<h4>Chapter 255 Beast Horde [3] - The Power of Bloodlust</h4>


    Ss was sat on the ground, his legs spilling to the side and his arms limp and motionless.


    His teammates had left him behind, and right now, he was surrounded by beasts that ranged from what seemed to be a pristine topaz core to dull sapphire. Of course, most of the pristine amethyst cores had been mowed down. He hadn''t even recognized them before since his attention was focused on the stronger beasts and monsters, but to think there would be so many…


    The topaz cores were half of the battle force, and with most of them dead, the beast horde was only half asrge. Of course, that didn''t mean they were half as strong now. It just meant that they weren''t nearly as fearsome to the untrained eye as they first seemed


    Closing his eyes, Ss stared at everything from above.


    ''10 Sapphire cores, and one giant who''s just as strong as them… Hm. And one iing beast. How interesting.'' Ss inwardly snickered. He could not help but feel amused by how everything had gone so far. He had no qualms in exposing his strength to the students around him, after all, scaring them into silence was quite easy. However, seeing them fight tooth and nail to get out of a hopeless situation was a scene to marvel at.


    Their fantastic teamwork worked in their favor. All of them yed their parts well. Though, even if there were some things he would change about how the fight went, this was technically the first time they fought all out together. It was only right for him to not expect much from them.


    "Yourrades have abandoned you…" A deep voice reverberated through the battle field.


    Opening his eyes again, Ss looked up and scanned all the monsters and beasts around him. Monsters seemed to be only about 1/3 of the horde. Apparently monsters weren''t nearly asmon in Xylem as they are on the Demon continent. Hell, from what he had heard, even Der had quite a lot of monsters due to how quickly they tended to repopte.


    "I can''t say I me them. Going back for you would have definitely spelled doom for them." The giant spoke again, its voice so deep that Ss could even feel the ground under him shake with its power.


    Standing up, Ss quickly dusted off his clothes and smiled wryly. With a snap of his fingers, his clothes became a ck liquid that covered every inch of his body before retreating and solidifying into the form of a formal shirt and pants, with the addition of a ck tight and a long coat that reached his knees in height.


    A pair ck gloves formed over Ss'' hands before a pair of leather shoes solidified around his feet.


    "You''re not going after them?" Ss chuckled calmly while fitting his gloves properly. However, his tone was filled with more curiosity than weariness of fear. As if the creatures before him didn''t even register in his eyes as threats. After?couple of seconds of no one saying anything, Ss broke the silence once more


    "Though, now I doubt even you could do that. At their current range, you''d be intercepted by the military and teachers faster than you can blink." Ss shrugged without any care.


    "They weren''t the targets…" The giant also spoke calmly before taking a few steps forward. "Or at least, not specifically. You on the other hand…" The giant raised his mace as toki erupted out of his body in a way and form that could not help but surprise Ss.


    ''How interesting…''


    "You have giant blood running through your veins. Most people of my race would shun you or kill you on the spot from being a hybrid, but I''ll give you the chance to survive. Join us and you''ll have salvation. Reject my offer and I will not have any choice but to kill you."


    "Oh? Are you the leader of this little coup?" Sspletely ignored the giant''s proposal, causing the giant to narrow his eyes.


    "Of course not."


    "Yeah, I thought so. Those liberty terrorists have quite a lot of humans in their midsts. Though, I doubt they would put humans in danger when they can use you people." Ss snickered under his breath.


    "This is thest time I''ll ask. Join us or die." The mace began to glow red as the giant infused it with its killing intent and toki at the same time.


    "You see, as much as I would like to watch and observe the powers and fighting techniques of a giant…" Ss spoke, each word trickling into the ears of every monster and beast equally, as he looked to the side and stared into the distance at the creature pping its wings and flying toward the town of dia.


    "I have something more important to take care of." A maniacal smile extended out of the corner of Ss'' lips.


    "Then…" The giant''s mace tore through the space where Ss had just been, its force sending a shockwave that rippled through the air, shredding the ground apart. Suddenly, a shiver of fear and confusion went down the giant''s spine. Something was wrong. His instincts were screaming at him to bolt out of the battlefield and never return, while his pride as a giant held him where he was.


