TOMWDET Chapter 183.1

Mortal Chapter (5.1)

“Don’t… don’t interfere, don’t go!”

Just as Su Li was about to take action, the humanoid Raven grabbed Su Li, who wanted to jump down from the tree.

Their current hiding position was on the trunk of a large tree.

When the Raven sensed that the young man beside him wanted to rush out, cold sweat instantly covered his face, and his hands uncontrollably gripped Su Li’s upper arms.

Compared to the other humans who had already been distracted by the experience-wrapped mermaid, what the Raven had been focusing on all along was what Su Li’s hidden power represented.

His frequent action of stroking the ring was enough to show that the key point was that item.

But the problem was that the young man didn’t have proper combat awareness.

He didn’t know how to dodge when facing enemy attacks, nor did he know how to utilize his power to maximize its effect. Even his attacks were just forcibly suppressing everyone, rather than creating earth-shaking powerful offensives.

How could such a child compare to that monster?

The [Tiger] was no longer as simple as the king of all beasts.

No one could ignore Clemens’ strangeness, and even those land monster beasts didn’t choose to approach that giant creature.

“The King’s strength is indeed extraordinary.”

“While symbolizing power, it’s also accompanied by a suppressive force that other monster beasts cannot resist. Even we can’t help but feel uncontrollable fear towards the King.”

“The King is such a great existence that others would involuntarily cower and retreat just by showing ‘attention.’ If the King weren’t our king but an enemy, I think no monster beast would be able to muster the will to fight against him. But I’m also grateful that the King is our king, precisely because of this, we’re destined to be invincible no matter what kind of enemy we face.”

Some conversations from the Beast Tribe floating through the air made the Raven even more certain of the opponent’s danger, and he was clear that he absolutely couldn’t let Su Li go down.

This was different!

It was completely different from the scene where the dragon and mermaid directly caused the entire sea to rage.

All living consciousness would fear the greatness of natural landscapes, but for such an alien existence that could no longer be understood by conventional thinking…

Those thoughts of admiring greatness, those thoughts of marveling at magnificence, would only be twisted into terror.

“But we can’t not go, right?” Su Li stopped his action of jumping down from the branch following the Raven’s force. He turned his head to look at the crow pupils that were completely black but somehow had ripples of water waves, “I admit I don’t care much about the life and death of monster beasts, but once the Winged Tribe is annihilated, the Water Tribe won’t be able to remain unaffected either.”

“Isn’t the attitude of the Beast King obvious?”

That figure that looked so terrifying that people would retreat at the sight of it actually had what could be called normal consciousness.

“He has his eyes on the entire world.”

Living long, having grand goals, knowing what he wanted, and still carrying what seemed like the [Madness Disease] that was a drawback of transforming into monster beasts.

Perfecting consciousness needs, then solving physical needs.

Due to the urgency of the latter, the completion efficiency of the former would be accelerated unconsciously.

This urgency was like a person who had been hungry for three days being unable to continue reading The Republic.

Conquering the entire monster beast society, human society would just be a matter of time.

After solving the so-called [Madness Disease], the new scope of vision would be expanded to the entire world map, and even… the concept of the planet.

This wasn’t impossible.

“I acknowledge such an existence’s power and desire for conquest, but I don’t want to choose compromise because of this power, lose human rights… and choose to be conquered like giving up on myself.”

Su Li didn’t want to understand what kind of peculiar existence flowed in his blood for monster beasts; but Su Li was clear that his consciousness, and even his soul, had needs in this world that could be summarized in four words.

All he sought was nothing more than – born free.

“Whether it’s unfounded worry or not, I still say the same thing: I don’t accept a garbage world where I can’t even achieve the goal I’ve worked hard for years – just wanting to retire peacefully.”

Su Li had actually thought about everyone sitting at the negotiation table together, building new rules, declaring that monster beasts weren’t allowed to harm humans.

Afterward, they could follow the changes of time and space until all transformed monster beasts died.

