Chapter 320: Combat and Outburst! The Power of the Magic Beast in a Desperate Situation

Jier could not see the situation within the White Mist, so he had no choice but to follow closely behind the Knight.

Knight Lanisha must have intentionally slowed her pace, which was the only reason Jier could keep up. Otherwise, Knight Lanisha could have caught up to the Magic Beast in just a few leaps.

He did not know where Knight Lanisha had stowed her warhorse; before the Mist appeared, he had still seen her riding it, but now it was nowhere to be seen.

As Jier turned these thoughts over, he nearly collided with the female Knight who had come to a stop.

"Be ready for combat at any moment," the female Knight said without turning around.

"Has it discovered us?" Jier asked curiously.

"Hmph, everyone has been within its perception the entire time. It is a Magic Beast, not an ordinary animal. Although the surroundings are filled with White Mist, it does not rely on its eyes to observe."

Jier knew that things similar to spiders seemed to rely primarily on sensing vibrations to perceive their surroundings.

If the Magic Beast was extremely formidable in this regard, he estimated that everyone would still be perceived by it even if they were in the snow.

Gripping his axe tightly, Jier entered a combat state at any moment.

After waiting for a while, Knight Lanisha gave a soft shout: "The timing is perfect now! Attack!"

She drew her sword first and charged into the depths of the White Mist ahead.

Jier also stepped forward quickly and rushed up.

The Magic Beast, which had not yet been seen, let out a sharp, dissatisfied cry, and immediately after, the nearby mist was stirred by something and swept past violently.

Jier barely managed to see the flow of the mist, bypassed the area of intense combat, and after taking a few more steps, he saw the massive body of the Magic Beast at a very close range.

Its slender legs were scraping around the area, constantly attacking in another direction. Jier widened his eyes, swung his axe with lightning speed, and struck the root joint of one of the legs in a single blow.

Because this area required constant force and movement, it was not as sturdy as other parts and lacked the protection of a carapace. Jier's axe blow, while unable to penetrate deeply, still struck true, causing some of the Magic Beast's translucent blood to burst out.

Seeming to have only just discovered Jier, a fellow who appeared to be no threat, the Magic Beast immediately retracted the leg whose root joint had been attacked, specifically using this freed leg to eliminate the approaching Jier.

But Jier had anticipated this; instead, he backed against the Magic Beast's massive body lying on the ground, preventing the beast from using this leg to attack with full force, as it was wary of damaging itself. It seemed its own defensive carapace could not withstand the attack of its own leg.

Seeing that he had succeeded in harassing the Magic Beast, Jier pressed his advantage. While watching the leg that kept probing to attack him, he moved his feet quickly to approach the root joint of another leg.

Waving his axe to parry a piercing strike from a leg, Jier followed the momentum of the axe and slashed fiercely at the root of another leg.

The Magic Beast's body heaved; it seemed to have been infuriated by Jier's unscrupulous behavior. It dug its legs into the ground on one side and pulled hard, shifting its heavy, massive body toward Jier.

Jier barely avoided being hit.

The moment the Magic Beast's massive body suddenly shifted, he saw it and changed his footing. The axe he had intended to use for another strike was quickly pulled back and gripped tight, while his own legs kept moving to open up distance.

Seeing that this tactic was ineffective, the Magic Beast immediately tensed the fine, stiff bristles on its body, attempting to keep Jier, this Human, from getting close.

The suddenly tensed, hard bristles gave Jier a start; these things were small and thin to the Magic Beast, but to a Human, they were hard, sharp spikes over a meter long and as thick as a finger.

The suddenly tensed bristles struck Jier, scraping his armor with a creaking sound, and even the wolf-fur Cloak draped over his armor was torn into large gashes.

His eyebrows knitted together, and he was very displeased.

He was very fond of this good-looking and warm wolf-fur Cloak. Now that it had been suddenly shredded like this, it seemed abrupt and a pity.

"Ah! Ha!" Counterattacking with an axe, Jier aimed this blow specifically at the slender, hard bristles. The diagonally swung axe severed several bristles, which finally allowed him to vent his frustration.

Dodging another sneak attack from the Magic Beast's leg from behind, Jier rolled and scrambled up from the snow.

After the Magic Beast forced him away from its body, its leg attacks became sharper, and it began to use methods it had previously feared might harm itself.

