Chapter 77: 1st Battle

Alex was in his deep underground lab as he looked through a magic crystal and displayed data of what was happening in the rest of the world. There was news from the Elf Forest to the borders of the Beast territory.

"Hmmm~ so four years earlier. The Beast Emperor has awoken." Alex wasn't surprised by this since it was something he had prepared for. Yet that didn't mean that it wasn't a dangerous situation. Any calculations that he made showed that the best chance the humans had was to run the hell away from the continent and find some uninhabited island to live on. 

Hundreds of millions of casualties would happen and humanity could face almost destruction even in the best of the situations he could calculate. 

Beasts had already gotten the boost to their stats due to someone in their race surpassing the Legendary rank. That Boost would last 10,000 years. Though the Boost had been interrupted due to the sealing of the Beast Emperor in the past, there were still 8000 years left in the Boost. 

It was a major boost too, initially, beats were already more powerful than humans physically even if they were in the same Rank, yet now they became overwhelmingly strong. Some Beasts probably can even fight above their level.

The humans are divided, the Beasts have banded together into one due to the Beast Emperor who can even give them orders from half a continent away due to the new skills he got.

Also from the game, Julie had still been the Headmistress of the Magic Academy who was at the forefront of the fight. Now not only wasn't she here to help, but neither were the players. Humans would look after their interests even till the end, even though the beasts already have started acting irrational and attacking humans. It will take humans months before they even recognize that something was wrong.

"This is troublesome," Alex complained, the speed at which he made homunculus wouldn't be able to make an army till the Beast Emperor was at his doorstep. 

"Welp, I could use the human sacrifices around the continent to empower my spells? Could that work?"

A Blood Mage could use death and blood to empower their spells, and a continent full of humans as sacrifice could even make troubles for the gods and give trouble in the divine realms. 

But could they strike the Beast Emperor? Even if it did, the beast will continue to get stronger as time passes, at least at this time the creature would be weak as it just woke and hadn't eaten or drank anything for two thousand years. So the Beast Emperor's body would be weak.

If Alex went around the continent massacring villages and cities to empower his spell, he could kill the Beast Emperor if he went to the creature's dwelling. But not only would that make him an enemy of humanity, but it could also fail. Plus Alex didn't wanna sacrifice himself for the people he didn't care about.

None of the plans he could come up with, none of them could work. Even the ones who had a chance required Alex to sacrifice himself.

As even with all of his intelligence, this was the thing, Alex couldn't do anything against absolute power. Plus his enemy wouldn't stay stagnant, he had broken through the bottleneck and now could progress again and get stronger.

If he had another four years he might have come up with something, but it seemed like this was the end of it. Thousands of scenarios played in Alex's mind, but each of them ended in disaster.

In the end, Alex decided to not worry too much and instead made the choice to at first use this war that was about to happen for his own interests and power. First and foremost was to create housing for the soon to come refugees.

…

Two hours later he went outside of his lab, having come up with some plans on what to do in the future. But as he went out of his lab, he saw Ya Xiao waiting outside of the door for him. The young man was now eleven years old and quite tall for his age, his dark blonde hair and dull blue eyes shone with an intense light. Anyone who looked at him would feel like they needed to bow down.

[An Mighty Emperor's Aura Skill (Passive) is trying to affect you.]

[Your intelligence and Mana are too high to fall under such effect]

"Do you need something?" Asked Alex, ignoring the game interface notifying him about what had happened. "I am a busy guy."

"I need a hydra's eye, dragon scale, and a wyvern's heart." Xiao requested.

Alex handed over a golden card and nodded. "This gives you the authority to enter my treasure room. Should have all the ingredients you need in there."

Ya Xiao was shocked. 'He didn't even ask?!'

The young man looked at his brother-in-law's back as the Legendary Mage walked away. "Maybe he isn't as bad as I thought."

Alex, on the other hand, smiled maliciously internally. He had to try hard to hold in his chuckles so Ya Xiao didn't notice anything too strange. 

This young man could be quite a good weapon once he grew up. Though he had to be careful as this could turn into a double-edged sword.

