Chapter 102: Beast Clash
Morning arrived quietly.
The laughter from the day before had disappeared, and nobody quite knew why. The farther north the group traveled, the quieter the Secret Realm became.
The giant flowers vanished.
The butterflies grew fewer.
Even the birds had stopped singing entirely.
Towering stone pillars slowly replaced the trees, and huge cliffs rose hundreds of feet into the sky. Ancient boulders, worn smooth by thousands of years, formed natural walls around the path they walked.
Arthur frowned. "It’s quiet," he said.
Athena nodded. "Too quiet," she said.
Sun looked around at the towering stone. "I don’t like places that suddenly become quiet," he said.
Mithra hugged her spear slightly tighter against her chest. "Something’s watching," she said.
Nobody laughed.
Even Melo, perched on Arthur’s shoulder, quietly looked around at the surrounding rocks. "Many things," she said.
Arthur looked at her. "You can tell?"
Melo nodded. "Hungry things."
Arthur blinked. "...That’s somehow less reassuring."
Melo thought for a moment. "Very hungry."
Sun sighed. "Thank you, Melo. That helped absolutely no one."
"I can’t help you if you’re blind."
Sun was speechless.
The path grew steeper, and everyone climbed carefully, loose rocks tumbling down the hillside behind them. Vedas reached the top first. He took one step forward, and then he froze completely, his whole body going rigid.
Arthur noticed immediately. "Vedas?" he said.
Luka looked toward him.
Her face immediately lost all color. "I’ve never seen Chief Vedas make that face."
That alone made every Hunter’s heartbeat quicken.
The Goblin Chief didn’t answer. His eyes had gone wide, and slowly he turned around, looking at every Hunter, every Mage, every combat capable Goblin in the group. Then his gaze settled on the children.
His voice dropped to barely a whisper. "Behind the rocks," he said.
Nobody moved.
Vedas repeated himself, more urgently this time. "Quickly."
That single word was enough. Every Goblin reacted instantly. Hunters silently guided the children back behind cover. Mages extinguished every glowing spell they had been carrying. Even armor was adjusted quietly to stop it from clinking.
A Goblin Beast Rider blinked. "That serious?" he asked.
Raku whispered beside him. "If Vedas say hide," he said, "we hide."
The goblins nodded, then slowly crawled toward the edge of the ridge.
Arthur looked toward Vedas. "You don’t usually react like this."
Vedas never looked away from the valley. "...No."
Arthur nodded once. "Then I’ll trust your instincts."
Vedas gave a small nod in return.
That was enough.
Arthur, along with Sun, Mithra, and Athena hide behind the rocks. And then they began peeking out and looked down into the valley below.
His pupils shrank. "No way," he whispered.
Below them stretched an enormous valley, miles wide, ancient ruins scattered between rivers and broken cliffs. The ground itself was scarred from what looked like thousands of past battles.
Then movement. Not dozens. Hundreds.
Arthur whispered, "That’s an army." He kept staring. "No..." He slowly shook his head. "That’s..." "...a war."
Nobody corrected him.
Mithra quietly glanced toward Arthur. "You’re excited."
Arthur smiled sheepishly. "Maybe a little."
She couldn’t help laughing. "I knew it."
Sun sighed. "Hundreds of apex predators." He pointed toward Arthur. "And somehow that’s the exciting part."
Arthur shrugged. "They’re amazing."
Mithra shook her head with a smile. "...You’re unbelievable."
"To be fair it’s the first time I’ve ever seen something like this."
"He is right." Athena nodded.
The valley wasn’t overflowing with normal beasts. It was overflowing with apex predators. He never thought he would seen them so close to where the Yan tribe should be.
To the west, over sixty Stonehorn Behemoths marched together, each nearly fifteen feet tall, their bodies looking carved from living mountains. Every footstep shook the valley beneath them. Golden cracks glowed along their massive horns.
Raku quietly pointed toward the largest Behemoth. "...That one."
Luka immediately found it. "I remember."
Arthur looked between them. "You’ve seen it before?"
Luka nodded. "From very far away."
Raku forced a laugh. "And we kept it that way."
Arthur looked back toward the Behemoth. "...Smart."
One casually walked straight through an ancient stone ruin, and the entire structure exploded into rubble without the creature even seeming to notice.
