Dragon Gods Reign

[Beast forest]

Slightly surprised by the sudden teleportation, Darganth was just about to ask Neandra what she meant when he noticed the green tide, partially obscured by the dust they kicked up, a few kilometers from them. This already made him sigh in annoyance but upon noticing the small changes the horde caused even at this distance, it morphed into a frown.

“Urgh, it has to be monsters.” Yldra said, voicing his thoughts out aloud.

The others also had a similar reaction, with Venrie reacting even worse when she noticed a significant part of the horde consisting of orcs. Her hand was already outstretched and prepared to launch spell after spell at them when she recoiled in shock.

“How many are there?”

“No idea but it also doesn't matter. What matters are these three.” Neandra said, effortlessly conjuring a storm-like wind with a mere wave of her hand.

Parting the cloud of dust that the tides vanguard kicked up behind them, she revealed three massive figures leisurely walking in its cover as well as the multiple kilometers of further monsters. Of the three, two were at least vaguely humanoid with the third being closer to a beast. But despite this resemblance, no sane being would believe them to be anything but monsters.

The beast was still the least obvious of them as the limbs were at least natural when viewed alone. But even its body was barely more than a crude mixture of limbs, few belonging to just roughly the same species.

A bird's head followed a long snake neck, the limp from only possessing three legs exacerbated by one front leg being an ape's arm while the other was a horse's hove which was compounded by a lion's hind leg. Topping it all off was its tail belonging to a scorpion that grew from its distorted feline torso.

The humanoid ones on the other hand were all but natural, with one of the two being little more than a human ice sculpture that constantly broke while moving just for it to be repaired by the spreading ice. Wherever it's foot touched the ground the ice would spread in a similar manner, leaving a frozen trail in its wake.

The other was at least still partially human, though his body had unnatural limbs of different animals attached at the wrong spots. All of this pointed to it being a result of a failed advancement to the mythical rank by an aura user that tried to incorporate aspects of other species.

But as bizarre as a rhino horn growing from his chest, the upside down bird wing at his lower back, and more, less important features were, they paled in comparison to the last feature. At regular intervals, the skin and flesh of the being would turn into a strange green smoke that spread into the surroundings before the limb slowly regenerated again.

In addition to all these individual traits, all three monsters had in common that their presence felt distorted. This distorted mana seeped into the surroundings, spreading further and further and poisoning anything it touched. The only saving grace was that this type of mana was extremely unstable, so despite initially spreading fast and corrupting the normal mana it was quickly pushed back again and purified.

This nonetheless didn't mean that it didn't deal damage to the surroundings as even after the mana was returned to its normal form the decayed land stayed barren or twisted. The only thing still existing were those plants and beings that mutated, themselves turning into monsters that spread the distorted mana and perpetuated the cycle.

“Can I leave the chaff to you?” Neandra asked after a few seconds and the others nodded.

“I'll deal with the orcs.” Venrie said.

“If no one wants to, I'll take care of the new monsters.” Darganth proposed.

Following this, Yldra, Jennia, and Allaire decided to just deal with the rest without a plan. The orcs and the newborn monsters could pose at least some risk due to their numbers and somewhat decent individual strength but the rest lacked one of the two.

Trolls and ogres were only dotted around here and there, with even these having a presence around the second rank. Goblins were generally weaker than even a normal human and could generally be disregarded unless there were hobgoblins among them. But considering the total lack of a mana user's presence among them, there were either none or they didn't know how to use mana, making them little more than a normal human in terms of strength.

There were still a handful of other species but as none had a single member with just an advanced third rank presence, they could easily be disregarded. Even the one peak second rank minotaur they had noticed wouldn't pose a threat to any of them. Physical strength rivaling that of a peak third rank human may seem threatening but when combined with its low intelligence it was easy to circumvent that advantage.

When they had finished these arrangements, Neandra was already hovering in the air a few meters before them. As soon as they finished, she initiated the fight by firing a spell from her outstretched arm.

Faster than any being present could see, a reddish-orange beam of flames impacted one of the two humanoid monsters. The sun-like flames formed a slightly warped beam that curved in all directions, not too dissimilar from a lightning bolt, that instantly seared through the monster's torso before continuing for dozens of kilometers before slowly dissolving.

The monster was meanwhile swallowed by an explosion of flames as the attack's overflowing energy unloaded itself. Before it even knew what was happening to it, the ball of flames had already reached its head. By the time it ended expanding, there were only two legs left, both of which quickly fell over and crushed parts of the horde.

“Solar flare.” Darganth commented, impressed by the effortless display of this powerful spell.

As a mythical rank spell it could only be wielded by a mage of said rank, with this specific one being powerful even among these. Compared to the spells of the lower ranks they require not just the mana and control necessary to cast but also a certain affinity for their element.

And in contrast to these lower ranked spells that still formed the basis of mage combat in the mythical rank, with the mage's higher power and the usage of auxiliary circles keeping their effectiveness nearly as high, mythical rank spells were nearly always trump cards.

But Neandra still wasn't finished and without wasting a single moment, she partially undid her transformation and took on a wyvern form of about a kilometer long. This closed the gap of a handful of kilometers between them in an instant and the two remaining monsters found themselves in the claws of one of the most powerful beings on Ikrus.

Unleashing a breath of fire on the ice monster, she felt a slight warmth on her claw as it melted within seconds. The other one was even less fortunate, with her tail shooting toward it.

While the base and initial half of this tail looked just like that of a dragon, the further half was far thinner and covered in gray, leathery skin instead of scales of the same color. At the end of the tail was a powerful stinger consisting of two parts, a smaller lower one and a larger top one. Both had sharp inner and outer edges with rounded sides, together forming a V-like form with a strong initial curve that ended with a straight parallel at the end of the smaller stinger. The larger one curved slightly further, partially closing the opening though not by much.

