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But the purpose behind that order wasn’t for secrecy or to remain hidden. Hurman, along with everyone else clued into the finer details of their battle plan, needed complete silence to hear the exact moment their drake ally made his move.

A split second before the Prodson troops screamed in fear, the sound of flaming wood creaking and breaking rang out.

“DRAAGOOON!!!”

“NOW!!” Hurman shouted at the same time, boosting the power of his voice with essence.

“HOOOHH!!!”

As Hurman’s shout and the troops’ battle cry filled the air, Hurdo was already in motion. The gorilla had leaped into the air the moment he heard the crackle of the collapsing, burning ballistae.

Hurdo roared with laughter as his essence-coated fists crashed into the cliff wall, “Here’s my parting gift!”

C-C-CRUNCH-CH-CH-CH!!!

.....

Cracks rampantly ran along the cliffside and the cliff wall trembled under the impact. Each of Hurdo’s fists left a deep crevice in the wall, creating a deep, long rift reaching toward the camp above. And then, without pause, Hurdo spent the next ten seconds jumping along the cliffside, pummeling the wall repeatedly.

Atop the cliff, just as the perennial officer took his first step toward the surprise drake, the ground shifted. Another wave of shock hit the officer, along with the entire cliffside camp.

Those on the perimeter of the cliffside camp turned back to the camp in confusion. Their target was already inside the camp? And now the entire cliff was shaking?!

But not the entire camp was brought down by Hurdo’s attacks. Only the cliff’s edge was crumbling and beginning to fall apart.

FWOOSH! FWOOOSH!

That split second of hesitation allowed Oli to destroy two more ballistae unimpeded.

The elders and adepts either cowered in fear of the flying, draconic best or they shivered in confusion as the ground beneath their feet started to give way.

But the officer quickly snapped out of it. “RISE AND SHOOT!!”

While shouting his order, the ballistae officer covered himself in fire and bounded toward the nearby drake. A torrent of flames flew out of the officer’s hands as the officer did his best to keep order and eliminate the drake on sight, just as he had been commanded.

However, the men arming the ballistae froze. Some were about to come to their senses and retreat to safety, away from the crumbling cliff. But that renewed left those men speechless, torn with indecision, and fearful.

Many disregarded the order and tried to retreat from the cliff’s edge. A couple of ballistae managed to get fully unlocked and raised. Yet, the unstable, shifting ground made aiming such a heavy weapon impossible.

THWAANG! THWAANG! Crunch! Crunch! …

Two bolts managed to get fired off. But they weren’t on target. They slammed into the opposite cliff and got embedded into the wall, causing a few small stones to fall on the road below. The bolts landed almost two dozen krin away from each other, instead of only two or three krin apart like they were supposed to.

Trapping the marching Forell forces had utterly failed. And that failure had been guaranteed by the abrupt appearance of shadow tendrils restraining the elders aiming the still-intact ballistae.

Oli also used a battle art to accelerate and evade the flames. He propelled himself downward to use the cliff’s edge, the ballistae, and the Prodson troops as barriers against the flames.

Right away, the attacking perennial groaned. His flames were dispersed instead of redirected. The perennial officer refused to harm his own men, destroying some ballistae in the process.

So, the perennial officer jumped toward the cliff’s edge to get another visual on the drake.

Without a second thought, Oli was hugging the cliffside and racing through the air. His trajectory was unexpected as well.

More flames were fired by that perennial officer but his feet hesitated.

The officer spotted Hurdo and his rampage on the cliff after reaching the edge. It became bluntly obvious that their cliffside had not only been discovered but completely countered. With the drake flying away from the camp at full speed, which the fire-wielding mid-perennial could match and potentially catch up with, that would force the officer away from his post.

Nothing would go as planned. That’s why it had gone so smoothly up to that point, because the cliffside camp, and possibly all of Prodson’s plans, had been fully countered from the get-go.

In the heat of the moment, the perennial officer leaped back toward the camp. He chose to hurry and store four ballistae in his void ring before the edge broke away from the rest of the cliff.

