TOMWDET Chapter 188.2

Battle for Rota County (1.2)

 

This time, Adison could not refuse.

 

His purpose in coming to Rota County had been to observe up close how humans used so-called scientific research methods to mass-produce powerful individuals.

 

But when he actually began implementing assistance, even Adison could not help but feel the cruelty of it.

 

“Are you certain you really want to do this? Unlike before the tenth-level monster beasts, after entering the power levels of monster beast society, the power systems seem to have changed concepts entirely. To strengthen a human body to withstand the intensity of elemental storage at my level, the body needs to undergo not repeated elemental tempering, but something comparable to completely shattering and reconstructing the surface skin, bones, and muscle fibers.”

 

In the realm of power intensity that humans could understand, the human body was like a balloon. The material of this balloon’s surface needed countless trials to determine if it could truly contain those forces.

 

But once one entered the level of power understanding in monster beast society, the human body would directly transform from the balloon concept into other containers.

 

Though it was called a balloon concept, the human body could never equal a balloon.

 

Shattering and reconstructing… would only drive a person insane.

 

Even if they could endure it, they might still commit suicide.

 

Adison found this very cruel.

 

If there had to be a way for him to understand accurately, then it could only be said that this feeling of body strengthening was equivalent to someone who wanted to commit suicide yet yearned to live being completely cut off from the right to choose.

 

In other words, those attempting to strengthen their power to Adison’s level in a short period would experience the same sensation as Adison being directly killed.

 

“Certain.”

 

“This is not something worth hesitating over.” Cyril tapped the inn’s table. “I don’t know how Su Li’s power was enhanced to the strength capable of confronting the Beast Tribe King, but suddenly possessing such power would definitely be stressful for him, even if he wouldn’t show it openly.”

 

For someone accustomed to using their brain, if one day they gained power that could achieve goals without thinking, what they felt might not necessarily be happiness.

 

Cyril even intuitively believed that Su Li would definitely regard power as something external.

 

Compared to external cultivation, Su Li cared more about internal cultivation.

 

That was spiritual strength, the clarity of the soul.

 

“Those who possess power must bear the corresponding responsibility of controlling that power.”

 

“These were words Su Li once said.” Cyril’s tone carried a light sigh. “But if I, and those following Su Li, possessed the ability to bear the pressure that power brings him, then Su Li would surely feel much better.”

 

“I suddenly believe what Julius said about you and Su Li having begged together before. You seem able to completely put yourself in his position and consider everything from his perspective.”

 

“Thank you for the latter evaluation.” The veins on Cyril’s forehead instantly tensed up. “But… who said the relationship between Su Li and me was begging together! Call Julius out – I think compared to power enhancement, combat skill training is also very necessary!”

 

Adison had already begun preparing to strengthen Cyril’s body, while also saying: “So what is the relationship between you two?”

 

“It’s a relationship where I can give my life for him, but never want him to be hurt because of me.”

 

Later, Cyril voluntarily became the first test subject for crossing into another power system.

 

After all, both he and Adison were wind elementalists, and no one would be better suited to experiment with what Cyril himself had brought than Cyril.

 

During the body strengthening phase, there were no screams, no cries of pain. Even when Cyril’s face was completely twisted in agony, he did not emit a single groan.

 

Until it was confirmed that Cyril’s body had been torn apart and reconstructed countless times by massive wind elements, until he could bear those forces and his body would no longer be destroyed by wind elements.

 

The cold sweat on Adison’s face flowed as if it were more than the blood that flowed from Cyril.

 

Julius, however, calmly took out large elemental absorption devices and placed them around Cyril.

 

Later, he turned to the butterfly spirit and said, “Don’t just stand there. While there’s time, hurry and help other humans who also want to be strengthened.”

 

“After all, only when humans become stronger will the currently broken Winged Tribe have more confidence to counterattack the Beast Tribe, right?”

 

Later.

 

After Adison had strengthened two more humans’ bodies, he dared not continue.

 

It wasn’t that his body lacked power. The method of purely tearing apart and reconstructing human bodies, then using Julius’s healing potion reserves to restore the body until the newly grown flesh could bear the power, aside from pain, actually had no other forms of torment.

 

But the third person who actively requested strengthening made moves to attack Adison and attempt suicide during the strengthening process.

 

Not everyone could endure pain like Cyril, nor could everyone be like the second human test subject who, despite being twisted with pain, vomiting from pain, rolling on the ground continuously from pain, knocking himself unconscious again and again, then waking up again to endure the hell of pain, finally successfully crossing the narrow bridge of becoming stronger.

 

Julius silently looked at the person who had been knocked unconscious but still occasionally convulsed from pain.

 

Finally, he took a deep breath and said: “Later, you don’t need to strengthen other humans according to your body’s standards. You only need to strengthen other humans’ bodies to half the strength of your body.”