Whether it was a sweep, a sneak attack stabbing down from overhead, or pressing its legs against the ground beneath the snow to suddenly approach Jier from under the accumulated snow before launching an attack.

But these moves were all seen by Jier's keen eyes. After his cognitive abilities accelerated, many rapid offensives became manageable, and the sneak attacks were discovered in advance by the cautious Jier, who then returned them with an axe strike.

At the same time, Jier fought while moving, circling the massive Magic Beast to find a spot where he could launch another attack.

The battle on the other side of the Magic Beast was also intense, with constant, massive crashing sounds coming from that direction, which sometimes forced the Magic Beast to withdraw one of the legs attacking Jier to specifically contend with Knight Lanisha.

In a place Jier could not see, Knight Lanisha had already switched to her Single-handed Heavy Sword, relying on the weight and extraordinary resilience of this weapon to constantly find opportunities to strike at the front of the Magic Beast's legs.

She had originally wanted to find a chance to mount the Magic Beast's body; that way, it would be difficult for the beast to launch heavy attacks against her. And she could then attack the body parts of the Magic Beast that were releasing the Mist.

As long as there was no cover from the Mist, although this Magic Beast would still be very formidable, everyone else would be able to exert their full potential and cause more obstacles for the beast.

She herself was the same; relying only on her newly mastered Magic Sensing, she still could not exert her full strength.

But for some reason, this Magic Beast suddenly stood up all the slender and hard bristles on its body, which greatly hindered her movements.

While dodging and engaging with two of the Magic Beast's legs, Jier arrived at the Magic Beast's round belly.

The belly here was still protected by a carapace, but the carapace here seemed to be a type that could flex and deform, and its strength was significantly weaker than other parts of the body.

There were still many bristles protecting this area, but unlike other parts of the body, these bristles grew along the seams of the carapace and were distributed very evenly.

Therefore, there were naturally many gaps to exploit.

Jier dodged an attack from the Magic Beast's leg once again, and taking advantage of the moment the opponent retracted it to swing and build momentum, he rotated his waist and arms and struck the belly carapace, which lacked bristle protection, with his full force.

With a clatter, Jier hacked out a gap nearly half a meter long, and a large amount of the Magic Beast's translucent blood gushed out from within. The bristles around the wound trembled rapidly, which actually gave Jier a fright.

He thought these things were about to be launched, so he took the Shield from behind his left shoulder to block the front of his body.

As it turned out, even after the trembling of the bristles stopped, he did not wait for the attack he had anticipated.

At this moment, the Magic Beast's leg attack finally arrived late; it seemed the wound had also affected the leg that was swinging to build momentum.

Jier pressed his advantage; after dodging the attack, he slashed at the wound again, rapidly enlarging the gash.

The inside of the Magic Beast's belly was a mess; besides the translucent blood, there were other internal organs. Jier felt that attacking this area would certainly be very effective, so he focused his efforts here.

He used his axe to cut off the bristles around the wound, then continued to enlarge the opening, and even drew his Long Sword to stab inside twice.

Inside the Magic Beast's body were some glowing bodily tissues; these tissues were not large, but they were numerous, and they seemed to be distributed around several other bodily tissues to provide them with assistance.

Jier did not know that these things were actually some of the Magic Beast's Magic Auxiliary Units that operated its Magic Power. Besides the heart and the Magic Total Unit in the center of its body, the belly area had many sets of Magic Auxiliary Units for auxiliary bodily organs because the carapace there was not thick and it was easy to interact with the outside world.

These things greatly enhanced the functions of the Magic Beast's bodily organs and also served the purpose of releasing Instinct Spell effects.

Jier wreaked havoc on these.

This caused the Magic Beast to cry out incessantly in pain, turning around awkwardly, which allowed Knight Lanisha to seize an opening and sever another one of the Magic Beast's legs.

Now, it only had three legs left. Even moving appeared quite difficult.

Seeming to feel that it was in a very sorry state, the Magic Beast no longer attempted to attack, but turned to defend itself.

It retracted the two legs behind it that had been driving Jier, shielding the wound Jier had hacked open.

No matter how Jier hacked with his axe, the hard legs only cracked slightly, then oozed translucent blood. Meanwhile, in front, the Magic Beast's method of dealing with Knight Lanisha was quite horrifying.

Where the Magic Beast's eyes had originally been severed, a surge of body tissue suddenly churned, rapidly bulging out from the circular holes in the carapace, as if something underneath were about to hatch.

