough to seize control—but enough to distract. Enough to make the beast’s attacks falter.

Meanwhile, the battle raged on.

The three golden constructs battered against the Blighttoad’s legs, anchoring it in place through sheer weight and force. The guard captain—bloodied but unbowed—darted around the battlefield, casting clones made of ice to draw the beast’s attention, each clone exploding into frozen shards as the Blighttoad struck them down.

Emery orchestrated the battlefield like a master conductor.

Every moment he bought was another spell unleashed—a swirling mist of thick fog to blind, multiple stones hurled like meteors, writhing roots to snare and hinder. His power surged and ebbed in rhythm, a relentless tide of nature.

But he was careful

He never stepped too close. Emery never presented himself as an easy target. Against such a monstrous opponent, one mistake could mean death.

Minute by minute, they held.

One minute.

Two minutes.

Three minutes.

More than two dozen attacks later, the Blighttoad remained restrained, and the female barbarian’s patience ran dry.

With a furious scream, she raised her black flag high, runes along the shaft flashing ominously.

Then it came—the terrifying sound that chilled every heart present.

A low, rhythmic clanging, like iron scraping against stone, echoed through the ruined hall. The floor trembled beneath them, and from the shattered walls, something monstrous emerged.

A crimson centipede, easily a hundred meters long, with armored plates of burning red metal clattering with every twitch, slithered into the hall. Its many legs stabbed into the ground like spears, tearing through rubble and bodies alike as it advanced, mandibles clicking hungrily.

[Crystalist Dreadcrawler]

[Godly Beast – Level: 7]

But the horror didn’t stop there.

From above came a deafening gust, the howling of a miniature storm. Dark wings beat against the air, and a massive creature descended—something between a mosquito and a demon, its elongated proboscis dripping venom. Its swollen, translucent abdomen pulsed with grotesque life as it buzzed overhead, casting an ominous shadow over the battlefield.

[Bloodwing Fiend]

[Godly Beast – Level: 7]

The female barbarian had summoned all her godly beasts.

She was determined to slaughter everyone in the hall, to end this battle with overwhelming force.

The hall darkened under their terrifying presence.

But Emery remained focus.

The fifteen minutes he had been promised were nearly up—and with it came reinforcements.

A dozen surviving golden constructs thundered into the hall. Each one emanated a tangible aura of power, the essence of the Supreme Being, Rosin Karat, still lingering within them.

Chaos erupted.

Three godly beasts versus fifteen indestructible constructs.

The battle turned into an earth-shattering clash of titans, walls crumbling, ground splitting, magical shockwaves ripping through the stronghold.

For the first time, fear appeared in the female barbarian’s eyes. She was surrounded from all sides. She was no longer the hunter—but the hunted.

“You!l” she shrieked, her voice raw with rage. “I will kill you all!”