To the east, fifty Thunder Chimeras moved together, lion bodies topped with ram horns and trailing serpent tails. Their manes crackled constantly with blue lightning, and every breath they released sparked with electricity that jumped from one Chimera to another across the pack.
Arthur watched the lightning connecting the entire army together. "They’re sharing energy," he whispered.
Athena quietly wrote that down.
Mara peeked over her shoulder. "You’re taking notes?"
Athena blinked. "Of course."
"They’re trying to kill each other."
"Exactly." Athena smiled. "When else will I ever see this?"
Mara couldn’t argue with that.
To the south, nearly sixty Blazefang Lions prowled, golden fur rippling beneath burning crimson manes. Every footprint they left behind smoldered with fire, and every breath filled the air with heat. One of them yawned, and the resulting breath accidentally ignited an entire tree.
Sun stared at the sight. "I suddenly appreciate normal lions," he said.
Nobody spoke after that. The sheer pressure radiating up from the valley made it difficult to even breathe properly.
There was no order to any of it. The Stonehorn Behemoths simply charged wherever the nearest enemy stood, each one crashing forward on pure instinct, too powerful to need anything else.
The Thunder Chimeras leapt without hesitation into whatever opening presented itself, lightning scattering wildly across the battlefield.
Every bolt that missed simply struck another Chimera.
Instead of hurting it...
The lightning crawled harmlessly across its body.
Arthur stared. "...They’re immune."
Vedas quietly nodded. "To each other’s lightning."
The Blazefang Lions tore through walls of their own fire without a hint of restraint, driven by raw aggression rather than any plan.
Arthur could barely follow all of it at once.
One Stonehorn lowered its head and slammed directly into three Lions at once, simply because they happened to be there. The impact launched all four creatures hundreds of feet through the air.
Before they landed, a Thunder Chimera crashed down onto the Stonehorn from above, its serpent tail wrapping around the beast’s horn and sending electricity surging directly into its massive body.
The Stonehorn roared and slammed its head into the ground in response, shaking the entire battlefield hard enough that several Thunder Chimeras lost their footing nearby, purely from the force of it.
Arthur watched, stunned. "They’re not even trying to be careful," he said.
Athena nodded slowly beside him. "They don’t need to be," she said. "Nothing here has ever been strong enough to make them."
Another charging Behemoth crashed straight into it from behind.
Neither cared.
Both simply picked new targets.
Arthur blinked. "They don’t even avoid hitting each other."
Mithra shook her head. "They’ve never needed to."
Suddenly—
One Blazefang Lion stumbled backward. Its shoulder was blackened by lightning.
Three Stonehorn Behemoths immediately lowered their heads and they charged.
The Lion didn’t run and simply waited until the very last second. Then it leaped aside, making the three Stonehorns crash directly into a massive rock pillar. The entire formation collapsed beneath thousands of tons of stone.
Arthur grinned. "A pretty smart plan."
The Lion sprang back onto the rocks.
Roared triumphantly.
Then immediately threw itself at a Thunder Chimera.
Another Stonehorn slammed both front legs into the earth, splitting the ground apart in huge cracks that raced across the valley floor, more out of fury than any intention to trap anything. A few Lions happened to fall into the gaps anyway.
Before they could climb back out, a Thunder Chimera unleashed a bolt of lightning powerful enough to split a nearby cliff clean in half, thousands of tons of rock crashing downward, the creature seemingly unbothered by where the debris landed.
Arthur blinked in wonder. "That would’ve flattened a town," he said.
"They’re so strong..." Melo muttered.
He smiled and caressed her head. "I agree but we will be fine."
Melo blinked before nuzzling against his hand.
Nobody spoke.
Dust slowly drifted through the valley. The broken cliff continued collapsing long after the lightning had disappeared.
Arthur simply stared.
Sun glanced toward him. "Arthur?"
He never answered and a slow grin spread across his face. "This place is incredible."
Mithra laughed quietly. "I knew you’d say that."
Arthur pointed toward the battlefield below. "Look at them! They’re not protecting territory because someone told them to." "They’re just..." He searched for the word. "...Living."
Athena smiled. "An ecosystem."
Arthur nodded excitedly. "Exactly!" He looked around the entire valley. "I’ve never seen anything like this."
