Chapter 80: 046. Imperial Prince is Hunting Beasts -2 (Part Two)

**

Redmoon was madly dashing forward.

No human should be able to keep up with its speed within the forest. Surely not.

But then…

Crunch!

A tree nearby caved in before exploding to bits. The sound of gunfire belatedly resounded out.

The projectile flew in faster than the sound itself.

Redmoon sucked in a deep breath. It was scared silly now. The beast hurriedly dashed and darted in between the gaps of the trees to use them as natural cover.

It glanced back.

A boy was chasing after the lycan, followed by humans wearing crimson robes and strange masks.

‘I can’t shake them off!’

As if they were hunting hounds sniffing out the prey’s scent, they were proving to be incredibly persistent.

The lycans were the so-called spectres of the forest, and they didn’t leave behind any types of traces anywhere. Not just footprints, but also no body odour to speak of, as well.

And the deeper they headed inside the forest, the thicker the fog and the natural darkness got, which provided them with even greater protection.

On the other hand, the humans wouldn’t be able to see and then eventually lose their bearings inside the darkness.

Yet, that boy must’ve used some kind of magical means because he somehow managed to chase Redmoon down.

For instance, there was that moment when, after the lycan thought it had managed to create enough distance, the boy and his men suddenly appeared before the undead instead.

This nightmare couldn’t have been any worse even if it tried.

Redmoon was supposed to be a hunter… and yet, it was now being hunted down?!

-I can’t die like this.

Redmoon checked the size of the enemy forces. The biggest source of its headaches, the Verdant Cross or the dwarves, weren’t there.

While running away, Redmoon carefully observed the boy’s attacks.

As it turned out, his actions were rather simplistic. He’d raise the musket rifle in his hand and breathe into it. Then every minute or so, he’d fire a projectile.

In other words, there wouldn’t be any danger as long as the boy wasn’t given a chance to breathe or an opening of one minute.

It was then, one of the lycans currently running alongside Redmoon was struck by the divinity projectile and got extinguished from existence while howling out in pain.

-Dammit!

Still… there were almost ten lycans remaining. Not to forget, there were plenty of other blood-creations spread out in the near vicinity too.

Redmoon had no idea how dangerous an existence that boy was. However, he should be easier to handle than that old man or the Imperial Princess!

Rather than being chased around and eventually get hunted down, it’d be far better to fight back instead.

Redmoon’s legs contorted. It stopped running and turned around to face the boy.

He and the red robe-wearing humans all came to a stuttering halt.

The boy didn’t even look remotely tired even after all that running. No, he instead was letting out a sigh of relief once Redmoon stopped trying to escape.

“I guess you’re finally giving up? You made the right call there, buddy. My divinity was getting a bit too precarious there, you see? It’s great that you’ve chosen to give up, isn’t it? Okay now, let’s wrap this up sharpish, alright?”

The boy wasn’t even nervous. No, he didn’t even bother hiding his relief at no longer needing to chase after his prey instead.

His attitude indicated that he was looking down on his opponents.

Redmoon glared at the boy.

-Giving up? What are you talking about, boy?

The lycan cracked its neck.

-This is our territory.

No matter how wounded or terrified it was, Redmoon was still the ruler of this forest. It was also the Progenitor Lycanthrope.

-A human who lacks the dwarves’ strong shields…

The boy didn’t possess any power to resist the fury of the beasts.

-…and also, lacks the swift legs of those green-robed humans, honestly think that you…

Finally, humans were merely cattle for slaughter once they were driven to a corner and failed to escape on time, were they not?

-…you can win against us?!

Most importantly of all, the lycans enjoyed an overwhelming advantage of numbers.

As the lycans spread out, they quickly surrounded the boy and the Crimson Cross from all sides.

Numerous red eyes glowed from the darkness of the forest. Then, hundreds of zombified animals strode into the view.

Just as the boy raised his musket rifle, Redmoon roared out.

-Oh, hear me now, boy! Do not move a muscle! The moment you dare to move…

However, the boy simply ignored the lycan’s words and began breathing into the musket’s loading chamber.

Redmoon furrowed its brows and urgently cried out.

-You will die a gruesome death with all of your limbs ripped apart! Not just you, but all of your underlings too!

As soon as Redmoon finished making its threat, the lycans began howling from all directions.

They bared their fangs and extended their sharp claws.

The zombified animals began growling in a threatening manner.

-If you wish to save your underlings, behave yourself and…!

