Chapter 993: Sky Rank Magical Beast
Hubert raised Slaughter in front of him as a shield, while Reina encased herself in a coffin of ice, freezing herself inside. Anderson and the Patchwork Golem frantically cast all manner of four-elemental shields, dozens of elemental barriers appearing in rapid succession—yet neither of them paused for a moment, continuing to unleash shield spells with wild intensity.
The seemingly calm shockwave swept forth. The four-elemental shields Leon had cast crumbled like sandcastles at the slightest touch. Leon kept retreating, patching up new shields as he went, gradually lessening the force of the blast until finally he braced against the last of its power with raw elemental defense.
Hubert, using Slaughter as a shield, was blasted backwards by the shockwave, sent flying four or five hundred meters in an instant. The very air exploded around him...
Reina, sealed within her ice coffin, was much the same—flung hundreds of meters away by the shockwave...
Anderson and the Patchwork Golem, like Leon, used shield spells to gradually weaken the shockwave’s force. After retreating more than a hundred meters, they finally managed to withstand the blast...
It took everything the group had to survive the ambush. Glancing back, they saw the mountain peak that pierced the clouds now tilting, collapsing sideways.
The earth trembled. The mountain, like a colossal wall, blocked any hope of retreat. Spatial rifts atop the peak—already unstable—now appeared more frequently, each at least a dozen meters long. Crossing was impossible; even flying over was out of the question. They could only go around...
But now, the Red Flame Fire Fox—a Sky Rank beast—stood ahead. There was nowhere to run. They would have to fight...
Leon hovered in midair, his expression darkening...
Moments ago, when they skirted the mountain riddled with spatial rifts, there was no way to know what lay beyond. Detection spells could only be used once they’d made it around.
No one expected a Sky Rank beast to be lying in wait behind the peak, ready to ambush. The moment they rounded the mountain, it unleashed an energy ball attack.
This was a unique ability of Sky Rank beasts—melding transcendent power, magic, and innate traits into a single, hyper-compressed energy sphere.
Pure, unadulterated force—sheer destructive might. Compared to the battles of Heavenly Mages, this fighting style had zero finesse. Yet sometimes, this brutal simplicity could unleash even greater carnage than any human Sky Rank powerhouse...
Even a Sky Rank powerhouse would never take a direct hit from a beast’s energy sphere unless absolutely desperate...
Glancing back, the collapsed section of the mountain stretched over a thousand meters—the peak itself must have been two or three thousand meters tall. Yet it had been shattered in a single blow from the Red Flame Fire Fox’s energy sphere...
Such raw, violent power—even Ninth-Rank extraordinary spells rarely reached this level of ferocity.
And extraordinary spells consumed immense power. Even Sky Rank mages didn’t cast Ninth-Rank spells exclusively; most of the time, they relied on ordinary magic infused with transcendent force.
That fighting style suited human mages best—after all, mana was finite. Even with a demi-plane, it only doubled or tripled their reserves.
Purely relying on extraordinary spells in battle, even Sky Rank mages couldn’t withstand the drain for long...
But magical beasts were different...
For magical beasts, spellcasting was pure instinct. Once they matured, they could wield magic naturally—and their mana reserves almost always surpassed those of humans at the same rank.
Especially the larger the beast, the more absurd its mana reserves—though there were exceptions, this was the general rule.
Before evolving to Sky Rank, a Red Flame Fire Fox would have stood just two or three meters tall—petite by magical beast standards. But the creature before them, standing on all fours, was fifty or sixty meters high, towering over the tallest trees in the jungle...
If you went by mana alone, this Red Flame Fire Fox probably had thirty or forty times the reserves of Dubois Charles—and that was a conservative estimate...
If a Sky Rank mage wanted to unleash this kind of destruction, it would cost at least half their mana, forcing them to draw on their demi-plane reserves...
But for this beast, it seemed just another casual move...
The destructive energy sphere was powerful, but its casting was obvious and slow—three or four seconds at least, and if released early, its strength would drop sharply...
Magical beasts couldn’t match humans in technique, but at Sky Rank, with a weapon like the destructive energy sphere—flawed as it was—they became far harder to deal with. To a degree, even more troublesome than human Sky Rank powerhouses...
Leon still remembered—in the era eight thousand years hence, a Ninth-Rank Sky Mage once battled a forty-ninth rank Sky Sea Beast on the eastern coastline.
