Chapter 255: Divine Tactic (2)
It was an absolute masterstroke of a shot. Priam had used the wind element to accelerate the arrow to absurd speeds, and the magical charge of Falling Star in Flames had been programmed to detonate only after complete penetration.
After all, hitting the obsidian carapace directly would be like throwing a pebble at a tank. But the monster’s anus? There was no defense or scales protecting the inside. The poor bear was so focused on the two warriors in front of it that it never expected such a treacherous attack.
The result? A catastrophic explosion from the inside out.
"Brother Priam, was that sorcery you’re doing?!" asked one of the Arcane Astrapids, perplexed and amazed as he stared at the enemy’s remains.
"Shhh!" Priam placed his index finger against his lips, making a mysterious gesture. "Keep drawing their attention! Let’s apply the ’Bearnus Tactic’ on a massive scale!"
"Leave it to us!"
Radiant with newfound hope, the two Arcane Astrapids returned to the battle as living bait. At the same time, Priam ran toward an Impure Beast that looked like a perfect hybrid of a human and a horse—which any inhabitant of Earth would immediately identify as a Centaur.
"Sir, wanna team up? You handle the steering, and I’ll handle the trigger!" Priam asked politely.
The Beast turned her head with a deadly serious expression. "Working together isn’t a problem, kid... but first, get your eyes checked. I’m not a ’sir,’ I’m a ’ma’am.’"
"Oops! A thousand apologies, ma’am!"
Priam cleared his throat awkwardly. He had misjudged her because of her colossal musculature and imposing stature.
Without delay, he mounted the Centaur’s back.
The Centaur’s hooves sparked as she galloped across the battlefield.
’Holy shit! Now I’m literally a Divine Bow Knight!’ Priam thought, amused by the whole scene.
And the choice couldn’t have been better. Despite belonging to a low-power race, only Level 12, the Centaur was incredibly fast and could make tight turns with absurd agility.
The giant bears could barely keep up with her movements as she dodged their heavy attacks, serving as the perfect platform for Priam.
"BRAKE!" Priam suddenly shouted.
The Centaur planted her hooves in the air, instantly stabilizing her body to provide the ideal angle.
*PENG!*
The bowstring vibrated. Another arrow pierced the air and struck another bear right in its most intimate and painful spot.
"ON TARGET!"
The beast let out an extremely high-pitched squeal—a tone completely incompatible with its colossal size—before exploding grotesquely.
Around them, the Impure Beasts watched the scene with their jaws hanging open. Judging by their expressions of pure, stunned shock, Priam was absolutely certain that NO ONE in the history of this world had ever even considered such a ridiculously profane strategy. It was simply too shameless for these Beasts’ minds to comprehend.
Amid the chaos of lightning and fire, the commanders of the Heavenly Beasts didn’t even notice Priam at first. After all, he was just a tiny speck in the middle of the crossfire.
Refining his technique, Priam began applying the wind element with greater precision, firing almost completely silent arrows. They cut through the air without making a single whistle, turning the "Bearnus Tactic" into a completely invisible death sentence.
Every ten seconds, a bear exploded.
Within minutes, the flow of the battle completely changed. Whenever the pressure increased in one sector and the Impure Beasts began to give way, the legendary "Divine Bow Archer" would come galloping in. A red flash would appear, and a bear would let out a scream of desperation and agony.
After three hours of silent slaughter, Priam had already sent more than a thousand bears flying.
Until, finally, the leadership of the Heavenly Beasts seemed to notice the bizarre pattern of internal combustion among their troops. The generals let out a barrage of furious roars, ordering a massive horde to turn exclusively against the Bow Knight and his mount.
"PROTECT BROTHER PRIAM!" roared the old Leader of the Impure Beasts, noticing the enemy’s movement.
Priam rolled his eyes as the tide of bears changed direction. ’Wow, congratulations to them. It only took three HOURS and a thousand exploding asses to figure out where the arrows were coming from...’
The battle reached the peak of chaos, with both armies converging on Priam’s sector.
"So what if you saw me?" Priam curled his lips into a mocking smile and pulled the bowstring all the way back to his ear.
*PENG!*
The arrow traveled like a bolt of lightning. The bear at the vanguard let out a heart-wrenching roar, its legs locking up before it exploded like fireworks from hell.
"Watch out!" shouted one of the Impure Beasts, her voice choked with panic.
A deafening roar shook the air right behind Priam.
A colossal bear had broken through the encirclement at an unbelievable speed, crashing straight down toward him.
