At exactly noon, Wei Huan finally dragged himself to the long-awaited "Line 96."
Near the finish line, the "Dark Beast Lords" had already completed every foundational structure to standard. Now, all of them were racing against time to upgrade their territories to Level Five.
For Wei Huan, that development spelled disaster. Once those territories reached Level Five, their borders would expand dramatically, and the number of nearby regions that could send reinforcements would multiply. When that happened, he might have to face not one or two fronts—but seven or eight at once.
Seven or eight Level Five fortresses attacking in concert—such a scene would be terrifying beyond imagination.
The Dark Beast Lords could already picture it: Wei Huan trapped in a tightening ring of their territories, surrounded on all sides, beaten into the ground without a chance to escape.
None of them even entertained the thought of retreat.
Among the lesser Dark beasts, there was no such concept to begin with. Even the imperial Mind Parasite Beasts, the royal-blooded kind, would obey the King's command to sacrifice themselves without resistance.
But the royal caste—those standing at the very top of the Dark beast food chain—were different. They judged combat strength, maneuvered through battle, and would even avoid fighting if they sensed inevitable defeat.
Back on the Fourth-Level Highway, one such royal had escaped unscathed, carrying away valuable intelligence about Wei Huan and retreating with a sizable host of Dark beasts.
That single act had set the stage for today's relentless pursuit.
Now, it was only a matter of moments before Wei Huan was dragged into the swamp of all-out war.
The most crucial detail was this: under the unending siege, Wei Huan had already used "Shaman's Blessing."
That meant the first wave of undead who had received the blessing would, in just two hours, fall into a twenty-four-hour period of weakness.
And there was more. Wei Huan had been relying heavily on Nether Flame Bombs—more than a thousand detonations so far. His reserves must be dwindling fast.
The Dark beast royals felt no small relief at that thought.
It was already noon. In the past two hours, Wei Huan had managed to advance only one percent along the route. At this rate, there was no possibility of breaking through before 1:34 p.m.
"My King," whispered a Mind Parasitic Beast hovering beside the Dark beast monarch. Its body was a haze of tangled nerves and translucent strands, pulsing faintly with psychic light. If one magnified its form a billionfold, it would appear as a labyrinth of coiling synapses, and those threads reached deep into the void, linking it to other Mind Parasitic Beasts scattered across the realm.
Within that vast neural web, every Dark beast was connected.
Battle intelligence streamed in from all directions, merging into a single point of truth. With the collective processing power of every Mind Parasitic Beast in this world, the resulting data was flawlessly precise—no less accurate than any human system.
This particular monarch was the one who had always remained neutral between the two warring royals: one who sought to advance, and one who chose to stay.
He was also the very same Dark Beast King who had successfully withdrawn from the Fourth-Level Highway with the intel on Wei Huan.
Now, his form shifted, taking on the likeness of an asura horse—only more grotesque. Sitting high upon his nest's throne, his eyes glimmered with ancient wisdom.
His name was "Lie", though higher Dark beasts knew him by his true title: King Lie.
King Lie did not immediately respond to the Mind Parasitic Beast's report. Instead, he sat in long, uneasy silence before finally reestablishing psychic contact with the two royal peers at his sides.
After relaying the full report, his voice echoed softly through the telepathic link. "This will be a gamble. In the final stretch, danger may strike—or it may not. The one who endures the longest, whose will remains unbroken, may claim the final victory. Or… we may fall into the humans' cunning trap. From here on, the choice is yours."
The royal who focused on miracle-building answered after a pause. "If you leave, I will go with you."
The other, who prioritized combat power, gave a scornful laugh. "Cowards. Can't you see he's already at his limit? If you want to run, go ahead. I'll take all the glory for myself."
The psychic conversation ended abruptly.
Mention of "glory" could silence even royals. Among the Dark beasts, glory was more than prestige—it was raw power. To earn the King's reward for merit meant receiving vast new territories and countless subordinates. Strength followed naturally.
