Chapter 201: Maddened Demon Beasts
The Heavenly Mountain referred to the highest peak in the center of Black Forest Island, but it wasn’t just a single mountain—it was an entire mountain range.
Following the information Gaius had provided, Duane led Kaelon into the Mountain Range.
The vegetation here was rich and varied, with towering banyan trees, upright pines and cypresses, hard and rot-resistant camphor trees, and all sorts imaginable.
Black Forest Island’s timber resources were abundant, enough to be self-sufficient whether for making furniture or for shipbuilding.
However, this also meant that the area was overrun with weeds and thorny thickets, obscuring their line of sight.
A Demon Beast skilled in Stealth could be hiding just ten-odd meters away, and you wouldn’t even notice it.
Duane stopped paying attention to the timber resources and focused all his energy on his surroundings.
Even though he was now a Celestial Tier Warrior with outstanding personal abilities, carelessness was never a good thing, no matter the time or place.
Fortunately, the two walked for a few miles without incident, not even encountering a single ferocious beast.
"My Lord, that’s the ox-head-shaped boulder Gaius mentioned."
Kaelon pointed to a rock on the mountainside ahead and said, "If we cross two more mountains, we should reach the location of the Secret Realm!"
Two mountains. It sounded simple, but it took them over an hour to traverse.
As they ventured deeper, Duane felt a growing chill.
"Have you noticed that the atmosphere here feels off?" he asked.
Kaelon immediately grew cautious. "Is there danger?"
He scanned his surroundings vigilantly, searching for any sign of Demon Beasts.
Duane shook his head. He didn’t know if it was his imagination or if awakening his Celestial Python Bloodline had sharpened his senses.
Just as the two continued several hundred meters deeper, the sound of footsteps crunching on fallen leaves echoed out.
CRUNCH, CRUNCH!
They both heard it clearly.
"Over there!"
Kaelon pointed to a thorny bush to their front right.
A pitch-black panther was staring at them with cold, yellow eyes, as if eyeing its prey.
"This panther... something’s not right about it."
A black aura emanated from its body, like rising black smoke. From a distance, it looked as if its fur was on fire.
"ROAR—"
The Black Panther let out a low roar and assumed a pouncing posture, but then its figure vanished.
WHOOSH!
Its form was gone, but the sound of it cutting through the air remained.
The hair on Kaelon’s neck stood on end as a sense of crisis enveloped him!
Duane quickly activated his Celestial Python’s Eye, his sky-blue irises instantly turning platinum-gold.
As his pupils contracted, he precisely tracked the creature’s trajectory.
The Black Panther had clearly made a forward-pouncing motion, but somehow, it had circled around to their left.
At that moment, the Black Panther had already extended its claws, ready to tear open the major artery in Duane’s neck.
"I didn’t expect a Demon Beast to use a feint. But you’re too slow!"
Duane raised his Big Ring Saber. His figure flickered, leaving a trail of afterimages as he appeared at the Black Panther’s side.
He swept the Big Ring Saber horizontally. The sharp blade whistled through the air and struck the Black Panther.
RIIIP!
The blade sliced the Black Panther’s skin open from head to tail. The immense force sent it flying, and it slammed into the ground, its form now visible.
Only then did Kaelon react, his heart pounding in his chest. ’If the Lord hadn’t been so perceptive, I would have been in serious trouble.’
But upon seeing the Black Panther’s state, he immediately noticed something was wrong. "My Lord, its condition isn’t right! It’s barely bleeding!"
Half of the Black Panther’s flesh had been sliced open. Logically, blood should be pooling on the ground.
But now, aside from a limited amount of blood seeping from the wound, there was no more red to be seen.
’How strange,’ Duane thought.
’The black aura around it has grown thicker. Is it using Magic Power to seal its wounds?’
Duane speculated silently as he prepared a second strike to end the creature’s life.
From their brief clash, he had already assessed that this panther was a Level 5 Demon Beast at most and posed no significant threat to him.
But at that very moment, a series of crunching sounds arose, as if countless Demon Beasts were rushing toward them.
Soon, dark figures flickered through the forest.
Duane saw slithering giant snakes, monkeys swinging from branches, snarling giant wolves, and two- to three-meter-long black centipedes, among others.
Dozens of Demon Beasts had them surrounded, besieged from all sides.
Kaelon’s expression changed drastically. "My Lord, something is very wrong here!"
Duane’s face fell as well.
The sheer number of Demon Beasts wasn’t the main issue; after all, they had wiped out swarms of over a thousand Frog Fish Monsters before.
