TOMWDET Chapter 189.1

Preparations Before the Final Battle (1.1)

 

“Although I knew that being able to preserve one’s own life in this situation was already a victory, how could humans possibly protect themselves in such a one-sided massacre!” Joel was so anxious that blisters were about to form on his lips.

 

Not long ago, Joel, whose mindset had been barely stabilized by Julius, first had the people in the city conduct defensive operations, and then went to understand when Cyril would be able to raise his elemental power to the same level as his physical condition.

 

The former was what he was currently doing, while the latter… that was simply a length of time that seemed to have no end in sight under the current circumstances.

 

“For this kind of thing, even if you ask me, I couldn’t possibly know.” Julius’s arm was already fractured. He directly used fabric to bind it, hanging the broken arm around his neck, and struggled to continue wielding his weapon with his other intact left hand, fighting continuously.

 

“Giving up would be simple, but dying is when you truly have nothing left.”

 

“Think about whether you have anything you particularly care about. If you do, then fight desperately to stay alive for those things. Don’t wait until you’re really dead, when you won’t even be given the chance to feel regret.”

 

“A child shouldn’t say such profound things!” Joel rotated the weapon in his hand, blocking an attack that burst out from behind Julius. “The inner thoughts that adults occasionally let slip out of control don’t represent truly being powerless to persist.”

 

The beast’s claws and Joel’s weapon sparked dramatically, visible even in broad daylight.

 

“I’m really glad you still have this kind of attitude now.” Julius’s face was still stained with some monster beast blood, his entire body radiating killing intent.

 

But everyone knew that neither of them could hold on much longer.

 

Their stamina couldn’t match the monster beasts, and neither could their elemental power.

 

The only thing they had was the slightly more refined elemental manipulation that humans possessed compared to monster beasts.

 

But the problem was, the enemy’s purpose wasn’t for battle, but for slaughter…

 

“It’s impossible that there isn’t any.” Even though Joel was trembling all over with fear, he couldn’t possibly put down the weapon he used to protect himself. “Compared to me, the one who truly saw the king that this group of monster beasts collectively respected was Su Li.”

 

“That child looks at most only one or two years older than you, but whether it’s one year or two years, fundamentally you two are both still minors.”

 

“And what’s most outrageous is that now, I can only hope for rescue from another child (Cyril).”

 

Julius’s eyebrows twitched uncontrollably. “Calm down, your attitude before and after has obviously become abnormal.”

 

One moment he felt fine about himself, full of determination, and the next moment he wore a miserable expression as if he could barely bear reality.

 

“I’ll do my best.” Joel felt that it was impossible not to say a single word during battle.

 

Especially in this situation where two people were being surrounded and attacked, but not long ago, they weren’t just two people – it was just that those people had all fallen while holding weapons to protect themselves.

 

“I suddenly understand why you wanted me to fight with Adison before…” Joel’s condition was very poor. Apart from his limbs, his head was the most severely injured.

 

At this point, his skull had already endured several elemental attacks. That he could still stand here was entirely due to willpower.

 

“The gap in power can indeed only be felt with clear recognition of the difference.” Joel regretted not recognizing reality earlier.

 

His head was covered in fresh blood, the red liquid had already obscured his eyes, making his forward vision blurry.

 

“I always feel like my life might end here. I really wish I could suddenly become powerful enough to slap all these monster beasts into the ground…”

 

While the humans here could still encourage each other through thought and consciousness, on the other side, Adison, who was fighting the Giant Rhinoceros, was about to go mad.

 

“This kind of battle… is absolutely disgusting!”

 

The Giant Rhinoceros, a monster beast that hadn’t expected Adison to appear here, suddenly discovered something interesting after engaging with his familiar opponent.

 

That was, this opponent who had disgusted him countless times was no longer leaping to high places and then continuously attacking him with various strikes, but could only maintain a position that was neither high nor low, fighting him at close range. His actions were as if…

 

He was preventing him from destroying the surrounding buildings and wantonly slaughtering those humans.

 

The Giant Rhinoceros didn’t care what the reason was. He only knew that he had finally found an opportunity to kill his old opponent. “Although I don’t know what reason brought you here, since you won’t leave, then stay here forever!”

