Niklos let out a loud snort, letting a breath of shadowy air shoot forward and annihilate a group of retreating venom spiders.
The strength behind even a single forceful breath of air was enough to crave up the earth below, as the gaseous, black exhale shred through the venom spiders like a hot knife through butter. Blood, flesh and venom sprayed up in the air, directly in front of the Beast King.
The retreating humans went wide eyed as the glimpsed at the large wide spread destruction caused by that single breath and many of the younger Fae Masters shivered as a hot-blooded sensation coursed throughout their bodies.
Seeing those spirit beasts take so many of their comrades lives, so easily and so simply they were enthralled the moment they saw Elder Vova use his Attribute Control Skill to wipe out the spirit beasts in front of them.
But the appearance of the Noxious Venom Spider Beast King and its minions caused a seed of despair to become planted within the depths of their hearts.
They saw Elder Vova, who most of them had now thought was invincible lose an arm in order to protect his fellow Elders.
His battle strength was now less than half, and he had to focus on stopping the bleeding and couldn't participate in battle.
Some of them.... thought that they all might die here.
But then-!
"..... You are a Beast King, so I can presume that you can understand me".
Despite his distorted voice, the rage and hatred that Niklos felt spilled out of his enormous body, causing the black, shadowy aura around him to explode outwards, causing the ground beneath him to crack and the skies to thunder.
The wolf gritted its teeth, as a tint of red could be seen in its eyes. The claws on both its hands and feet fully extended themselves, and were cloaked in an equally bone-shivering aura.
The tone of Niklos voice seemed even colder than the frost and snow.
"I will kill you, and every single last one of your brood".
The eight eyes of the Noxious Spider flashed with an equally angered glint, as it raised its mandibles before screeching out, causing the nearby Fae Masters to cover their ears.
It had an intelligence comparable to a young Human's, so it could understand everything that Niklos had said.
It used to be an apex predator, which existed unrivalled within its underground territory.
With the rising water levels, its home had eventually filled up with water, and its own presence signalled the arrival of another apex predator, another Beast King.
It had been forced to leave, along with the remainder of its brood to retreat to higher ground.
The territory near Parachenko Village was situated on an enormous cliff, so the waters that flowed through the Village eventually flowed down to the valley below.
Strategically, it definitely wasn't as safe as a cave, since it was exposed to the elements, but if it could make use of the buildings and underground structures that these humans had created, it should become a more than suitable home for itself.
Seeing this.... Fae Master(?) stand before it, transformed completely to resemble an enormous wolf, its instincts told it to retreat, but the provocation that Niklos threw at it caused the rage and hatred inside to bubble up to the surface.
Niklos' gave off a wolf's grin before crouching down slightly and leaping up into the air.
It raised one of its claws high above its head, causing a huge, formless black gas to gather around them.
From a fair distance away, Arthur could see that there were at least a dozen different Fae that had just activated around Niklos' wolf claws.
Night Blade Fae.... Umbral Shadow Wolf Claw Fae.... Hardening Fae.... Shadow Knife Fae... Black Connection Fae.... Sun Hiding Fae.... Storm Shadow Fae.... Black Cloud Fae.... Umbral Shadow Wolf Bone Fae... Umbral Shadow Wolf Muscle Fae.... Night Killing Fae....
They all worked in conjunction, enhancing their overall performance and strength by a huge margin. The compatibility between all these Fae was not circular. One Fae did not necessarily enhance just a single Fae, but instead, one Fae would compliment multiple different Fae, enhancing the strength of one, before increasing the strength of dozens of other Fae!
It was very much like creating a web. One needed to make sure to strengthen certain sections of the web so that they complimented the weaker sections.
One wrong placement, might create a weakness, or even cause a complete fault in the Attribute Control Skill.
Even the activation of Fae in a different order, might make the power of the Attribute Control Skill weaker than before.
If it even activates in the first place....
Niklos slashed down swiftly, creating an enormous gust of air alone with just his the swing of his arm. Four powerful shadow blades were released from its shadow covered claws, the power within all three of them were enough to completely destroy Elder Vova's Untainted Flower Petals.
The eyes of the Noxious Venom Spider Beast King flashed as it activated its own Fae.
It didn't currently have the capacity to use Attribute Control Skills, and the Fae that it possessed were varied too much, so its complimentary abilities weren't nearly as developed as most of the Rank 2 Fae Masters in the Village.
A grand green coloured tree rose up from the depths of the earth below. Everything, from bark, to the branches, to the roots and even the leaves were all emitting a green tinted aura.
Arthur couldn't fully discern the Fae that it used, but other than a single Rank 4 Fae, all the other Fae it used was Rank 3 and below.
He smirked.
Such a thing wasn't capable of blocking the strike from an Attribute Control Skill.
When the four shadow blades collided with the giant green coloured tree, one of them exploded, destroying the tree completely before the other three pushed through, heading straight towards the Beast King.
The eyes of the massive Noxious Venom Spider widened before it shot out a large blob of webbing, pulling itself out of the way of the shadow blades.
Unfortunately, even though it avoided one of the shadow blades, two of them hit the mark.
The earth below shook tremendously as one of its massive eight legs fell the ground, releasing an immense poison into the soil below. Huge amounts of blood, venom and water quickly intertwined, creating a pool of strangely green liquid on the earth.
Elder Vova's eyes widened as it gestured towards the dismembered limb.
He, along with several of the other Elders noticed this peculiarity before pointing towards it with his remaining arm.
"Seal off the area where the Noxious Venom Spider leg has fallen! Don't let the poison mix into the soil or get into the water! Hurry!".
Multiple Fae Masters, despite their fear of the massive Rank 4 Beast King sprinted over before activating a plethora of different Fae.
Stone Wall Fae.... Earth Shifting Fae.... Water Mirror Fae.... Tree Growth Fae.... Bark Wall Fae.... even a rare Purify Fae was used to decontaminate the water and soil that had already been partially affected.
Even though the Noxious Venom Spider Beast King had yet to reach the realm of Laws, its physical body was still an extremely potent weapon, far beyond the normal standards of spirit beasts.
The blood and flesh, possible even the bones and organs were all extremely valuable Fae materials. And could be used as a substitutes to form Fae, or even form specific variations of Fae.
However, unlike most other Beast Kings, this Noxious Venom Spider possessed an even more potent venom. Capable of eroding soil and stone as it seeped into the ground.
All of the crops that once grew there, and all of the plants that took root in this area quickly turned to a thick paste as the Fae Masters quickly erected barriers to keep the corruption at bay.
The fight against the Beast King, had only just started.