It was then, the boy took aim with the musket rifle.

Redmoon’s eye muscles twitched as it urgently grabbed a nearby lycan. It quickly shoved the hapless creature forward as a meat shield.

Accompanied by a loud gunfire noise, the shielding lycan’s head exploded into bloody bits.

-…

Redmoon discarded the headless lycan to the ground and glared at the boy.

The boy asked, sounding unperturbed by the threat. “Okay, so what about it?”

Redmoon’s shoulders drooped down low.

Bloody hell, how could none of these humans be reasoned with?!

**

(TL: In 1st person POV.)

I glared at the lycan calling itself Redmoon before raising my musket again.

But then, the Crimson Cross members tensed up.

“It might get dangerous this time, your highness.”

Well, they were right about that.

No matter how good these Crimson Cross guys were, we weren’t on some steeple this time but inside a forest. It’d be pretty hard to protect me against all these lycans and numerous zombified animals.

Especially more so when our opponent was a Progenitor Lycanthrope. That guy’s specs shouldn’t even be compared to the likes of mere blood-creations, most likely.

It lost one of its eyes with its cheek and maw torn off, while its left arm was missing. Yet, the stench coming off of the damn thing was seriously disgusting. At the very least, this lycan was strong enough to easily rip apart Count Fomor into bits and pieces.

“However, it’s still nothing compared to the Vampire Count I ran into back in Ronia.”

To think that I had to toil so hard because of a little punk like this guy…

I raised my musket rifle and got ready to breathe into it, but then, the zombified animals began rushing towards us from all directions.

The screeches and howlings of the undead assaulted our eardrums.

“Your highness, be careful…!”

“Everyone, close your eyes.”

The Crimson Cross members all stared at me.

The pairs of eyes beyond the bird beak masks were visibly filled with confusion. They stared at me as if to make sure they didn’t mishear my command.

I looked back at them.

“Close your eyes and then block your ears. Kneel down and stay right there,” said I. “Wait, maybe you don’t trust me? I have my ways, so just do as I say. Because I’m about to show you a really shocking magic trick very soon.”

I shrugged my shoulders.

The Crimson Cross then nodded their heads.

“…We shall obey.”

After saying those words, they immediately went down on their knees. After lowering their heads, they closed their eyes and then covered their ears with their hands.

Seriously, now that was some overzealous faith on display.

But this was enough for me. The dwarves weren’t here, and even the Verdant Cross that prioritised Hilda’s commands over mine weren’t around either.

As for the Crimson Cross members, they were zealots who would even brave death to heed my commands. From this moment on, there were no ‘eyewitnesses’ here. Meaning, this place was now ‘my territory’.

-Ku-ooooooh!

Redmoon was dashing towards me. There were hundreds of zombified animals baring their fangs as they ran over here just to devour me alive.

There was this thing I’ve been wanting to test out, though.

I summoned Amon’s skull from my item window and put it on my head. After doing so, I softly whispered the activation phrase.

The zombified animals leapt up.

It was then, Redmoon suddenly faltered and stopped continuing forward.

Did that guy detect danger or something? Man, its instincts must be pretty amazing.

However, it was already too late.

They were all within my ‘kill range’ by now.

Underneath Amon’s skull, I was smiling with my eyes as I stared at Redmoon the lycan.

**

A soft sound of a falling water drop resounded out.

A puddle containing holy water was summoned with me in the centre of it.

And various skeletons were seemingly standing on the water’s surface.

Creak-! Clack-!

Their bodies, however, all crumbled down in an instant. But then, their bones started to quickly pile up into one large mass.

Various bones joined up and began constructing a new shape.

The bones far too numerous to count, extended and rose up several metres in the air.

The giant silhouette made out of bones gradually finished forming, turning into a new type of undead. In the meantime, more skeletons continued crawling out from the puddle.

The bony hands of the skeletal undead began gripping the weapons extracted from my item window – a sword, spear, mace, scythe, steel chains, and various other types of weapons.

Each of its hands were now equipped with weapons manufactured by the master dwarf craftsmen.

It was truly unfortunate, but I just didn’t have any talent in handling these weapons myself. However, if there was no one around to protect me or to witness what I was about to do, then was there really a need for me to personally swing around stuff like these?

If the issue was with my lack of talent, then I just needed to let an ‘undead’ who knew how to use weapons take care of that problem.

I was a Necromancer, a profession that normally commanded an army of undead, after all.

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