Chapter 254: Divine Tactic
Rapidly, the three of them ran outside, where the sound of explosions was already deafening the area.
"Those damn Heavenly Beasts! All Impure Beasts, listen to my orders! Abandon the outer defensive line immediately and retreat to the inner ring! Concentrate the formation and strengthen the defenses!" the old Leader roared. Right afterward, he activated his true form and shot through the sky like a meteor.
Priam and Arvid froze for a few seconds at the chaotic scene.
"Heavenly Beasts? What the hell is going on?" Priam asked.
Arvid clenched his fists until his knuckles cracked, explaining with his eyes burning with fury.
"Some races of the Heavenly Beasts have been tamed and turned into servants of the Calamity Beasts. Because of their low intelligence, they’re normally used only as guard dogs and sentries within the Inner Realm. But now they’ve been sent to ambush us, taking advantage of the fact that we’re still exhausted from the last battle!"
The fabric of the void tore open in the distance, revealing colossal figures emerging atop the surrounding mountains. It was a total siege coming from all sides.
"They’re Heavenly Obsidian Bears..." Arvid muttered, his voice tense. "They’re only Level 12, but their armor is so ridiculously hard that even a Level 13 race can’t easily leave a scratch on them. Considering our main army is exhausted and full of wounded..."
He turned toward Priam, his expression extremely serious.
"I’m going to the front line. I don’t know if I’ll be able to protect you in the middle of this mess, so stay in the camp or run if you think it’s necessary. Just make sure you stay safe!"
"Relax, I can take care of myself. Go do your thing. I’ll just watch from here," Priam replied calmly.
Arvid nodded. With a fierce roar, he created a pair of gigantic lightning wings on his back and shot toward the battlefield.
In terms of raw power, Arvid already surpassed even the old Leader, all because of the Immortal Mark he carried. However, he couldn’t assume his true beast form before the mark was fully nourished, operating at less than half of his actual capacity.
Even so, his combat genius allowed him to face Level 13 creatures head-on.
Inspired by Arvid’s charge, all the warriors of the Impure Beasts launched their counterattack.
Priam calmly walked toward the rear, observing the edges of the battlefield. Following the Leader’s orders, the main contingent was retreating in an orderly fashion, narrowing the battle line.
’It seems the historical hatred between the three great races really is incurable... Even after all these eras, they’ve never tried to unite, preferring to slaughter each other instead...’ the shield’s voice echoed mournfully in Priam’s mind.
He let out a cynical snort.
That seemed to be the nature of the living. No matter the race or the place.
Nobody is ever satisfied with what they have, and everyone seeks absolute hegemony. Sustainable peace is an illusion. Even on Earth, where humans were the only ones at the top of the food chain, people still found ways to divide themselves into groups and come up with reasons to kill each other.
Before long, Priam spotted the Heavenly Beast army.
There were thousands of black bears over seven meters tall, completely covered in dark scales that gleamed like polished obsidian. Their claws sliced through the air like blades, and devastating blasts of fire poured from their jaws.
However, their offensive power was laughable against the Level 13 warriors of the Impure Beasts. Their defense, on the other hand, was absurd: even with five of them attacking a single bear simultaneously with everything they had, the creature barely came away with a scratch.
Without having any time to recover their energy from the previous battle, facing that army of biological tanks on equal numbers was a nightmare.
It was a pure battle of attrition. The moment the defenders ran out of energy, they would be overrun. The Impure Beasts were doomed.
’That was a relatively smart move by the Calamity Beasts,’ Priam thought. ’But if the Impure Beasts already knew those bears were allies of the enemy, shouldn’t they have anticipated this move? Accepting the previous battle without a strategic reserve was a childish mistake. Even if they won, they would still lose.’
Priam shook his head.
The complete lack of organization, structured education, and isolation within that limited realm had drastically stunted the intellectual development of those races.
In an open world rich in resources and knowledge accumulated over generations, they would have developed far more refined tactics and technologies. Here, they lived like wild beasts trapped in an endless cycle of mistakes and battles.
"DIE!"
Seeing his people being cornered like that, Arvid exploded in fury. Wielding his thunderous spear, he tore open a gap in the enemy line.
Priam watched carefully: that single attack from Arvid had forced dozens of bears to retreat from the impact. He acted like a true God of Thunder, sending everything in front of him flying without even needing to kill them. But he was only one man, and he couldn’t hold the entire perimeter by himself.
