Bear School Astartes

As those Fog Demons vanished, from the mountain ranges far out on the edge of the battlefield there suddenly rose a vast chorus of leering laughter.

The Ember Knight in charge of slaughtering the Fog Demons could tell at once: that was the cry of the Fog Demons.

So he simply gave chase directly.

Yet as they pushed through the forest thinned by battle and laid eyes on those Fog Demons, a jolt of horror abruptly rose in their hearts.

The Fog Demons were hunting down every other living creature in these mountains.

The big ones like wolves and bears, the small ones like squirrels and sparrows.

All of them were cackling, driving sharp claws into bodies of flesh and blood.

And the moment their prey met Death, they lost all interest, turning away to hunt the next creature.

The corpses they cast aside looked as though something had sucked them dry, shriveling at a speed visible to the naked eye, even their fur losing all luster.

This also explained why in the zones the Terror Tyrannosaurus had passed through, there were almost no living things left at all, large or small.

By rights, with its body length of over forty meters, it would never even notice small animals like mice and songbirds, much less catch them.

Yet those places had been stripped bare, even of such tiny life.

It was the handiwork of these Fog Demons.

The Ember Knights knew little of Magic and Curse, but they keenly perceived: whatever the enemy seeks to do, they must prevent it.

"We have to speed up the extermination. The flesh and fat in these creatures’ bodies don’t just vanish—something is extracting them."

"They’ve scattered. If we want to accelerate, we’ll have to split up as well, and that increases the risk of casualties."

"The risk is real, but our mission must be completed!"

"Agreed."

In an extremely short span, the Ember Knights had already, through organizational ability far beyond their era, completed a small battlefield council.

No chaos, no hesitation.

They spread out through the complex terrain of the mountain forest, each one going alone to exterminate the monsters.

No eyes wavered; once the battlefield resolution passed, every Ember Knight immediately set about carrying it out.

Calm and resolute.

Lincoln soon returned as well from a low hill in the distance, where he encountered one of the Ember Knights who had split off, and learned of the brief battlefield council just held.

He expressed his approval of and submission to the resolution, and at once plunged into the trees, now spread out like a net.

Meanwhile, in the central battlefield, what Lann saw in the Terror Tyrannosaurus that was roaring skyward was not only its bulging, reddening, radiant masses of muscle.

Within his Spiritual Vision, countless strands stretching from the distant forest were linking into the gastric sac inside the Terror Tyrannosaurus’ body.

As though fuel had suddenly been dumped into an engine, the Terror Tyrannosaurus’ body became dramatically more active!

In that narrow chest cavity, its pounding heart made the red glow at its breast burn ever hotter!

Not only the Terror Tyrannosaurus’ strongest, largest muscle groups began to flare with swathes of blazing, radiant crimson light.

Across the beast’s originally dark-green, slick-skinned body of scales, there were many scars that had previously seemed unremarkable.

These scars were packed densely, of every conceivable pattern.

Bite marks, gouges from claws, puncture wounds...

The scars on its body were a portrayal of the Terror Tyrannosaurus’ mad journey through life, the ceaseless reflection of its predatory existence.

Unlike most creatures that evolve hard shells and Scale Armor to strengthen their defense, the Terror Tyrannosaurus had sacrificed greater protection for its supreme musculature. Its body took wounds easily.

And now, in its Muscle Expansion State, the swelling bulk of its muscles was forcibly stretching its own skin to a dangerous extreme!

Those densely packed scars on the skin were being pried open again! The searing muscles beneath shone red through the ruptured wounds.

It would strengthen its muscles to the point of tearing its own flesh, and still not relent... all for food! All for the hunt!

Madness beyond words, sheer brutality.

Just as its vulgar name implied: Terror Tyrannosaurus.

And as the Terror Tyrannosaurus entered its Muscle Expansion State, beyond the muscles reddened and radiant with the heat of a ferocious metabolism...

"Dragon Attribute Energy."

Lann’s eyes narrowed slightly as he looked toward the corner of the Terror Tyrannosaurus’ Demon-like maw.

From the vast jaws whose corners split back to the sides of its neck, a shroud of black mist, veined with streaks of red lightning, began to seep out.

The Terror Tyrannosaurus lowered its forebody, its chin occasionally scraping along the ground.

The black mist at the corners of its mouth traced marks upon the earth, scorched black and threaded with crimson sparks.

Soil and stone alike were being corroded and charred!

Just like the Golden Lion, once the Terror Tyrannosaurus entered a battle state different from its norm, the energy organs within its body were drastically awakened!

All of it happened in a single instant.

"Boom!"

Its two dark-green hind legs bent slightly, coiled tight, then snapped straight in a sudden stretch!

The Terror Tyrannosaurus’ massive, heavy body was hurled into the air by its muscles, so strong they seemed ready to explode!

Its two legs flailed in midair, and at the spot where it leaped, yet another layer of bedrock inside the mountainside was directly crushed beneath its feet!

The rock plate, shattered by external force, was half stomped down into the deeper lower strata, while the other half, under the counterforce, flipped up directly in the opposite direction of the Terror Tyrannosaurus’s push-off!

