The First Legendary Beast Master

Chapter 1453 Organized Crocs

The portal brought them to the outskirts of Birad, where a small army of town guards, volunteers from the local Guilds, and Nobles from the Dragon Families had gathered, looking exhausted.

Karl transformed into cat demon form and waved to the defenders.

”Good morning gentlemen. The Darklight Host has sent friends to help sort out the Crocolisk issue, and weʼve brought reinforcements from the Capital.” He greeted them cheerfully.

”Can I stab him, just a little bit?” One of the rogues, a Mythic Shadow Dragon, muttered.

Dana laughed as she straightened his clothes. ”Karl has that effect on people, but he means well. Tell me, where do you need reinforcements? We will purge the Crocolisks from the region before we move on.”

The Rogue sighed. ”Do you know how hard weʼve had it here? Ten thousand of those damned monsters loose in the wilderness, and weʼve got what? A

hundred Myths?

Every time the sun goes down, they swarm the city walls, and if too many of us leave during the day, they do it twice a day!”

Dana frowned. ”That sounds like they still have a leader. Crocolisks on their own would rather bury themselves in the mud during the day and just hunt when they got hungry. Theyʼre not a high-energy type of monster.”

”Tell that to them. There isnʼt anything living within a hundred kilometres of here that isnʼt a Crocolisk, or inedible to a Crocolisk.

We canʼt even go fishing.

For one, thereʼs nothing left to catch, and stepping out alone only attracts more of them.”

Karl smiled, and Dana smacked him on the back of the head.

”Baiting the Crocolisks is not appropriate behaviour.”

The locals waited for her to explain, as the comment made no sense to them, but Dana just glared at Karl and nudged him to speak for himself.

”What I was thinking was that we could bring along a few of the local defenders to help us find the Crocolisks. Perhaps someone around Overlord Rank?” Karl began.

”And hide your auras so that the monsters think that there is a free snack in the area and rush out to eat the bait person? Evil doesnʼt even begin to cover that tactic.”

Karl raised his hands in surrender. ”I didnʼt mean that we would actually let anything eat them. We have more than enough skill to avoid that. But having someone who was much lower rank would help lure the monsters out.

Itʼs not like I could wander around with my aura unleashed and still have anything to fight.”

”Surely, itʼs not that bad? They group up and attack when any of us go out alone.” One of the exhausted guards scoffed.

Rae gave Karl a mental nudge, as she had spotted a Crocolisk watching them from the swamp, only a kilometre away.

Karl stopped restraining his aura, and turned to glare at the reptilian beast.

Which promptly turned tail and ran away.

Before it could cause injuries within the city, Karl pulled his aura back and shrugged.

”See, itʼs a class thing, my angry aura scares all the monsters away.”

”That aura... what did you do to get a killing aura like that?” The guardsman muttered.

”Are you sure that you want the answer?”

”Good point. I probably donʼt want to know the answer to that. But if youʼre willing to help with the invasive species issues, weʼre glad to have you here. Weʼve got incident maps of all the places weʼve found them hiding, but the Crocolisks are an earth and water element creature, so in the swamps they can be nearly impossible to find.

They sneak up on us underground, and by the time that weʼve scrambled defenders, theyʼre already right up against the city walls.”

That was definitely not normal behaviour for the species.

Territorial aggression, sure. But going out of their way to find and attack a city?

Definitely not.

Soul energy in the swamp caught Karlʼs attention, and it was growing quickly as more attackers came together.

”Well, it looks like we donʼt need to go looking for them. Theyʼve come looking for us. I think that itʼs safe to say that theyʼve got an intelligent leader, if theyʼre attacking so soon after sensing my aura.

Many species would take it as a threat.” Karl explained.

”What direction?” Prince Nathan asked.

He considered himself to have pretty keen senses, but he didnʼt detect anything at all.

”Over there. Not much further out than the one that I scared away. It must have been the scout for the group. Now weʼve got a full-fledged attack coming, and just enough time to make a wager.”

The Prince replied with a curious look.

”Itʼs Lady Raeʼs favourite game. We call it ʼwho is the better killer!. The rules are quite simple. You get one point for a kill below your Rank, two for a kill at your own level, and ten for an above Rank kill.” Karl explained.

The Prince laughed. ”You say that like itʼs so easy to take out an Immortal Rank threat, even if it is a non-sentient beast.”

Dana laughed, a musical sound that set everyone at ease.

”He managed to get an Immortal Rank Octopus monster kill during the first wave of attacks. A sentient beast. But we donʼt compare normal people to The Karl. The absolute power of his class is completely unfair.

In fact, itʼs so unfair that we count some of his skills separately.”

Rae smirked at that description. Did she count as one of Karlʼs skills? In a way, she did. Her bond to him was the reason that she was here, so you could call her power part of Karlʼs power, through the Beast Space skill.

”Can we start killing them yet?” She asked, impatient to get started.

”I will call for the others, and then we can get started. We canʼt have a proper battle until we have the healing tree in place.”

Lotus laughed from the middle of the crowd. ”Bring me my trusty steed, good sir! There is fuckery to spread.”