Starting Out As The God of Beasts

Flashback.

Three Hours After The Second Invasion.

Deep inside the damp, silent tunnels beneath the Tempest Forest baseline, the air was heavy with the lingering scent of ozone and burning blood.

Roy sat calmly on a jagged outcropping of dark rock, his long crimson hair catching the faint, flickering glow of the nearby mana cores they had harvested from every orcs and ogres they had slain.

Trolls were not excluded.

His face was entirely serene, showing none of the adrenaline or exhaustion that gripped the rest of the underground camp.

Alisa stepped out of the shadows, her slate-grey uniform torn at the shoulder, though her posture remained rigid.

She held a brown letter in her hand—the primary information gotten Mandraxx intelligence network.

”Master,” Alisa spoke, her voice low and tight.

”The second invasion has been neutralized. The western army has crumbled.”

”Good”

Roy didn’t look up immediately.

He slowly traced the edge of a small stone shard before speaking. ”Tell me what happened.”

”General Tagar was resilient, using his active skill: Demolition” Alisa reported. ”Commander Trojan and Captain Eurenia nearly met their ends”

”It’s natural” Roy smiled, ”They are only Martial Masters after all, their opponent was a Martial General”

”Yes” Alisa smiled, ”Captain Eurenia and Commander Trojan engaged him as a unified front, but the gap in their cultivation realms was too severe.” Alisa continued.

”Both of them have been heavily defeated. Trojan’s mana cores are stable but severely frozen from a direct axe strike, and Eurenia’s sternum was shattered by the blunt backlash.”

Alisa went deep in details, not leaving anything untouched.

”They are currently being moved to the medical facility.”

She paused, adjusting the data stream on the slate. ”Lord Manuses had to intervene just before their execution could be completed.” she sighed.

”He unleashed his active skill for the first time.”

”The battle lasted for three minutes before he completely decimated Tagar with a single direct strike. The Troll General’s mana cores was pulverized instantly.”

”Nothing was left of him, not even his mana cores” Alisa added.

”I see” Roy exhaled a deep sigh, ”The mana cores of Martial Generals are quite peculiar but there’s nothing we can do about it”

Roy finally raised his dual-colored, golden-crimson eyes.

A faint, knowing smile played at the corner of his lips. ”And the battlefield records?”

”Erased,” Alisa replied confidently. ”The moment Tagar fell, my special intelligence units responded quick.”

”We not only clean over five thousand bodies from the battlefield, they’re all buried in shallow graves”

”Their scents wiped, not a single item belonging to the invaders was left behind....including the divine relic” Alisa stated.

”Divine relic?” Roy’s eyes lit up, ”Yes” Alisa nodded.

”A divine relic was found in the hands of General Tagar, Lord Manuses claimed it after crushing the enemy”

”But it was handed down to Mandraxx, we have concealed all traces of the divine relic” Alisa grinned, ”No one will be able to find it even if they tried”

”Excellent work, Alisa,” Roy murmured, his voice a smooth, resonant cadence.

”You have established an organization that is remarkably quick at erasing information that has no business existing outside of Tempest City.” he grinned.

”Without even given an order, you already knew what to do”

Slowly, Roy rose from the rock he sat upon, dusting off the sleeves of his tailored black coat.

The ambient air around him began to warp, tiny crimson divine energy shimmering around his boots.

”Do not move the unit from this tunnel until I return,” Roy ordered flatly, his gaze shifting toward the northern ceiling. ”Keep watch and stand ready”

”When you receive the signal, you’ll know what to do”

Alisa blinked, her ears tilting slightly in confusion.

”Master? Where are you going?” she asked.

Roy stayed completely silent.

He didn’t offer a single coordinate or explanation.

Before she could ask again, the air rippled, and his silhouette vanished from the tunnel without a single trace of residual mana.

The Present Moment.

Time snapped back to the freezing reality of the West.

Deep within the cavernous audience chamber of the Grand Frost Sanctum, the Troll King’s furious roar was still echoing off the high obsidian rafters.

The massive blue-skinned monarch stood before his caved-in ice throne, his newly attained Martial Lord pressure violently crackling against the frozen floorboards as he dismissed the two human knight-priests in a storm of absolute contempt.

None of them noticed.

Concealed perfectly within the high, pitch-black shadows stretching behind the frozen pillars, Roy stood with his arms crossed, his back resting lightly against the cold stone.

His true human form was completely enveloped in an invisible, absolute layer of stealth authority that completely bypassed the sensory mana arrays of three separate Martial Lords.

His golden-crimson eyes watched the entire scene play out—the Troll King’s frantic reliance on his thirty thousand mummies, the silent, calculating gazes of the Damascus priests, and the fracturing politics of the northern crown.

’Humans....Domini Kingdom’ Roy noted, his lips curled faintly, ’Its just as Telvanus said, this game is vast’

’I wonder which continent the Domini Kingdom belongs to’ he inhaled deeply.

Roy was drowned in his sea of thoughts as he tried to comprehend beyond his control.

To the world, the West was preparing an unstoppable apocalypse.

But to Roy, looking down from the dark, they were simply moving exactly where the ink dictated.

A cold, amused smile cut through his lips as he watched the Troll King storm out toward the catacombs.

Roy vanished from the Grand Frost Sanctum, running through rooftops unnoticed. His eyes flickered for a second.

”The Troll King will unleash his army of undead very soon” Roy mumbled, ”It would be hard for even Tempest City to survive without taking heavy damages”

”What should I do?” Roy clenched his fist, he leapt high, transforming into a raven which flew into the sky.

He watched from above.

”Instead of having Tempest City decimated by the undead army of the Troll King, why don’t I bring the fight to his doorstep?”

”Tempest has always been on the defensive side. It’s time we go offensive”

”But....” he inhaled deeply.

”Eurenia’s still a Martial Master while Alisa hasn’t broken the wall of a Martial Warrior, time is running out”

”I need to find a way to fasten their evolution”