The hill wasn't very high, perhaps three hundred feet. It was barren, devoid of any greenery, and riddled with strange, jagged rocks. They jutted from the ground like countless giant swords plunged into the earth, making the distant peak resemble a massive graveyard of blades. At the summit, a cave glowed, the light from within flickering like fire.
"A volcano?" Ethan paused, surprised. Damn, what a wasted trip. But since he was already here, he couldn't just turn back empty-handed. He decided to get closer and investigate.
As he approached, a suffocating heat wave rolled over him, so intense it felt as if the air itself might catch fire. From the foot of the hill, he could see flas licking the cave walls. A sharp, burnt sll reached his nose, and he instinctively turned to look at Little Empty, still perched on his shoulder. The monkey was covering its nose with a tiny hand, eyes wide. Ethan reached up to touch his own head and winced.
Damn it... All this ti, it hadn't been the monkey's sll. His own hair was singed. Muttering under his breath, he fished out a water flask and a towel, soaked the cloth, and wrapped it around his head. With his sun-darkened skin and the rag tied around his hair, he looked like a farr from the 1950s.
"Chitter, chitter, chitter…" Little Empty clapped its hands and pointed at him, chattering with laughter. Ethan glared and shooed it off his shoulder.
'Its fur is so long—how didn't it get scorched?'
Before he could puzzle it out, the light inside the cave abruptly vanished. A massive figure blocked the entrance completely. Two eyes, glowing like lanterns, fixed on Ethan and the little monkey.
"What the hell is that?!" Ethan yelped, heart hamring.
"Chitter, chitter…" Little Empty's chattering turned nervous. With a startled whoosh, Ethan leapt back a hundred feet, landing hard. The monkey scrambled after him and climbed back onto his shoulder.
Roar! The colossal figure crawled out of the cave and onto the rocky ground. Sand and dust billowed as its enormous bulk slamd into the earth. Ethan finally saw it in full and felt his mouth go dry.
"Holy hell… what a giant toad."
It wasn't quite as large as the Ant King Guardian he'd seen among the Gold-Eater Ants, but it was still an easy sixty or seventy feet tall. Standing before it, Ethan felt no bigger than an insect. His pulse thundered in his ears.
"Little Empty, get out of the way…" he said quietly.
"Squeak, squeak!" The monkey didn't need telling twice. It leapt from his shoulder, but the toad's massive head tracked its movent, unblinking. With a guttural hiss, it opened its mouth, and a blood-red tongue shot out, coiling through the air toward Little Empty.
Ethan's body locked up for a split second.
Bang, bang, bang! A sudden chorus of dull impacts echoed from the distance. Swish, swish, swish! Three huge wooden bolts, each as thick as his thigh, streaked through the air straight for the toad.
Ethan's heart leapt. 'They're making their move…'
When he'd first arrived, he'd noticed a group of several hundred people hidden behind a low ridge about a thousand yards away. They had ancient-looking ballistae set up, and he'd wondered why they'd brought such heavy siege equipnt. Now, it was obvious. They hadn't co here to kill this thing outright. Alongside the ballistae were five massive net launchers—capture weapons, not tools of execution.
"Croak!" The toad let out a furious cry, retracting its tongue. It turned with surprising agility and coiled its legs to leap back toward the fiery cave. But it was too late. Bang, bang, bang! Five nets exploded from their launchers in rapid succession.
Ethan watched their trajectories—expertly tid and aid. At least three would catch the toad mid-air. The nets were bristling with barbed spikes, each line as thick as a man's arm. Once tangled, it would shred itself trying to escape.
But the toad's next move made Ethan's jaw drop. "Croak… croak…" The creature's tongue lashed out and stuck to a jagged rock near the cave mouth. Then it contracted, yanking its mountainous body forward in a blur of motion. It flew past the nets and vanished back into the cave.
Not just big—smart, Ethan thought, stunned.
Little Empty scurried back to his side, blinking up at him with a bewildered look. "I… I don't know what just happened," Ethan muttered.
He turned as a new commotion rose in the distance. A column of cavalry was approaching, fifty riders mounted on bizarre creatures. From afar, their upper bodies looked vaguely like mules, but they were hairless and covered in scaly skin that glead like wet stones. Their hooves were stranger still—three-pronged feet that reminded him of oversized chicken claws.
'Cliffstriders?' Ethan wondered. Nora had ntioned them earlier.
The cavalry halted about twenty yards away. One rider, wearing chainmail that glead dully in the heat, urged his beast ten yards closer. He jabbed a finger rudely at Ethan.