There was no rivalry between the Dark beast King and his royal descendants. The King was chosen by fate itself—his dominion absolute, his will unchallengeable even by the royals.
But among the royals themselves, competition was constant. They would tear each other apart over a sliver of land, a fragment of merit.
Since the defeat on the ancient battlefield—when the Dark beasts suffered catastrophe and the Dark beast King launched a furious inquest—more than three months had passed.
During those months, these three royal Dark beasts had each gathered their elite forces, crafted countless tactical plans, and prepared this massive net of encirclement for today's Random Challenge.
Now, at last, the web had tightened. The decisive moment had arrived.
Even if the humans' every move carried a faint odor of conspiracy, the sunk cost of months of preparation was too heavy to ignore. Add to that the lure of glory, and even King Lie—the one who had always stayed neutral—chose silence.
After a long pause, he murmured, "We can wait a little longer. There's still a chance. But remember—if the situation turns, we must retreat. Do not let him drag us into his war."
"Understood," came the answer.
"Good."
The three Kings fell silent once more.
The Mind Parasitic Beasts continued their work, gathering and transmitting battlefield reports. "Just moments ago," one reported, "the humans destroyed three territories within eleven minutes. All three had already upgraded their walls and shields to Level Five."
Unease rippled through King Lie's mind. His urge to withdraw returned.
Caution had always been his nature. He hated risk. With his current development level, facing that human necromancer meant certain death.
Ten minutes later, another report arrived. "Three more territories destroyed."
King Lie rose abruptly from his throne, his four horse-legs stamping restlessly against the ground. His whip-like tail lashed the floor, cracking through the air in agitation.
He was about to issue the command to confirm the report—and perhaps abandon this doomed bid for glory altogether—when the Mind Parasitic Beast beside him spoke again.
"My King, the fourth wave of blessed undead has entered their weakness phase. This wave was the largest, numbering around six thousand, all used to breach the Level Five defenses. Altogether, twenty thousand of Wei Huan's undead have now fallen into weakness.
Wei Huan commands around sixty thousand undead in total, not counting the unquantifiable numbers of Facehuggers and Ghost Crows. Those two breeds have limited combat value."
The numbers calmed King Lie's nerves. His anxious energy ebbed away, replaced by cautious optimism.
He flicked his tail and turned toward the mouth of the cavern. From the throne hall, he could see his miracle statue—a feral beast resembling both tiger and panther, standing tall as a mountain and piercing the clouds.
That statue was the heart of his domain—the territorial miracle—granting a one-percent speed bonus to all Dark beasts within the world.
It was completed only yesterday, at staggering cost. Since then, King Lie had thrown himself into upgrading his territory's level. Yet even now, it had not reached Level Four.
Closing his eyes, then opening them again, he asked, "How long until we reach Level Four?"
"Three hours, eleven minutes, and twenty-one seconds," replied the Mind Parasitic Beast, precise as ever.
Three hours.
According to their original plan, once the miracle structure was finished, their collective strength would rise, allowing them to stall Wei Huan's advance. If he dared to charge the finish line, time would still be on their side. By then, their territories would have caught up—upgraded to the highest standard.
Three Level Five royal territories, plus one with Level Six infrastructure—they were confident that even in direct battle, they could crush Wei Huan.
But the human necromancer had chosen not to follow logic.
His unexpected maneuvers had thrown every plan into chaos.
King Lie was still stuck at Level Three, yet Wei Huan was already within three percent of reaching him.
It was a test of willpower now, more than strategy.
That human had already lost a third of his forces. Within an hour, half would be gone.
Facing an enemy reduced to half strength—this was a fleeting opportunity.
"Wait… just a bit longer," King Lie murmured. He could not let go of that fragile hope, nor could he suppress his own ambition. So he chose to wait once more.
And soon enough, events seemed to prove him right.
