NOVEL NEXT Chapter 173: Monkey
ROARR!!!
The Beast King bellowed with a fury that seethed and surged all around him.
A powerful wave of wind and lightning energy blasted outwards.
Trees cracked. Mountains wept gravel. The wind fled.
High on a ridge of shattered stone, the great beast reared up. Scales like molten steel rippled along its back. The spines on its neck flared open. Its nostrils steamed with elemental fire. Crimson eyes locked onto Damien with unrestrained malice.
"You dare—!" it thundered. "I have spent countless energies nurturing my generals! You will die for your audacity!"
The Beast King bared its fangs, laughter and rage twined in a single, echoing snarl.
"Come then, Death Mage. Show me if death can scream louder than life."
Damien's eyes narrowed.
He simply could not believe the idiocy of the so-called King.
"Audacity?" His lips twitched. "So beasts can ravage my country, and I am audacious for taking revenge?!"
Damien actually had no intention of engaging the Beast King with talk.
But his logic was too… Warped.
"No more than what you have done to us for countless millennium" The Beast King sneered.
Damien shook his head and couldn't be bothered to reply.
Talking to idiots made his head spin with idiocy.
He extended a hand.
Their corpses twitched.
Then rose in undeath, regaining 80% of their original strength.
But Damien wasn't done.
His voice cut through the air once more.
"Descend."
The four beasts convulsed. Their souls were pulled downward into the Ninefold Abyss, black light exploding from within. One by one, they transformed—twisting, howling, their bodies breaking and remaking in fire and ash.
Seven now.
Seven Undead Demonlords.
They turned in perfect synchrony and charged into the shrieking beast armies.
Seeing their powerful leaders demonified and charging at them with greater power than before, the beast armies didn't just break.
They shattered.
Screams filled the air. The sky was torn open by lightning and death. Flesh turned to mist. Bones exploded in clouds of marrow.
Damien drifted forward, calm as ever, his cloak whispering against the air.
The Beast King saw the slaughter and howled.
"Die for me!! Human scum!!" With a voice that cracked the mountains, it charged towards the seven Undead Demonlords.
Frostmourne struck like a glacial comet, his jaws wide with hellfrost pouring between his fangs. Veyraxis lunged from beneath, her void-tipped legs slicing toward the Beast King's underbelly. Sythrix streaked overhead, black lightning crackling in his wake.
The Beast King met them all.
The Basilisk Demonlord slithered in from the left, its scales now seething with necrotic flame, eyes glowing like twin pits of infernal memory. The King's tail lashed once—too fast to follow—and struck the basilisk square in the head, slamming it into the rocks with a shattering crunch.
Razorwing swept in from above, wings a blur of cutting gales, shrieking through the clouds like a living storm. The King roared upward and unleashed his breath—not flame, but annihilation. A beam of pure, draconic rage carved a line through the sky and caught Razorwing mid-dive. The bird-beast screamed as half its body disintegrated in a flash of white, spinning out in a storm of feathers and bone.
The Mantid Demonlord came next, darting with blistering speed, her scythes carving crescents of void in the air. She struck low, aiming for the tendons in the Beast King's leg—but he turned, caught her with one clawed hand, and slammed her into the carcass of her own swarm. Her carapace cracked.
The Void Ape Demonlord teleported behind him, fists cloaked in gravitational flame. The blow landed. The King staggered.
And retaliated.
He grabbed the ape's face mid-swing and slammed him into the ground hard enough to rupture the surrounding terrain. His breath followed—burning, spiraling, catastrophic—and when the smoke cleared, only the stench of scorched mana remained.
The skies turned white.
When the light faded, only ruin remained.
Sythrix fell from the sky, half his wing incinerated, his left side scorched to bone. He twitched, undead magic barely holding him together.
The Beast King roared again and spun through the others. He was a storm made flesh—each swipe of his claws ripped through demonplate, each breath a miniature apocalypse.
Two more of the new demonlords collapsed under his blows, howling as his breath scoured their cursed bodies.
But the Seven didn't break.
They endured. They adapted. They closed in again, slower this time, more cautious.
Frostmourne snarled, his body still burning from the blast, but his eyes clearer than ever.
They began to move in rhythm.
And the Beast King quickly found himself surrounded.
The fight was in deadlock.
The draconic titan stood alone against seven horrors born of hell—and held his ground.
For the first time, Damien's eyes narrowed with interest.
"This dragon monkey would make a fine addition to my undead generals." He smiled coldly—and disappeared.
DEATH SWAP.
In an instant, Frostmourne vanished mid-leap. And in his place stood Damien, suspended in midair, his dagger already in motion.
The Beast King's eyes widened—but only for a breath.
Steel met scale.
Damien's blade sliced along the Beast King's neck, but failed to penetrate fully. The dragon-beast twisted, claws arcing in a blur. Damien ducked, swept to the side, and carved another strike across its flank.
The two blurred through the battlefield. Explosions of shadow and flame rippled with every clash.
The Seven Undead Demonlords watched in perfect stillness. They knew not to interfere.
The Beast King roared and lunged. Damien sidestepped, calmly dragging his dagger across the beast's chest as it passed.
The dragon twisted and unleashed its breath—raw, elemental annihilation. The world exploded in white.
But Damien was no longer there.
He reappeared behind the king, flicking black blood off his dagger.
"You're slow. And loud."
The Beast King snarled and lashed with his tail. Damien blocked it with his forearm, mana wreathing his limbs with darkened reinforcement. The shockwave cracked the valley wall—but Damien didn't move.
Another clash. Another dodge. Another cut.
Ten exchanges passed—furious, fast, cataclysmic.
And still Damien fought like he wasn't even trying.
Finally, Damien stepped back, untouched, eyes gleaming with something close to boredom.
"You better show yourself," he said, voice low and cold. "If not, your dragon monkey son will die."
A howl of laughter echoed from above.
The clouds split.
And from the darkness emerged a vast, coiled shape—scales as black as a dying star, wings like continent-sized shadows.
A black dragon revealed itself, eyes glowing with ancient madness.
The sky itself recoiled.