To Priam’s surprise, that monster wasn’t an ordinary soldier: it carried a devastating aura identical to that of the two most powerful bears holding Arvid back. The Heavenly Beasts had hidden a third trump card as a secret weapon for this massacre.
Without thinking twice, Priam pushed off and leaped from the Centaur’s back, making the warrior’s eyes widen in desperation.
In midair, the bear shot forward like a black missile!
But Priam was an absolute master of the winds.
Even without activating his Elemental Physique, he manipulated the breeze around his body to perform an impossible maneuver in midair, dodging the initial pounce by mere millimeters.
After missing the first strike, the bear spun around on its own axis in midair and drove its sharp claws toward Priam’s throat with terrifying speed.
The surrounding Impure Beasts froze. Everything was happening far too quickly, and that terrifying bear had appeared out of nowhere; no one could intervene in time.
However, Priam didn’t even give the beast the dignity of facing its second attack. He simply turned his palm and spread his fingers, throwing a thick cloud of sparkling red powder straight into the monster’s face.
*ROAARRR!*
The bear was caught completely off guard. Covered in the powder, it began roaring and blindly swiping its claws through the air.
At that moment, the Impure Beasts dove in to rescue Priam, but immediately started coughing uncontrollably.
A pungent and terribly aggressive smell invaded their nostrils, accompanied by an excruciating burning sensation, as if millions of chili peppers and fire ants were crawling around inside their noses. Groaning in pain, they hurriedly retreated.
"Honestly... a handful of concentrated Yang Powder is enough to knock out an entire army," Priam mocked.
The powder came from a medicinal herb he carried. Its concentrated essence was used to neutralize Yin-attributed poisons, but when thrown pure onto the mucous membranes of any living creature... it was a chemical nightmare.
Since the bear had inhaled the powder with its eyes and mouth wide open, the burning pain was so unbearable that the giant collapsed to the ground, roaring and rolling around in pure agony.
Upon touching the ground, Priam spun his body with theatrical elegance, already pulling back the bowstring.
’Oh?’
Priam grinned from ear to ear.
While rolling around in pain, the bear had ended up in a simply blessed position: its rear was perfectly aligned with the bow’s sights. It was as if the heavens themselves were begging for the show to continue!
*PENG!*
The silenced arrow flew.
"!"
**BOOOOOOOOOOM!**
The terrifying bear was grotesquely pulverized from the inside out, scattering a rain of flesh and obsidian through the sky.
Without wasting any time, Priam turned toward the Leader and signaled a quick tactic to organize the chaos.
To confuse the enemy’s chain of command and get the target off his back, Priam asked several of them to use metamorphosis to assume humanoid appearances and mount other Centaurs. All they had to do was run wildly in different directions.
Within seconds, the battlefield turned into a circus: dozens of "Priams" were galloping and shouting everywhere. The enemies completely lost track of what was going on.
With the decoy working, the real Priam camouflaged himself in the shadows, moving on foot along the outskirts of the battle.
At the outer front line, Priam pulled back the bowstring and waited patiently.
...
...
...
As soon as an opening appeared, he fired a completely invisible and silent arrow.
The target was the second bear general, who was locked in a brutal duel against Arvid.
At the exact moment of the shot, Arvid unleashed a thunderous attack that knocked the giant bear backward, leaving its rear completely exposed, directly in the arrow’s path.
"!"
The projectile pierced through with such force that the energy charge blew apart the intestinal region even before the magical conflagration.
’Yes!’ Priam punched the air in silent triumph. That shot had been unbelievably perfect.
**BOOOOOOOOM!**
Priam had calculated the exact timing of Arvid’s movements with his shot. There was a bit of luck involved, of course, but the execution had been flawless.
Seeing his companion vaporized in such a bizarre way, the last truly powerful bear went into a frenzy of pure terror and charged wildly toward Priam.
But...
"DIE!"
"!"
A beam of lightning tore through the air. Arvid’s spear struck the target... coming from directly behind, burying itself with millimeter precision in the exact same weak point!
"Hahaha! This ’Divine Tactic’ isn’t just genius, it’s downright irresistible!" Priam laughed as he watched Arvid perfectly execute his Divine Tactic. He really caught on fast.
Pouring all his thunderous energy through the shaft of his spear, the young man detonated the last bear from the inside out.
With the deaths of the three strongest Heavenly Beasts through such a traumatizing technique, the remaining bears collapsed. Even the commanders couldn’t control them. Terror took over their ranks.
Without thinking twice, they turned their backs and began fleeing in blind desperation, trampling over one another.
Priam relaxed his shoulders, lowered his bow, and let out a satisfied sigh.
"Yeah... looks like we won."