NOVEL NEXT Chapter 139: Bedsheets
Damien immediately reached out through the soul link, his mental voice sharp and urgent.
Elly! What happened? Where are you?
Elly's voice trembled in his mind, tinged with fear and resignation.
Master... I think my father has awakened. I've been captured by one of his generals. His name is Bloodmist, an S-ranked bat awakened. Several others are here as well. And they took Fatty too! But he's a dragon, so I think he'll be okay.
Damien's fists tightened, fury building within him, but he forced himself to remain calm. How did he even catch you? Send me your location. I'm coming for you.
Master, our soul link... you can already sense my location through it. Her voice grew smaller, worried. But please, be careful. We've stopped somewhere, and they're waiting specifically for you. They're planning to kill you, Master... huhuhu.
Before Damien could reply, powerful and familiar auras surged through the area.
Eight formidable presences, the old generals from the Powerful Mage Coffee Club, had appeared, flanked by eight more unfamiliar but even stronger energies.
Sixteen S-ranked humans had instantly surrounded the beast generals.
Eight of them were known to Damien and the nation alike, the Eight Heavenly Generals and their equally eccentric war buddies.
Retired on paper, perhaps, but in truth, they were sleeping dragons kept in check only by paperwork and bribes of duck buns.
They'd once led armies, crushed foreign elites, and wrestled beasts into extinction by sheer grit and absurdity.
General Maru, General Riki, General Hong Fei, General Liang and their old comrades-in-arms—General Xian Fei, General Fei Bao, General Qin Hui, and the legendary tactician General Fang Lian—all bore the same ragged uniforms and aging smirks, but behind their wrinkles was power that could shatter continents.
The other eight were the current elite of the Mana-Awakened Department, the active S-ranked generals of China's military.
Each had their own division, each wielded power that rivaled nature itself.
General Chen Hong Lei of the Thunderclad Vanguard, General Zhang Muyu of the Bloodsteel Regiment, General Lin Kexin of the Silent Gale, General Zhao Heng of the Celestial Flame, General Wang Ru of the Stoneveil Bastion, General Nie Tian of the Cryo Corps, General Bai Yuan of the Astral Guard, and General Luo Shanyu of the Psionic Dominion.
They were not friends like the old geezers but they were monsters nonetheless. Calculated. Deadly. Surgical.
They did not arrive together.
They didn't need to.
From every direction of Beijing, sky, forest, river, street, the sixteen S-rank warriors moved, silent as shadows, their mana signatures suppressed until the very moment it was too late.
No words passed between them. No coordination needed. Their senses locked onto the threat, and at precisely the same moment…
They attacked.
The capital exploded into glorious, coordinated violence.
The sky roared with mana and fire, wind and lightning clashing in a symphony of fury. In the blink of an eye, the sixteen S-ranked human warriors descended like judgment itself, surrounding the six beast generals with lethal precision.
They came in silence, but they struck like thunder.
Blackhowl, the gorilla general, roared first. His massive frame even in human form, muscles like braided steel cables, obsidian gauntlets pulsing with volcanic runes, descended with a cataclysmic [Seismic Pulse], cracking the earth like brittle glass.
But General Riki was already there. His lightning-coated blade cleaved upward into Blackhowl's descending arms. The shockwave lit up the battlefield.
"Nice entrance," General Riki grunted, booting Blackhowl square in the chest with a thunderous mana burst. "Too bad your face is still the ugliest thing I've seen this week."
The gorilla stumbled back, wheezing, ribs shuddering from the force.
Mistveil flickered through the shadows, silent, fluid, deadly. Her [Voidstep] placed her behind General Liang, claws glinting.
But General Liang vanished a fraction of a second before her attack landed. He reappeared above her, wind whirling around his form in an invisible cyclone. He didn't speak. Just raised a blade of compressed air and brought it down.
She barely twisted away, her flank slashed open, blood vaporizing into mist.
Ashmaw thundered into the fray next to them. His molten body left scorched gouges across the battlefield, lava cracking from his skin. He hurled his flaming arms forward, [Infernal Grasp] roaring to melt anything it touched.
General Hong Fei met him in kind. Hands wrapped in explosive flame, surging forward with a fiery roar. Their collision erupted like a miniature sun, fire against fire.
Neither spoke.
Just fists. Flame. Fury.
Thornback raised his chitinous limbs, spreading [Blooming Carnage] across the field. Vines erupted, twisting with barbs and mana-charged thorns.
General Chen answered without a word, slamming his palms into the earth. Stone pillars rose, meeting vines mid-air. Golems marched forward, ignoring the tangling roots, hammering Thornback back with precise strikes.
A few feet away, General Nie Tian hurled frozen blades into the shadows, intercepting Mistveil's evasive path.
General Zhao Heng spun in from above, his blazing spear carving through encroaching vines with divine fire, his movements blindingly fast.
General Luo Shanyu didn't move at all. Her enemies collapsed mid-charge, bound by invisible psychic chains, minds screaming without a sound.
Sleetfang howled, [Frozen Echo] casting six afterimages across the field. But General Lin Kexin dashed through them in a blur of wind, shredding illusion and flesh alike with a storm-forged blade.
The battlefield was a symphony of destruction. One that rang without words. Deadly. Clean. Precise.
Only General Maru broke the silence.
He rose into the air, cracking his knuckles as Bloodmist hovered high above, wings spread wide, [Hemolock] forming with ritual grace.
"Are you done flapping those bedsheets you call wings?" General Maru called out with a grin. "Or do I need to shove your ribs into your lungs to shut you up?"
Bloodmist hissed, his form expanding, blood magic swirling around him. But General Maru moved first, faster than a heartbeat, his hand glowing with crushing gravity.
A sphere of compressed energy met Bloodmist mid-cast, shattering his spell. In the same breath, General Maru's foot planted on his chest and blasted him downward into a crater of pulverized earth.