That battle sank hundreds of kilometers of the eastern coastline into the sea. Every island within a thousand kilometers offshore was swallowed—an entire island nation, thousands of kilometers away, drowned by the resulting tsunami. Half the continent’s landmass vanished beneath the waves.
In the end, it took four top-tier Sky Rank powerhouses to bring down that rampaging sea beast.
The devastation was almost entirely the work of that sea beast—its colossal body stretched over a kilometer, and after ages of accumulation, its mana reserves were at least a hundred times greater than a Sky Rank mage of the same tier...
As it was dying, the sea beast unleashed a supermassive destructive energy sphere, over a thousand meters wide. The blast severely wounded all four Sky Rank mages, wiped out the offshore island nation, and triggered a tsunami that rolled on for a thousand kilometers—losses beyond calculation...
This line is irrelevant to the novel and can be skipped.
That’s why, in Northend World, Sky Rank beasts are almost never found on the continent. Even along thousands of kilometers of coastline, their presence is rare. The Endless Sea harbors the most Sky Rank beasts—almost all in Northend World dwell there, making it a place of constant peril.
Back in the day, Redbeard captained the USS Dauntless through the Endless Sea and nearly sank more than once...
Leon frowned, his mind racing through intelligence on Sky Rank beasts—yet even so, the Red Flame Fire Fox before him left him shaken.
The rules in the Blazeforge Battlefield differ from the outside world. Outside, Sky Rank mages can’t enter—not even through the Plane Path. But native magical beasts here can still ascend to Sky Rank; that much is normal...
What wasn’t normal was the Red Flame Fire Fox before him. No matter how you looked at it, it was a Red Flame Fire Fox—and those are supposed to be low-rank magical beasts...
In Northend World, Red Flame Fire Foxes are the favorite quarry of low-level adventurers—low in danger, but their pelts are worth a fortune, especially flawless ones, which far outvalue those of any other beast at the same rank.
The highest-ranking Red Flame Fire Fox King is only Level Fifteen. Yet the one before them was a true Sky Rank beast...
Leon had never heard of a Red Flame Fire Fox reaching Sky Rank—even bathing in the blood of gods and demons wouldn’t make it likely. That was a limit of the bloodline; to break it would mean it was no longer a Red Flame Fire Fox...
Yet the beast before them—with three massive tails—was unmistakably a Red Flame Fire Fox. Three tails marked it as the Fox King.
"Damn it, how could something like this ascend to Sky Rank—and be this strong?"
Anderson drifted over, still shaken, all three faces twisted in horror.
It was one thing to encounter a Sryess—those ancient beasts with powerful bloodlines were at least understandable. But this? He just couldn’t make sense of it...
As everyone stood wary and bewildered, the Red Flame Fire Fox threw back its head and roared. Blazing orange flames surged across its body, and its three massive tails became three gigantic whips of fire, lashing through the air with a deafening whoosh.
Leon frowned, unable to dwell on the oddities. No matter how bizarre this Red Flame Fire Fox was, it was undeniably a true Sky Rank beast.
Whoosh...
With a roar of flame, Leon conjured his Lava Avatar midair—endless magma surged, enveloping him, and in an instant he transformed into a towering lava giant, seven or eight meters tall.
At the same moment, a massive phantom wheel appeared behind Leon, endless runes flickering and dancing within its shadow.
From afar, the seven- or eight-meter-wide phantom wheel looked like a miniature starry sky—so deep it inspired awe and fear, with runes swirling like countless stars.
At its center, a stream of magma seemed to flow—on closer look, it was a cluster of countless lava runes.
What began as a hazy shadow grew larger and clearer, as if another world was about to descend upon this one...
Leon gripped the Doombringer Staff—a flash of violet light, regal and ancient, echoed with a dragon’s roar as a spectral purple dragon appeared behind him.
The purple dragon turned its head slightly, crystal eyes fixed on the snarling Red Flame Fire Fox, its gaze cold and disdainful—like a master regarding a crazed pet.
In Leon’s left hand, an ancient tome materialized, wrapped in chains scarred by the passage of time.
The ancient book seemed to exist beyond time—pristine yet emanating a profound, ageless aura.
This was the Death Tome’s new form. As Leon’s power grew, the Death Tome’s appearance changed as well.
With more magical artifacts fused into it, the Death Tome’s strength only increased with age.
Leon uttered a strange rune—instantly, the chains binding the ancient tome loosened. As the book slowly opened, a blinding light burst forth from within.