The Mind Parasitic Beasts reported that Wei Huan was advancing faster again—but this time, he was using "Bloodlust".
The "Shamanic Bloodlust Blessing" was well known among the Dark beasts.
Whenever humans reached the point of desperation, they invoked it. The surge of power it granted was terrifying, yes—but it also exposed their exhaustion.
Three minutes of fury, followed by over a month of recovery. After the bloodlust faded, a human fighter was like a gravely wounded patient—barely able to walk, much less fight.
Even if Wei Huan activated it for only a thousand undead at a time, once every few minutes, how long could he keep it up?
So when the Mind Parasitic Beast told King Lie that Wei Huan's distance had shrunk to less than three percent, the King's earlier panic no longer returned.
At this pace, the human might indeed reach him—but by then, he would be drenched in blood and drained of strength. Without that endless tide of undead to rely on, even a Level Three domain like Lie's would have nothing to fear.
And then came the greatest reassurance of all.
"Their demon," reported the Mind Parasitic Beast excitedly, "has also entered Bloodlust!"
King Lie's head snapped up. "Who? What demon?"
"A criminal-sequence demon—their strongest warrior. He's appeared in nearly every territorial battle along their route. Almost every Dark Beast Lord has fallen by his hand. His body is glowing red now, his combat power soaring—that is the Bloodlust state."
"Then kill him once he weakens!" King Lie snarled.
"Apologies, my King," the Mindbeast answered timidly. "He escaped… he had a kobold with him."
At that, King Lie's fury exploded. He turned on a massive kobold below the dais, his eyes blazing with wrath. The creature whimpered, its tail curling between its legs as it cowered into a trembling heap.
The Dark beasts had always been powerful. Once, they had crushed humanity's armies without effort, their victory in this civilization war nearly secured. But then, that one human had appeared—a Necromancer—and everything had changed.
He had seized the bones of fallen Dark beasts, harnessed their native powers, and turned them into weapons.
Since then, the war had turned into a nightmare.
And the kobolds' "teleportation ability" had made things worse still, giving the Dark beast royals the bitter sense of having lifted a stone only to smash their own feet.
King Lie stepped to the cavern's mouth once more, gazing up at the towering tiger-panther statue.
The miracle structure, a privilege of the royal caste, offered him no comfort now. Could a Level Three fortress truly hold against Wei Huan's remaining army?
"Do not falter, Lie."
A voice rang in his mind. It was the message of another royal—King Yong.
Yong's tone was calm and resolute. "I stand before you. If he wishes to harm you, he'll have to trample my corpse first.
And don't worry. I have a pseudo-divine hero. Once I reach Level Five, even a human war chariot will be easy prey."
The last words steadied King Lie's heart.
That was why their alliance had been arranged this way. Lie and the miracle-focused royal concentrated on technological advancement, while Yong pursued the path of war.
Among all Dark beast royals, only five possessed pseudo-divine heroes, and each one was a terror that could slay across ranks.
Yong's territory stood ahead of theirs. If the humans truly came, Yong would be the first to face them.
Lie began calculating silently. If battle truly broke out, what were his odds of escape?
His domain was ten kilometers from Yong's—far beyond the summoning range of the Necromancer's undead. For Wei Huan to drag him into battle, he would have to destroy Yong first.
Running the numbers in his head, Lie replied to Yong, "Understood. I'm counting on you."
And so they waited—stalling again and again.
Fortunately, the humans seemed to have reached their limit too.
Ever since the demon warrior had fallen into weakness and been carried back to the war chariot, the reports that once came every ten minutes had grown infrequent.
There had been no new updates for a long while now.
It seemed the humans had realized they could no longer stop the Dark beasts' ascent to Level Five. They had halted, resting in a safe zone for some time.
That discovery filled the three royals with both relief and regret.
Truly cunning humans. They must have calculated the boundaries of the safe zone long before they began their desperate push.
