SUPREME ARCH-MAGUS

"God! It's a carnivorous Spirit tree!" Kent whispered to himself, his eyes narrowing as he observed the scene. "This tree… it's the source of their strength. The blood-red tree is feeding on human children and producing strength giving fruits. How barbaric!" Kent muttered with gritted teeth.

He had to stop whatever ritual they were performing before it was too late.

The giant beastman at the base of the tree bellowed something in their guttural language, and Kent watched as the crowd of beastmen cheered, their voices rising in a frenzied roar. They were preparing for something—something terrible.

Kent thought of charging in directly and saving the children. But he decided to first check the place.

Silently, Kent moved around the cavern, his eyes scanning the area for every small thing. Kent suddenly stopped as he found a few wooden boxes which were filled with blood red fruits.

"Seems like these were the strength giving fruits." Kent muttered while checking them closely.

But before he could touch them, a deep voice echoed through the cavern. The chanting stopped, and the giant beastman near the tree raised his head, sniffing the air.

"I smell... something strange," the beastman growled, his red eyes scanning the cavern. "There is an intruder among us."

Kent froze in place. "Did he sense me?"

The beastman's eyes narrowed, and for a moment, it seemed as though he was staring directly at Kent. "I can feel your presence..." the beastman rumbled, his voice low and menacing. "You cannot hide from us."

Kent's grip tightened. He decided to confront the beastmen head-on. He removed the Ghost clock and appeared before the thousands of beastmen. "Enough with your drama. Release those children and surrender yourself." Kent warned while cracking his knuckles.

"Hahaha… Fool! Who are you to say that?" The beastmen head near the carnivorous tree asked with an angry growl.

"For your bad luck, I'm the new city lord here. So, act like responsible citizens and kneel before your lord." Kent said in a sarcastic tone while stretching his hands. He knew that the beast men were ready to attack him. So, he decided to fist fight without using any magic.

"Kill Him…" The head of the beastmen who stood close to the tree shouted with an angry growl.

Immediately, a chaotic mob of thousands surges forward like a tidal wave, and Kent stands alone, undaunted, his figure rigid like a statue of an ancient warrior prepared for battle.

As the first wave of beastmen rushed toward him, Kent moved with lightning speed. His fists become weapons, crashing into the stunted men like hammers. The first punch sent tens of beastmen sprawling to the ground, while a backhand strike fell another.

Blood spatters the dirt as he fights like a one-man army, breaking through the swarm with brutal, unstoppable force. The beastmen were almost at his waist height, but their physical power was stronger and their strength lay in the mob.

Like ants they tried to stick to Kent's body and make him fall to the ground. But they never expected Kent to fight them like toys. The mob, wild with anger, rushes at him from all sides, but Kent is like a rotating cyclone.

With a growl of defiance, he raised fists and sent them flying in groups with each punch. The dull crack of bones breaking echoes through the air as men fall in his wake.

The leader, hidden somewhere among the crowd.

Kent's single kick sent groups of beastment flying high into the air. Soon, they understood that even 10000 more would be insufficient against him. So, they decided to throw stones and boulders.

A heavy boulder is thrown at him, but he catches it mid-air, hurling it back with a roar of power, crushing a group of attackers, laying their bodies flat to ground.

He spins and kicks with such force that his enemies fallen to ground like Dominoes. The mob tries to overwhelm him with sheer numbers, but Kent is relentless.

Sweat pours from his body as he dodges punches, blocks kicks, and counters every attack with twice the ferocity. At one point, he's grabbed from behind by two men, but he picked them up and smashed against the ground like an omelet.

Bodies pile up around him, the ground littered with groaning, defeated men.

With a powerful leap, he jumps over a wave of attackers, landing with a thud in the heart of the mob, where the fight becomes even more vicious. Now surrounded on all sides, he fights with everything he has, his fists and feet moving faster than the eye can follow, each strike bringing down another bunch.

The mob, seeing his unstoppable strength, begins to falter, their resolve weakening as Kent cuts through them like a storm. Men who once charged him with wild fury now hesitate, fear spreading among their ranks.

