Chapter 322: Jier Bursts into the Magic Beast's Body and the Magic Beast at the End of its Road

"Hah!" the female Knight roared, slamming her shoulder into the base of the Magic Beast's leg, which was already riddled with holes. The shoulder armor of her Steel Armor was on par with the hardness of the Magic Beast's carapace; after a crisp, shattering impact, the external shell of the already tattered leg base finally cracked open in large pieces.

As the shattered carapace was knocked away, it revealed the Magic Beast's massive, constantly twitching Blood Vessels and Tendons underneath, and of course, the translucent Magic Beast blood surging within.

Compared to the toughness of the outer shell, the body tissues inside the carapace were far softer. Knight Lanisha raised her sword and brought it down, severing these final leg connections with a few heavy slashes of her Fine Sword.

The Magic Beast was helpless against this; it had only two legs left, but both were covered in wounds. One was at the front of its body, attempting to stab the female Knight, but it was swatted away casually. The other was attacking Jier from behind. This leg was covered in fine cracks from Jier's axe strikes; although it could still be used, it was wary of Jier, who was close to its Abdominal Sac, and dared not launch a powerful attack.

After the female Knight severed that leg, she immediately focused her attacks on the remaining one. She noticed the area behind the Magic Beast and saw that one leg was still there, which meant Jier had not been injured by the powerful Magic earlier and was still persisting in the fight.

Very good, she felt that recruiting this young man into her team was a very correct decision.

If she had driven Jier away earlier, the current situation might not be looking so good. Although they could still have defeated the Magic Beast to this point, the losses among her Hunters would have been hard to say.

Jier struck an organ inside the Magic Beast's Abdominal Sac with his axe and pulled backward. Amidst the Magic Beast's loud, painful shrieks, he dragged out this thick, gut-like object.

This Magic Beast organ was as thick as a human thigh and was stuffed full of something unknown. Jier pulled it hard, but it only grew longer; in a few moments, he had dragged this long body tissue and retreated several meters.

Seeming to be in great pain, the Mist released by the Magic Beast became faint and could no longer maintain the thick White Mist state from before. The surrounding Mist was not being absorbed back into the Magic Beast's body like before, but instead, as if beyond the Magic Beast's control, it diluted and drifted into the surroundings.

After the Mist lightened slightly, Jier heard the successive shouts of the Hunters at the front of the Magic Beast, as well as the loud clashing sounds erupting from the female Knight's battle.

Another attack from a Magic Beast leg struck from the side. Seeming to be out of strength, this time the Magic Beast dragged its leg along the ground straight toward Jier. The sharp tip of the leg carved a deep trench into the cold, solid soil.

Of course, he would not be hit by a Magic Beast at the end of its rope at such a time; he simply quickened his pace as he pulled backward, dodging the Magic Beast's strike.

And the gut-like thing that Jier had been pulling out of the Magic Beast's Abdominal Sac was naturally cut into three sections by the sweeping leg.

Jier fell to the ground all at once. The Magic Beast gut hanging from his axe was reduced to a one-meter-long section, and from the smooth, severed end, the stuff stuffed inside spilled all over the ground.

At one glance, Jier felt disgusted and bewildered.

Because the Magic Beast gut, which was only as thick as a human thigh, was stuffed with nothing else but the human remains that the Magic Beast had devoured.

What was eerie was that these remains had completely lost the size of a normal human skeleton. Not only the sternum, pelvis, and femur, but even the skulls—which were basically the same size for everyone—had shrunk by more than a circle.

It was as if after the humans were swallowed into the Magic Beast's belly, everything on those human corpses had been absorbed by the Magic Beast, including the bones.

Jier looked up again at the severed gut he had pulled out earlier. The long gut twitching on the ground was continuously spitting out shrunken human remains, along with many other strange things.

Jier climbed up and walked quickly toward the opening in the Magic Beast's Abdominal Sac, hooked a gut with the tip of his axe, and pulled hard toward the back. The Magic Beast's leg tried to attack Jier several times, but it only hit its own body organs on the ground.