Said stinger instantly pierced the monster's hide and ripped open a hole through its entire body and with a width of most of the torso. Thus, as soon as she pulled her stinger back, it fell over dead without her poison even having to start acting.

All of this happened in the span of not even four seconds, giving the others a perfect moment to act. With the three leaders dead, their attacks smashed into now confused monsters.

The first to fall were the goblins as they had the unfortunate position of being near Jennia's targets. When the dozens of spheres of fire were catapulted towards the trolls, they noticed too late and were consumed by the raging flames that exploded outwards.

But the trolls who had disregarded these attacks and left the goblins to their fate, trusting in their own regeneration, soon followed their fate. Noticing far too late that it was fire magic, they found their skin set aflame as screams of terror and pain started to echo across the plains.

After the initial burst of heat directly reduced a few to ash, killing them without any chance to regenerate, the rest were subjected to a battle between the flames and their regeneration. In a slow and painful process, the flames started overwhelming the regeneration, exhausting their ability to regenerate and causing them to drop dead one after another under her continuous barrage.

The next to meet their fate were the ogres as they had the misfortune of facing Yldra. Landing amidst the large humanoids, her entrance alone flattened dozens of them despite their coordinated effort.

Ogres were a monster race that had much in common with the normal humanoid species, regularly being compared to giants. In contrast to most monsters whose intelligence lacks behind the humanoid races or who only reach their level after a certain point, like the hobgoblin evolution of goblins, ogres reach it naturally upon maturity.

The only reason they are even considered monsters and not as part of a similar vein of humanoids as giants is their lack of interest in building a civilization. Instead, they are content with their basic lifestyle consisting of food, fights, and mating. This results in them being considered barbaric and lumped in with the more eldritch monsters whose simple presence distorts mana despite not doing so themselves.

Nonetheless, this intelligence combined with a physical might that had few equals among humanoids made them a force to be reckoned with.

But even this force was mercilessly crushed beneath the weight of a six hundred meter long dragoness, the weight associated with such a large body simply impossible to be stemmed by them. Still, the majority of them survived Yldra's initial onslaught but instead of fleeing they let their desire for battle overcome them.

Upon seeing the ant-like swarm gathering around her feet she chuckled in amusement before unleashing her dragon's fear with a sigh. Compared to the three giant monsters and the smaller ones they spawned whose pure presence infected the surroundings, Neandra only cared for the ogre's presence whenever they attack her forest.

In fact, she found the monster-infested wasteland that surrounded most of her forest an advantage. It offered a layer of protection that weeded out any weaklings from bothering her and served as a valuable training area for younger beasts.

Under the effect of Yldra's unrestrained dragons fear the ogre's thus quickly lost their will to fight, the power difference being simply too great for them to have any chance at resisting it. And not just the ogres were influenced by this, with the wild panic quickly spreading to the nearby orcs.

Since the beginning of the fight, they had to contend with Allaire's and Venrie's attacks, with both sending tens of thousands of spears made from solid light their way. Of the two, Venrie attacked especially ferocious as orcs are a constant source of trouble for her. Similar to goblins, they prefer living in woodlands and forests, bringing them into conflict with the elves on a regular basis.

Keeping up her attacks even as they ran under the influence of Yldra's dragon's fear, she stopped only when they started to reach the area where Darganth was dealing with the newborn monsters.

Consisting of mostly mutated plants with only the occasional animal among them, they were a mostly immobile group that was easy picking for him.

Flying overhead and unleashing breath after breath down onto them, he flooded the surroundings with his mana. This sped up the time till the moment when the monster's mana stalled and collapsed as his mana increased the resistance it encountered.

And with his breath cutting down the source, he needed only a few minutes to push it back far enough that it wouldn't pose any trouble for the beast's forest. And he would have continued even further but around half an hour into the fight Neandra suddenly stopped and turned back towards the forest with furious eyes.

Following her gaze and failing to sense far enough into the forest to find what happened, he nonetheless stopped his attack.

“Who dared?!” Neandra shouted angrily, drawing the attention of the other beasts outside of the forest.

When this shout echoed throughout the forest, its cause instantly looked in her direction with fearful eyes. The group of seven was currently standing at the edge of the clearing where her throne would normally be.

“Fuck, how did she sense it?” One of the humans cursed.

The other six were meanwhile looking at him with shock and disbelief, their gaze constantly alternating to the gigantic body lying a few hundred meters from them. Lying there was the dead body of a deer-like beast whose neck and head had been blasted away in some kind of explosion.

“What did you expect? The forest is large but not 'emperor level being can't sense what happens at the other end' large!” The avian beastman roared after the moment of shock passed, lifting the human by the collar.

“Hey, hey, hey, stop it! We can discuss it later, now we have to get out of here first.” The mage said, trying to separate the two.

His words brought the rest out of their stupor, prompting them to help in the attempt to separate the two.

“Getting out of here? You can try but I wouldn't bet on your chances.” An unknown voice suddenly said.

Just as the seven all spun around to its source, they found the forest around them disappear, instead being replaced by the endless grassland around it. And hovering above said grassland was Neandra her massive frame staring down at the group of humanoids that looked smaller than even ants in comparison.

In an instant the boar-like beastman reacted, his mana spreading into his surroundings as he conjured an aura avatar with every last drop. But even as he became covered in a nearly forty meter tall aura construct, he was still only an ant before her.

Neandra didn't even need to take action herself to deal with him as the man that had teleported the group did so instead. A draconic tail covered in white scales shot out from his lower back, windings itself around the aura avatar before crushing it with brute force and throwing the beastman to the ground.

“Now, who of you was it that dared to kill a beast in my forest?” Neandra asked with a booming voice.