Even Sun couldn’t help smiling. "...You’re enjoying the most terrifying thing we’ve ever seen."
Arthur shrugged. "It can be terrifying and amazing. Both can go together."
Athena quietly nodded. "That’s true."
A Blazefang Lion far larger than the rest let out a roar that shook dust from the cliffs, and every nearby Lion’s mane ignited brighter in response, not because it commanded them to, but because raw power simply demanded the same from everything around it.
Arthur blinked. "It’s not giving orders," he said. "It’s just louder than everything else."
Sun nodded slowly. "Same thing out here, apparently," he said.
Suddenly a Titan Boulder Ape wandered directly into the middle of the battlefield, standing thirty feet tall and covered in thick stone armor. It beat its chest and let out a deafening roar.
Arthur immediately recognized the danger in it. "That’s a boss monster," he whispered.
It roared again, challenging everything nearby without any regard for what answered.
Nothing coordinated a response.
Every beast within reach simply attacked it at once, each one acting entirely on its own. Three lightning bolts. Five Blazefang Lions. Two charging Stonehorn Behemoths, all of it striking simultaneously by sheer coincidence of proximity rather than any shared intention. The resulting explosion echoed for miles, dust billowing outward across the entire valley.
When it finally cleared, the Titan Boulder Ape was gone. Not defeated.
Gone.
Arthur blinked. "Never mind," he said.
Sun slowly nodded. "Wrong neighborhood," he said.
Even Athena didn’t argue with that.
Luka had stopped watching the fight entirely by then. She stared instead toward the northern forest beyond the valley, her voice trembling when she finally spoke.
"This," she said. "This is where the Yan Tribe lives."
Silence fell over the group.
Raku searched the treeline desperately. "I don’t see anything," he said. "No smoke. No houses. No walls."
Mara grabbed his arm. "Could," she started, unable to finish the sentence.
Luka clenched her fists at her sides. "I hope not," she said. "They have to be okay."
Mara looked down at the ground. "I know. I just need to see it."
Raku stepped beside them. "We all do."
None of them looked away from the forest.
Suddenly a cry echoed across the entire valley. Not loud, but every beast below seemed to freeze at once. The fighting stopped instantly.
Arthur slowly looked upward. Dozens of shapes descended from the clouds, nearly twenty Thunderbirds, each with a wingspan larger than a house, lightning crawling across every feather. The air itself seemed to hum with their arrival.
The Su Tribe froze at the sight of them. Luka’s face twisted with something close to rage. Raku instinctively pulled Mara closer to him.
Mara trembled. "Them," she whispered.
Arthur noticed immediately. "You know them," he said.
Nobody answered him.
One Thunderbird landed on a towering pillar and cried out once. The sound alone drew every beast below attention.
None of the beasts bowed.
None showed fear.
They simply moved aside, the way rivers split around a mountain.
Athena watched closely. "It’s not talking to them," she said. "It’s just too strong to ignore."
Arthur watched the three armies below. The Stonehorns turned first, then the Lions, then the Chimeras. Nobody attacked anymore. Instead, all three armies began running together, following the Thunderbirds toward the north, not out of any shared purpose, but because none of them had a reason left to stay.
Sun stared at the sight. "They’re just leaving," he said.
Silence returned to the valley once the armies had disappeared into the distance. Fire still burned in scattered patches. Lightning danced faintly across shattered rocks. Broken horns and scorched fur lay scattered across the battlefield.
Arthur slowly stood. "Let’s go," he said.
One Hunter hesitated. "What if," he started, "there isn’t anyone left?"
Another frowned. "Those things weren’t even trying to work together," he said. "How do they all just leave at once?"
Sun folded his arms. "No idea," he said. "And I don’t want to be here long enough to find out."
Nobody had an answer for that.
Arthur suddenly felt warmth spreading across his hand. He looked down at the King’s Mark, and a familiar golden trail appeared, stretching out across the destroyed battlefield below, leading straight north.
Arthur smiled. "Looks like someone wants us to keep going," he said.
Everyone turned to look at him.
Arthur started walking. "It seems I know the way," he said. He glanced back over his shoulder with a grin. "Come on."
Behind him, the golden trail shimmered faintly.
Arthur looked north. "If the Yan Tribe survived they’re incredible."
Luka smiled faintly. "...They always were."