CHAPTER 232: CALAMITY 1

Chapter 232: Calamity 1

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[Frozen Lands]

After the warm welcome they received, the expedition team resumed their journey, mentally prepared for what awaited them.

They’d had the "honor" of getting a taste of what was coming almost immediately upon entering, and it made them understand just how troublesome things would get later on, but soon they discovered it was actually much worse than they’d expected.

They’d been traveling for a little over five hours, during which they had time to get used to the increasingly harsh temperatures that were starting to bother even the cultivators at the peak of the Mortal Realm.

And if the environment wasn’t friendly, its inhabitants were even less so.

That very same day, they encountered a small group of Bears, all at the fourth and fifth stage, led by a beast at the peak of the fifth stage of the Mortal Realm.

The threat they posed wasn’t too great, and the strongest stepped aside, letting their Mortal Realm subordinates handle the group.

The battle was fierce but quick, and it soon ended, but they had no time to rest before another began, and then another.

Even though the Frozen Lands were a harsh place for its inhabitants, it was also true that surviving and managing to thrive here was no small feat.

And that truth became clearer the deeper they pushed into the area.

Only a couple of days had passed, and although their progress was slow due to the many obstacles they came across along the way, they still managed to cover several hundred miles.

But the further they went, the slower their advance became, as the strength of the creatures kept increasing.

From bears, to ten meter tall Yetis, and many other creatures, each one more terrifying than the last.

From beasts at the fourth and fifth stage of the Mortal Realm to beasts completely at the peak of the Mortal Realm, often led by beings from the Spirit Realm.

And so, little by little, even the strongest fighters in the team were being forced to step in more and more.

Right now, they were in the middle of one of those battles with another massive group of beasts, though unlike the previous ones, this one felt different... strange, in certain ways.

Just glancing around was enough to instantly notice multiple species of creatures, small to large, all of different kinds, numerous, with several powerful beings among them, but despite all these differences, they weren’t fighting each other.

Instead, they were all focused on one thing, gathered under a single command, with a single objective: them.

At this moment, in one of the areas of the battlefield, an elven woman well above average height, with a sinuous body that even a powerful gleaming armor couldn’t completely hide, was floating in the air, unleashing a barrage of attacks one after another, each one more powerful than the previous.

Every attack was devastating, and each time she brought down dozens of lives, dozens of beasts at the peak of the Mortal Realm, yet despite that, her expression showed anything but joy.

Though she was still holding up, her body was covered in wounds, her armor damaged in several places, her beautiful face stained with her own blood and that of her enemies, while the threatening glint in her eyes mixed with the fatigue of the long continuous battle she had been enduring.

She was one of the first stage Spirit Realm beings of the Elven Empire, one of her race’s prides, yet now she was steadily losing ground against the ever growing group of beasts.

"In the name of the heavens, what the hell is happening? Where are all these beasts coming from?" she shouted, followed by a few curses as she unleashed yet another destructive attack, taking more lives.

At this point she had no idea how many of these creatures she’d killed, maybe fifty, or a hundred, or far more, all of them powerful, yet their number showed no sign of decreasing.

She felt the fatigue, and her reserves of spiritual energy running low, and just like her, the rest of the army was in the same situation, the number of casualties on their side growing because of it.

All the forces were now deployed, both those already present and those stored inside the small dimensional pocket prepared by the three emperors.

Everyone was on the battlefield, fighting fiercely, not for victory anymore, but simply trying to hold out long enough for the strongest to finish on their end and come to their aid.

Her exhausted eyes scanned the battlefield to get a sense of the situation, and soon they landed on a specific direction, the center of the battlefield, where the strongest on both sides were fighting.

The battlefield had already stretched across several miles, leaving the center wide and open so they could go all out without dragging their allies into it, which was reasonable considering the wide and destructive range of their attacks.

Boom!

A powerful explosion erupted in the distance, shaking the nearby ground and sending waves of energy rippling in every direction, strong enough to be felt even by the elven warrior despite the great distance.

Even though she herself was in the Spirit Realm, even these leftover waves of energy from the attacks were enough to make her tremble, reminding her that despite her strength, that of her superiors was on a whole other level, one far beyond her reach.

The attack created a crater several miles wide and deep, with no trace of life, only charred remains and scorched earth.

The attack was powerful and took countless enemies with it, yet the one who had launched it wore a serious expression as he looked toward the center.

There, partly hidden by debris and the rising heat warped air, stood a creature nearly 20 meters tall, with two large protruding horns on each side of its head, glassy eyes carrying a chilling intensity, a massive build, and blue skin covered in scars, old and new.

It looked somewhat like a troll, but far larger and stronger, as it held an axe seemingly made entirely of dark blue mineral, its razor sharp blade enough to put to shame the finest weapons of the soldiers of the three empires.

It was one of the leaders of this massive horde, a being at the peak of the second stage, but it was already giving trouble even to a third stage Spirit Realm being.

The Dragon Emperor, still in his human form, wore a serious expression as he looked at the enemy still standing, injured yet still capable of fighting, even after taking one of his strongest attacks, at least, the strongest he could launch in his current form.

He hadn’t underestimated his opponent, but he knew the creature was one stage below him, and the gap between stages in the Spirit Realm was enormous, so he had been sure that attack would finish it.

Yet here it was, still on its feet.

Normally, such a sight would have pleased the sovereign, stirring his battle intent, but nothing of the sort showed on his face.

He wasn’t the only one, in the center of the battlefield, the area had already split into three main zones, each with one of the emperors fighting against a powerful enemy from the opposite side. And even though the other two emperors hadn’t gone all out yet, they too wore solemn expressions as they looked at these strange creatures before them.

Their appearance was peculiar, and their strength for second stage Spirit Realm beings was nothing to scoff at, but all three emperors noticed one particular detail:

A strange trace of energy.

"Seems we’ve finally found what we were looking for," the Dragon Emperor said, recognizing that trace of energy,

and how could he not, since it was exactly what they’d been looking for.

The appearance of these creatures carrying that trace of energy could only mean one thing:

That they were finally getting close to their objective.

They had already noticed it from afar: beyond where they stood, the frozen land ahead was still mostly covered in snow, but it couldn’t hide the traces of corruption spread everywhere, from the ground to the dead, withered plants.

They understood that from here on, the difficulty of everything would reach an entirely new level, and they were right.

But what they didn’t know was that what awaited them was far beyond anything they could have imagined.

Because this coordinated attack by the beasts was only the beginning.

Far ahead, another wave of beasts had already begun marching toward them, one several times larger and stronger, led by a single being whose aura would make even second stage Spirit Realm experts pale... and even the three emperors at the third stage.

Atop that creature, an abomination unlike anything that had appeared so far, an ordinary looking human man sat comfortably, his calm, emotionless eyes fixed on the horizon, as if his gaze could pierce the enormous distance separating him from the battlefield.

But his attention wasn’t on the battlefield. It went much further, beyond the mountain range, directly toward the three empires.

More precisely, he was looking toward three creatures that had begun their advance, each heading for one of the three empires, followed by an army of beasts of every kind, all strange, different than normal.

They were all corrupted beasts, their eyes fixed on a single objective:

the countless territories of the three empires before them.