Su Yen walked calmly on the wide, desolate road with a deep frown on his face.
Since he had completed his mission, he didn't rush back to Baiyun city or the Barren Land.
He decided to enjoy the peace and quiet time on the road.
However, since he set foot on the ground, he felt things were not right. He tried to scan his surroundings with his spirit sense for any anomalies but found none.
After trying a couple of times without detecting anything out of order, he continued on his path.
But as he went deeper into the Zizhu prefecture, he felt something was definitely wrong.
He knew this wasn't a threat to his loved ones nor to the barren land. Therefore, he was puzzled as to where this danger feeling was coming from.
Instead of taking the path that would lead him to Baiyun city, he took another path.
After a couple of minutes, he arrived at the previous village where he asked about the Butterfly Gorge.
However, on getting there, he was faced with a pensive atmosphere.
Surrounding the village wall were hundreds of warriors patrolling with stern expressions.
When they saw a lone young man coming from the distance, they raised their weapons, fixed their eyes on him, ready to respond to any form of attack.
Su Yen looked at the serious guards and knew his intuition was right. Just as the guard commander prepared to speak,
Su Yen appeared right before his face, shocking him to a stupor.
All the guards on the wall froze, and their hearts jumped to their throats.
Su Yen looked at their fearful expression and asked, "Tell me what is going on?"
"En...." The commander gasped in fear as a bead of sweat dripped from the corner of his head.
As he watched Su Yen's expression changing slowly, he recovered quickly and jumped back.
"Yes... Yes...I will tell you, my lord," he said with a forced smile.
"The monster beast race has launched a full-out war on our border. This wasn't like any other war that happened in the past decades."
Before he could retract his spear and defend against the other Grade-3 beast, a deadly sharp wolf talon cut deep into his back.
Instantly, a miserable scream escaped from his mouth and he quickly used his movement skill to escape from the follow-up attack of the wolf.
Appearing a couple of feet from the wolf range attack. General Shi with trembling legs used his spear to support himself and glared at the Grade-3 beasts that surrounded him.
While he was still in dilemma of how to kill his way out of the Grade-3 beasts' encampment,
He heard the anguished cry of one of his trusted commanders.
It was the cry of the fat commander.
Laying on the ground, his thick, heavy armor protecting his body was destroyed by the terrifying tail whip of a Massive Cobra.
The Seven Cloud Cobra coiled like a small mountain and looked down at the injured fat human in disdain.
It hissed proudly and attacked once again, ready to finish him off.
Looking at the massive tail whip crashing down at him, the fat commander didn't have any ounce of fear on his face and looked in the direction of his general.
"General!" He shouted with a deep smile on his face.
"I'll be going ahead. Please take care of my family."
With that, he closed his eyes, and the air around him began to turn erratic.
In the distance, the thin old man looked at his friend with tears streaming from the corners of his eyes as he shouted.
"No!"
Without caring about his life, he went all out, trying to kill all the Grade-3 beasts that surrounded him.
Unfortunately, the Grade-3 beasts were as wide as an adult human. Each of them stood back, preventing him from escaping.
The normal soldiers watched as their lovable and kind commander were about to meet his end, and all of them cried in despair.
"Commander!"
The fatso had already given up, ready to blow up his core in hopes of bringing down the Seven Cloud Cobra with him.
But in that moment, a bright star appeared in the ominous dark sky.