The Dawn of the New World

Tasgall and the rest looked at each other, nodding in confirmation.

After taking in a few deep breaths to circulate their internal energies and making sure their physical conditions were as good as they could be, they leapt down one by one entering the bloody fray that had yet to reach its peak.

With the commotion, all of the overseeing Ether Beasts 'woke' up. They growled, hissed, and shrieked at each other, using some form of communication that no one else could understand.

But it only took a few seconds for the communications to break down and the mutated toad beast, the smelly worm beast, and the canine beast jumped to their respective feet (if they had any) preparing to attack.

Only the humanoid beast was still relatively calm while the bird beast that had been making the most noise until now had suddenly gone quiet.

The four pairs of pitch-black eyes adorning either side of its 30-meter long beak swiveled left and right independent to one another, keeping a watchful eye on everything that was happening below.

Tasgall, Jarek, Velkjo and Lei ducked and dodged between most of the rampaging beasts, reaching Burak in a couple of minutes who was closest to them. Together they moved towards Isak, finding him engaged in a fight with several 3-4 meter long spiked grey worms.

Burak slapped Tasgall's back and gestured towards the right side, "Go see what's taking Hao Xuan so long," while he jumped to Isak's aid along with Jarek.

Tasgall was a close-range fighter and one of the most experienced warriors in their generation so he was the best suited of all of them for such a task. Using his superior reflexes and nerves of steel that only someone that has been through numerous fights could have, he steered in and out of various fights between the beasts and managed to reach the right-most side in a little over 10 minutes.

He moved about some more trying his best to look for Hao Xuan amidst all the bloodshed but it was easier said than done. He couldn't stand out too much so as not to draw attention to himself, nor could he just shout out his name without a tongue, so all he could do was continue searching for him one small human silhouette amongst a literal forest of towering monsters and deadly beasts.

What Tasgall failed to notice was the pair of abyssal eyes that were completely locked onto him from above. One pair was on him, one on Burak and the rest, one on the humanoid ether beast and the other on a figure a few hundred meters to the front.

This figure obviously belonged to Hao Xuan.

Trying to get away from the charging rhinoceros beast Hao Xuan ended up going too far into the territory of the canine beasts and was now surrounded by a pack of eight demonic beasts.

Each of them had various colored glowing gemstones embedded within their scorched hides. They didn't have any fur, only bony armor-like outgrowths in and around all the sensitive areas like below the neck and around the head.

They were a little bigger at 1.5-2 meters each, obviously much smarter, and much MUCH stronger than most of the other beasts nearby. No matter how hard Hao Xuan tried to get rid of them they never fell for his tricks.

The fastest among them followed him closely and only attacked when all the others surrounded Hao Xuan from all sides.

*Grrrrr*

Maintaining a distance of 10 meters, they circled around him baring their razor-sharp claws and teeth, drooling as they went.

Their pupils were dyed red, an obvious sign of their bloodthirsty nature but unlike all the other beasts in the surroundings, they did not lose their rationality and still maintained some level-headedness even in this situation.

Hao Xuan could feel their undulating auras crashing against his skin. Several of them reached the maximum level a demonic beast could reach before ascending to the Ether beast realm. All they needed was to cultivate a law at which they would readily ascend.

His natural instincts were firing at full force, warning him of an impending doom if he did not take action.

"ARGH!" Hao Xuan suddenly shot forward towards the weakest of the bunch but even with his supreme speed he still wasn't faster than them. The entire circle moved with him, making his efforts useless.

"Come on, come fight me!" he barked, sounding more like a beast speaking a human language than the other way around.