Monster

In mere moments, an entire city was devoured by the green dog. Its body swelled slowly, its shoulder height rising from two meters to nearly three, its aura surging noticeably beyond what it had been before.

After consuming the city, the green dog let out another shriek and vanished.

Not long after, a spatial rift split open and a tall, middle-aged man in black battle armor descended into the air above the ruins.

He stared down at the vast crater yawning below him, his brow drawing tight, his expression darkening.

"Damn it — who did this? How dare someone commit such madness in my Lion Empire!"

At that very moment, his expression shifted. He sensed a powerful, sinister aura emanating from somewhere in the distance and turned toward it.

A cold light flashed in his eyes. He tore open space and vanished, moving toward the source.

Roughly five thousand kilometers from the recently devoured city, the green dog floated in the sky above another city.

It opened its jaws. A tremendous pulling force manifested, dissolving the city — foundations and all — into green slime and consuming it whole.

The moment the city was swallowed, a spatial rift split open nearby in the air. The middle-aged man in black battle armor stepped through.

His eyes went immediately to what lay below. The city that had stood there was gone — only a massive crater remained. His expression turned cold and grim as he raised his gaze to find the green dog hovering above him.

The sinister aura rolling off the creature made his skin crawl. He stared hard at it, brow furrowed. The feeling was like Aberration — yet more dangerous than any Aberration Event he had encountered before.

"What in the world are you?"

He spoke through clenched teeth, voice glacial. He knew that anything that had reached this level of power would possess considerable intelligence. Speaking was hardly beyond it.

But his question went unanswered. The green dog shrieked once and vanished.

The moment it disappeared, every hair on his body stood on end.

He jerked his head up. A massive shield materialized in his hand, raised above him to block.

In that instant, the green dog appeared directly overhead. Its green eyes gleamed with brutal, ruthless light, and its razor-sharp claws came slamming down onto the shield.

**BOOM!!**

A force of terrifying magnitude transmitted through the metal. The man's face went white. His arm erupted in a series of sickening cracks and snapped — and the next moment, his body hurtled downward like a meteor into the crater below.

**BOOM!!**

He crashed to the bottom of the pit — the enormous crater left by the city, spanning over a hundred kilometers — punching an even deeper hollow several kilometers across into its floor.

The green dog looked down at the crater and opened its jaws. Coils of sinister green radiance gathered at its maw. The sheer terror of that gathering energy made it feel as though Great Qi Star itself was trembling beneath it. Hurricane winds swirled as the brilliance intensified; the white clouds above seemed to scatter before the creature, and the entire sky flickered with green light.

Across all of Great Qi Star, every Battle Emperor and Battle Sovereign-ranked powerhouse stared in stunned alarm toward the direction of that pulsing glow.

Then the green dog paused. The green energy sphere at its jaws slowly dissipated.

It cast a brief, contemptuous glance down at the crater. Then it swept its senses outward and vanished once more.

Hundreds of thousands of kilometers away, in a stretch of wilderness, the middle-aged man in black armor suddenly reappeared — collapsing onto the ground, gasping for breath.

His massive shield had fallen to one side, badly dented. His armor was riddled with cracks. He was soaked in blood. In his right hand, a silver-white Talisman slowly fractured and went dark.

A single exchange had left him gravely wounded. He panted hard, lingering dread filling his eyes, his voice low and hoarse:

"What in hell is that thing?! That monster's power might be approaching Battle Saint — it might even *be* at Battle Saint level. This can't go on. I have to warn the others. If no one can stop it, it might devour all of Great Qi Star."

A muffled groan escaped him. Streams of red light circulated over his body, and his wounds — including his shattered arm — began to knit back together.

When the healing was done, his aura had grown noticeably weaker.

He exhaled slowly and pushed himself upright, took out his phone, and sent out a message about the green dog.

After sending it, he coughed up a mouthful of blood and murmured to himself:

"When the others get here, we'll face that thing together. I hope they're fast — who knows how many cities it'll devour in the meantime. And I wonder where that monster is right now?"