But this would only exist under the absolute power of authoritarianism.

At least for monster beasts, without power they would never listen to human words.

And no matter how ridiculous that seemingly unrealizable wish was, Su Li would choose to try. Failure was one thing, but trying wasn’t against the law.

How many young people in contemporary society thought they could retire before thirty?

Su Li didn’t think that just because he was certain he could succeed, he would actually succeed.

Mental motivation and action were the possibilities for realizing the impossible.

The Raven couldn’t stop Su Li no matter what he said.

“…But even if it’s something that will happen sooner or later, wouldn’t it be much better to delay it, let you have more preparation, let others provide you with corresponding help, than rushing up like this now?”

“You can’t go, at least in my opinion, you don’t need to face such an existence! That’s a monster… how could you possibly win against such a thing?” the Raven said incoherently.

“I don’t want to say anything too extreme, but being hostile to such an existence, Su Li, do you really think you can win? Do you know what you’re doing now? I regret it, I regret bringing you here…”

Severed limbs and blood rain kept falling from the sky.

This was hell.

“Fine if you regret it, there are times in life when we regret. But compared to regretting afterward, doing things during the development of events to try to change the possibility of future regret – no matter whether it fails or not, at least after trying to change, the regret won’t be entangled with heart-tormenting guilt.”

The Raven couldn’t stop him.

Obviously not long ago this young man had shown an attitude of not caring about the life and death of the Winged Tribe at all.

But the Raven couldn’t bring himself to hate him.

Whether he stayed in place to face reality, or like now, as if going mad…

The Raven would actually choose to follow either way.

“Perhaps so.” The Raven exhaled, his clenched fists showing white knuckles. His pure black eyes, like glass beads, reflected a not-so-obvious light.

“Take me with you then. I admit my power isn’t enough to match those land monster beasts, but at least I can still fly.”

Look at those Winged Tribe members – after being slaughtered wantonly by that monster at the beginning, weren’t they now trying to organize effective counterattacks?

There was no reason why he, this strange crow who had grown up with Su Li the human, should retreat especially normally at this time.

Being strange wasn’t bad!

At worst, when everyone died together, that fool Egbert would dig him out and not let him be buried with Su Li.

Having clarified that the worst outcome was no more than this, the Raven was actually ready to rush up faster than Su Li.

The familiar giant black crow appeared again, with smooth muscle lines and glossy feathers that made him look not like the kind of crow that was easily subjected to malice by the world, but more like some sculpture standing in an art museum.

He carried Su Li with a posture of no retreat, rushing straight toward Clemens…

…

Rota County.

Julius and Cyril, who had already arrived at this city, came out of the teleportation array feeling dizzy and disoriented.

As soon as they appeared, what they faced wasn’t some empty, uninhabited environment, but rather an extremely enthusiastic welcome…

When the teleportation array in the center of Rota County lit up again, Joel, who had been pressed by his friends to become the temporary administrator of this city, rushed over immediately after receiving notification.

His friends had thought about too much during this journey, such as whether those coming were monster beasts, and whether those monster beasts would take humans away for premature transformation.

The rules of Rota County were, after all, just things made by monster beasts that humans needed to follow.

It wouldn’t be surprising if the monster beasts chose to tear them up.

Unfortunately, when Joel arrived in front of that teleportation array, it was still glowing.

“Only glowing but no one arriving?” Joel blinked in confusion.

Friend Number One stared at him and said, “Be rigorous, change the word ‘one’ to ‘monster beast.'”

“Don’t blur the distance between humans and monster beasts because of some seemingly insignificant habits.”

Joel touched his nose and didn’t dare say anything about not needing to make such a big deal of it. He obediently closed his mouth to prevent being dragged away by these two friends for what would be called training but written as a wonderful future of mixed doubles.

They continued to wait for the teleportation array’s light to extinguish.