    Looking down, the shivers down his back grew in intensity. The green-haired boy was no longer there. In that moment, a tingle ran through the giant''s skin before its eyes darted toward where the sense of danger wasing from.


    Looking at the area, the giant''s eyes subtly widened. There stood the boy, his previously green hair now an elegant white that flowed untamed. His clothing bore the evidence of his rapid movement, the edges of his coat fluttering with the remnants of his eleration.


    His eyes were closed and his expression was nk. The only thing he did was fix his gloves, as if it was some kind of tick.


    The gazes of the rest of the sapphire cores intensified as, for once, they got ready for battle.


    "You''re stronger than you look." The giantmented with a short burst ofughter. As if it was trying its best to hide the anxiety in its voice.


    "Your friends over there seemed to have thought they wouldn''t have to fight until they got to the town." Ss ignored the giant''s words and chuckled, his voice cascading through their beings like the echoes of death unfurling her wings to envelop them in her embrace


    "Well, you''re right. Somewhat right, at least...


    This won''t be a fight, nor will it be a battle." Ss paused, and world paused with him. The wind dared not howl, and the skies dared not rumble. Parting his lips onest time, Ss took a step forward.


    "From this point on…"


    It''s a massacre."


    A crimson-red aura, dense with the essence of pure bloodlust and the unspoken threat of imminent demise, unfurled from him. It rolled out in waves, tangible as mist, yet as forceful as a gale, washing over the assembled creatures in a suffocating tide.


    The beasts and monsters, gripped by an innate terror that wed at their instincts, found their hearts quaking. This was no mere intimidation; this was primal fear in its most raw form. The air thickened with Ss'' malice, and reality itself seemed to warp in response to his malevolent intent.


    The giant, standing tall amidst the horde, found his gaze drawn inexorably to the ground as the crimson aura enveloped them. There, phantasmal and haunting, thousands of eyes unfurled out of the ground and skies, each one shining in a cacophony of colors, merging and interlocking with the crimson mist to form a horrid dread. The sight was not real in the physical sense, but in the presence of Ss'' overwhelming bloodlust, it was all too vivid in the mind''s eye.


    The sapphire-cored creatures, under Ss'' thousand gazes uncontrobly shuddered. They knew it was the end for them. They knew that this would be their final nightmare. They knew that everything they ever worked for would end right then and there.


    The green, and now white-haired boy from before no longer resembled the human they had first confronted. His form wavered, his skin bubbling and breaking, morphing into a figure of eldritch nightmare. Eyes, unblinking and emotionless, emerged across his skin, each one staring into the depths of a creature''s soul, judging, condemning.


    Behind him, a pair of crooked, withered wings unfolded, their span casting a pall of darkness over thend. They were not the majestic appendages of angels nor the leathery vanes of demons, but something far more ancient and iprehensible—a sight that spoke of a being not bound by Gileanprehension.


    At that moment, Ss was no longer a merebatant in the eyes of those who faced him; he was the cold, impersonal force of annihtion personified as if he had stepped out of the collective nightmares of every creature present and into the stark, harsh light of their reality.


    In the presence of "Him", the world seemed to skew, reality-bending and twisting under the weight of his aura. As he stood there, the calm at the center of the unbound horror that had been unleashed onto this world, his emerald-green eyes pierced through the phantasmal chaos


    The illusion of carnage that sprawled before the creatures was not the only torment they suffered. With every second they dared to meet Ss''s unending gazes, their minds teetered precariously on the edge of an abyss. Madness beckoned them, begged them, cried at them, shrieked at them, wailed at them…


    Voices of the damned and the lost seemed to rise around them, a cacophony of madness trickling into their consciousness like a steady stream of scorchingva. These ravings began to echo in their skulls, a relentless assault on their sanity. The horrors they saw before them promised a simple, terrible truth: to close one''s eyes would be to fall into an endless void from which there was no awakening, to sumb to a nightmare from which there was no waking.


    And then, Ss moved, not as a man, but as a force of nature, his approach signaling the onset of the massacre he had promised, a cataclysm in human form,e to im the due of his bloodlust.