The words had barely left his lips when a grating sound — like nails dragged across glass — rose from directly behind him.

"Hehe~ Looking for me?"

He froze. He spun around — and saw the green dog standing right behind him, its green eyes glinting with cold, mocking amusement.

Horror broke across his face. He was barely beginning to react when the green dog's claw shot out and slapped the top of his head. His skull exploded on the spot. His headless body swayed once, then toppled slowly to the ground.

The green dog cracked its jaws in a grotesque grin. "A Battle Emperor's corpse. I wonder how it tastes."

It opened its savage maw and began to feed — leaving nothing behind. It devoured the man's battle armor and the discarded shield beside him too.

With the corpse consumed, the green dog glanced at the phone lying nearby. It flipped the device over with a claw, and its green eyes took on an unsettlingly human quality as it studied the screen.

Then the corner of its mouth curled in a cold smile. It swallowed the phone whole. Its body dissolved into green mist and vanished.

Not long after the green dog disappeared, space tore open once more. Four powerhouses stepped out — each clad in a Gene Armament, each radiating a powerful Battle Emperor-ranked aura.

Among them were Adams of the Algaibi Family, and Wells Andrée of the Lion Empire royal family's Andrée clan — a towering man with a mane of long golden hair, his aura overwhelming, his bearing as imperious as a lion king.

There was also a strikingly beautiful woman with flowing red hair: Ge Hong, a Battle Emperor of the Ge Family.

The last was an elder with a full head of white hair, dressed in white robes, named Bie Yuan.

The four Battle Emperors surveyed the wilderness around them and frowned as one.

Wells's brow creased, a grave look settling over his face:

"Where is Ku Qi? He sent word that he'd encountered an aberrated Feral Beast suspected to be at or near Battle Saint level — the owner of that terrifying aura we felt? He called on all of Great Qi Star's powerhouses to gather and hunt it down together. So where did he go?"

The others exchanged puzzled glances.

At that moment, Adams's expression snapped taut. He let out a sharp warning: "Watch out!"

A purple vine shot from the air and wrapped around Ge Hong's waist, yanking her backward.

The next instant, a savage claw covered in green Scale Armor punched through the void without warning.

It missed Ge Hong by a hair, raking past her side.

At the sight of those green claws, every face changed — and understanding clicked into place.

Wells let out a roar. His eyes transformed into golden Vertical Pupils, and a towering golden lion phantom rose from his body.

The phantom lion reared back and roared, and space shook — revealing a grotesque green dog hanging in the air above them, its shoulder height over three meters.

A shock ran through all four of them. Not one of them had sensed its presence until that moment.

They understood there was no time to hesitate. Bie Yuan gave a sharp shout, and waves of white light radiated from him, enveloping Adams, Ge Hong, Wells, and himself — their auras surging upward in unison.

Then Bie Yuan swept his Staff, and a shell of white light materialized around each of them.

Ge Hong raised her Staff as well. Torrents of flame condensed; red light suffused their bodies, pushing their auras to surge again. Fires blazed, and from within them charged a pack of enormous blazing hounds — each five or six meters tall. The instant they appeared, every one of them lunged at the green dog.

Simultaneously, Adams swept his Staff. A torrent of Tianrao Purple Vines launched from the air — unlike Amy's vines, his bore noble purple-gold markings along their length, coiling toward the green dog to bind it.

The green dog let out a low growl. Evil green mist billowed from its entire body. The blazing hounds dissolved the moment they entered the mist — their red flames guttered and hissed, and they transformed into green-flamed hounds radiating a malevolent aura.

The green-flamed hounds turned and charged back at Ge Hong and the others, shredding every Tianrao Purple Vine in their path.

Ge Hong's eyes went wide, shock breaking across her face: "I've lost control of them!"

The other three went pale. None of them could believe this peculiar green dog could corrupt and assimilate even summoned creatures.

Bie Yuan immediately fired beams of white light into the green-flamed hounds. The creatures flickered with unstable radiance — then swelled and detonated.

