The Swamp Masters' hidden beast, their gem, appeared at the nearest group of humans, scanning each of them up and down.
The beast wasn't knowledgeable about other powerful beings, such as the Headmaster or the Swamp Masters. Throughout its life, it was surrounded by beasts weaker than it was, absorbing mana and slowly growing more powerful.
And now, weak beings as these humans dared barge into its territory? How could it allow such a thing?
The beast lifted its head and wailed.
The air trembled as a sound shockwave spread in all directions. In an instant, it hit the beings inside the clearing.
Jhonas felt like a sledgehammer had hit him in the chest, cracking bones and rupturing organs.
His eyesight blanked as his brain rattled inside his skull, slamming into the surrounding bone.
He didn't even realize he fell to his knees, throwing mouthfuls of blood onto the dry ground.
The same scene repeated for the rest of the humans, but the lizard had it the worst.
Falling to the ground with the rest of the humans, it, too, threw up large amounts of blood. But something was different.
The humans recovered quickly, getting up from the ground and looking for ways to escape, but the beast stood there, unable to move even an inch.
The black beast saw the humans trying to escape, so it vanished from its spot, appearing next to the closest human.
The poor teen couldn't even scream in surprise as he found a large hand wrapped around his neck, lifting his body in the air. His eyes instantly widened as pain filled his consciousness.
He could feel the skin around his neck and beneath his chin burn to ashes while his blood instantly boiled.
The smell of burning flesh filled the area, allowing him to smell his death as the light in his eyes vanished. A moment later, his corpse fell to the ground dyeing the ground red, as the boy's head remained in the monster's outstretched hand.
By now, his head burned to a crisp. The skin and flesh from his face blackened and fell to the ground, leaving a pure white skull in its place.
The monster let the skull fall to the ground, shattering from the impact as the bone became as brittle as glass.
As though finally realizing how hot this monster was, the surrounding vegetation burst into flames, dancing around the monster's body as though greeting their god.
The coal-like monster vanished once again, appearing several meters away. Its speed was so fast the flames didn't even flicker.
Another young man slid to a stop, shocked by the monster appearing ahead of him. Not even three seconds had passed since he started running, but this beast could move dozens of meters that fast to appear ahead of him?
'Why am I the first to be attacked?'
He shouted in his mind. The scene a moment ago repeated all over again.
Letting the second skull fall to the ground, the beast turned to face another human.
The beast vanished from that spot. But the beast didn't move because it wanted to.
*CRASH!*
Several trees broke from the impact, but the beast's speed didn't slow down at all.
Only a five-meter-tall boulder managed to bring its body to a stop, not without breaking it in the process.
The beast fell powerlessly to the ground, blackened blood spilling onto the muddy swamp floor. With difficulty, it looked up, trying to make heads or tails of the situation that had just occurred.
Dozens of meters ahead, back in the clearing, stood a human who watched the beast with a rageful gaze. The man gritted his molars to powder, but his expression didn't change even by a tee.
He looked as calm as ever.
The beast watched that human with confusion. Was he the one that hit it?
How? It didn't even see the man approach it, much less see his attack.
Shock and confusion ran through its brain before being cut off like the strings of a marionette.
The human moved once more, crossing the dozens of meters in the blink of an eye, towering over the fallen beast.
Geralt looked down upon the beast with a disgusted look on his face. His mind spun with questions as he pressured the monster with his magic base.
The beast's head slammed into the floor, sinking into the muddy ground inch by inch. It was constant, even as the ground compressed and resisted more and more against its body.
Geralt didn't pay any attention to the beast's pain as his eyes scanned its body from head to toe. His eyes moved so fast that they seemed to leave afterimages in their wake, but the man didn't look uncomfortable.
'A new beast, huh?' He thought as he scanned the beast's internal mana pathways.
If he was to summarize this beast in one sentence, it would be fire magic pushed to its extremes.
Usually, every being had mana of all types coursing through their bodies, but this one, in particular, didn't follow the same convention. Not only was it consuming the mana inside its body as though it was mere food, but it also rejected every other type of mana from its surroundings.
"Disgusting," Geralt cursed and increased the pressure on the monster. The sound of bones breaking and flesh being squeezed of its life filled the surroundings, but the Headmaster continued to look in silence. Not even the smallest bit of sympathy showed in his eyes of face.
The beast beneath him weakly wailed as the pressure on its body increased more than 10 fold. Its blood pressure went through the roof and pierced through the skin in small, pressurized streams, like small geysers.
Geralt learned everything about this new beast and waved his hand, intending to kill it immediately, but stopped in the middle of his attack as thick roots shot out of the ground and protected the beast.
He looked to the side and asked in a cold voice.
"You really don't want this creature to die, huh?"
From the ground, fifteen meters away from the Headmaster, roots poked through the earth and took the shape of a Swamp Master.
"Tell me, Ivaus, is this your child?" Asked Geralt as he pointed at the hole in the floor beside him.
The leshen glared at Geralt but said nothing.
The Headmaster nodded to himself. Silence was an answer in itself.
"Then tell me this. Why didn't you leash your spawn?"
Geralt asked as he unleashed more of his base, pressing on the leshen without mercy. Not even the cocoon of roots could resist any longer, creaking and cracking with each passing second. In a few short moments, the beast inside would be crushed like a bug between one's fingers.
The Swamp Master growled angrily before rotating its right palm with difficulty, revealing the smooth surface of an opal-like stone.
Geralt's eyes widened upon gazing at that smooth stone and retreated explosively. He finally understood the reason the leshen appeared here. It wasn't to save its offspring, no. It was to kill the Headmaster.
No matter how strong Geralt was, there was no way under the sky he could survive a mana crystal going subcritical. Reaching the surviving teens, he brought them to a single spot before looking back at the leshen.
The hairs on the back of his neck stood on their ends as he felt the mana in the surroundings shake like it was about to break.
Flipping his palm over, Geralt took out a piece of parchment before he ripped it in two. A moment later, his body and the group of teens appeared more than five hundred meters away from their previous position but didn't stop his retreat.
Appearing above the treetops, the Headmaster used his all to run away with all his might. He might've been faster if he didn't drag seven others with him, but he couldn't leave them to die like that.
Suddenly, an enormous pillar of light appeared in the middle of the swamp, bright enough to overpower even the sun.
Over 200 hundred meters wide and several kilometres tall, the multicolored pillar of pure mana disintegrated everything within its radius. Rocks vanished to powder, and trees to sawdust before everything burst aflame.
Millions of kilograms of combustible matter sparked aflame simultaneously, creating a ball of raging fire that covered hundreds of meters more.
The air finally caught on, trying to move away from the blast but failing to do so. A shockwave took form, moving away from the blast centre, levelling entire kilometres of trees.
Geralt saw the approaching shockwave and waved his hand, shooting out a barrier ahead of him in an attempt to protect the kids.
The shockwave was faster than he was running away, hitting the barrier thousands of times harder than what a Swamp Master was capable of.
Geralt's barrier was instantly sheared apart, sending him and the seven young men flying backwards at an even faster speed.
Geralt threw up a mouthful of blood, followed by the younger men, as he used all his power to steady their trajectory.
A moment later, the Headmaster crashed down into the ground, breaking trees in the process.
Fortunately, that slowed the group down enough to not kill the teens, instead only breaking several of their bones.
Geralt wiped the thin strand of blood from his lips and stood up without much injury to his body.
Facing the group of seven, he clicked his tongue in annoyance.
"More trouble for me..." He grumbled out loud as he took this group back to the fortress.