After several attempts, it resigned itself to its fate; the leg stopped attacking and instead tried to protect the opening in its Abdominal Sac.

Jier was waiting for exactly this. His axe came down in a Heavy Cleave, striking the leg that was maintaining its defense. He aimed specifically at the places with the most cracks; after two strikes, he shattered the outer shell of the thing, revealing the tissues inside.

After a few more strikes, the entire end of the leg was shattered. Now, Jier finally had nothing left to stop him.

Rolling up his sleeves, Jier used his axe to pull out the Magic Beast's various organs, large and small, and used his Long Sword to hack and slash at every organ he saw.

He punctured the thing that looked like a Gallbladder and hacked to pieces the Viscera covered in Blood Vessels.

Of course, there were even more guts of various sizes inside the Magic Beast's Abdominal Sac, along with some strange organs.

Seeming to feel that it was finished, the Magic Beast continuously contracted its Abdominal Sac, and then, from the Spinneret in the middle of the rear of the Abdominal Sac, protected by large amounts of bristles, it sprayed out large quantities of translucent, turbid mucus.

As soon as this stuff touched the air, it quickly solidified and hardened.

Jier had already been exploring the inside of the Magic Beast's Abdominal Sac to cause destruction, but as the light shining through the opening of the Abdominal Sac dimmed rapidly, he turned to look and discovered that the place where he had entered behind him was blocked by a large amount of rapidly hardening mucus.

Jier was greatly alarmed and immediately used his axe to hack at it, but the hardened mucus was extremely tough; even when he swung his axe with all his might, he could only knock off a small piece of the hardened mucus at a time.

Seeing this stuff, Jier remembered those things he had discovered in the Forest outside Yinyulin Village.

"Careless, careless, careless, what now?" The light around Jier dimmed rapidly. Although he could still see the things around him by the faint light filtering through the hardened mucus, the various Magic Beast body organs constantly wriggling all around him still made him feel immense pressure.

He could not sit and wait for death. He immediately thought that the mucus sprayed by the Magic Beast was basically sprayed downward; surely there shouldn't be this stuff covering the top of the Magic Beast's Abdominal Sac, right?

Thinking of it, he did it. He no longer thought about destroying the Magic Beast's body organs, but instead put away his axe, took out his Long Sword and Dagger, cut and pushed aside the various organs fixed together by the Peritoneum above his head, and climbed upward by stepping on these things.

With the help of the Hunters under her command, Knight Lanisha severed the Magic Beast's last intact leg and cut off the mouth at the front of the Magic Beast's body at the root.

After the surrounding Mist diluted and dissipated, the Hunters rejoined the battle. They gave up using bows and arrows and instead took out the weapons they had obtained from the Bandits, helping the Knight cut off the Magic Beast's thick mouth.

At this moment, before they could even catch their breath, the leg that had been dealing with Jier behind the Magic Beast turned and struck toward Knight Lanisha.

This leg had been broken in half by Jier, so its attack range was not large; basically, it could only sweep back and forth on the Magic Beast's body.

Even when all the Magic Beast's legs were present, they couldn't do anything to the female Knight, so naturally, this half-leg couldn't either. It was soon severed at the leg base connection by the female Knight.

"The Magic Beast's limbs are all severed now. Everyone, retreat a distance; beware of the Magic Beast's final madness! I'll go see how Jier is doing. I hope he's alright." After saying this, Knight Lanisha jumped from where she stood and leaped to the vicinity of the Magic Beast's Abdominal Sac.

Then she saw the large patches of solid, hardened mucus on and around the Magic Beast's Abdominal Sac, as well as the large opening in the Abdominal Sac blocked by this hardened mucus.

Looking at this triangular opening that a person could crawl into, the female Knight had a strange expression: "Good fellow, you didn't crawl inside, did you? Jier."

She looked around; the surrounding ground was flat, and everything had been cleared away by the Magic Beast's powerful Magic earlier. On the ground, besides this mucus that had already become as hard as metal, there were only many Magic Beast guts under the mucus and the faint human remains that had flowed out from the guts.