 

Adison gritted his teeth, outputting trash talk mercilessly. “Anyone can talk. If you have the ability, then do it! If you can’t do it, don’t just shout empty slogans there. The words you speak are like jokes, making people laugh.”

 

“If that’s what you think.” The Giant Rhinoceros retreated a large step, dodged Adison’s attack, then directly transformed into human form, extending his hand to point toward Adison’s rear side.

 

That area was the location where the monster beast group had first torn open a gap.

 

At a glance, the Butterfly Spirit, whose five senses were extremely enhanced by elemental strengthening, immediately saw the humans who were struggling to resist.

 

“Killing you isn’t my mission – that’s just based on my personal thoughts. The order I received is simply to slaughter all humans in this city with full effort.”

 

“Out of selfish motives, I chose to be held back by you here, rather than directly ignoring you and entering the interior of this city.” The Giant Rhinoceros looked at Adison, whose face had instantly collapsed, and his thoughts about killing his old opponent of many years became increasingly excited.

 

“Dream on!” Adison didn’t become emotionally dejected as the Giant Rhinoceros had imagined, but instead began to resist even more forcefully.

 

Until during their confrontation, a sound appeared that almost spread throughout the entire city…

 

——BOOM!

 

Before this——

 

“Wait…” Just when Joel’s head was dizzy and he thought he might collapse at any moment, in his blurred vision, he seemed to suddenly see another street separated by several buildings – that is, near the inn area where Cyril was staying – suddenly burst forth with a powerful explosion.

 

The scene that appeared afterward was just like the scenario Joel had fantasized about…

 

Those monster beasts that could easily jump several meters high with just a bounce were all ruthlessly slammed into the ground by wind elemental fields.

 

“Is that Cyril?!” Julius and Joel said in unison.

 

“Correct, but there’s no reward.” Cyril, who had continuously smashed through several walls, appeared before the two using the shortest straight-line distance.

 

The dragon-blooded youth’s appearance now looked quite disheveled too. His internal elemental power had been forcibly interrupted before being absorbed to Adison’s level.

 

Fortunately, when the Butterfly Spirit had strengthened his body, it was genuinely done without any deception.

 

Therefore, even though his body now felt so empty that Cyril felt he could devour all the monster beasts present, he could still rely on his powerful physical body to directly engage those monster beasts in close combat.

 

Compared to using weapons, his formidable body plus elemental reserves that had increased more than tenfold from before meant that many concepts that previously couldn’t be realized due to scarce elements could now be achieved.

 

For example, his action of pressing those particularly active monster beasts into the ground. These behaviors were previously impossible, but now had become ordinary moves.

 

Cyril greeted the fractured Julius. “Are you alright?”

 

“Not bad.” The face with a false smile didn’t look sincere, but rather just perfunctory. Afterward, Julius expressed his true thoughts, “Although in reality, I’m already so irritated that I want to directly slice these monster beasts into pieces and then throw them to Castor…”

 

No matter how hard Julius fought to kill enemies, whenever he thought that the monster beasts he killed meant nothing to the [Tiger], to the entire Beast Tribe, he felt like he was giving his all but didn’t even have the ability to compete on the same stage as the opposing heroes, and could only clash with minions…

 

This feeling was too awful.

 

“That’s good!” Cyril nodded with satisfaction.

 

He had gradually figured out the tactics for fighting monster beasts.

 

This was different from the various combat techniques learned at the Elemental Academy.

 

The monster beasts here competed purely on the power level.

 

But humans were ultimately not monster beasts.

 

Cyril looked directly at Julius, and when the youth looked back, he said in a calm voice. “It’s time to counterattack. You’d better watch carefully the flow trajectory of wind elements. After all, for humans, competing with monster beasts in physical strength and elemental reserves during combat is the most disadvantageous approach.”

 

“What we need to do is use possibilities they’ve never considered to create attacks they can’t think of ways to defend against.”

 

“How so?” Julius actively approached Cyril. He sensed an inexplicable confidence from the dragon-blooded youth.

 

Not arrogant self-importance, but a clear understanding that he could accomplish something, could realize it, and could give them control over the battle situation.

