The First Legendary Beast Master

Chapter 1723 Theyʼre No Match

Karl paused to catch his breath, and to shake the blood off of him.

It might not stick to his barrier, but it was everywhere after dealing with the hellhounds, and now that the mob was beginning to thin, he had time to do more planning instead of just attacking the next thing trying to eat him.

There were patches in the hellhound offensive now, and the number of archers that were supporting them had dropped dramatically.

The Kobolds were no match for Rae.

For a few seconds, Karl considered the options as he absorbed some of the excess life and soul energy from his weapons. It might not be the direct growth that it provided at the Mortal Ranks, but the amount that he could use was vastly increased, and all he had to do was adapt it to what he wanted his Immortal Spirit to be, and it would stack on his own power.

It wasnʼt yet a passive growth ability, but he was working on getting it there. There, a growing hole where the Golems were pushing the hellhounds apart. Karl used [Shadow Step] to appear behind the hounds, and [Chaos Vortex] on the Haint Claws to tear through them.

Forcing them to turn away from the rest of the group made them extremely vulnerable, but with all of the packs in the region already gathered, Karl had little fear of the same happening to him.

Rae laughed as Karl finally began to embrace her fighting style.

Shadow Stepping between targets was the best way to engage. They never knew what was coming for them until it was already too late. With only her two core golems accompanying her, she had managed to eliminate the majority of the ranged support for the hounds using that tactic.

Getting through them left the hounds leaderless, and in the dungeon, their insanity made them much worse at cooperative efforts and pack hunting than she suspected they should be.

In the outside world, a Hellhound pack should be able to coordinate these numbers without any issues. But the small packs werenʼt working together, they were only working beside each other.

That meant that when she finished the last of the archers, there was no more coordination going on, and she was free to join Karl on the outskirts of the pack, stabbing through scorching hot hellhound hide with impunity, knowing that only those closest to her would even respond to her presence.

The fact that dungeon monsters were insane was possibly the greatest advantage ever.

As the numbers dwindled, Dana, Thor and Cara came out to fight outside the Golems, leveraging their strengths in melee combat to increase the clear speed.

Then, they were standing alone in a pile of corpses.

”Hawk, did you run out of storage space?”

[Theyʼre stringy and taste like hot rocks.]

Karl laughed at the birdʼs angry response. He had gone out to collect the Kobold corpses, and rejected them as unsuitable to take space in his food

storage. But the hellhounds were apparently inedible.

”Well, maybe youʼll luck out with the boss, but I wouldnʼt count on it. Perhaps the final boss.”

Hawk laughed, a keening cry that made Dana smile.

The last section was supposed to be full of bears and snakes, both of which Hawk generally considered to be edible.

He circled over the boss platform. Cerberus was massive, a three-headed hound that should more properly be considered a form of behemoth.

Seriously, that thing was the size of a full-grown dragon.

Elder Alix sighed as they approached the platform.

”Dealing with this thing is a nightmare. All three heads can breathe fire, but the majority of the incoming damage is going to come from his Fire Domain skill.” Hawk transformed into a Demon Crow and landed in front of him, bumping his leg to demand more explanation.

Thor had a Lightning Zone, which was good, Opal had her Illusionary Domain, which was even better. So, wouldnʼt a Fire Domain be even better? It had the same word as the illusion one, but it was fire, so it was obviously a step higher tier.

”I donʼt know if you can learn that just by fighting him. But it is a drop from the boss sometimes. Thatʼs how the Clan got a copy of it. If it doesnʼt drop, you can ask Karl to purchase a copy from the Clan for you.

We will have more than enough credits by the time that we finish restocking the warehouse.” Elder Alix reminded him.

That was enough to mollify Hawk, who nodded, then flapped into the sky before transforming back into a Dark Flame Phoenix.

”If he can transform, why doesnʼt he just use a humanoid form and ask

questions?” The Elder asked.

”He doesnʼt like humanoid form. Itʼs a Hawk thing. Heʼs perfectly capable of it,

he just doesnʼt like to do it!”

”Really?” Elder Socrate asked dubiously.

He really got the impression that the Phoenix was more bestial than the others,

not quite on the level of a highly intelligent divine beast species. That was normal for a Phoenix, as the species rarely gained the ability to speak. But with Karl leading him, he should have advanced using the same skills that had made the others vastly more intelligent than their base.

Hawk rolled his eyes, then landed next to them, and transformed into what was supposed to be a Tengu, using [Unholy Beast Transformation]. Only, what he got was a harpy with deep blue feathers, clawed feet and bird feet, with fingers at his central wing joints, so he could grab things.

{See, I can transform and speak just fine,} Hawk retorted, still speaking Avian.

”I see that. Thatʼs actually impressive. Iʼve never seen a Dark Flame type Harpy

before.”

Hawk nodded smugly, then transformed again, and returned to circling, ready for the fight to start.

Dana did her best not to laugh at the interaction. Hawk had managed to mess up the transformation again. Or perhaps that was how it always worked for him. She had never seen him try to use the humanoid side of the skill before, only the Demon Crow version that made him smaller, so he could more easily travel in public.