Chapter 2690: Beast Empire
"Apex, you're finally here," the gentle voice of the Celestial Ember Ancestor echoed before she frowned. "I can smell beast blood on you."
"And what of it, old hag?"
BANG!
Apex was sent flying so fast that the entire front layer of his skin was burnt off from the initial impact, while the back was torn away by the sheer flight speed of his backward ascent.
BOOM!
He collided in a mountain range that quickly erupted into a pillar of flames.
The gentle Celestial Ember Ancestor rose to her full height, her wings opening up wide and flapping with a world-ending majesty. Embers in the shape of feathers descended from the skies in a delicate rain, and yet whenever they touched an object, whether organic or inorganic, they would erupt into a rain of undeniable flames.
"Calm your fury, Nova," a voice that was just as gentle as the Ancestor Celestial Ember's own echoed, but this time it came from a creature that was somehow even more majestic. Despite this, from its voice, it was also clear that it was a male.
If Leonel was present, the first thought that would roar to the forefront of his mind was: Dragon. But the more you looked, the more... different the creature seemed.
It did have four limbs, it did have a pair of wings that could blot out the skies, and when it hummed the world seemed to listen to it as though it was truly speaking in the mythology's strongest magic... Dragon Tongue.
However, this was where the comparisons seemed to end.
Rather than scales, this creature seemed to have a leathery, white hide. Beneath the sunlight, it would shimmer with subtle hues of reflective blues and reds that could be mistaken for violets. If the sun lit it just right, the ridges and crevices of the tough hide would separate into portions that looked like crystal lamented scales...
But scales they were not.
Upon the head of the creature, there were a set of nine horns, two of which majestically curled into the skies while the others just acted as accessories to their dominance. And yet, upon the head of any other creature, the remaining sixteen horns would have a place in their own mythology.
The chin of the beast was mighty, and upon it a flowing white beard hung, accentuating its age. But those reflective blue eyes, that seemed to hold an exploding nebula within, showed that in exchange for time's coil, there was endless wisdom to be garnered.
This beast was an Ancestor of the Celestial Storm race, a monster incarnate despite his gentle gaze. A single breath of his could bring the end of a world.
This Ancestor in particular was known as Astral Winds.
As he spoke to calm Nova down, he cast a glance toward another of their companions, a mighty tiger, a member of the White Spectral Tiger Race... not one of their descendants, but a true Demi-God of their Bloodline.
The fury in the Ancestor White Spectral Tiger was far greater than even Nova's own. Which of them couldn't sense that it was the descendants of their race that the so-called "Apex" had been feasting on? Had Nova not acted first, Nebulafrost would have outright killed him, and right now...
That wasn't something any of them could afford to do.
When they had sent Apex down to the Mortal Races, they had known that there was a high chance of this happening. That was why they did it in the first place, it was easier to swallow the sacrifice if it was done to lesser beasts...
But that didn't mean that they liked it.
Even so, Astral Winds was very thankful to Nova for her quick thinking. If not for her, they might have gone down a road of no return and all of this would have been for naught.
Apex climbed out of the pillar of fire. Walking back toward them, laughing into the skies, he truly looked no different from a zombie.
Charred flesh hung from his bones, what skin was left flapping in the wind as though a piece of fabric rather than a person's flesh. His bone was clearly visible in most places, his organs half hanging out, half functioning normally.
Even so, he walked as though nothing had happened, still laughing into the skies. And the worst part of it all was that with every step he took, illusory crimson tattoos that hung around him began to converge one after another, healing him so quickly that it almost looked like time was reversing.
By the time he stood beneath the four hulking beasts, he was back to normal as though nothing at all had happened, his laughter still echoing.
Of course, there was a fourth beast among them, the final pillar of the so-called Beast Empire... or so it seemed.
However, this fourth beast was hard to call a beast at all. It wasn't in the shape of any known creature, but it was rather a mountain. This wasn't a description of its size or anything else but its true appearance.
Its head was unseen, the mountain hiding the scope of the four, leathery legs that hung beneath it. It was a creature that was more a force of nature than a living being itself.
It had yet to speak a single word, but if one paid close attention, it would be possible to see that it didn't chill beneath Astral Wind's words, nor did its surroundings heat up beneath Nova's rampage. In fact, the space around it didn't even tremble beneath Nebulafrost's whimpering and whining space either.
This was a creature that seemed capable of stabilizing Existence itself, a mighty beast that withstood the test of time and despite Astral Wind's wisdom, seemed to outshine him in that facet as well...
They were known as the Celestial Terra Race... but that was only a name they had taken up recently due to unknown reasons.
Once, in a lofty past long since gone...
They were known as the Primordial Terrors.