 

Cyril had been waiting for this question. He quickly said, “My wind element and your light element, although they can’t achieve the rapid spread of wind-fire elements, can similarly create rapidly spreading ultra-high temperatures.”

 

“I call this——High Temperature Hell.” Cyril suddenly curved his brows and eyes. “But even if we achieve this, this is only environmental restriction. Your and my elemental power is fundamentally insufficient to burn those monster beasts’ bodies to ash.”

 

“What can truly achieve ultra-high destruction is actually Joel’s water element.”

 

“Me?” Joel foolishly pointed at his own nose and asked.

 

Cyril nodded. “When we use elemental power, we usually convert the elemental power within our bodies into various physical substances. Gales, flames, and such. But no matter how real these things become, they all have one characteristic – Su Li can’t see them.”

 

Julius wanted to drag this suspense-building person out and beat him. “What does this have to do with Su Li at a time like this?!”

 

“Of course it does! I’ve thought about the differences between what Su Li can see and what he can’t see. Su Li can see water and fire, but can’t see wind. He can see the water that merfolk directly created to form lakes in Mercenary City, but can’t see the absolute quiet space created using wind elements when a giant dragon landed in front of him.”

 

“Water and fire are physical substances, wind generates through kinetic energy. The lake created by merfolk was water elements directly converted into water flow. The water elements we use are both water and elements, but are neither pure elements nor pure water.”

 

“Because our power is insufficient, Su Li can’t see most battles between humans clearly, and sometimes we can see some confused and bewildered expressions on his face.” Cyril smiled slightly.

 

“Alright, no more of that random stuff. The point I’m making is that those elemental characteristics that are both physical and non-physical can be wrapped by pure wind.”

 

Cyril enjoyed pondering the nature of elements in his spare time.

 

Regarding the giant dragon’s absolute control over wind – was it because of excessive internal elements, or did they inherently have special understanding of wind?

 

The dragon-blooded youth wasn’t clear about these things. He could only think from his own perspective and confirm that his current elemental quality was already sufficient to let him achieve and realize the thoughts in his mind.

 

Elemental factors were like dust, and elemental absorption devices were things that provided this dust with kinetic energy to move toward the device.

 

Water elements wrapped by pure wind, under the influence of light and heat, wouldn’t be like water that gets boiled and gradually evaporates.

 

On the contrary, in the continuous high heat provided by light elements, wind would spread this high temperature, while the water elements hidden at the center would have no loss whatsoever.

 

Compressed by wind and also actively compressed by Joel’s power, they only needed Julius to terminate the light-heat effect of light elements and convert that released power into pure light. Then this controllable explosive force would directly become a weapon against enemies…

 

BOOM——!

 

At that instant, the massive sound almost spread throughout all of Rota County.

 

Julius was dumbfounded.

 

Joel said incredulously, “This is damage I participated in creating?!”

 

Those enemies they had previously fought desperately to resist had directly become fragments, not leaving even one complete body.

 

“Yes!” Cyril decisively nodded.

 

“Actually, I think what would cooperate better wouldn’t be water elements, but fire elements and dark elements. With water elements, at the moment of explosion, there would be situations where the High Temperature Hell effect would be reduced and depleted.”

 

The explosive power would also be somewhat diminished.

 

Julius completely didn’t want to think about how outrageous the effect Cyril had in mind would be. “So how powerful do you want to make this kind of force?! Those were physically robust monster beasts! Not everyone is as fragile as Su Li! If he were here, just this explosion sound could directly deafen him!”

 

Cyril was shouted at until his head buzzed. He vigorously patted his forehead, then said, “You just need to say whether the killing power is strong or not.”

 

Julius couldn’t speak words of denial.

 

In the end, he only took a deep breath and said, “Try to reduce this kind of power to target individual use. If possible, please be sure to use those words that normal people simply can’t understand to explain clearly to others what principle this actually is. Also, you’d better have everyone learn it.”

 

“Remember to prepare notes. Even if you can’t make copies temporarily, hand-copying should reach the level of one copy per person.”

 

Cyril’s vision went black.

 

But even so, he still had to participate in this battle that wasn’t yet finished.