'Welp, better go and prepare for the war casualties. Also, get some speeches ready for the orphan children and convince them to become loyal to me.' Contemplated Alex as he smiled in anticipation. He hoped some talented or unusual people would join him this time.

But by now, he had to start making those housings for the people. Alex summoned up his status page to look at any changes in it.

———————————

Name: Alex

Race: Night Crawler (not transformed)

LVL 23 

Main Class: 

[Mage Lvl 5/5]

[Blood Mage Lvl 10/10]

[Soul Mage Lvl 8/15]

Life Class:

[Mythical Item Maker Lvl 25/25]

Experience: 45,125,267

HP 100/100

MP 17,000/20,000

SP 10,000/10,000

•Attributes:

Strength – 10 (22)

Agility – 10 (19)

Constitution – 10 (24)

Intelligence – 37

Wisdom – 15

Charisma – 19

Unused Stat Points: 0

Potential Points: 46

———————————

Night Crawler, a race variant that was similar to the Vampire Race. Though their shadow abilities are stronger and the Monster Form gave Alex a huge physical boost once transformed. 

This would have been discovered in the future by Camilla as she too would experiment with homunculus in the future that he remembered from the Game. But Alex did it first and even transformed himself into it. 

Since he still had a human form, it didn't change things that much. Plus being human wasn't all that great in this world, especially when the whole race would be on the brink of extinction by the Beast Emperor.

Alex wondered if in the worst-case scenario he could enter his monster form and join the enemy's side?

…

Days passed, and many beasts started acting strangely. Simple cows were killing their owners and amongst them, some evolved into Minotaurs, a top-class monster. Villages fell one after the other, especially ones that had a lot of animals. Now normally, no one would care for villages falling, after all, there were just poor farmers and nobody cared, especially the nobles.

The Reach Kingdom was the first to act as they bought slurps of food from all over the Human Continent. They even offered top prices, and no one knew what the Merchant Union was up to… until all the farms got destroyed and a food shortage was expected to start soon.

Still, though the Holy Kingdom didn't suffer too much as the Goddess of Agriculture blessed their lands with a big yield. But the Wayne Kingdom and the Paraseon Kingdom suffered the most. Especially the latter since it was right at the border of the Beast Lands.

The Paraseon Kingdom didn't need to worry about food shortages. Because they had a bigger problem in their hands. Out of the Lands of Beasts, a monster army had been gathering.

But the humans hadn't been idle, especially in the borders. William 'The Great' was a Noble from the divided Paraseon Kingdom whose Royal Family had been killed by the (ex) Headmistress of the Magic Academy. So the Kindom itself had been separated into states, each controlled by its local lord. Usually, there would be war amongst them, and it had been so after the disappearance of Headmistress Julie. 

But recently, due to the support from the Dark Mage, William 'The Great' had become a leading figure within the nobles and even raised an army of 30,000 together with his allies to defend against the beast invasion. 

This army had been gathered to show everyone how he could handle crisis and after this William hoped that it would earn the seat of a King. 

The soldiers had set up camp at the border, just outside of the Beast Forest. This way they had a clear sight of any enemy that might be coming.

William was a middle-aged Mage who had reached Rank 3 but didn't have the talent, nor the motivation to go further. Yet he had inherited his Duke Household and rose to power. Mages of even Rank 4 had decided to work for him due to the riches he could offer.

Even though his magic talent was not that high, nor was his ambition for power, even his looks were considered dull. Yet William had the ambition to become a King and have his family become Royalty. Plus he had even thought of countermeasures against future dumb descendants that could ruin his family, this way he wouldn't end up like the Human Emperor's royal descendants.

He felt especially confident in this campaign as the mysterious Dark Mage, a Legendary Rank Magician had decided to help him.

Currently, they were both in a lavish big tent, discussing strategies for the future. The Dark Mage was wearing a dark robe that even his face in shadows, so no one knew how the man even looked or what his age was.

They say down on an empty table and William said. "We have been here for a week, shouldn't we attack?"

"No." Said the Dark Mage in a raspy voice. "Attacking now would lead to ruin. My Legendary Rank Ability, <Eyes of Dark Endings> have shown that if you attack the Beast Forest. We would all end up dead."

