Damian was the oldest woman in the tribe.
She watched the tribespeople gathered around the campfire, their faces full of joy as they looked at the fragrant roasted meat. Unlike them, her face was clouded with worry.
She always felt that powerful red dragon was an ill omen.
For such a powerful creature to barge into their peaceful life might bring some truly terrifying disaster.
But she was already too old. The tribe was willing to support an old woman over sixty, and that alone was no easy thing. In other monster tribes, an aged individual like her, unable to provide enough labor or fighting strength, would either have been used as food or exiled to fend for herself.
She knew she could not say dispiriting things while everyone else was celebrating.
"Sigh…"
The firelight flickered across her wrinkled, deadwood-like face, leaving troubled shadows behind.
All she could do was pick up her prayer beads, part her darkened lips, and silently begin reciting the Hymn of the Saint.
Both the prayer beads in her hand and the scripture of the Hymn of the Saint had been passed down by her grandfather, who had died many years ago.
Supposedly, his generation had been part of the main force that followed the Hero Roland into the monster kingdom.
To create an opportunity for Roland to venture deep into demon land, countless people had launched an earth-shaking war against the monsters.
And in the end, the Hero slew the Demon King. Countless lives were left behind on this land, while a small number of people were separated from the main force and had no choice but to take root and survive in monster territory.
The Hymn of the Saint was, in truth, a song praising the Hero Roland.
She hoped this lifelong enemy of monsters could bring some spiritual comfort to humans like them, who merely muddled through life and clung to survival.
"Thank the Red Dragon!"
"Thank Nila!"
"Thank the food!"
The people danced and sang around the bonfire.
The more oppressive the environment, the more people needed release.
This was also a custom of the tribe. Whenever they obtained enough food, they would hold a similar bonfire gathering.
They enjoyed the hard-won food, using dances and cheers to celebrate surviving one more day. And once the celebration ended, everyone would return to their homes and engage in the most primitive pleasures.
Nila sat beside the bonfire. Her slightly rough but distinct-featured face looked even redder in the firelight.
Of course, a tribe celebration like theirs could not possibly have alcohol. That blush came from the most ordinary physical reaction.
Not far away, a bearded man named Matthew saw her like that and immediately felt that the woman all the men of marriageable age in the tribe were pursuing looked even more bright and moving.
The crackling bonfire burned, sparks drifting before his face.
He felt his body gradually heating up, and a fierce emotion surged out of him like a spring.
Matthew keenly noticed that the woman he secretly admired seemed somewhat distracted during this celebration.
After looking around, he gathered his courage and walked forward.
"Nila, may I invite you to dance—"
Before he could finish speaking, Nila waved a hand from not far away.
"Sorry, Matthew. I want to be alone."
It was the same reason she had used to reject him countless times before.
Matthew's restless, newly excited heart suddenly missed a beat.
"O-okay. Then you should rest."
He backed away again.
It was not that he did not want to act more forceful, but Nila's position in the tribe was different. She was stronger than most men, had mastered mysterious mana, and her father was Zeck, the tribal chief.
So even though she had already reached marriageable age and, according to custom, should have begun pairing with one of the good men in the tribe, it still had not happened because of her own will.
No matter where one was, the strong always had privileges.
And what was Nila, who made Matthew's heart sway, thinking about at that moment?
The red bonfire reflected in her pupils seemed to gradually transform into a red dragon. Amid the flickering light and shadows, she seemed to glimpse once more that radiant figure sitting quietly beside the dragon.
Thump. Thump.
She could clearly hear her own heartbeat.
An intense feeling she had never experienced before filled her chest.
As she chewed the fragrant roasted meat, her body felt as if it were slowly melting.
"So wonderful…"
In truth, her complicated emotions were not only instinctive affection for that mysterious man, but also admiration and inferiority.
Someone like that seemed to live in a completely different world from wild dogs like them on the wasteland.
The moon-white robe he wore was probably valuable enough to buy the lives of their entire tribe—if such a market still existed in this world.
But when she thought that they were now sharing the same place, and that the air she breathed out might drift to his side…
She felt a pleasure threaded with faint excitement, like the immoral thrill of touching a flawless jade with her dirty hands.
In all twenty years of her life, this was the first time she had ever felt such strange emotions.
Saint, please forgive me…
After that brief pleasure, she could not help feeling guilty over her filthy thoughts. She quickly closed her eyes and silently recited the Hymn of the Saint, which everyone in the tribe knew by heart.
The celebration soon came to an end.
The next day, dawn had only just begun to brighten, and the air was still covered in a warm, moist haze.
Rumble!
Outside the mining valley came a heart-stopping noise.
The old woman Damian was the first to wake. She looked toward the direction of the great commotion, and her pupils rapidly contracted.