"Hey, kid!" he bellowed. "Our Priest says you'd better hand over that spirit monkey so we can lure out the Fire-Eyed Toad!"
Ethan lifted an eyebrow. The man's voice dripped with contempt. Before he could reply, Little Empty started chattering furiously on his shoulder. Ethan couldn't help but laugh. He patted the monkey's head and raised his voice so the rider would hear.
"Little Empty, did you just hear soone fart? A silent one? And what's a 'Priest,' anyway? Do you know?"
The monkey tilted its head, confused by the sarcasm. But the rider understood perfectly. His face went dark, and he roared, "How dare you insult a Priest of Beastfall City! Kill him!"
"Beastfall City?" Ethan repeated under his breath. That explained a lot. This place wasn't too far from there. If he could see the cave's firelight from here, the city likely could as well.
"Scared?" the rider taunted, spittle flying. "Too late! Prepare to charge—and keep the spirit monkey alive!"
He drew a dull-black iron spear from the Cliffstrider's flank. The others brandished a motley collection of weapons—most were simply sharpened sticks with stones lashed to the ends. So didn't even have stones, just crude wooden points. Ethan studied them, unimpressed. This is the best Beastfall City has?
In the next instant, the cavalry charged. Ethan exhaled, shaking his head. "Bunch of idiots…" They were barely fifteen yards away—no room to build speed. And the arrogant captain was charging alone at the front.
"Let show you what a real charge looks like."
"Bear Form… Activate!"
"Charge!"
Sand exploded under his boots as Ethan rocketed forward. His body blurred, and an imnse phantom bear—visible only to him—rose around him, echoing his montum. The charging rider's confident grin didn't even have ti to fade. He set the butt of his iron spear in a saddle hook, bracing it to absorb impact, and aid the point squarely at Ethan's chest.
Crack!
The spear didn't pierce anything. It shuddered, then shattered into fragnts. The rider's eyes went round in disbelief. This was no ordinary spear—it had been a gift from the City Lord himself.
Before he could react further, Ethan slamd into the Cliffstrider's head. Crunch! Its thick neck snapped like a twig. The rider pitched forward, but Ethan caught him by the ankle and whipped him to the ground. And that was only the beginning.
With unstoppable force, Ethan crashed into the cavalry behind them. n and beasts flew in all directions, weapons clattering across the sand. Roars and screams filled the air. He plowed through them like a living battering ram. When he erged on the far side, he skidded to a halt.
The captain, dangling from his ankle, was already unconscious, his armor shredded from being dragged across the rocks. Ethan didn't care. He spun the man around once more and, with a final heave, ripped him in two. The lower half landed in a broken heap nearby.
Ethan was no saint. He wouldn't kill without cause, but if soone tried to end his life, they'd better be prepared to lose theirs. This band had planned to sacrifice Little Empty to bait the toad, and then tried to murder him outright. No one would be spared to bring back tales or gather reinforcents.
Minutes later, all fifty-eight cavalryn lay dead, their limbs strewn across the sand. The surviving Cliffstriders wandered aimlessly. Ethan ignored them. His gaze turned north, narrowing.
Are they trying to escape?
"Travel Form… Force Resonance!"
His boots struck the ground. The sand, which had slowed him before, now gave way under his stride as if it were solid stone. Swish! By the ti the echo reached where he'd stood, he was already a hundred yards away, locked onto the fleeing shapes ahead.
More than two hundred people were retreating, abandoning their siege weapons and urging their Cliffstriders into a frenzied gallop. Among them was a massive sedan chair—more a rolling pavilion—pulled by twenty beasts. Even from a distance, Ethan could sense who rode inside. The pale-faced man must be the Priest.
The Cliffstriders, he had to admit, were fast once they gained montum—almost matching his speed without Force Resonance. But he'd learned Uncle Jed's technique, and even if he hadn't fully mastered it, catching them was no challenge.
Twenty minutes later, after several futile attempts to block his path, Ethan closed in on the massive pavilion. He could see inside: five people, four won in gauzy robes so thin they were more suggestive than being naked, and the pale priest himself. His face was clammy with terror.
"Quick… stop him!" the priest shrieked, voice cracking.
Thirty remaining guards spurred their mounts and charged Ethan as one. He didn't hesitate. He tore through them as he had the others, thodical and unrelenting. Their screams died on the wind. When it was done, Ethan exhaled slowly. The pavilion had already pulled far ahead, bouncing over the dunes.
"Damn, they can run…" He smirked and wiped sweat from his brow. "Heh… pretty smart, but useless against ."
And he set off again, closing the distance.
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