She thought about it and realized that Jier had first broken a large hole in the Magic Beast's Abdominal Sac, then pulled out a large number of Magic Beast body organs, and then that guy had actually boldly run into the Magic Beast's Abdominal Sac, only to be trapped inside by the hardened mucus the Magic Beast released at the end.

She came to the opening of the Abdominal Sac and looked inside through the translucent hardened mucus; it was pitch black inside, and nothing could be seen clearly.

She drew her Armor-piercing Rapier and hacked and stabbed at this patch of hardened mucus, but she only shaved off a large amount of debris from the surface and could do nothing about this thick, hardened mucus.

"Damn it!" The female Knight looked around; her Hunters were no longer nearby. She quickly took out the Single-handed Heavy Sword from the box on her back, gathered all her strength, and struck the Magic Beast's hardened mucus again.

Jier felt he had done a foolish thing. The surrounding Magic Beast organs were squeezing him; although the force was not very great, both the smell and the sensation were truly unbearable for him.

After leaving the opening of the Abdominal Sac, there was immediately no light at all. Jier could only rely on the direction of gravity perceived by his body to let himself crawl toward the upper part of the Abdominal Sac.

Faintly, Jier seemed to hear someone talking to him; the blurry voices came from all directions. This made Jier feel a bit afraid, but the Dagger and Long Sword in his hands did not stop for even a moment, as he continued to cut open the tissue membranes connecting the Magic Beast's organs.

Along with his movements, the surrounding sounds became a bit clearer.

He stopped his work and listened carefully to the sounds around him.

"So painful, so painful."

"It was better in the nest; the outside is really not good."

"If I had known, I wouldn't have come to prey on humans; regret."

Similar words made his eyes widen. Could it be that this Magic Beast was talking to itself?

But how could this guy be speaking human language?

But on second thought, this was to be expected; this Magic Beast had the most contact with and devoured the most humans, so it was indeed not impossible for it to master human language.

Although he had heard the Human Head on this Magic Beast speak before, it was a different matter from the Magic Beast speaking itself.

As these repeated words became clearer, Jier saw that inside the pitch-black Abdominal Sac of the Magic Beast, a spot in one direction lit up through various organs.

Unlike a lamp, this blue-white light penetrated the Magic Beast's body tissues, allowing Jier to clearly see the direction and source of the brightness.

He felt amazed and reached out to shield his eyes, but he could still see that blue-white light through his hand.

"What is this? Can neither the Magic Beast nor my own hand block it?" Jier muttered to himself.

But he suddenly had a premonition that something ominous was about to happen.

Recalling how the Magic Beast had released powerful force before, its deep abdomen had emitted light then too. At that time, Jier had been blocked by its legs and feet, so he could only barely destroy some shallow luminous organs on the Abdominal Sac before and after that, but he was powerless against the brightest one deep within the Magic Beast's body.

But he was inside the Magic Beast's body now! It wasn't impossible to think of a way.

Ever since suffering a setback from the Magic Beast's Magic earlier, Knight Lanisha had kept her newly mastered Magic Perception half-open. Just as she used her Single-handed Heavy Sword to continuously stab and pierce a small hole through the Hardened Mucus, she suddenly sensed that the Magic Beast had begun gathering Magic Power again.

She flipped her body and leaped out, instantly putting at least thirty meters of distance between them. She put away her heavy sword, and the female Knight cautiously focused her Magic Perception to probe what this doomed Magic Beast was trying to do.

Sensing that the Magic Power gathered by the Magic Beast this time was greater than the previous instance, Knight Lanisha felt a wave of unease, yet she also found it strange.

The 'Human Head' Magic Organ used to release Magic Power this time had already been destroyed by her; what else could this Magic Beast use to release this powerful Magic Power?

One had to know that the previous surge of Magic Power was so strong that it had burned the eyes of those dozen-plus Magic Organs that mimicked human heads. Once powerful Magic Power gathered, if it did not find a place to be absorbed or released, that immense power would ruthlessly destroy everything.

This was also a story she had read in books during her studies.

