The First Legendary Beast Master

Chapter 1325 Missed Target

All over the world, the aftermath of the portals from the Immortal Realms had left nations in chaos, and cities razed.

Only one portal had not started in or near a nationʼs capital, the attack that had targeted the Academy.

Mistakenly, Oobleck had thought that the dense population of more powerful beings had meant that it was something akin to a Royal Palace, a compound where the elites of this mortal world gathered, while the Capital itself had barely registered.

Common Rank humans had no detectable presence to an Immortal.

Though there were a million people in the city, to the Immortals, that felt no different from a colony of ants, which were also technically a million common rank lives.

The level of destruction was not as bad in the dragon isles as it was elsewhere, but they had suffered the vast majority of the attacks, as the invaders had sought to weaken the planetʼs defences by eliminating what they thought were the young and promising breeding stock, while their strongest leaders dealt with the planetʼs few powerful defenders.

To say that Azov was in a bad mood was an understatement.

He had been sleeping when the attacks began, and Matilda had roused him from bed with a foghorn, only seconds before he was attacked by an Immortal Rank octopus in his own home.

His mansion was demolished, Sholaha was a mess, and while there were more than enough Mythic Rank warriors to defend the city from the invaders, the attack had been comprised of a form of Thunder Eels, so the entire city smelled like fish guts at the moment.

Not that he was still there.

Khizdila, the capital of Nulnalgat had also suffered an attack led by an Immortal, and he had left immediately after his battle to reinforce them.

The Darklight Host had sent teams to assist, but most of the ones who showed up were either drunk or intent on filling their fridge, and only gave the slightest consideration to not tearing down the city around them as they fought.

At least that one had been frogs.

Lord Bomgon had been rescued by the Dwarves of Zararag, who surprisingly honoured an ancient agreement with the Undead Lord when he called for aid.

They had also prevailed, but the battle there had been against cockroaches, and even Lord Bomgon had been so disgusted by the aftermath that he had declined to use them to expand his army any more than was necessary to ensure his own capitalʼs security.

Undead Cockroaches were a plague that not even he wanted to unleash on the world.

The only ones who didnʼt seem to be upset about the invasion were the Dark Elves and Priestesses of EsʼZoxhi, who had been invaded by spiders.

The irony was not lost on anyone that the largest city in Nerud, home to half a million of the Spider Goddessʼs followers, had been invaded by an octopus leading an army of spiders.

The beasts had immediately turned on their former masters when the beloved of the Spider Goddess beseeched them to know their true allies. That had left the invading Immortal helpless before the might of their own army, and restrained from leaving by one of the Dragon Islesʼ few Immortals.

The Dark Elves were happy to see so many new species join their city, and with the assistance of the High Priestesses, the slave collars of the beastkin officers leading the assault were quickly destroyed after they had been rendered ineffective using the same technique that Remi had.

Only, they used a bit of arachnid flair to accomplish the task. Steel Silk Spiders at the Mythic Rank had quickly woven cloth to protect the wearers neck joint, and then the collars had been disenchanted by the Priestesses.

The needles couldnʼt puncture the silk, and the collars were easily removed with brute force after the enchantments were gone.

While the direct damage done by the attack from the Immortal Realm was severe, and the targeted locations would need extensive rebuilding to call themselves intact cities again, that was not the largest, or most lasting damage done by the invasion.

When a portal was opened between two Realms, the Natural Laws immediately tried to balance the two sides.

Like water under pressure, high density mana tried to force its way through into the lower density side. More mana was always a welcome addition to the world, but the mana of the Immortal Realm and the Mortal Realm were not the

same.

There were fundamental differences, beyond the density.

The mana of the Immortal Realms carried a hint of divinity, and the mana itself was of an entirely different nature.

While the mana of the mortal realms often carried a touch of Elemental Affinity lingering from past spell effects, the Mana of the Immortal Realm carried the aftereffects of Fundamental Rules.

As Karl understood it, knowledge of a Fundamental Rule to an acceptable degree was a necessary condition of reaching Immortality. It was the difference between the creatures like Oobleck, who were Immortal Beasts, and the frogs, who were nominally only one step beneath him in rank, but worlds

apart in power.

There was something else as well, but it was something that Karl simply couldnʼt put his finger on. A power that he was either totally incompatible with, or simply lacked any ability to identify.

And that was a rare thing, given all the sensory upgrades that he had received

along the way.

But the mana of the Immortal Realm was insidious. It didnʼt just dissipate into the atmosphere, it soaked into everything that it touched. Karl could feel it in his own body, trying to reform him, he could feel it in the plants, altering their structure from common foliage into magical resources.

The level of change was small, with the limited Immortal Realm mana available, but the altered plants also gave off hints of Immortal Realm mana now, permanently changing the atmosphere of the Golden Dragon Nation. At first, Karl didnʼt notice, or mind. But after he saw the first lower rank students coming out of the trial tower, he realized that this was going to be an

issue.

Their bodies were not able to process that mana. It was poison to their system.

A poison that the demons and others he recruited had needed to take medicine

to adapt to.