The Dark beasts sent out scouts, stationing their armies along the border of their territories. From there, they could see it clearly: the human chariot resting less than three kilometers away.
That patch of ground, no bigger than a small lake, was the only area not yet covered by Dark beast land.
Beyond that lay the sea—territory's end.
As long as the humans kept their vehicle afloat upon the water, they were untouchable—safe from any attack.
Infuriating.
Such a rare chance wasted. If they could have struck during the humans' weakness, their plan would already be complete.
Now, all they could do was wait for 1:34 p.m.
Once their territories reached Level Five, the last empty patch of ocean would fall under Dark beast control.
Then, the human war chariot—trapped within the overlap of five territories—would be annihilated.
They were doomed.
Time slipped by, minute after minute. More than an hour passed, leaving less than fifteen minutes before the final upgrades completed.
It was a time of absolute safety.
Wei Huan's chariot still sat motionless in that patch of open water, five thousand kilometers from the finish line. Even if his vehicle reached Level Six, he could never cross that distance in so little time.
He would not come.
King Lie's taut back muscles relaxed at last. He returned to his throne, lowering himself into a comfortable sprawl, already picturing the coming spectacle—the moment when the Dark beast territories rose to Level Five, and the humans died in agony.
To retreat now? Impossible.
The breach they had forced open earlier had long since healed. The territories had rejoined into one immense web. Soon, that single human chariot—no matter how strong—would be buried beneath an endless tide of Dark beast armies, ground into a heap of twisted scrap.
How laughable.
That human had slaughtered countless Dark beasts, raising their souls to create his undead legions. He had forced those very spirits to betray their kings.
Now he would suffer the same fate—consumed by the swarm he once commanded, dragged down and devoured until nothing remained but scattered chunks of blood and bone—
'Boom! Boom-boom-boom!'
A chain of thunderous detonations ripped across the distance.
King Lie jolted upright, eyes wide, staring toward the cavern mouth.
"What is that?"
The sound was wrong—too deep, too fierce.
It was the sound of war.
He leapt from the throne, charging to the cave entrance and staring into the horizon.
And what he saw made his heart seize in dread.
A tide of black clouds was rolling in from the edge of the territory, pressing down like the weight of the heavens themselves. Daylight dimmed as shadows poured over the land.
But when King Lie focused his gaze, he realized those were not clouds at all.
They were Ghost Crows—countless, shrieking, flickering between the real and the spectral.
The Ghost Crow was one of the lowest lifeforms in the Dark beast realm. They fed on carrion, their feathers greasy and foul-smelling, their cries rasping and sharp enough to scrape bone. They were thieves of nests, devourers of the young. Other than a keen sense of danger and the ability to fly, they possessed no merit whatsoever.
Even within the "Lord's Challenge," almost none had ever survived long enough to become a proper territorial unit.
Despised, unwanted, they had been cast out entirely from the Dark beast race—reduced to vermin that prowled the fringes of the world.
They were so disgusting that no Dark beast would eat them; their flesh was bitter and rotted. Yet because they multiplied too quickly and preyed on other species' young, the Dark beast Kings had long decreed: "whenever a Ghost Crow is seen, it must be slain."
To the royal bloodline, a Ghost Crow ranked lower than an ant.
And yet now, these worthless, banished creatures had returned—under the control of a human—and were revealing a horror no one had foreseen.
Their "Soul Screams" could paralyze Dark beasts of the same tier until death, and even those a tier higher would lose focus under their assault.
Worse still, they had somehow acquired the "void-skipping" ability once thought unique to the Flying Monkeys. Their movements blurred like teleportation.
Under the Necromancer's command, these Ghost Crows had become his perfect scouts. And at this very moment, through his unholy cunning, they were also his most devastating weapon.
The swarm pressed down upon the horizon, stopping just above King Lie's territory. Their shadows blotted the ground, thick and cold.