A thunderous roar rang out. Flames surged in all directions. Bie Yuan condensed layer after layer of light shields to contain the blast within a radius of several kilometers — had he not, the eruption would have incinerated everything within a thousand kilometers.

When the flames subsided, the earth beneath was scarred with corrosion, the surface caved in.

At the center of the blast, the green dog stood without a scratch.

The sight left all four of them cold.

"Be careful — this thing is no simple threat. Ge Hong, contact the other Battle Emperors. Every Battle Emperor in the Red Maple Empire and the Bright Light Empire — if they don't want something like this appearing in their own lands, they had better send their Battle Emperors now."

Wells kept his voice low and measured.

Ge Hong gave a grim nod.

"Understood."

At that moment, the green dog suddenly cracked its jaws in a shrill, grating cry:

"Hehehe~ So you're all this weak. Don't mind if I do, then."

Before the last word faded, its body appeared beside Bie Yuan in an instant — moving at what seemed like teleportation.

Its claw swung down and slammed into the white light shield surrounding Bie Yuan.

The shield held for a single heartbeat, then shattered into motes of light.

At that moment, streams of Tianrao Purple Vines shot from the air to intercept the claw before it reached Bie Yuan.

*Hsst!*

The vines lasted only an instant before being torn apart. A wall of flame materialized behind them, forming a fire shield to block the blow.

By the time the fire shield broke, Bie Yuan had finally managed to react. His body flashed white and vanished.

Simultaneously, Wells let out a roar and appeared directly above the green dog in an instant. He raised his heavy sword and brought it crashing down.

The green dog's first strike had come up short. It bared its teeth and swung a reverse claw to meet the descending blade.

**Clang!!**

The ring of steel on steel filled the air. Wells's expression darkened; he was sent flying, blood spraying from his mouth, his hands trembling — he could barely keep hold of his sword.

The sight of it chilled the other three. Wells's physical strength was extraordinary, even among Battle Emperors. Yet a single direct clash had left him injured?

This Aberration Feral Beast was horrifying.

The moment after it sent Wells flying, the green dog vanished — and reappeared directly in front of him.

It opened its jaws. A billow of green mist breathed out.

Almost simultaneously, Bie Yuan's Staff swept, and a light shield etched with arcane markings appeared around Wells. Wells himself sensed the lethal threat — his pupils contracted, his armor blazing with golden light as ring after ring of golden shields rose before him.

The green mist carried a virulent corrosive force. In nearly the same instant, it ate through the white light shield and the golden shields alike.

A thin wisp of green mist continued on and grazed the surface of Wells's golden battle armor.

A faint sizzling ran across the metal. Wells went white, a short grunt of pain escaping him. His battle armor vanished — a sphere of light rose from within his body and faded almost immediately.

That sphere had been the Gene Armament of his battle armor, and it had been corroded clean away. Wells's chest was a raw, bloody mess. That brief contact with the green mist had been enough to wound a Battle Emperor's body — and had even dissolved a Sovereign Grade Gene Armament.

For a moment, no one could find words.

After a beat of silence, Bie Yuan's expression hardened. He transmitted his voice to the other three in a low growl: "Move. Fall back now. The four of us cannot match it alone."

He didn't even dare speak aloud — this Aberration Feral Beast had considerable intelligence, and he couldn't risk it overhearing.

The faces of the other three tightened.

Wells said: "If we leave, what becomes of the other cities? There is no one who can stop this monster."

"If we die, Great Qi Star is finished. We wait until the other empires' Battle Emperors arrive — then everyone strikes together. That is our only chance. The four of us cannot accomplish this alone."

Bie Yuan's reasoning was impossible to refute.

Ge Hong's gaze flickered, and she transmitted: "I've already contacted the other Battle Emperors. But if we don't stall it here — what if it disappears? If it goes into hiding, even with every Battle Emperor assembled, we'll never find it, let alone kill it. We can't stay gathered indefinitely."

Silence settled over them all.