 

If it weren’t because most of the Winged Tribe’s monster beasts were wind elementalists, and if there had been powerful light elementalist monster beasts among them, Julius would have personally volunteered for the experiment long ago. How could he possibly be here presiding over strengthening matters…

 

At the same time, he suddenly understood that not everyone could give everything for their beliefs.

 

Cyril had Su Li as spiritual support. The dragon-blooded youth’s path forward had always had Su Li’s figure on it, so Cyril could never feel confused because of so-called pain.

 

Later, Julius contacted Joel.

 

His first words were: “Only now do I understand why that old Dark Pope insisted on transferring everyone’s faith to Su Li.”

 

Joel: ???

 

“Compared to the ethereal, invisible and intangible gods, faith in Su Li, who would never make mistakes and walked ahead of everyone with a visible back, was actually the most suitable object of faith.”

 

“…What do you mean?” Joel’s head was full of question marks.

 

“I mean, the personnel of Rota County need a goal that can make them persist in becoming stronger.” Julius suddenly thought of Euphia, who managed the Mercenary City, and the Dark Pope, who had long been secretly controlling the faith of multiple cities.

 

The difference between the two was that the former advocated that people became stronger for themselves and to make themselves better. The latter advocated that people could become better for Su Li, because they could always obtain all visible returns from him.

 

But regardless of which one, they both had a common point.

 

That was making people better.

 

But the personnel of Rota County could not do this.

 

Even if they could, those would be extremely rare exceptions.

 

For example, the second strengthened person besides Cyril was one of Joel’s unfortunate friends.

 

“Otherwise, even if they recovered their emotions, they might not necessarily be able to fight for Amikbi, a country that had been terrible before.”

 

“If they must fight for something to make efforts, when everyone has the condition that they must entrust something, otherwise they cannot become better for themselves, then let them believe in Su Li.” Julius said decisively.

 

“Believing in Su Li is no problem. In fact, I’ve always believed in that child.” Joel nodded decisively, but later he also curiously asked, “But why do you seem so urgent?”

 

After Julius exhaled, he told Joel, “While that butterfly spirit, Adison, has time, go fight him…”

 

But this time, there was simply no opportunity.

 

The members of Rota County no longer had the chance to gradually become stronger step by step.

 

Earth-shaking tremors came from unknown sources. When they were wondering whether it was an earthquake, someone had already discovered that the tremors were caused by land monster beasts rapidly running toward this place from dozens of miles outside the city.

 

Julius and Joel were called to the city gates in an extremely short time.

 

Someone beside them was already exclaiming in shock. “What is that?”

 

Whether it was fear of death or lack of understanding about monster beast society, humans’ fear of monster beast society was always deeply affected by the unknown.

 

After the members of Rota County had lifted the emotional restrictions from their memories, they still had not chosen to leave this city. Instead, they closed themselves off, and to avoid death, they carefully used Asgari, who had actively extended feelers, borrowing monster beasts to explore the world of monster beasts.

 

What they had actually seen with their own eyes were only the monster beasts that had appeared from the training platform and slaughtered one or two thousand people before.

 

This number, compared to humans who had been in various professions but all had some understanding of Jisuo Town’s situation, was really not much.

 

Perhaps the lessons from history were not profound enough, or it was possible that those with monster beast characteristics thought these characteristics could earn them some forgiveness from monster beasts. So they had never thought that even if they submitted, those monster beasts who wanted humans to die simply would not care whether these humans had the opportunity to become companions.

 

Adison’s face looked grim. “At most ten minutes from now, those monster beasts will reach the base of Rota County’s walls.”

 

“Because they’re too far away, I cannot sense their power levels, but this running speed definitely cannot be at a level that humans can resist.”

 

“You’d better prepare for the worst.” Adison’s gaze was locked tightly on the monster beasts ahead that were stirring up a large cloud of dust.

 

The rapidly running large number of land monster beasts was simply equivalent to a moving natural disaster.

 

Even the clear sky seemed to become full of gloom because of that dust.

 

At the forefront of the terrestrial monster beast battle line.

 

This action against humans had been randomly assigned by Clemens to one of his subordinates who had been standing closest to the front at the Winged Tribe Queen’s palace entrance.

 

He didn’t even know what that monster beast was called.

 

But this monster beast, whose name even the Beast Tribe Kings couldn’t remember, had also been a notable figure in the previous battlefield between the three tribes.

 

When the distance grew closer, Adison immediately saw the giant rhinoceros at the very front of that team – massive in size yet extremely fast in running speed.

 

Battles between monster beasts mostly involved strong opponents confronting each other.

 

In one-on-one situations between leaders, the one who gained the upper hand would boost their side’s morale in a short time, while also greatly reducing the enemy’s will to fight.