"Fall back! Leave this sector to me!" Arvid shouted, his chest heaving.
The moment he gave the order, two gigantic figures appeared in his blind spot, bringing their obsidian claws down on him with all their strength.
*CLANG!*
Arvid blocked the direct attack with the shaft of his spear and tried to thrust a thunderous strike into the joints of those bears’ armor, but the gleaming surface of their scales absorbed the entire impact.
Those two weren’t ordinary monsters: they were the two greatest prodigies of the Heavenly Beast race.
"DISAPPEAR!" Arvid roared, charging forward with everything he had.
His attacks were terrifying and, in terms of individual strength, he was far superior to the two bears. However, surprisingly, those two monsters seemed to have more than one functioning neuron: they acted in perfect synchronization, pressing their nearly impenetrable shells together to create an absolute defensive ring.
Explosions and arcs of electricity echoed endlessly throughout the valley. The battle was complete chaos, and it wasn’t long before the Impure Beasts, already exhausted from the previous battle, began to be cornered and killed.
’Shit... if the Impure Beasts are wiped out here, my plans are screwed,’ Priam thought, watching the carnage from a safe distance. ’But taking on this army of iron tanks alone isn’t easy. There has to be a weak point in that obsidian armor...’
*ROAARRR!*
Suddenly, one of the colossal bears broke through the defensive line and charged forward with heavy steps, heading straight toward Priam.
"Brother Priam, don’t panic! We’ll save you!"
In the blink of an eye, two Impure Beast warriors dove from the sky, intercepting the giant bear before it could reach Priam.
’Panicking? Me?’ Priam almost burst out laughing. Where the hell did they get that idea from?
Still, seeing how readily those warriors risked their lives to protect him proved that his little act as a helpless background character was paying off.
The fight between the three began right there, just a few meters away from him.
Priam took a few steps back, analyzing the scene. That bear’s defense was an absolute abomination; the lightning attacks didn’t even scratch the black armor.
Until... a spark lit up in Priam’s mind.
’Wait... could it be?!’
An old memory from Earth resurfaced. He remembered the buzz surrounding that superhero movie that had exploded in popularity—more specifically, that bizarre theory fans had come up with online about how to defeat the purple, invincible villain using a superhero who could shrink in size.
A devilish, uncontrollable smile began spreading across Priam’s face.
A flame of scientific curiosity burned in his chest. ’I NEED to test this.’
Looking around, Priam spotted a bow and quiver lying on the ground beside a corpse. Since his disguise was precisely that of a race famous for archery, it fit perfectly. He quickly picked up the bow.
Priam pulled the bowstring, nocked an ordinary arrow, and aimed toward the colossal bear, which had its back turned to him while beating the two warriors.
With a single thought, Priam activated the divine-grade Magic Art he had obtained from the sect: Falling Star in Flames.
At the tip of the arrow, a red dot the size of a pinhead began to condense. Priam injected an absurdly dense amount of energy into that tiny compression point, making it as bright and unstable as a miniature supernova.
It was something tiny, but with catastrophic expansion power.
When the charge reached the ideal level, Priam adjusted his aim, targeting the only ’gap’ left unprotected by obsidian scales.
*Peng!*
The bowstring snapped. The arrow cut through the air as an imperceptible streak and entered with surgical precision exactly through the monster’s "back door."
After all, the natural armor of those bears might have been impenetrable... but they were still biological creatures that needed to eat and, inevitably, evacuate.
The blind spot... was the ’secret orifice’!
"!"
Suddenly, the bear froze in the middle of an attack. Its eyes bulged out to an almost comical degree, its pupils nearly popping out of their sockets.
**BOOOOOOOOOOM!**
A terrifying internal explosion of flames erupted from the inside out. The shockwave was so brutal that it sent the two Impure Beasts flying dozens of meters away.
When the dust and burnt smoke settled, the two stood up dazed and stared at the scene in absolute shock.
Nothing remained of the bear except pieces of its armor and blood splattered throughout the vegetation. The Beast had simply exploded from the inside!
The two slowly turned their heads, staring at Priam, who stood there holding the bow with a focused expression, struggling against a fit of laughter that threatened to tear his face apart.
"We’ll call this Divine Tactic: Bearnus."