 

And Adison, who had never thought in his entire life that he would one day be supported by humans…

 

Fell into an endless thinking hell…

 

This… this counted as having counterattack capability?

 

Adison looked toward the Giant Rhinoceros, who ultimately chose tactical retreat because he couldn’t resist this kind of wind-controlled attack that kept him constantly pursued but unable to avoid the offensive…

 

He mechanically turned his head and said in a dry voice, “So compared to close combat, elemental development is the correct path?”

 

“I can’t answer this question.” Cyril patted the dust off his body, looking with some chest pain toward the city buildings that had been devastatingly destroyed, leaving only rubble and debris.

 

“The combat methods I can think of are only because we currently have no other options.”

 

“As for whether it’s actually correct or not, I suggest you leave this question for people hundreds of years from now to answer… Well, I sincerely hope you can live until that time.” Cyril’s tone was exceptionally serious, the sincerity in his eyes so intense it seemed about to overflow.

 

“…For a monster beast with suicidal thoughts, this isn’t a blessing, this is a curse.” Adison turned his face away.

 

“Consider it as you said then.” Cyril didn’t mind.

 

Afterward, the dragon-blooded youth directly changed the topic. “Speaking of which, do you know why this group of monster beasts suddenly came to attack here?”

 

Adison organized his words, then shared what the Giant Rhinoceros had revealed. “The attack was Clemens’s order. As for why the [Tiger] suddenly issued this command, that Giant Rhinoceros didn’t say.”

 

“But all things considered, there are only a few possibilities. First, Su Li has already become powerful to the extent that even the [Tiger] would take notice. To prevent more humans of this type from appearing, cutting off human living space in advance seems very possible.”

 

When Adison said this, he didn’t forget to glance at Cyril. Whether human or monster beast, his words could very likely be heard as blaming Su Li for bringing hatred that others had to bear.

 

After discovering whether the human had any particular thoughts, Adison somewhat shamefully completed the second possibility. “The other point would be to prevent the already defeated Winged Tribe from replenishing new forces.”

 

“My intuition tells me the reason isn’t these two.” Cyril trusted his intuition. “Wanting to attack all people because one human is powerful… no matter what, that Beast King would have to witness Su Li’s power several more times before acting this way.”

 

In Cyril’s understanding, Su Li had always been powerful. After many cognitive improvements regarding power-level weaknesses, in Cyril’s view, Su Li during his weak power period was just not particularly good at this kind of thing. And powerful Su Li had just gained another strength.

 

“Let’s not dwell on the reasons for now.” After pondering, Cyril set aside the possibilities.

 

“Just as Julius said before, I should tell everyone my thoughts, so that in the short term, I can improve the self-defense capabilities of the humans in this city as much as possible. Of course, I also look forward to everyone growing to the point where they can follow beside Su Li and together declare war on inhuman monster beasts.”

 

Cyril pondered how to make his words more easily understandable.

 

“But… you were the one who protected this city.” One of the Winged Tribe soldiers that Adison had brought said this. “But the attitude you’re displaying is as if the Su Li you mentioned protected this city.”

 

This wasn’t sowing discord, just purely stating reality.

 

But even when stating reality, Cyril still wasn’t pleased.

 

“I don’t think I protected this city.”

 

“In a war where staying alive counts as victory for humans, every person who survived had already given their all. I also don’t want to push Su Li into the position of this city’s benefactor. Thinking Su Li is worth following is only because fighting monster beasts fundamentally shouldn’t be one person’s affair.”

 

Cyril clearly emphasized “one.”

 

He looked at that monster beast coldly. “I hope that in the future, I won’t hear any questioning of Su Li from your mouth.”

 

That monster beast afterward couldn’t speak another word.

 

When stared at by Cyril, it was like humans being stared at by a fierce beast.

 

It wouldn’t necessarily die.

 

But it would certainly be torn apart messily.

 

In some ways, compared to death, the latter was more terrifying.

 

The battle ended.

 

The surviving personnel of Rota County, who had temporarily repelled the enemy, began tallying death statistics.

 

This time, the clear and obvious phrase “more than half dead” was like steel needles, almost piercing through the entire hearts of those still alive.