Chapter 458: First Signs of Strength

The Mountain-Piercing Beast is a giant omnivorous magical beast, covered in thick scales that grant it astonishing defense. An adult Mountain-Piercing Beast can grow up to ten meters long and nearly three meters tall, with a cultivation level roughly equivalent to that of a Heavenly God. However, its thick scales make its defense comparable to that of other magical beasts at the peak of a Supreme God’s cultivation.

But that’s not the most terrifying part. What’s truly frightening are its black front claws, as hard as top-tier divine artifacts, which can easily tear apart its prey. Its sharp teeth and powerful jaws are also formidable offensive weapons.

The name of this magical beast comes from its unique habit of digging holes to find mineral veins to eat. With the help of its front claws, its digging speed is unmatched by any other magical beast.

With such creatures in a swarm, even seemingly impregnable city walls become useless. The Mountain-Piercing Beasts don’t need to enter the city through the walls—they can dig tunnels underground, enter the city, and then use their physical advantages to wreak havoc. Once chaos ensues inside the city, the defense on the city walls weakens significantly, and it’s only a matter of time before the army of magical beasts destroys Pompeii.

“It’s Mountain-Piercing Beasts…” Long Tian frowned slightly and glanced at Ye Feng. Their group had already encountered various magical beasts in the Refinement Realm before ascending, so they were familiar with most of the magical beasts in the Divine Realm and naturally knew about this special species.

“This beast swarm seems more complicated than usual…” Ye Feng also frowned. Mountain-Piercing Beasts have a strong sense of territory. Because they eat everything and have huge appetites, they live alone and are aggressive toward most other species. Yet now, they have gathered together to form a swarm.

“If it were just Mountain-Piercing Beasts entering the city, it would be manageable…” Long Tian seemed to have realized this as well. “But if they work together to dig a tunnel, allowing other magical beasts to flood in, Pompeii will be in trouble.”

“Weren’t magical beasts said to be low in intelligence? They shouldn’t be smart enough to devise such a tactic, right?” Zhuge Ling’er doubted such a thing could happen.

“It depends on who our opponent is this time. If it’s just those few Royal God-level magical beasts, something like this wouldn’t happen.” Ye Feng gazed at the swarm of magical beasts, his expression uneasy.

“You mean this swarm of magical beasts is being controlled by someone?” Long Yue was very curious.

“There’s a possibility…” Ye Feng’s gaze remained fixed on the orderly ranks of those magical beasts. “Generally speaking, magical beasts don’t have high intelligence—no more than that of a four- or five-year-old child—and they’re extremely aggressive, prone to rage. When faced with natural enemies, they fight among themselves driven by instinct. But in this large group of magical beasts, there are many pairs of natural enemies. Under normal circumstances, they would have already been fighting each other. Yet now they remain peaceful, clearly because something is suppressing or overriding their instincts.”

“But it’s always like this during beast invasions. Could it be that each invasion is orchestrated by someone? It is said that the first beast invasion in the Divine Realm dates back trillions of years ago. Back then, the ancient gods left their created Divine Realm for some reason, leaving it to the first ascendants—what are now known as the ancestors of the original inhabitants. It is said that the first beast invasion in history occurred when they built their first city. Since the ancient gods were huge in size and mostly solitary, preferring to live within their own designated territories, they never built cities.” At this moment, Kristian showed his academic style. He had borrowed quite a number of books from Ye Feng over time, and this part of history wasn’t recorded in any existing records of the Divine Realm. Even if it were, it would be classified as forbidden literature by those so-called original inhabitants, as they wouldn’t admit to being descendants of ascendants. So when Ye Feng and the others heard this part of history, they were stunned.

“Kristian, is this from a book you borrowed from me?” Ye Feng asked quickly.

“That’s right. All the relevant materials from the Divine Realm were borrowed from you,” Kristian nodded.

“In that case, this record should be true,” Ye Feng frowned slightly. “If someone is indeed behind this, it must have been starting trillions of years ago…”

“Oh no! The mountain-penetrating beasts have started digging holes…” Another disturbance was heard near the city wall.

Ye Feng and the others looked down from above and saw that all the mountain-penetrating beasts had dug themselves into the ground.

“Get ready. First, eliminate the beasts that have entered the city,” Ye Feng said solemnly. He knew this wasn’t a joke. If those beasts got into the crowd, there would likely be heavy casualties. Especially among the ordinary residents, who, although also part of the Divine Realm, only had the strength of true gods at most. Facing such powerful magical beasts, they had virtually no chance of survival.