And on the human side…

Cyril, feeling like he had been stirred in a space like a drum washing machine for more than half an hour, when the light of the teleportation gradually dimmed and the young man hadn’t even had time to stand steady, couldn’t help but blurt out: “Is there a problem with your key, or is there a problem with this opened teleportation array?”

“Really hell, this is the first time in my life I’ve seen such a garbage teleportation array.”

Another equally young voice rang out. “You’ve only taken teleportation arrays twice in your life, right?”

Julius, completely unaware that he was stating some terrible fact, immediately discovered a crowd of people with various monster beast characteristics who uniformly raised weapons pointing at himself and Cyril…

…

“You, hello there?”

“No, I don’t think there’s anything good about it.” Joel looked at his appearance without any monster beast characteristics, his mind full of thoughts about Su Li’s group.

Compared to Cyril who had dragon scale marks on his face, Joel didn’t seem to raise any vigilance toward Julius.

“What’s going on with you?” Joel asked.

“Perhaps this question is more suitable for you to explain to us?” To refuse to let the topic turn in a strange direction, Cyril proactively took control of the conversation.

“Compared to you who suddenly surrounded us,” Cyril gestured to their pitiful situation of just two people, then looked at the stage below surrounded by at least two hundred people, his eyes carrying a trace of a seemingly smiling but not smiling expression learned from somewhere.

But the effect of this expression was obviously better than imagined.

At least compared to showing helplessness and exposing all his information first, Cyril preferred to understand others first.

Joel was about to explain when his friend stopped him. “Are you an idiot? Can’t you see the dragon scales on this boy’s face? Egbert’s group mentioned it, right? There’s a dragon with many bad thoughts about Su Li.”

“Don’t think that having many people gives you power. Who knows how many hundreds of years this dragon with a young appearance has lived? Don’t let your premature exposure of our situation provoke his anger… The key point is, do you think we humans with this level of strength can stop a dragon?”

Joel showed a look of sudden realization, but then he said, “It’s fine. Even if we don’t trust this young man with scales on his face, we can trust the other one.”

Julius happened to wave at them again.

“See, he really looks very innocent.”

This sentence became the source of Joel’s regret for a long time afterward.

Cyril and Julius, the two of them together, exchanged information sentence by sentence with the transformees who didn’t intend to confess first.

Joel and the others learned that Cyril was indeed a transformable person with dragon bloodline.

Cyril also made it clear that this city was basically a concentration camp for humans before they transformed into monster beasts.

And Joel knew Su Li.

Julius, who revealed information later, also directly admitted the fact that he had used his personal strength to open the teleportation array that existed in the Church of Light for unknown reasons and could teleport to monster beast society.

Julius had only inherited the part of the deceased Pope’s memory that was relatively important for the key. The more hidden parts, such as why this teleportation array existed, Julius knew nothing about.

“So it turns out everyone knows each other.” Joel suddenly realized and smiled, scratching the back of his head with a silly smile.

Friend Number Two was about to ask for self-proof when he heard this incredibly stupid statement, and finally could only roll his eyes and say self-destructively: “That’s roughly it. It’s estimated that in about eight days, monster beasts will appear in this city to take away humans who can’t pay the gold coins for transformation.”

“As for why we’re so vigilant about the platform that teleported you, it’s because those monster beasts also use that platform to come to this city. Not long ago, Su Li and his group killed the monster beasts who came to take away the to-be-transformed.”

“Worthy of Su Li.” Julius sighed.

Cyril also nodded accordingly. “Since we all already have some understanding of each other, I don’t mind being open with you.”

“First is the current situation of human society, and second is how to provide effective assistance to Su Li, who is currently somewhere unknown.”

“But before that, I have a question: does Rota County have a corresponding organization that can obtain basic intelligence about monster beast society?”

Joel touched his nose and showed an embarrassed smile.

“It seems there isn’t.” Cyril’s expression remained calm.