She hurriedly shook awake the young people lying on straw mats nearby.
"Wake up! Everyone, wake up!"
Rumble!
As she shook them, the tremors outside continued.
That clear, violent shaking was like a god descending in fury.
Along the walls of the mine tunnel beside them, stones began falling in loose showers, striking the ground near their feet.
"What happened? What's going on?"
"Is it an earthquake?"
Everyone turned pale with fright.
If they encountered that kind of natural disaster, then all of them inside the underground mine would be buried alive.
Of course, at that moment, they still had no idea what the source of the crisis was.
But one thing was clear: they had to escape as quickly as possible, or they might never get out.
The whole tribe immediately became active like ants, waking their sleeping people, quickly gathering important clothing, equipment, food, and baskets, then forming a line and heading toward the nearest exit.
"Dad, should we warn Lord Red Dragon?"
In the panicked crowd, Nila was still thinking of the depths of the cave.
"We get out first! A giant beast like that doesn't need us worrying about it."
After her father shouted at her, Nila came back to her senses.
That red dragon, with a body like a small mountain, was many times stronger than mortals like them.
If they could escape the crisis, how could it possibly trap him?
As they moved out, the shaking intensified. More stones fell from overhead.
Some unlucky people were struck and left bleeding from their heads, needing other tribespeople to support them as they evacuated.
For a human tribe, every member was extremely important.
In this monster-infested land, their only allies were their fellow tribespeople. If they casually abandoned companions, it would not be long before they were completely wiped out.
Fortunately, light soon appeared ahead.
They made it through the exit without serious danger and arrived at the broader mine-pit plain outside.
And there, they finally saw the source of the disaster.
In the sky, that familiar yet unfamiliar crimson dragon was circling.
It spat attacks like molten lava from its mouth, while its enemies were countless monsters.
The monsters surged from every direction like rivers flowing toward a low basin.
From time to time, the crimson dragon would beat its wings and unleash a massive fireball filled with destructive power. A single one could annihilate numerous monsters.
It was these endless attacks that had caused the tremors inside their mine.
Nila turned and looked around, searching for a certain white figure, but to her disappointment, she did not find him.
Everywhere she looked, whether across the desolate earth, on the dragon's back, or in its claws, there was no trace of that person.
Was he still in the depths of the cave?
Once all other possibilities were ruled out, what remained had to be the answer.
"Dad, where do we go now?"
Of course, this was not the time to think about that.
No matter how much her heart stirred, it was insignificant before a crisis that threatened the survival of the tribe.
The countless monsters rushing in were more than enough to crush their small human tribe with ease.
The cave passages that had sheltered them had already collapsed.
The only thing that let them breathe a little easier was that, for some unknown reason, all the monsters were surging toward the red dragon's location. They seemed to have no interest in ants like them.
There was still a considerable distance between them and the place where the red dragon was fighting, so it was possible to escape amid the chaos.
"Retreat that way."
The tribal chief Zeck pointed toward the direction with the fewest monsters.
For the tribe to take root and survive in this land, even though it had only just over a hundred people, there were still several among them who had mastered supernatural power.
Together with other strong young fighters of decent ability, if they were lucky, they could fight their way out before everything turned truly catastrophic.
And just as Nila had guessed, Gauss was still sitting quietly in the depths of the cave.
Only the red dragon Hephaestus had gone out to fight the enemy.
Of course, it was not because Hephaestus was stubborn, overflowing with battle lust, and wanted to fight these inexplicably attacking monsters to the bitter end.
Nor was he kind-hearted enough to buy time for that human tribe.
In truth, when he first sensed something was wrong, he had wanted to simply take Gauss and fly far away.
But he failed.
Since yesterday, the time and space around Gauss had entered a very mysterious state. Hephaestus had tried several times, but he could not take Gauss away.
A strange power wrapped around Gauss and bounced his claws away.
Helpless, he could only go out first and fight the enemies flooding in.
The mysterious aura around Gauss was gradually fading. Hephaestus could also guess that this slumber of Gauss's was about to end.
He only needed to buy a little more time.
Leaving aside the red dragon's battle for now, Nila's tribe had already fallen into fierce fighting.
Although the monsters' first target was the distant red dragon, if they saw a group of humans nearby, they would not pass up such an easy buffet.
Slash!
Chief Zeck's large blade cut open a gnoll lunging straight at him.
Warm red blood drenched half his face.
The whole group was led by him and Nila, with the able-bodied fighters forming the outer ring and protecting the elderly, women, and children in the center.
"Ahhh!"
A young man from the tribe slipped up and was cut in the thigh by a cunning goblin's sliding attack.
Blood sprayed out like a fountain.