 

Usually, this giant rhinoceros had been Adison’s habitual opponent when he appeared on battlefields.

 

“This is really terrible… I guarantee that with just one strike, this city’s walls will be directly shattered to pieces by that giant rhinoceros,” Adison said.

 

Julius’s lips turned pale. “Even if I have the greatest command abilities, I cannot possibly protect this city under such an impact.”

 

“@&” Julius cursed something that Adison couldn’t hear clearly, and those monster beasts lived up to Adison’s previous words about three minutes.

 

Before long, that giant rhinoceros charged directly over.

 

Adison had no choice but to engage in defensive combat as a collaborator with humans – that is, as a Winged Tribe monster beast.

 

But butterfly spirits were not power-type fighters at all. His usual combat method had always been interference, making the giant rhinoceros waste energy pointlessly.

 

However, that method was only effective on direct confrontation battlefields, not a combat method that could produce solid defensive effects when defending a city.

 

Adison struggled greatly in his resistance.

 

His words were transmitted through the air to Julius’s ears. “Regardless of the reason for this battle, we have absolutely no possibility of winning.”

 

“Without subsequent support, you’d better directly prepare to lead people in escape. Otherwise, whether it’s this city or you, you’ll all just die here.”

 

Joel, who later arrived at the city wall’s edge, also heard these words.

 

At the same time, he also saw that combat speed that was almost invisible to the naked eye.

 

The giant rhinoceros’s massive size should have been extremely clumsy, but this clumsiness was only in comparison to a butterfly’s speed.

 

Compared to humans, humans simply had no qualifications for comparison…

 

“This… this kind of battle, do humans really have the qualifications to participate?”

 

“Don’t underestimate the developmental limits of our kind!” Julius said in a tone almost like a rebuke.

 

“Trust that butterfly. At least now we shouldn’t add chaos to his battle. Evacuate the others!”

 

“But it simply can’t be done. Leaving the protection of this city’s walls, those who flee will only be caught up with faster,” Joel also had a moment of mental breakdown, but he quickly forced himself to become rational.

 

There was a moment of silence in the air, but a moment of silence also meant that the giant rhinoceros and Adison had rapidly exchanged more than ten blows.

 

“Get all the humans in this city moving to provide long-range support to Adison. At the same time, constantly monitor Cyril’s cultivation changes. If we want to defend this city like a stronghold, we can only hope that Cyril can enhance his strength to about the same level as Adison in a short time.”

 

Joel agreed and immediately took action.

 

Only Julius remained standing in place, gripping the weapon he had taken from his storage ring, murmuring in a low voice. “Otherwise, with only Adison as combat power, this city will be finished sooner or later.”

 

Humans were fighting alone in this place, without support.

 

Later, there were even loud shouts from humans somewhere unknown. “Monster beasts have jumped over the city walls!”

 

“Damn it!” Julius raised his sword to meet them.

 

Inside the city.

 

In places that Julius could not pay attention to, most humans who picked up weapons to resist were easily knocked down by monster beasts in their fierce original forms during charges, and then continuous iron hooves trampled over them.

 

“I thought the King’s sudden urgent march mission was some super-high difficulty task. Turns out it’s just killing these weaklings?”

 

“Too weak. Aren’t humans just this kind of thing, speaking frankly?”

 

“Alright, stop talking nonsense. Hurry and find more humans hiding. Our mission is…”

 

“Slaughter!”

 

When another human’s chest was about to be pierced by bear claws, one of Joel’s friends blocked that hand.

 

The tremendous force made it impossible for humans to resist. Despite blocking the attack, Joel’s friend could only retreat a large step while enduring the bloody taste rolling in his mouth.

 

“Run quickly!” He turned and shouted loudly at the human who was scared out of his wits, with tears and snot all over his face, then sharply met the gaze of that monster beast whose original form was a bear.

 

The monster beast had transformed into human form while still maintaining some monster beast characteristics. She revealed a face familiar to his friend…

 

“——Big brother.”

 

That voice was like thunder, explosively shocking Joel’s friend’s brain.

 

The figure of the young girl from his memories, who had been studying well at the Elemental Academy before, appeared before him in an inhuman posture.

 

“You!! Why!? Why!” he shouted in disbelief.

 

“Of course it’s because I was discovered to have the characteristics for awakening as a monster beast much earlier than big brother,” that bear with white bear ears on her head showed a sickeningly sweet smile.

 

“We haven’t seen each other for half a year. Doesn’t big brother welcome me anymore?”

 

That bear showed a troubled expression. “Clearly in my memories, I’ve always been depending on big brother for survival…”

 

“We haven’t seen each other for so long, but upon seeing me, you immediately question why. So indeed, just like in my memories, you’ve never really treated me as a sister, have you?”

 

In an instant, a still-beating red organ was gripped in those bear paws with white fur.