Translator: AnubisTL
The warlord's strength lay in enhancing his warriors, not in personally facing danger, even though he was far stronger than any ordinary soldier.
This was understandable.
While it might seem like cowardice, his strategic value from the rear far outweighed any direct combat contributions.
Meanwhile,
Faced with a swarm of charging hyena warriors, Priest Rotclaw's expression twisted with fury and alarm. He slammed his bone staff into the ground.
"Backsliders shall suffer the Eternal Pustule Punishment!"
Black blood seeped from his orifices, transforming into countless cursed brands that landed on the hyena warriors. Their fur fell away, and festering sores erupted across their bodies.
But these berserk warriors felt no pain, and their weakening bodies couldn't halt their advance.
They surged forward like a tidal wave.
The first hyena-man lunged, its jaws snapping at Rotclaw's neck, only to have its throat crushed by a hyena guard with lightning speed.
More claws followed relentlessly, yet none could breach the hyena guards' defenses in the brief time they had.
The two hyena guards had once been the most valiant warriors, further empowered by ritualistic enhancements.
Activating their battle state, the hyena guards' bodies swelled, their height reaching a towering three meters—even taller and more ferocious than the hyena warriors berserked by the warlord's frenzy.
The hyena guards, silent and unwavering, repelled wave after wave of their attacking kin.
Sharp blades and claws tore through their fur and skin, leaving bloody gashes that instantly regenerated. Like two unkillable monsters, they withstood the berserked hyena warriors' relentless assault.
Protected by the hyena guards, the priest retreated while fighting, waving his bone staff and chanting prayers at lightning speed, channeling his magic.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
Two dragon scales spun through the air, piercing the rain-soaked battlefield with pinpoint accuracy. They struck the hyena guards, detonating in bursts of flaming dragon breath that sent the guards flying, their bodies torn apart, and disrupting the priest's spellcasting.
Seizing the opportunity, the berserked hyena warriors swarmed forward, surrounding the priest and tearing him to shreds with their blades and claws.
The frail priest, stripped of his guards and cornered at close range, offered little resistance. His dying pleas to the divine spirit went unanswered, his prayers for protection ignored.
Garos watched the scene unfold in silent contemplation.
The divine spirit's perception was spread across countless worlds, making it impossible to attend to every detail.
Unless it was a top-tier priest of utmost importance, the spirit wouldn't bother investigating the cause of death or hunting down the killer. In most cases, it would simply cast a casual curse to kill the creature that had slain the priest—and even that was a rare occurrence.
"I wonder what a divine spirit's curse feels like."
Recently, Garos had noticed his fire blessing gradually losing its effectiveness. The reduction in his fire resistance had become increasingly sluggish, and his fire resistance enhancement had slowed to a crawl.
The reason, he suspected, was that his curse resistance was also improving, slowly rendering the blessing ineffective.
He wondered: if he deliberately provoked a divine spirit by hunting down its priests to obtain its curse, could it evolve into an alternative form of blessing?
Such a blessing would undoubtedly be a thousand times more powerful than the serpent dragon's blessing.
But this was just wishful thinking.
The risk was far too great. A divine spirit's curse might kill him outright, leaving no chance for adaptation.
Suddenly, Garos narrowed his eyes and glanced to his right.
Amidst rustling sounds, fragmented limbs began to attract each other, coalescing into a grotesque mass.
Under Garos's watchful gaze, the two hyena guards, blasted apart by the explosion, slowly rose to their feet.
Their bodies were covered in charred, bloody wounds, crisscrossed with cracks like shattered porcelain. Yet, regardless of the severity of their injuries, the wounds visibly healed and stitched themselves back together at an astonishing rate.
"Impressive regeneration," Garos murmured, shaking his dragon scales.
He wondered how many explosive scales it would take to completely obliterate the hyena guards, or whether even if he hacked them into minced meat with his dragon wing blades, they would still regenerate.
Just how tenacious was the life force of these monsters, transformed through sacrifices to divine spirits?
The hyena guards remained silent, their flesh writhing with worm-like tendrils. They turned their heads, their eyes locking onto the dragonkind who had wounded them earlier.
Showing no fear, their mangled, regenerating bodies lurched into motion. They took long, swift strides, charging toward Garos with astonishing speed.
"They're drawn to my hatred," Garos observed, his gaze fixed on the two hyena guards. He didn't take flight.