With one final, bone-shattering blow, he reached the head of the beastmen.

"Enough! Don't make me kill all of you." Kent said while lifting the head of the beastmen into the air while holding his hair. Hearing their leader's painful cries, everyone came to an abrupt stop.

Kent's grip tightened on the beastman leader's hair as he held him up, his towering figure casting a shadow over the bloody altar. The rest of the beastmen had stopped moving, their snarls and roars silenced by their leader's anguished cries.

The beastman leader cried, his beastly face contorting in pain. Blood dripped from the corners of his mouth as he struggled to speak. "You… don't understand. We didn't want this! We didn't ask for this life! We are the rightful Stuntman tribe.

Please, spare us, Lord."

Kent frowned, keeping the leader suspended. "What do you mean? You're kidnapping children, feeding them to this cursed tree, and terrorizing the city. And you expect me to believe you didn't want this?"

The leader coughed, blood spraying as he gasped for air. "The village head… the bastard.. He betrayed us first!"

Kent's brow furrowed, his curiosity piqued. "Betrayed you? How?"

The beastman leader struggled to catch his breath. His eyes burned with a mix of anger and sorrow as he glanced toward the red tree. The divine disc already saved children from tree branches.
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"This tree…" the beastman leader rasped, "this is the Blood Sacrifice Tree. It's ancient magic… a cursed tree that thrives on the blood of the innocent. It was the village head of your Island City who wanted it… He asked us to dig the tunnels beneath this city, deep enough to dry out the freshwater river that once flowed around it."

Kent's eyes widened slightly. "The river? You mean the one that surrounded the city? The reason it became a desert?"

The beastman leader nodded weakly. "Yes. We were promised food, safety, and protection if we did like he said. We dug for weeks, drying out the river by connecting it to the sea from underground, isolating the city from the outside world. The village head wanted to keep the secret of this tree hidden. And his plan worked… once the water disappeared and the city became isolated, he turned on us."

Kent's grip slackened slightly as he processed this new information. "Turned on you? How?"

The beastman leader's eyes narrowed, his voice filled with resentment. "He betrayed us. After the river was gone, after we'd done everything he asked, he started feeding my tribe children to the tree! We were disposable to him! He used the tree's power to strengthen his tribe, to grow their strength at the cost of our lives!"

A cold shiver ran down Kent's spine as he glanced toward the eerie red tree once more. The sickening aura it emitted made sense now—it thrived on sacrifice, but this wasn't a ritual of the beastmen's choosing. "So you stole the tree?" Kent asked, his voice calm but intense.

The beastman leader nodded bitterly. "We had no choice. We were being slaughtered, our children fed to this cursed thing to grow his power. We took what was ours. We dug these tunnels deeper and deeper, hiding from the village head's wrath. We stole the tree, hoping we could end this nightmare.

But we couldn't destroy it, so we decided to use it to raise my tribe strength."

Kent exhaled, slowly lowering the beastman leader to the ground. He could feel the pain and suffering. It was clear the beastmen weren't the monsters in this story—at least not entirely.

"How do I know you're telling the truth?" Kent asked, his voice sharp as he met the beastman leader's gaze.

The leader's eyes flickered with frustration. "Think about it. You've seen the greed of humans, haven't you? This city is a desert now because of them. We didn't want to live like this, in these tunnels, surviving on scraps! The village head—he betrayed us, and now he sits there, living in luxury, while we rot in the darkness!"

Kent looked back at the way he'd come. The tunnels, the dried-out landscape, the timing of villagers asking for help, the physical strength of villagers—it all pointed to a much darker truth. His instincts told him the beastman was speaking the truth.

"I'm starting to believe you," Kent said, his voice thoughtful. "But that doesn't change the fact that children are being sacrificed. If you wanted to stop this, why are you still doing it?"

-

/// Author Note: Our Book successfully cleared "win-win challenge" for the 7th time. Thank you each and everyone of you who unlocked privileged chapters. Hope our-Journey Continues in next-month. ///