Knight Lanisha was chasing and striking one of the Magic Beast's legs as it barely managed to cope with her, and she did not notice this.

Immediately after, these bulging membranes were torn open from the inside; breaking through these flesh membranes were, unexpectedly, the mouths of men and women's heads being raised up.

These dozen or so heads roared, speaking illogical words; listening closely, they were mostly fragmented sentences and words of begging for mercy and despair.

Knight Lanisha's attention was drawn by these things that had emerged; although she remained vigilant, she still wanted to know why the Magic Beast, trapped in an unfavorable situation, would perform such an action.

She kicked away the Magic Beast's leg, attempting to rush up to see what use there was in hacking open one of these newly grown human heads.

When she first saw the Magic Beast, it already had these heads, and at that time, those heads could even speak; however, it seemed that in the process that followed, those things had inexplicably broken down.

At the time, she hadn't seen any use for these human heads that could only talk. If disgusting her was the only purpose, then the Magic Beast had done quite well; these strange, terrifying things were like the evil mages in stories who experimented on human bodies, and they should be burned away by flames.

Just as Knight Lanisha wanted to get closer, the Magic Beast extended its long, pitch-black giant mouth and swung it toward the female knight.

But this thing was fine for dealing with ordinary people; for a warrior of the Knight Rank, however, it posed no danger.

Knight Lanisha dodged the incoming giant mouth of the Magic Beast, then thrust her greatsword into the soft mouth.

She gripped the hilt of the greatsword with both hands, exerted force with her legs, and dashed forward a few steps.

Slash!

She tore a gap at least three meters long directly into the Magic Beast's long mouth.

The Magic Beast swung its mouth wildly in pain, even shaking out several naked corpses of bandits it had just eaten but hadn't yet sent into its stomach, which then crashed onto the ground.

Although the Magic Beast was in a sorry state, it still managed to entangle the female knight.

The dozen or so human heads on the front of its body swung wildly; very rapidly, their movements gradually became uniform, and even when swinging chaotically, they all swung in the same direction together.

Furthermore, the gibberish in their mouths was no longer messy; using their respective speaking habits, they shouted in unison: "Enemy! Enemy! Enemy!"

"Die! Die! Die!"

"Ah! Ah! Ahhhhhh!!!!"

They widened their eyes in unison, looking toward the direction of Knight Lanisha in the Mist, but it seemed that due to the obstruction of the thick White Mist, they did not see the knight's figure even with their eyes widened.

The Magic Beast felt a moment of frustration; it only then remembered that it was still releasing a large amount of Mist to maintain the surroundings.

Immediately, after the slits next to some of the bristles on the front carapace of the Magic Beast's body lit up, they quickly dimmed again.

The large expanse of Mist in front of it rapidly contracted, rolling back toward it from the distance at an extreme speed.

Knight Lanisha was startled; she shook her head, realizing it was the Magic Beast retracting the Mist that was obstructing her vision, but she had not yet launched an effective attack on the edges of the carapace on the Magic Beast's body.

Could it be that the Magic Beast retracted it itself? Or was it done by Jier on the other side of the Magic Beast's body?

But at least this was a good thing; the Magic Beast had retracted the Mist within a half-angle range in front of it, which was just convenient for them to launch an attack on it.

Thinking of this, Knight Lanisha whistled, and her beloved horse, which hadn't run far, heard it and immediately began to close in.

On the other side, the Hunters who had been waiting for a long time cheered excitedly when they saw the Mist rapidly rolling inward.

They immediately warned the hiding women to stay hidden and not to come out unless they came to find them.

With some Torches they had just made on their backs, the Hunters ran rapidly toward the direction where the Magic Beast was.

Jier did not know what was happening on the other side; he had originally seen the Magic Beast's legs stop trying to attack him and only focus on defense, so he immediately attacked other parts of the Magic Beast's abdomen.

But no matter where he hit, the Magic Beast's legs would immediately press against it to block Jier's axe attacks.

Using hard legs to defend compared to the soft abdomen was already the only way the Magic Beast could manage. Jier also saw this, so he not only attacked the Magic Beast's abdomen but also continuously hacked off the bristles on the Magic Beast's abdomen.

Every time a patch of connected bristles was hacked off, the Magic Beast's body would involuntarily tremble, which was quite interesting.

