Chapter 163: All Bark
The beastman king held his position at the center of the army. Even through the layered ranks between them, that solitary figure was visible.
This guy...
He swore under his breath.
The beastman king had intended to give the other side a display of force — let it see the full size of the beastman nation's army and decide to make concessions on its own.
The dragon's response was not what he had expected.
Does it truly have no fear at all?
The beastman king stopped the thought and raised a hand.
"Halt."
The full army stopped.
"Pass the order — send an envoy." The beastman king turned to his side. The fox-head clerk understood immediately and selected a sharp-looking beastman from the ranks.
It was a young fox-beastman, his fur a bright, clean white, his eyes quick and alert.
He received the order, took a few additional words of instruction from the beastman king, stepped out of the column, and ran toward Sebas to conduct the final pre-battle exchange.
The beastman king watched the envoy's back as he jogged forward, watched him stop before Sebas and begin conveying the king's position.
A moment later.
The envoy came running back.
The beastman king looked at the envoy's white face and had already half-guessed the answer. He asked anyway, his voice flat.
"What did the dragon say?"
The fox-beastman envoy lowered his head.
"He said — his conditions will not change. Not one of them."
The beastman king's expression went dark in an instant, like the sky before a storm hits.
The envoy was standing closest to him and could feel the fury coming off the king in waves.
His fox tail tucked itself between his legs. His body was trembling slightly without his meaning to.
But he forced himself to finish his report.
"Your Majesty... that gentleman also said—"
The beastman king turned. Those amber eyes fixed on him.
The envoy swallowed.
"He said he hopes the beastman nation's dragon-slaying champions will come forward and face him. The rest... he asks that they not add to the meaningless casualties."
The moment the words landed, the surrounding air seemed to solidify.
The beastman king's golden-brown lion mane moved without any wind. The muscles across that lion face pulled tight.
His voice went up half a register — sounding as if he were shouting across the distance at that solitary figure, or perhaps trying to convince himself.
"Every warrior in the beastman nation can slay a dragon!"
His voice echoed across the hills. The guards and tribal chiefs nearby all lowered their heads and said nothing.
The beastman king was breathing hard, his gaze fixed on that lone shape in the distance.
He knew he was posturing. Of course he did.
But he was this nation's king.
In front of the full army, he could not show weakness.
He raised one thick arm and swung it forward.
"Order the Swift Wind Tribe — charge!"
The signal-bearers in the center column waved their flags. The horn-blowers sounded the sharp, urgent advance call.
The notes cracked open across the valley like the roar of a beast breaking free.
The Swift Wind Tribe moved.
The leopard-beastmen burst out of the formation. Their limbs were long and powerful, each stride covering far more ground than any other race, their speed like streaks of gold light skimming along the surface of the earth.
Jaka was at the front.
His leopard eyes were locked on that lone figure ahead, his tail rigid behind him like a drawn bowstring.
Jaka knew. The first wave was expendable bait — near-certain death. He had charged to the front anyway.
For his tribe, he had no other choice.
But at least dying in front of his people was the small and meaningless redemption he could offer them.
A low, grinding roar built in Jaka's throat — a howl at his own fate, and at the same time a way to keep himself moving.
"Charge!"
The leopard-beastmen of the Swift Wind Tribe roared back in ragged unison and swept toward Sebas.
The beastman king stood at the high point of the center column, his gaze following that golden wave.
He wanted to see with his own eyes exactly how strong this dragon was.
What the beastman king saw was hell.
Jaka, at the very front of the charge, reached Sebas first. His speed was at its absolute limit. His blade tore through the air and drove straight for Sebas's throat.
This was the leopard-beastmen's most prized method of attack — absolute speed, a killing strike delivered before the opponent could react.
But the strike missed entirely.
In the instant before contact, Sebas turned his head slightly to one side.
The movement was tiny — less than an inch — but that was enough. Jaka had put every ounce of his speed and power into that strike, and it brought nothing but a breath of air past the old man's cheek.
In truth, the reason Sebas had moved to dodge at all was that he had seen the resolve in Jaka's eyes.
Out of respect for a warrior with that kind of determination, Sebas had decided to take it seriously.
Jaka's pupils contracted sharply.
He didn't even have time to change direction.
Sebas's fist had already landed in the center of his chest.
A dull, heavy impact rang across the battlefield. Jaka's body launched like a stone from a siege engine, flying backward at a speed greater than he'd arrived. His sternum shattered the moment the fist connected, his ribs snapping with a sound like dry kindling underfoot.
His body tumbled through the air, cleared dozens of leopard-beastman warriors who were still charging behind him, and came down hard on the broken stones of the valley floor, raising a cloud of dust.
Jaka's eyes were still open. But his chest had caved in. Blood seeped from the corner of his mouth and soaked into the pale gold fur.
He was dead.
From the moment he charged to the moment he died — one exchange.
There was no time to mourn the chief.
The Swift Wind Tribe's second-in-command stepped into the space he had left.
"Die!" The older leopard-beastman warrior roared with everything he had.
The next instant, his voice was swallowed by the sound of bone fracturing. Sebas's fist drove through his skull.
There was no time to mourn the second-in-command.
The second-in-command's son appeared at Sebas's side next.
His speed had already surpassed his father's. Sebas was faster.
The agility he had spent his life perfecting moved like a stumbling infant beside Sebas.
The son lunged from the flank, claws aimed at the back of Sebas's neck.
Sebas didn't turn his head. His hand blade swung backward, and the ki-edge cut across that leopard-beastman's neck like a razor. The head went up, then came down hard on the ground.
Blood spread across the battlefield.
The leopard-beastmen of the Swift Wind Tribe kept coming, and kept falling. Their bodies piled into a ring around where Sebas stood.
The beastman king held his position at the high point of the center column and watched all of it.
His hands were trembling slightly.
When he had been inside his tent listening to the fleeing bear-beastmen describe the carnage and the other side's strength, he hadn't fully absorbed it.
Three thousand dead bear-beastman warriors — that had just been a casualty figure.
But watching it with his own eyes, watching the other side take the lives of his warriors with this kind of ease, it finally hit him.
What kind of creature is a dragon...
The thought coiled around his heart like something cold.
His hand came up, and he was about to order the horn-blowers to sound the retreat.
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