He let out a hoarse scream, wildly swinging the stone knife in his hand to try to stop other monsters from approaching.
But more sharp-eyed monsters had already grabbed his leg and dragged him away from the human group.
"Zeck!"
"Keep moving!"
As the chief, Zeck saw this scene and could only harden his heart and continue issuing orders.
Their tribe's principle was that no companion should be abandoned lightly, but the current situation had clearly gone beyond the normal scope.
They had to make sacrifices, or everyone would die here.
The others understood this as well.
Very soon, they followed Zeck's charge and continued pushing toward the exit of the mine valley.
The young man left behind was quickly pinned down by his arms and legs, his body covered in all kinds of monsters.
The group's movement drew more monsters, and the number of tribespeople they had no choice but to sacrifice continued to grow.
Nila could only comfort herself that these sacrifices were worth it. The exit of the mine valley was now within reach.
As long as they left the valley, they could live again.
As long as…
Just as they were about to reach the exit path—
On the distant hillside, a dense black shadow appeared like a swarm of ghosts.
"So… so many…"
It was a jaw-dropping monster army, coming face to face with their small human tribe.
The giant monster leading them was as enormous as a small mountain. It looked like both a demon and a giant deer, with thighs over ten times thicker than an adult human's waist.
Clatter.
Someone's weapon slipped from their powerless hand and fell to the ground.
"We're dead!"
No one could blame these people for having weak mental fortitude. Faced with such a terrifying opponent and such a massive enemy force, it was indeed hard to feel any desire to resist.
Death seemed to be drawing near, circling around them.
Thud!
Thud!
Every step of that giant beast caused a violent tremor.
Only a few people in the entire tribe could still maintain the last of their fighting spirit.
But even they had not the slightest hope of survival in their hearts. They only wanted to die in battle with a little dignity.
Deep in Nila's pupils, the mountain-like beast's figure rapidly grew larger.
If it brought down those pillar-like legs, it could probably crush them all into pulp in an instant.
"Saint, please protect us!"
Nila gripped her blade tightly and crudely attached mana to the weapon. She took a deep breath, then fiercely drove her legs forward, charging toward the giant beast to meet death.
Boom!
But the tragedy was that, despite their resolve to die, before Nila and the others could even charge close to the beast—while they were still several hundred meters away—
they were knocked down by the tremor of the giant beast's step, falling awkwardly onto the ground.
Thud!
Nila raised her head. In her dazed, blurred vision after the fall, the beast's elephant-like leg was already right before her.
At the moment before death, she felt time slowing down.
That pure white figure she longed for seemed to appear before her eyes once more.
Am I going to die…?
That thought surfaced in her mind.
Time froze at that instant.
Tap.
In the nearly motionless space-time, a foot lightly touched the ground.
Gauss stood in place. His eyes moved several times at a speed beyond superhuman comprehension, taking in everything around him.
"One deer-headed fiend, 367 gnolls, 523 goblins, and 51 kobolds…"
In the midst of his thought and observation, time seemed to have been paused.
He could capture all information around him: the regret on the face of the woman not far away who had fallen and was trying to rise, the giant beast beside him whose movements had been slowed to an extreme degree, and even the number and species of the many monsters behind it. Everything appeared in his mind without concealment.
And when he focused his mind on the deer-headed fiend leading them, time instantly resumed flowing, as if fast-forward had been pressed.
With the deer-headed fiend's body as the origin point, several illusory figures and trajectories extended outward.
Every trajectory was the product of the next several seconds of condensed space-time, and they would change in response to his own actions.
If he flashed away, the beast would crush several figures in front of it like a chariot. Blood and flesh would burst across the ground like smashed fruit, while the beast continued charging toward the depths of the mine valley.
When he shifted his gaze, the timeline changed again, and the scene began collapsing.
Everything returned to the starting point.
He did not choose to leave.
He mobilized his power, attaching the reinforced dragon force of [Dragon King's Bloodline] to his fist and striking unexpectedly at the creature's pale mask-like face with its enormous antlers. The deer-headed fiend's terrified eyes reflected his body.
The monster tried to resist, but Gauss was too fast, surpassing the limits of its reaction.
His fist, wrapped in flowing aura, landed within its constricted pupils. At first, cracks appeared across its hard deer-head mask, then spread outward like snowflakes scattering, exposing the ugly, withered face beneath.
Rings of shockwaves expanded from his fist.
The mountain-like deer-headed fiend was blasted backward by brute force, crashing into the many monsters behind it. Fifty-four gnolls and twelve goblins directly behind it would be killed on impact…
If he returned to the starting point again…
He seemed to see everything.
Like an omniscient god manipulating the loom of time.
~~~
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