A slight tremor came from deep beneath the ground. Soon after, the sound of something breaking through the soil was heard not far away, followed by painful screams from the crowd.
Xiao Yu was the first to rush in that direction. Being the fastest, he stepped onto the back of the beast and pressed it deep into the soil, causing it to let out a agonized howl.
Ye Feng and the others also scattered in different directions.
In just the time it took to drink a cup of tea, the chaos in the city had ended.
Lin Xu watched Ye Feng and the others’ quick reactions with some hesitation in his eyes. After a moment, he called out in Ye Feng’s direction, “Friends, with such a great threat ahead, do you have any good strategies?”
“Let us go out. You just need to defend the city gates; there’s no need for long-range attacks. If any of us escape, you can kill them later,” Ye Feng shouted back at Lin Xu.
“Are these guys trying to escape?” Xi Men Chun muttered softly.
“Probably not. If they wanted to run, they would have left long ago. There’s no need to wait until the magical beasts are at the city gates. Even if they’re strong, once they go outside, they’ll surely be surrounded, and their fate will be uncertain. The chances of survival outside in such a situation are much lower than staying inside,” Lin Xu shook his head.
“Let them go. With their strength, they should be able to protect themselves among these beasts. Since they volunteered, they must have a plan,” Lin Hong, who usually disagreed with Lin Xu, rarely spoke in agreement.
Lin Xu glanced at his uncle. Though puzzled, he said nothing and instead called out to Ye Feng and the others, “Alright, we’ll stop attacking as soon as you go out. But if the situation doesn’t improve, we’ll still handle this matter our way.”
“Okay!” Ye Feng nodded in agreement and then turned to Long Tian and the others, “Form a formation! Xiao Yu, Xiao Bei, let’s go!”
Long Tian, Zhen Zhu, and the other twelve people formed a small formation in the sky and rushed after Ye Feng and the others.
“Boss, in this situation, we don’t need to hold back, right?” Bernard rubbed his hands excitedly.
“Do whatever you want, just don’t forget to collect the corpses of the magical beasts,” Ye Feng reminded them.
“Xiao Yu, let’s see who can kill more!” Xiao Bei turned his head to look at Xiao Yu.
“Hmph!” Xiao Yu only emitted a vague snort before charging into the herd. In an instant, all the magical beasts in his path were cut in half.

“That’s utterly shameless! I haven’t even started yet…” Bernard was stunned for a moment before reacting and roaring loudly. At that instant, Ye Feng exuded a chilling cold aura. Starting from his position, white frost began to spread, instantly freezing countless magical beasts into ice sculptures. Seeing this, Bernard didn’t back down either. He pressed his palms against the ground, and in just a short while, the creatures’ standing spots turned into deep swamps with black whirlpools at the bottom. This was a combination of dark and earth elements—once touched, one would be dragged into the swamp and devoured by dark energy. The formation formed by Long Tian and the others was like a sharp sword; once it rushed into the herd, cries of pain filled the air. Wherever it passed, corpses were collected into storage rings, leaving the ground as clean as if washed, aside from faint traces of bloodstains. Lin Xu and the others stared in shock at the scene—they had never imagined human strength could be this great. Even powerful figures like Lin Hong felt that the energy fluctuations from the battle weren’t much stronger than their own, yet the battle was completely one-sided. It was a one-way massacre! Many on the city walls thought this. “Huh, they’ve taken all those magical beast corpses?” After a while, a voice came from the crowd—someone had finally noticed this. “Uh…” Lin Xu was speechless. “These magical beast cores…” “It’s good enough if they can save their own lives under these circumstances. Besides, these beasts were killed by them, so they have the right to decide what to do with the loot.” Lin Hong seemed not surprised at all. Having traveled far and wide for years and encountered all kinds of people, he was used to such behavior from Ye Feng and the others. “I see…” Lin Xu nodded helplessly. He had originally calculated the potential benefits from the cores and corpses of these magical beasts, but now it seemed all those plans were ruined. The massacre continued. Watching the one-sided battle, the people on the city walls wondered if those magical beasts seemed strong but were actually weak. Only powerful figures like Lin Hong knew it wasn’t the beasts that were weak—it was Ye Feng and the others who were too strong, too unstoppable. He had witnessed one of the imperial god-level beast leaders being instantly frozen by Ye Feng in less than a second. That scene made him break out in cold sweat—he knew he would suffer the same fate if he were in their place.

Those few powerhouse warriors at the Imperial God level were also stunned. From the intensity of the energy fluctuations generated by the battle, they could vaguely sense that Ye Feng’s cultivation level was roughly on par with theirs. Yet his strength was more than a hundred times greater than theirs.

It should be noted that magical beasts are inherently much stronger than humans in terms of cultivation. A magical beast at the early Imperial God stage could be even more powerful than many humans at the mid-Imperial God stage. But against Ye Feng, such strength seemed as fragile as paper, easily shattered. This left them deeply puzzled, and they even wondered if this guy who had rushed into the beast herd could fight against a god ancestor-level warrior.

What they didn’t know was that if Ye Feng exerted all his strength, he could indeed fight against a god ancestor at the early stage.

Ye Feng and his companions paid little attention to these thoughts. They were solely focused on finding a way to resolve the crisis at hand. Although they hadn’t fully displayed their strength, what they had shown was already enough to shock everyone.