Chapter 83: The Lion King's Roar

The blood wyvern was now gravely wounded, sensing its life was hanging by a thread. The water it had just churned onto the shore was already receding, flowing back into the Tiansha River. Even in its stupidity, a survival instinct prevailed—it dared not linger on land any longer. Its massive body twisted frantically, striving to slip back into the shallow water and escape to the river.

Despite its enormous size, the blood wyvern’s wet scales were slick as oil, and its strength was formidable. As it writhed, the Ancient Tree Spirits—one of whom had been standing on its tail—suddenly lost balance, slipping and nearly falling.

With a muffled thud, the tree spirit landed hard, sending a spray of water into the air. The blood wyvern’s mouth continued to ooze blood as it crawled desperately toward the riverbank, dragging behind it a tail bent at an unnatural angle—the bones near the tip had already snapped.

Yet this desperate, lingering flight was not useless. The Ancient Tree Spirits, though powerful and resilient as high-tier bronze monsters, had an obvious flaw—their lack of agility. The five of them looked as though they were trying to catch a giant, slippery eel in the mud. Their huge knotted wooden hands would seize the blood wyvern, only for it to slip away each time. Still, every blow or constriction brought the creature fresh agony.

To be honest, Wu You found the whole scene rather amusing from his vantage point high above. The blood wyvern was still separated from the river by over a thousand meters, but if it managed to break through the encirclement of these monstrous tree spirits, a return to the river would take just a minute or two.

But now, a dark golden figure was sprinting on all fours toward the giant mudfish. With each leap, it left streaks of shadow in its wake, and the claws at the tips of its fingers, sharper than forged steel, were fully extended.

Garuru’s throat rumbled with the low snarl of a lion threatening its prey. Excited and cruel, it closed in on the massive reptile—whose agility, in Garuru’s eyes, was not much better than that of the Ancient Tree Spirits.

With a tearing sound, as if a water-filled plastic bag had been sliced open with a blade, a torrent of blood burst from the middle of the blood wyvern's body, drenching Garuru from head to toe. The lion-faced colossus licked the blood from its lips, then looked up at its prey.

“Hmm, this amount of blood loss—hardly like a cold-blooded reptile. No wonder they call you the blood wyvern. Impressive, truly impressive…”

Wu You, hovering above, made his carefree commentary.

Below, Garuru, now fully roused, surged forward with renewed speed. Every time it struck, a savage new wound burst open on the wyvern’s body, each accompanied by a spray of blood. For a beast of the blood wyvern’s size, these wounds might seem like nothing more than shallow cuts to a human, but each was viciously deep.

A pained hiss rang out, filled with fear and helplessness.

The blood wyvern attempted to retaliate again and again—snapping its jaws, twisting its body—but could never land so much as a touch on the dark golden blur that tormented it.

It wanted nothing more than to abandon everything and dash back into the river, but the delay had cost it dearly. The Ancient Tree Spirits had already moved ahead, blocking its path. The five towering monsters stood like living wooden barricades. Whenever the wyvern edged closer, they would lunge forward, driving it back with their massive feet.

From the sky, Wu You watched, reflecting that Garuru must have been suppressing its instincts for too long. Looking at the writhing serpent below, he knew there was no hope of claiming the whole snakeskin intact.

A sickening rip sounded as a chunk of tail, bloodied flesh and pale vertebrae exposed, sailed through the air. The blood wyvern’s agony turned its eyes a blazing crimson, and it lunged at Garuru in a last-ditch frenzy. Even it knew this was futile.

But this time, Garuru did not dodge. Its narrowed beast eyes gleamed with a dangerous, mocking light—it had grown tired of the game.

With a thunderous crash, the blood wyvern’s gaping jaws closed around Garuru for the first time. But they could not bite down—Garuru’s two muscular arms wedged between the jaws, holding them open.

The massive impact dragged Garuru back several meters, plowing furrows in the earth with its legs. The wyvern, battered and bloodied, tried to coil around Garuru, seeking to crush it.

Yet Garuru was not alone in this battle.

With three thunderous shocks, the ground trembled as three Ancient Tree Spirits threw themselves onto the wyvern’s body, pinning it down. Their giant, knotted wooden hands dug into the wounds Garuru had torn open, clamping down mercilessly.

A fresh wave of agony and weight overwhelmed the blood wyvern, but now was not the time to focus on the pain in its back.

Garuru’s amber eyes now pressed close to the wyvern’s blood-red gaze. Their breaths mingled, one hot and one icy cold. In Garuru’s heart—cruelty and excitement; in the wyvern’s—terror and despair.

The lion-faced colossus’s chest expanded.

With a deafening roar, Garuru unleashed its full might. Even though most of the sound was funneled directly into the wyvern’s mouth, the sheer volume would have deafened any ordinary person nearby.

With a wet pop, the blood wyvern’s eyes exploded like bulbs, and its crimson crown burst as well, blood streaming down its head.

Its whole body convulsed in its final, most violent death throes. The ground trembled in sympathy with its spasms.

In the sky, Wu You rubbed his ears, wondering if, when Garuru reached the silver tier, he ought to invest in a pair of earplugs.

A wave of invisible sound rolled over the bystanders. Liu Niansheng and the Liu family guards clapped their hands over their ears, their minds filled with a piercing, buzzing drone. Everyone’s legs shook—whether from the shockwaves of the monsters’ battle or from sheer terror, they could not say.

What kind of battle was this? What were these monsters?

The blood wyvern—this mythic terror, the bane of martial heroes, the subject of countless assassination attempts, had survived even the grand encirclement two centuries ago, escaping despite overwhelming odds. Its prowess in water was legendary; its title as “wyvern” well-deserved.

But today, they had witnessed a monster capable of pinning the blood wyvern to the ground and slaughtering it with impunity.

Liu Niansheng could not help but wonder: Was this world truly the one they thought they knew? Did immortals, gods, and demons truly not exist? In these brief minutes, they had seen scenes that could not exist even in dreams.

The Liu family had witnessed the entire massacre, their minds filled with nothing but static and shock. They had even forgotten the most basic instinct: to run for their lives in the presence of such monsters.

At last, the blood wyvern’s convulsions ceased, though its muscles still twitched now and then. Garuru gazed hungrily at the corpse, then lifted its head to the sky.

Wu You knew what it was asking, what it was begging for. The system had already notified him: the energy material could be absorbed directly by the alchemical beast or stored in the system’s library. Though he could always assign it to Garuru later, Wu You did not want to extinguish the creature’s desire at this moment.

As his first loyal alchemical beast, Wu You would not disappoint it. He nodded down through the clouds.

Even through the mist, Garuru "saw" his approval.

A triumphant roar split the air.