Jier felt that the Magic Beast must have received great sensory stimulation when the bristles were hacked off. After all, they were sensory organs specifically used for sensitivity; no matter how one thought about it, having this thing hacked off probably didn't feel any less stimulating than a man having his "that thing" kicked.

But Jier soon discovered that inside the Magic Beast's abdomen, it seemed to be gradually lighting up, as if some of the Magic Beast's organs were equipped with high-power light bulbs; even with the relatively thick, soft abdominal carapace blocking it, the light inside could still penetrate through.

Jier even saw some glowing little dots suddenly appear in the air, gradually accelerating and merging into the Magic Beast's abdomen.

He felt it was a bad sign; no matter how he looked at it, it seemed like the Magic Beast was accumulating energy to unleash a big one.

He roared, wanting to warn Knight Lanisha in front, but his voice could not pass through the large area behind the Magic Beast's rear half, which already had a large amount of thick Mist.

He stopped attacking the Magic Beast and ran quickly, attempting to run over to give a warning.

But just as he had taken two steps, a scream from many people in unison pierced through the Mist, sweeping across everything in the surroundings, and even pushed the Mist the Magic Beast itself had released away by over a hundred meters, with the beast as the center.

And Jier himself was also pushed flying by a force that struck from the front side of his body, directly pressed onto the snow-covered ground, and pushed backward for at least thirty meters.

Fortunately, the ground was covered in snow, and the surroundings were the open space of the Bandit Camp, with nothing there. He was also lucky that when he was heavily pressed to the ground and pushed backward, there were no bandit weapons or the like left behind in the snow on the ground.

A moment ago.

Knight Lanisha hacked off the Magic Beast's long giant mouth, which was swinging on the ground, one sword stroke after another.

She hacked off a section at least five meters long; the five-meter-long pitch-black giant mouth that had been hacked off was full of vitality—even though it was severed, it still twisted and bounced back and forth in the snow like a snake that had been decapitated.

The female knight found it disgusting and flew up, kicking it far away with a heavy kick.

Why was she disgusted? It was because from the cut of the hacked-off Magic Beast giant mouth, one could barely see some small, thin teeth inside; not only that, there were also some small fragments of human bodies.

The most numerous were some human fingers and ears that had been sliced off by those small teeth, and other body fragments were also stuck in various crevices inside the mouth.

It was like a guy who never cleaned his mouth had opened his mouth wide.

The disgusting smell also rushed straight into the female knight's nasal cavity.

After kicking away that section of the Magic Beast's giant mouth, she had originally intended to hack off another section of the Magic Beast's mouth to prevent her subordinates from being suddenly ambushed by this thing extending out later.

Not only that, compared to the legs that only leaked a small amount of Magic Beast blood, after this thing was hacked off, not only did an excessive amount of translucent blood flow out from the cut where it connected to the Magic Beast's body, but also, following the Magic Beast's crazy swinging, one or two naked bandit corpses it had just swallowed into its stomach would be shaken out from time to time.

But before Knight Lanisha could bring more pain to the Magic Beast, she suddenly sensed a surge of Magic Power gathering from the direction of the Magic Beast.

She turned around and switched her perception method to Magic Perception.

She saw the Magic Beast's rear abdomen was absorbing a large amount of free Magic Power from the natural world, and its own body was also violently converting Magic Power internally, while releasing other uncontrollable Magic Power.

And all the Magic Power converted by the abdomen finally converged under those human heads on the front of the Magic Beast's body, divided into more than ten groups, and provided to those human heads that had not been born for long.

Knight Lanisha saw that, among those Human Heads, the most obvious thing was that their eyes were gradually brightening.

"Oh no!" She immediately noticed that those dozen or so Human Heads were all staring at her, and not one of them had a pleasant expression; they were all either crazed, weeping bitterly, despairing, sorrowful, ferocious, or brutal.

They stared in unison at the female knight not far away, speaking the same sentence in unison with different tones: "Die! Die! Hurry up and die!!!"

As soon as the final word of death fell, a force invisible to the naked eye erupted, starting from those dozen or so Human Heads, with the direction of the main attack naturally being Knight Lanisha.

Merely the aftermath of the force violently pushed everything nearby away, as the powerful energy continuously expanded, taking the surrounding Mist, corpses, accumulated snow, weapons, and the ground beneath the accumulated snow.

All were violently pushed away.

Knight Lanisha only had time to leap into the air, and immediately after, she was struck by the Magic power released by the Magic Beast.