Academic gathering with a lich-Chapter 152 - 145: The Real Hunt

The Giant Beast was wandering in its own territory, the cold wind carrying the air into the crevices of its massive skeleton, never to escape again.

Just as it had been upon awakening, like a diligent old ox, it patrolled back and forth across its own territory, leaving the land riddled with wounds. Its deformed spine, Bone Spur, swept the ground as it moved forward, its relatively small head perched at the highest point of the skeleton, surveying the unchanging barren land from above, although its vision was poor.

Its vision grew even more hazy as it unwittingly wandered into a patch of fog. The blurry sight unsettled it, but that discomfort was quickly replaced by a sense of security from its thick body. After all, there was Bone Spur to navigate, so it didn’t matter if its eyes couldn’t see clearly.

This comfort was quickly shattered, shattered by an Ice Cone that shot out and struck right below its small skull, blocked by a protruding bony shell. The Giant Beast realized it had enemies. Its massive hooves trampled the ground, the earth sinking considerably like a drumhead being struck, the dust flying a meter off the ground. The deformed spines on either side arched high, like two shields raised upright, with the middle spine stretching forward straight, forming a magnified battering ram.

Adjusting its direction, it charged towards the source of the Ice Cone.

The intelligence it was given wasn’t absolutely correct. The Skeleton Mammoth charged at a tremendous speed, like a racing chariot. In the thick fog, it spotted a tiny humanoid figure not reaching its knees, and let out an excited roar as it raised its head high.

Boom!

The swinging giant spine swept down like Death’s scythe, scattering the blurry humanoid figure and the inch of ground beneath his feet into the air. There was no sensation of hitting anything; the figure was just a hazy illusion made of fog.

The fog was also its enemy. It swung its spine, Bone Spur, trying to clear the fog with a strong wind, but the mist, as if alive, automatically refilled the gaps. The Giant Beast labored in vain, meanwhile still periodically annoyed by Ice Cones hitting its body.

It decided to try another method.

The third discernment ability given to it by its creator.

The act of destroying the surface of the earth, this instinct carved into its soul, wasn’t a useless habit. Those trenches tearing through the earth and each of the large pits were arranged in a peculiarly regular pattern. The Giant Beast began stomping its hooves on the spot, and the earth, like a pool of water, transmitted ripples far away. Through these peculiarly arranged landscapes, a tremor-based map formed inside its tiny skull.

An anomalous object, one. Right behind at fifty meters.

The Giant Beast roared and whirled its body to sprint towards the target.

This time it was right, the tremor showed that there was a solid object in front, any enemy would be crushed.

As it got closer, the Giant Beast saw its target.

A large ice column.

Is this his strategy? Hiding behind the ice column and letting it block my path?

Naive, watch me shatter this ice column along with you hiding behind it.

As it thought, the ice column broke.

Unlike what it thought, its target was not behind the ice column but above it.

The fog parted, revealing that the ice column was actually mushroom-shaped, its top already exceeding its own height.

The Giant Beast stared at the enemy descending from above, stunned.

Clinging to the ice column was a black octopus-like tentacled creature, each of its tentacles in the air holding a person by the collar of their neckline, like a crude, bizarre carousel.

Now all those people and the shattered pieces of the ice column it had smashed were being dumped onto its own body.

Resilience and manipulation climbed up to the end of its deformed spine, Bone Spur, Mr. Shiny stood on its back, while Lyle clung to the protruding inner bone wall of the Giant Beast.

Fog thickened, frost fell.

White frost formed on the spine, Bone Spur, of the Giant Beast as the temperature gradually decreased.

Freeze.

The shattered ice reassembled, and on the basis of the white frost, froze the three deformed spinal bones, Bone Spurs.

Scales attached.

Among those ice fragments were Mr. Shiny’s scales, which automatically burrowed into the joints of the spine, like steel nails hammered into the crevices of bones.

The only flexible part of the Skeleton Mammoth was completely controlled.

A slow curse, a curse of weakness.

Lyle placed a curse on the Giant Beast, hindering its mental speed and buying himself a brief moment before its three powerful Bone Spurs could smash through the ice and break free.

Nia climbed onto its skull, and the hooks in the suckers on her tentacles caught in its eye sockets as she began a struggle.

The Giant Beast let out a roar of pain as it used its final ability.

Two slender bone spines shot out from the two vertebrae behind its skull, piercing through Nia’s body.

Black blood spilled over the skull, causing the soul fire within to flicker intensely.

These wounds were not fatal to Nia, but they also unleashed her ferocity.

Nia let out a shrill scream, one that could cause a slight stabbing pain in a person’s head.

Blood riot, blood tentacles.

From the seams where the Giant Beast’s skull connected to its body, the blood that had originally dripped in turned into tentacles, helping Nia to push out the skull.

"Aaaaah!"

With a crack.

The Giant Beast’s skull was torn in two by Nia’s tentacles, completely shattered.

"Nia succeeded."

Before they could properly celebrate, a powerful magic exploded from within the remains of the sprinting Giant Beast.

"It’s Dead Man’s Revenge 2.0."

"What is that?"

"A type of magic that causes corpses to self-destruct."

"Self-destruct? Run!"

Lyle and the others quickly jumped off the coach, rolling several times on the ground.

The sprinting Giant Beast eventually exploded not too far away.

Bone materials were scattered everywhere.

.......

Mr. Shiny looked at the marker that suddenly disappeared from the map and a smile appeared on his face.

"Ah, the real hunt is about to begin."

.......

The four people collapsed on the ground got up at the same time, and there wasn’t much joy of victory on their faces.

Mr. Shiny was the first to act; he immediately started jogging toward the pile of bones that had once been the Giant Beast.

Lyle and Shiny closely followed him.

Frost Nova.

A ring of frost energy appeared on the controlled body, freezing the two in place for less than a second but successfully interrupting their steps.

Mr. Shiny uttered a reprimand, even though he already knew the answer.

"Manipulator, what are you doing?"

"I’m just taking an exam, and the question is hunting monsters," Manipulator said, pointing his ice-blue staff directly at Lyle. "On this land, only monsters can survive."

"Mr. Plague Doctor, could I ask you, this ’monster’, to become my examination score?"