0108 Nightfall

On the other side of the battlefield, Huanluo and Li Yi were not faring well either. After the prolonged engagement, Huanluo's stamina was clearly beginning to lag behind the berserk magical beasts; even his swordplay had become noticeably slower. The newly acquired blade, after prolonged abuse against the beasts' rock-hard hides, was starting to show signs of failing him. The wounds on Huanluo's body throbbed with searing pain, crackling like strings of firecrackers under the constant strain, and wave after endless wave of frenzied beasts wearing him down in turn made Huanluo utterly exhausted.

Li Yi's situation was even worse. To relieve the pressure on the weary Huanluo, he had led barely thirty thousand soldiers to meet an enemy force of twenty thousand magical beasts that had been preparing for this for a long time. The fact that he outnumbered the beasts by merely ten thousand meant Li Yi had lost nearly all of humanity's one advantage against magical beasts. Yet he could only grit his teeth and endure, all the while wearing a composed expression on his face so as not to shake the morale of his troops.

Sang Qing, meanwhile, was fully displaying the shortcomings of a civil official. His strength failing, he had been completely swept along by the enemy's rhythm of attack, able only to offer desperate, struggling counterstrikes. His body was now covered in wounds, and the only reason he had not yet fallen was that the man's spirit was strong enough and his perseverance firm enough.

But the consequences of this were his alone to bear—the army's morale was steady, yes, but the casualties were still mounting, the path of retreat had been sealed off, and on top of it all, he could not show the slightest sign of weakness. It was truly maddening.

Watching the sun slowly, slowly sink lower, Li Yi's heart sank right along with it. No matter how powerful human soldiers were, they could not escape the limits of being human. The dark, shadowy forest environment would shrink their field of vision to almost nothing, but the magical beasts would not feel any sense of strangeness toward a forest they had known intimately for centuries, just because night had fallen.

There was still a very long stretch of time before dawn, and Li Yi felt a vague sense of foreboding in his heart.

If I were the beast commander, I would definitely do something while it's dark.

That was what Li Yi thought to himself, but he truly had no idea what the beast commander's battle plan was. Perhaps they didn't even need a plan—all they had to do was, the moment darkness descended, have every last one of them pounce upon the human soldiers who hadn't yet managed to adjust their eyes to the night.

But bad news always arrives faster than anything else, especially when you're down on your luck.

Just as darkness was about to fall, Lance, the effective damage-dealer among the human forces, was ambushed by the beasts while rescuing So-and-So, and his life hung by a thread. So-and-So, another of the army's early-stage damage-dealers, suddenly went berserk the instant she saw Lance being attacked. With an explosive eruption of fighting spirit, she reached Lance's side in the blink of an eye (so quickly that no one even saw how she got there). She single-handedly slaughtered the gold-clawed leopard in one strike, then, standing alone against the electric red behemoth and the gale beast, absolutely commanded the scene.

Yet just as the onlookers were letting out a sigh of relief, the situation took a sudden turn for the worse—So-and-So was surrounded and attacked by four beasts at once, left completely unable to defend herself. And to make matters worse, there was no one nearby who could come to her rescue in time.

Sang Qing's path was blocked by beasts. Xia Kui, her magical power depleted, could only hang her head helplessly. Li Yi and Huanluo, trapped deep in their own battles and unable to free themselves, could only watch in frantic frustration.

And then, So-and-So's figure was swiftly swallowed up, without her even having time to let out a single cry.

Sang Qing's eyes turned blood-red. He screamed madly, trying to charge in the direction of So-and-So and Lance, but the water elemental beast he was locked in combat with was even more crazed than he was. It completely ignored the attacks from everyone around it, flapped its little fin-like wings, and lunged straight at Sang Qing. Opening its huge maw wide, it forcibly condensed a barrier of ice to block Sang Qing's path. By now, Sang Qing's mind had been completely burned away by fury. He cast aside his cracked longsword, drew out the life-saving dagger he always kept on his person, and charged headlong at the water elemental beast.

Li Yi and Huanluo also keenly noticed the commotion around So-and-So. Huanluo froze for a moment, and in that instant was struck by a whip of fire from his opponent, sending him flying in a straight line. A stream of blood scattered along his trajectory in the wind. His right arm, holding the sword, was scorched in an instant, and he could not help but loosen his grip. The longsword, already chipped and cracked, clattered to the ground from midair with a shrill sound, then was casually bitten in two by some nameless beast.

In that single moment, the only pillars left on the battlefield were Li Yi and Xia Kui.

Xia Kui stood rooted to the spot, her face deathly pale, utterly unable to believe that a single moment of hesitation on her part had sent the stable battle situation spiraling into chaos. Her eyes went vacant, her lips parted slightly as if she wanted to say something, but not a single word escaped her. She looked as though she might collapse at any moment. The soldiers surrounding her, mistaking her condition for magical exhaustion, closed in even tighter to protect the fragile Xia Kui.

And with that, Li Yi's situation became even more perilous.

That was not even to mention the fact that the beast commander's venomous, sinister gaze, which had previously had so many targets to observe, could now lock onto Li Yi alone.

Night was about to fall.