A huge slab of rock flipped and flew out, smashing into the ground with earth-shaking impact.

Compared to just now, its movements suddenly jumped a whole tier, whether in speed or in strength!

The forty-plus-meter-long monster came crashing down head-on!

But after the Terror Tyrannosaurus landed and triggered a small earthquake, it did not continue, like before, to use its mouth and tail for that ceaseless, almost frenzied-for-food assault.

On the contrary, as if to stabilize its body, after it lunged over to close the distance to its enemy, one of its two hind legs actually shifted half a step back.

Then it lowered its gaping, ferocious maw and sprayed a massive torrent of Dragon Attribute Energy straight ahead!

The exhalation from the Terror Tyrannosaurus’s powerful body, mixed with the constant crackling of red lightning within the black mist of Dragon Attribute Energy, blended together.

The rolling black smoke spewing from that Demon-like maw jetted straight out for more than fifty meters!

The black smoke itself was two to three meters in diameter!

That Dragon Attribute Energy left chillingly corrosive marks on every inch of soil and rock it touched.

But Lann, the primary target of the attack, was completely outside the breath’s range.

The Terror Tyrannosaurus’s sequence of movements—first that ferocious, explosive leap to close in, then the half-step retreat before breathing—was highly deceptive.

When most people see such a terrifying, colossal monster bounding toward them, their first reaction is absolutely to pull away and widen the distance.

Then that half-step back before the breath would further stir up their fluke mentality, driving them to move farther away.

Yet precisely because of that, the subsequent breath becomes even easier to land.

After all, the Terror Tyrannosaurus only needs to tilt its head to adjust the direction of its breath, but for an enemy who’s already far away to dodge that breath... with the same angular speed, the farther the distance, the greater the linear speed required.

This isn’t because the Terror Tyrannosaurus’s hunting process is full of cunning; in fact, from Lann’s observation, given this thing’s current mental and physiological state, it’s questionable whether it even still has the capacity for "cunning."

It has already been driven completely mad by the hunger born from its own metabolism and the consumption of its life!

This is purely its flesh’s instinctive offensive response.

Lann’s response was also very simple.

When he saw the Dragon Attribute Energy raging abnormally inside its body, he had already determined that this time it was highly likely to use an energy attack rather than its flesh.

In that chain of split-second, lightning-fast exchanges, making such a swift and decisive judgment was not difficult.

Lann did not pull away from the Terror Tyrannosaurus.

First, when it landed, he made a small hop to avoid the minor earthquake caused by that massive body slamming into the ground.

Then he immediately closed in on the Terror Tyrannosaurus’s lowered, breath-ready head!

With a "kacha" sound, the click of mechanical interlocking rang out.

The projector claw on the bracer of Lann’s left arm bit into the Terror Tyrannosaurus’s abnormally bulging back muscles.

And as the rope retracted, it yanked him upward.

A screeching "zi-lala" sound rose; though Lann had been mentally prepared, his brows still lifted slightly.

The shoulder and neck region of the Terror Tyrannosaurus, those muscles shining with a radiant heat-glow, had already risen to an almost terrifying temperature!

Pressing down with his leather gloves felt like slapping his hand onto a branding iron!

And this level of heat, for the internal damage and agony in the Terror Tyrannosaurus’s body, would only be far more intense than what appeared on the outside!

Yet even under such agony, the severity of this pain still could not compare to the torment inflicted on the Terror Tyrannosaurus by its own ravenous hunger.

This is a horrific creature that, from the very beginning of its life, has been constantly tormented and ultimately shaped by pain.

Even in the natural world of survival of the fittest, its savagery is one of a kind—the "mudslide of the food chain"!

It has no beneficial relationship with any living thing on the food chain, nor is there any beneficial phenomenon that exists by attaching itself to the Terror Tyrannosaurus.

This has made it one of the very rare creatures to receive an "Unconditional Hunt Ordinance" from the Hunters of the New Continent Expedition Team, those bright, nature-affirming, nature-protecting people.

These Hunters are the kind who will investigate for weeks in advance just to confirm the ecological impact before killing a single Great Jagras.

The Terror Tyrannosaurus’s impact on the ecosystem can only be described as purely harmful, without a trace of benefit.

In any case, it must not be allowed to live any longer!

The branding-iron-like heat transmitted from his palms and other contact points, but Lann had already completely stopped caring about these sensations.

On the back of the Terror Tyrannosaurus, he raised his Greatsword!

"Bang~ Bang~~ Bang!"

A three-stage explosive burn of Fighting Spirit Light Flame engulfed Lann’s body and the blade of [Muddy Stream·Destruction].

Not only that, from the hilt gripped in Lann’s hands came a clattering "kara-la," like something cracking and being crushed.

The thick hilt, wrapped in anti-slip dragonhide from the Extinct Dragon, seemed to be crushed by Lann’s grip.

Jagged lightning-like cracks spread across it like splitting stone, and deep within those cracks along the hilt and blade,

searing radiance like flowing magma began to seep out.

[Battle Skill·Yu Fire]!

That is the faint residue left behind after the Lords of Cinder, from the Flame World, inherited the Initial Flame that upheld the order of the world.