“Chase that drake! Don’t let him escape your sight alive!!” the mid-perennial officer yelled. “He’s retreating along the cliff, rushing back toward the wooded hills!”

A lightning-clad perennial at the camp’s perimeter raced off without delay.

With the drake off his mind, the leading officer brought out the four ballistae he had saved. “RISE AND SHOOT! Hurry and trap them!”

Then, the ground under the officer’s feet trembled once more. But it wasn’t as bad as moments earlier. So the perennial officer peered over the edge to see what that gorilla was up to now. And his eyes widened in shock.

“Fall back–”

“YOU’RE ALL MINE!!” Hurdo’s bellowing roar echoed off the cliff walls, sending shivers down the spines of all Prodson troops near the cliff’s new edge.

The mid-perennial hurriedly reacted. He unleashed a rain of fireballs onto the climbing gorilla while retrieving a flaming spear.

Suddenly, the ground stopped shaking.

However, the mid-perennial officer was shocked to see no signs of the gorilla when the flames on the cliffside began to fade. That’s when it occurred to the officer. He remembered a minor detail from the report of the surviving assassins.

The officer jolted his head and torso back toward his retreating men. His feet rushed to change direction and run towards his fellow Prodon troops. “It’s underground!”

For a split second, all the nearby troops stiffened in horror. But they didn’t have any more time to anticipate what happened next.

Two massive hands ripped out of the ground. They firmly planted their palms on the stone floor of the cliff, allowing the rest of the brawny, broad-shouldered gorilla to get pulled out of the ground.

“Hurdo, proud perennial of the Iron-body Clan!” Hurdo’s announced his arrival for the entire camp to hear. “Kill me if you want to survive!”

With Hurdo’s words filling everyone’s ears and his uncapped aura spilling out, all Prodson soldiers got a feel for how menacing the gorilla was.

*He’s the most dangerous one!* Reconting the list of potential threats, the mid-perennial officer quickly rearranged his mental copy of the list. *And he’s in the middle of our camp…*

“What? Afraid for your troops to get caught in the crossfire?” Hurdo laughed and drummed on his chest.

From how the officer prioritized the lives of his men over attacking the surprise drake, Hurdo already knew how to get under his opponent’s skin. That’s why he chose to enter through the camp instead of simply climbing the cliff.

Still laughing as the officer remained silent, Hurdo raised his fists to the sky, “Welcome to war!”

Fwoosh-sh! Crunch! Crunch-ch-ch…

The ground didn’t shake that time. But the distant sound of crumbling stone echoed between the rocky hills. And the officer recognized the sound of far-off, rushing flaming as well. A bleak expression flashed across the officer’s face for a split second as he guessed where that sound had come from.

“Of course we know all about your underground camp!”

The monstrous gorilla’s announcement, filled with cocky laughter, nearly pierced the hearts of the Prodson troops. As the few perennials along the camp’s perimeter ran back to confront the beast together, even they felt the first sting of hope beginning to slip away.

Stalling for a few more moments, waiting for the other perennials to arrive after sensing the ape’s essence, the officer kept silently calculating.

“... Hm? You don’t find battle fun or riveting?” Hurdo questioned. “If you don’t want to fight, I’ll let you and your whole camp surrender. We could use able-bodied and able-minded men like while ruling Prodson.”

But the officer shook his head. “A beast has no right to lord over the people of Prodson. You’re only good for your pelts, meat, and cores. Not ruling.”

“Huh? You do realize a dragon rules over the West Quadrant, right?” Hurdo chuckled. “And that more dragons rule over our Toxic-shadow Prefecture? Oh, there’s also the Permafrost Wyrm and Rot Wyrm ruling this province and region… Are they evil too?”

The officer didn’t reply. He kept his cold gaze on the ape, eager to see at least two more perennials appear before attacking the beast. Then, they would at least control the gorilla’s rampage while within the camp.

Scratching his head in amusement and smiling at the scared troops all around him, Hurdo sighed, “... Are you just like those Prodson pricks? You think humans are superior? How come we beasts and humans just stand as equals, like during Dominus’s reign in the past?”