“It was like that before, but it’s not like that now.” Friend Number One no longer wanted to see Joel’s stupid appearance. “Asgari, the Winged Tribe… wait, you should know about the three tribes: Winged Tribe, Beast Tribe, and Water Tribe, right?”

“More or less.” Cyril nodded. The boy with sky-blue eyes had grown to a demeanor that wasn’t inferior to others when facing people other than Su Li.

Friend Number One continued: “Asgari is the monster beast that can now have clear intelligence communication with Rota County. His original form is a snowy owl. Under his command is a monster beast with extremely fast flying speed, very suitable for transmitting intelligence. Every day that monster beast flies into Rota County from outside the city and reports the basic changes in monster beast society from the previous day.”

“If nothing unexpected happens, that monster beast should come in about half an hour.”

The gradually rising sun made Friend Number One blink uncomfortably:

“But before understanding yesterday’s changes, what we should do now is go to an inn or other places where people can stay, rather than chatting next to this platform.”

Cyril followed in the footsteps of the humans who also had monster beast characteristics.

Just like the strange feeling that Su Li’s group had felt when they came here, Julius stared at a red fruit for a long time before saying: “The monster beasts I had imagined before were already so powerful that they only needed to consume natural scenery, morning dew and clouds, or elemental power to fill their stomachs – another kind of existence.”

“Don’t be like that. Before becoming monster beasts, we’re just humans with monster beast characteristics, not yet at the level of not recognizing grains.” Joel’s mouth twitched.

“But as for whether real monster beasts eat or not… my understanding is that they eat, but they don’t care about the quality of what they eat. As long as the food can fill their stomachs and provide nutrition for the body to fight, those monsters don’t care at all what they’re eating.”

It wasn’t the excellent logistical thinking of preparing good food precisely because of war. Rather, it was the recognition that since we’re at war, who has time to prepare food for you – just make do with eating, ensure it doesn’t affect the body, and that’s already good enough.

Living extremely boringly.

During the casual conversation, the two people who came through the teleportation array also gained a deeper understanding of this city. When they arrived at the inn and Cyril, whose sense of smell had become somewhat inhuman, confirmed that Su Li had once lived here, he finally relaxed completely.

He had been maintaining an alert that he couldn’t let down before.

Not long after, that monster beast that indeed flew very fast brought intelligence about yesterday’s monster beast world.

Unfortunately, that monster beast looked very miserable.

When Joel hurriedly went forward to treat and bandage it, his two friends directly called the two young men to examine the written intelligence information.

“It says here that yesterday the Beast Tribe simultaneously attacked the Water Tribe and Winged Tribe. The specific situation of the Water Tribe is unknown, but the Winged Tribe Queen’s palace has been trampled?!”

Cyril’s expression was so shocked that Julius wanted to stuff something into his mouth.

Friend Number One repeated with emphasis: “Not only that, I think the key point is this sentence: ‘Beast King Clemens severely injured the Winged Tribe Queen, causing more than fifty percent of Winged Tribe monster beasts to die, but a suddenly appearing human with a black crow rescued her’…”

“Do you think this description sounds like Su Li?”

Cyril had just closed his wide-open mouth…

In his haste, he snatched that parchment and found that it mentioned Su Li had fought head-on with Clemens for several rounds while being carried by the Raven…

The young man being carried by the Raven flying in mid-air at that time couldn’t even break through the defensive power of those dark elemental bands surrounding Clemens.

But Su Li didn’t give up.

This was an opportunity, a good opportunity to understand Clemens’ approximate strength.

It should be known that the [Tiger]’s attention at that time was mostly on Matilda.

Although he accidentally discovered that those little bugs who had been hiding in the trees had rushed out hand in hand, Clemens treated Su Li as if he didn’t exist.

Pushing speed to the extreme, and with the nearby dark element concentration being extremely high, the Raven in this excellent environment repeatedly broke through his own speed limits.

He understood what the young man on his back wanted to do.

It was a simple, childlike fighting method.

Get close, and then…

Attack!