The defensive turrets ignored them completely; the Level Four shield beneath the crows shimmered without reaction, unable even to sense their presence.
King Lie could only watch, rage and disbelief contorting his face, as a single Ghost Crow detached from the mass and drifted lower.
It landed delicately upon the transparent dome of the shield and, with a gesture that felt like mockery, tapped its beak against the barrier.
The Level Four defense had no counter-attack function. It was merely a shell.
And that was all it took.
With a single, arrogant peck, the Necromancer had pulled King Lie into battle state.
"Kill it!" Lie roared. His voice shook the cavern walls.
A turret responded at once, its barrel swinging up and locking onto the tiny black shape.
'Flash!'
The projectile struck true.
"Caw—!"
The crow gave one sharp, ragged scream before bursting into black mist.
But even as its body dissolved, the swarm above remained—those that had not attacked, those still half in the spirit world, immune to every weapon the fortress possessed.
Lie's first instinct was to flee. He hurled his will toward the system's exit command—only to be met by the cold reply:
"You are in combat. Departure unavailable."
A chill rolled down his spine, spreading like icewater through his veins. Sweat began to bead and slide down his flanks. His heart hammered furiously, a drumbeat of panic.
For a moment his mind went white. Then thought returned in a tangle of terror.
He swung his head toward the Mind Parasitic Beast, his eyes glowing with murderous fury. "What did he say? What does King Yong report?"
The Mind beast faltered. It had not expected this.
There was no longer any doubt—there could be only one Necromancer in this world.
If the Ghost Crows were here, then that human was nearby.
Impossible.
How could he have come so far so fast?
To a creature built for logic and intelligence gathering, the realization was madness. Its mind spiraled on one phrase—'impossible, impossible.'
What had those humans done? How had they slipped through every eye and snare?
If the one here was truly the Necromancer, then what was that chariot still floating in the lake on Line 97?
It could not be an illusion; the Mindbeast's vision had never left that vehicle. It was real. It was still there.
But as the thought repeated—'real, yes, it's real'—data began to surface, drawn from the six connected Mind Parasitic Beasts. Together they performed a desperate computation.
The result drove them to despair.
During the humans' furious advance, in their constant rush to attack the next territory, the Mindbeasts had repeatedly shifted their focus forward, abandoning the territories already fallen. Every ounce of mental power had been devoted to setting traps ahead, shaving off a few hundred more undead each time.
The Dark beasts' strategy had always been like that: they cared nothing for single battles or lost cities. As long as the royal line survived, the species endured. Every plan, every sacrifice, was made for final victory.
But this time, the humans had understood that. They had exploited it.
Through misdirection and cunning, they had confused the Mindbeasts' calculations—and at some moment amid the chaos, the true chariot had slipped away.
It had left long before anyone noticed. It had circled around, passing unseen through the gaps in surveillance, vanishing as if it had become invisible.
What remained in the lake could only be a decoy.
And just as the realization struck, the Mindbeast saw, through another's borrowed eyes, a figure moving inside that distant vehicle.
A fat man leaned out the driver's window.
He raised his hand and made a gesture that even a Dark beast would recognize as an insult.
Then, trembling—whether from excitement or terror—he lifted something glittering in his palm.
Before their watching eyes, he snapped the "Return Sigil" in half.
Both the man and the vehicle vanished from the Challenge world.
At that exact instant—
'Boom!'
'Boom-boom-boom!'
Explosions erupted once more from the far horizon.
The Mind Parasitic Beast's black mist quivered with fear. It dared not look at its King.
"So…" King Lie's voice was low, the sound of thunder buried in a storm. He bent down until his monstrous face loomed inches from the Mindbeast. "What happened, hmm?"
The creature trembled. Under the weight of royal pressure, it could no longer hide the truth.
"My… my King," it whispered, voice cracking like brittle glass, "the Necromancer—he's here."