William nodded, he too knew about <Eyes of Dark Endings>. Legendary Spells that got every stage after entering Legendary Rank, not all of them were attacks. 

Mages by nature weren't the kind who won battles because they could shoot out a bigger beam of fire. No, a battle with a Mage was also an intellectual battle, traps, and much more. 

Eyes of Dark Endings is an ability that allowed the Dark Mage to see if three of his decisions in a day would lead to something not beneficial for him. It was a limited Future Reading ability, quite strong even for Legendary Ranks. Because the best battles are those which aren't even fought to begin with. 

This was an ability the Dark Mage had been born with, and at Rank 4 he had been able to use it once a month. But now, he could use it quite a lot in comparison and created scenarios where he wouldn't lose even in an impossible battle.

"Excuse me, m'lords!" A guard suddenly came in, breathing heavily. "There have been sightings of a humanoid beast coming towards the camp."

William was about to answer when suddenly the Dark Mage hurriedly created a barrier around himself and William.

The guard's body swelled up, he looked around in pain and confusion.

BOOOOOOOM!!!

A huge explosion rocked the tent, obliterating everything within the tent and around it. Even the soldiers standing guard outside of the tent were obliterated.

The Dark Mage let down the barrier and looked at the scorched ground around. "This is the same power that an Exploding Potato Monster would have. But this… Rank 4? Never heard of a monster reach that high."

"T -This was used by the monsters?!" William was frozen in terror. Beasts didn't have intelligence, that was why humans could win against them. "They are using strategies!!"

"It seems so." The Dark Mage confirmed calmly. Unlike his employer, the Legendary Dark Mage was calm for the whole situation.

Though that was only on the outside because internally he was scared too. Because as he looked on the ground, what looked like a random blood splatter was a message written in blood. It was in the ancient language, so unless it's a well-studied Mage, then they wouldn't know.

'This is a warning and a threat.' Concluded the Dark Mage. He used his <Eyes of Dark Endings> and soon his world turned dark like always, he needed to know which future route would be the safest.

But at that moment as he looked into the future, he saw a giant eye appear in front of the Dark Mage and stopped him from looking 

any further.

"You should turn back," said a voice around him. "Next time you try and look into my future, I will squash you like a bug."

Immediately the Dark Mage was brought back to his senses. He already knew who had looked at him, and a sense of absolute despair filled him. "Damn… the Beast Emperor…"

With that said, a dark purple circle appeared below him. This confused William, as his accomplice teleported away.

"Wait! Where are you going?!" He asked, as the Dark Mage hadn't told him anything and an explosion had just happened. But the Legendary Mage didn't answer anything and was had truly gone away. This confused William even more.

But that confusion didn't last long as suddenly, some of the human soldiers started transforming into humanoid wolves and killed their comrades without a second thought. By now William understood that this battle was different from normal, there hadn't even been one normal beast in sight… when suddenly 10,000 Werewolves turned from his own men and killed the others.

It felt surreal, they had been had from the beginning and not even a goblin or stray wolf had been killed. Werewolves were around Rank 3 or Rank 4 creatures, no soldier could deal with them easily. Especially once they come from inside the camp.

Suddenly William's throat is slashed by some fast Werewolf, and he fell to the ground and bled out. His ambitions in the end resulted in nothing.

The first battle amongst humans and beasts… 

Human Casualties ~ 40,000

Beast Casualties ~ 5

An absolute number that seemed unbelievable in a huge war like this.

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A/N: The Beasts & Monsters won't just throw their armies to clash with the humans. They will be smart about this. After all, a 2000-year-old Beast Emperor lost in the last Beast War for a reason and he has learned from his mistakes. Intelligent creatures don't stay stagnant, especially after the loss sealed him for 2000 years. He had a lot of time to think about his mistakes.

P.S: MC's monster powers when transformed will be shown later. Also in the brackets are the physical stats when transformed. Technically they are considered his real physical stats, because even though Alex has a human form. He is not human any longer.

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 Don't forget to throw some power stones :)

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