Many Mages usually met a bad end after mastering the control of Magic Power that exceeded their own capabilities. The lucky ones were severely injured and lost their ability to cast spells, while the unlucky ones were directly destroyed and evaporated by the Magic Power. Even worse, there were once devious Mages who used this point to create one-time suicide attacks.

The books said that the Empire once had Mages who lured many young Mages away individually, using the excuse of increasing their spellcasting ability to modify their bodies, adding some peculiar and powerful Magic Sources inside the young Mages' bodies.

But these were not good things; they looked like nothing out of the ordinary, but once needed, those devious Mages could remotely control these Magic Sources they had personally created, forcing the young Mages using them to gather a massive amount of Magic Power under any circumstances and self-destruct along with the installed Magic Source.

Knight Lanisha was not sure about the truth of the story; after all, she was just a Knight, and when she was studying back then, she wasn't even a Knight yet. She only learned about these books because she found them interesting.

"So that's it?" She looked at the Magic Beast, whose Magic Power was gathering more and more, and understood this fellow's plan.

It intended to self-destruct in the end and, while it was at it, take a few of them who had been careless along with it.

After guessing the Magic Beast's plan, Knight Lanisha hurriedly notified the Hunters under her command to retreat another one hundred meters.

The surrounding Mist had long since dissipated, leaving behind only large areas of open ground and a scene of devastation.

Everyone still alive on the battlefield retreated into the distance, lying on the ground to watch the situation of the Magic Beast, which no longer had limbs to move with.

A young Hunter muttered: "Why isn't Jier here? Did he die in that thing just now?"

"Which one?" asked another young Hunter lying not far away.

"The one that even knocked Knight-sama flying; look, the one where a large patch of snow and mud around the Magic Beast was blown away." He pointed to the area around the Magic Beast in the distance.

In the middle of the white snow was a circular patch of cold, black-gray mud, and at the very center was that giant Magic Beast that had lost all its legs, feet, and its long, giant mouth.

Even though the Magic Beast had been beaten into this state by them, that massive body still possessed great deterrent power; after all, Humans were a species of small stature, and when facing many giant creatures, they naturally had a fear factor hidden in their bloodline.

That was a survival ability etched into the bloodline during ancient evolution.

Facing a giant creature: fear, then run.

Only in this way could one survive.

Knight Lanisha heard the words of the Hunters under her command, and she said helplessly: "That fellow Jier broke into the Magic Beast's abdomen and went inside to destroy it, but he ended up being trapped inside by the mucus released by the Magic Beast. Once that mucus hardens, it's impossible to open; he was truly too bold. It's a pity, he was a brave Warrior."

The Hunters looked at each other in dismay, not expecting that fellow Jier to be so bold and reckless; wouldn't it have been enough to attack the Magic Beast's tail? He actually rushed inside the Magic Beast's body.

It was a pity; this fellow would have to pay the price for his recklessness, and the price was his own life.

Shaking their heads, several old Hunters could say nothing more than to let out some sighs, hoping that this lesson from Jier would make their young Hunters more cautious in the future.

Jier became increasingly uneasy; he looked up at the pitch-black Magic Beast organ above his head, not knowing how much longer it would take to reach the top of the Abdominal Sac, and then he would still have to use his axe to forcefully break open a hole to crawl out.

This would take quite some time, but the blue-white light, which was becoming increasingly bright deep within the Magic Beast's body in the distance, did not look like it would give him enough time.

Gritting his teeth, Jier knew that whether he lived or died depended on his next choice.

Taking a deep breath of the disgusting, foul-smelling air around him, Jier made up his mind.

Going up was fine, but there wasn't enough time. Now he could only find a way to destroy the source emitting the blue-white light, just like he had destroyed the small luminous organs on the outside of the Abdominal Sac before.

Jier pushed aside the organ beneath his feet and dropped to the hollow opening he had created below. Taking out his Long Sword and axe, Jier headed toward the center of the Magic Beast's Abdominal Sac, which was emitting the blue-white light.

Life and death would be decided in the next moment.