With deliberate slowness, he flexed his dragon wings. The razor-sharp wing bones gleamed with a frigid light in the fine rain, each raindrop that struck them splitting in two before shattering into mist.
"Stop!"
Warchief Bloodtooth glared fiercely at the hyena guards who were about to attack Garos and roared, "The priest is dead! As leader of the Redeye Clan, I command you to submit to the dragon lord!"
Two hyena guards, who had been charging forward, suddenly collapsed to their knees before Garos. They remained silent and expressionless, like two living statues.
"Dragon lord," Bloodtooth said, his fierce expression instantly shifting to obsequious flattery, "with the priest gone, the hyena guards will now pledge their loyalty to the clan leader. They are now your familiars, your servants. I beg you to spare their lives."
Garos stared at Bloodtooth, his face unreadable.
"Are you teaching me how to rule?" Garos asked.
"Please forgive my unintentional presumption," Bloodtooth hastily replied.
Garos turned his gaze to the kneeling hyena guards.
The hyena guards were more loyal to the clan leader—Bloodtooth himself. If Bloodtooth ordered them to submit to Garos, they would kneel silently. If he ordered them to attack Garos, they would obey without hesitation.
This was typical.
My subordinates' subordinates were not my subordinates.
Among the dragonkind's chosen, dragons primarily focused on controlling and managing the chosen leaders, not every individual creature. Even adult dragons with sufficient vital essence and mastery of dragon blood transformation could only transform the leaders into dragon blood creatures, securing their absolute loyalty.
As for the chosen below the leaders,
they were better managed by the leaders themselves, while the dragons oversaw and commanded the leaders.
Of course,
the hyena guard were an exception.
These monsters, created by priests, lacked independent thought, acting like marionettes. They were even less intelligent than the ferocious beasts and demonic creatures of the wilderness, capable only of obeying their creator's commands. When their creator priest died, they would unconditionally obey the clan leader's orders.
Ordinary familiars understood that the dragon lord was a higher, more powerful being than their own leader.
Even if their leader ordered them to rebel, they rarely dared to defy.
Take the hyena-men here, for example.
They were closer to Warchief Bloodtooth, but if he ordered them to attack Garos now, not a single hyena-man would obey. After all, they were intelligent creatures, even if they rarely thought for themselves. They understood the basic principle of self-preservation and had no intention of throwing their lives away.
The two hyena guards knelt and stopped moving.
Should I spare them?
No, better not.
They were ultimately unstable elements, and there was no need to keep them around.
Garos strode forward with measured steps, then suddenly raised his dragon claw and struck the hyena guards.
Splat! Splat!
Under his terrifying and overwhelming power, the two hyena guards, caught without evasion or defense, were instantly reduced to radiating sprays of gore.
To Garos's surprise, the gore continued to writhe, attempting to coalesce into humanoid forms.
"Such formidable vitality," he murmured.
"And these are just low-level hyena guards."
"If it were the legendary Evil Dragon Guard, and they reached the level of ancient dragons, who could possibly defeat them?"
A flicker of apprehension crossed Garos's face. He immediately unleashed a torrent of flaming dragon breath, engulfing the roughly formed hyena-men and reducing them to lifeless ash, finally ensuring their complete annihilation.
Warchief Bloodtooth watched the scene unfold. Though pained by the deaths of the two hyena guards, he made no move to intervene.
Garos had ignored his advice and brutally slaughtered the hyena guards.
This didn't displease Warchief Bloodtooth; on the contrary, it made him even more devoted.
Look at that domineering, forceful, and formidable dragon lord! Only such a dragon is worthy of my loyalty and service!
Warchief Bloodtooth's tail wagged so vigorously it nearly snapped off.
Hyena-men had always respected power over virtue. They reveled in the "domineering CEO" style of dragonkind.
If Garos had heeded his advice and spared the hyena guards, Warchief Bloodtooth would have seen him as easily manipulated, leading to more "unintentional transgressions" as they tested his boundaries.
This was their nature, and even the absolute loyalty gained through dragon blood transformation couldn't eradicate it.
Loyalty didn't mean they wouldn't crave higher status or demand greater benefits.
In his previous life, Garos had owned a golden-and-white border collie. The dog constantly schemed, probing his master's limits, oblivious to the fact that every trick was transparent.
Hyena-men were no different.
Garos knew exactly how to intimidate these monster clans rooted in the wilderness.
(End of the Chapter)
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