The critical point was that these Demon Beasts were not from the same species.
It was a known fact that Demon Beasts were territorial, and the more powerful the Demon Beast, the stronger its sense of Territory.
For example, the Black Panther before them and the giant wolf up ahead could never coexist peacefully in the same place.
Let alone unite against a common foe as they were doing now.
"Use the Bear Heart Burning Blood Secret Medicine and the Antitoxic Potion when you need to. Don’t worry about the Gold Coins."
Duane instructed, "Leave the tough ones to me. Above all, be careful!"
"I understand! You be careful too, my Lord!"
Wielding his Shield Sword, Kaelon charged forward.
The Demon Beasts let out all sorts of cries and lunged at him, looking like they wanted to devour him.
WHOOSH!
Kaelon batted away a monkey leaping from a tree with his Shield, then thrust his Sword into a giant snake that charged like a bolt of lightning.
In that instant, he activated the Blazing Fire Enchantment on his Sword.
Scorching flames erupted, pouring into the giant snake’s body through the wound and exploding violently.
The giant snake’s torso was blown to smithereens.
"That’s one down!"
Having succeeded with his first strike, Kaelon’s confidence surged.
But he didn’t dare let his guard down, because even more Demon Beasts were lunging at him.
Duane wasn’t idle either.
He lunged at the Black Panther at almost the same moment Kaelon made his move.
The Black Panther was fast, but not fast enough to match Duane, who was empowered by his Celestial Python Bloodline.
Although it tried to use Stealth again, Duane easily found it and brought his saber down on its neck.
The blow was heavy and powerful, cutting straight through flesh and into the windpipe.
The immense downward force of the slash slammed the Black Panther to the ground. But not only was the creature not dead, it even lashed out with its claws, swiping at Duane’s calf.
The sharp claws pierced his leg guards. Just as they were about to break his skin, Duane entered his Scale Transformation state, blocking the attack.
’It’s still not dead?’
Duane followed up with another slash, severing the creature’s head completely. "Let’s see if you can survive this!"
Without its head, the Black Panther finally went silent and lay motionless on the ground.
Duane didn’t dare to delay. He immediately joined the fray to help Kaelon out of his predicament.
The sounds of battle echoed ceaselessly through the dense forest.
More crunching sounds continued to approach.
Duane and Kaelon lost count of how many Demon Beasts they killed. Only when no new ones joined the fight did they lean against a large tree to rest.
Kaelon took out a styptic Potion and applied it to the back of his hand. Just a moment ago, he had been pecked by a palm-sized bird.
If he hadn’t circulated his Fighting Qi for defense, the back of his hand would have been torn to shreds.
"My Lord, it’s as if these Demon Beasts are being controlled by someone. They’re completely different from any I’ve encountered before!"
Kaelon said with lingering fear as he bandaged his hand,
"And they don’t seem to have any sense of fear or terror. It’s too strange!"
Take the Frog Fish Monsters, for example. After more than half of them were slaughtered, the rest would flee out of cowardice.
But these Demon Beasts not only refused to flee, they rushed here from all directions to join the battle.
Duane recalled the battle. "Calling them Demon Beasts... they’re more like guard dogs, stopping us from going any deeper."
"Are you saying they’re guarding this Secret Realm?"
Duane nodded.
"Gaius said that people who enter the Secret Realm and go mad will attack others indiscriminately."
"But he’s never seen what happens when two mad people are together."
Kaelon was beginning to understand. "So all these Demon Beasts have entered the Secret Realm and gone mad?"
Duane nodded again. "A mad Demon Beast would abandon its original species and treat other mad people or Demon Beasts as its own kind. That’s why they don’t attack each other."
Of course, it was also possible they were being controlled by someone.
But Duane couldn’t imagine what kind of powerful being could control so many Demon Beasts at once.
Therefore, he leaned more toward the theory that the Demon Beasts had gone mad.
’An ’undevelopable’ Secret Realm... Is there some kind of unknown secret hidden inside?’
Duane’s curiosity grew.
Kaelon, however, grew more worried. "My Lord, I don’t think you need to go any deeper. There are too many unknowns here!"
But Duane didn’t see it that way.
It was a good thing he had come this time. If Kaelon or anyone else had led a team to explore here, they would have faced the possibility of total annihilation against so many frenzied Demon Beasts.
To say nothing of the others, that Black Panther alone would have been very difficult to deal with. Even if Kaelon could have killed it, he would have been badly wounded in the process.
"You rest first. We’ll recover here for a while."
Duane stood up and began to dig the Demon Cores out of the fallen Demon Beasts.