"Dammit!" A Pranic Beast twelve metres in length drilled out of the layer of earth it was buried under, bloodied. With a grunt, it reverted to its human form, revealing a middle-aged man that oozed out uncontrolled rage.
Blood dripped out of his head; he was injured in a lot of areas. His Prana circulated, beginning to heal the injuries. He turned around and saw Pranic Beasts drill out one after another, "No one died, right?"
"All masters are alive, but a lot have been injured."
"We don't have time, let's give chase. Those bastards are almost out of our detection range." The middle-aged man said and transformed into his Pranic Beast form, "Everyone! Get on my back and focus on healing yourselves. I'll be burning up my lifeforce to raise my speed to the limit."
The Pranic Beast sprinted through the canyon, carrying hundreds of masters on its back. It travelled for two hundred kilometres before dropping dead. The masters on its back had healed themselves enough by now.
Without a moment's hesitation, they jumped off and began sprinting.
In the meantime, using the time Banna and Roha had bought for them, Gahar and Vuya were working at their top speed.
They had halted at a point in the canyon that was downstream. There was an inclined slop following that, traversing for a long distance.
Gahar was Inala's father while Vuya was Virala's mother. The duo killed all the Zingers in the vicinity and refined their bones to create a large wall that they inserted into the ground at the entrance of the canyon flowing between the two mountains.
These mountains were pretty wide, spanning twenty to thirty kilometres. Therefore, the stretch of the canyon within it was long while the slope accumulated over the distance. The conditions were perfect to make a dam, which was what they did here.
The dam gate reached a height of four hundred metres, causing the canyon water to accumulate behind it. Due to the slope, the water quickly reached a decent depth, building up pressure on the dam wall.
As they had hurriedly built it, the wall wasn't strong enough to handle the accumulating water pressure. But that was fine, for they only needed it to last for a short while anyway. Once it was completed, the duo coated it with a layer of soil.
They made a great job in making it resemble part of the cliff.
"If there's an afterlife, we'll meet there." Saying so, Vuya jumped behind the dam wall and entered the water. She expended her being and collapsed as a mere bag of skin, resulting in a glowing sphere of Prana that merged into the dam wall.
In the meantime, Gahar covered the wet soil with dry soil, masking the region of all traces of there being water there. In the meantime, after the water level reached enough height thanks to the dam and filled up the canyon, water began to overflow from the upstream entrance.
This water flowed around the two mountains and converged at a spot five kilometres downstream from the dam wall and continued its flow. Now, when viewed from high up, it would seem like the stream split into two due to the two mountains and rejoined further downwards, appearing natural.
This entire setup made it seem as if the stretch of five kilometres from the node—where the two streams joined—to the dam wall was dry land. And beyond the wall was merely a ravine and not a canyon.
That was their goal. And it was executed flawlessly. They were selected for the mission for a reason.
As Gahar stood in the dry spot two kilometres away from the dam wall, he used the Mystic Bone Art to manipulate the bones of Zingers he had killed, creating a long barrel whose interior was grooved. His goal was to unleash an attack beyond his cultivation capabilities. And when he intended to do so, an idea came to mind instinctively, originating from a concept he was unaware of.
He didn't know whether or not such a concept existed, but instinctively, he was confident of its success, a strange feeling.
Following that, he created a metre-long cylindrical piece of bone with one end being hemispherical.
It was a bone bullet.
Gahar calmly loaded the bone bullet in the barrel and infused Prana into it until the limit. He took out an Elixir from his pocket and sighed at its appearance, "I wanted to gift it to Inala if I managed to return. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem likely."
As he prepared to die, a powerful instinct enveloped him, causing strange words to waft out of his mouth, the meaning unknown, but the sentiment originated from the depths of his consciousness.
"My son, I hope you succeed." His expression was solemn, sad even, his eyes moist, "Our Clan's future is riding on you. We truly sacrificed a lot to achieve that trip."
The Elixir settled in his Spirit Container, allowing him to break through to the Life Stage. Immediately in response, his Prana achieved a qualitative upgrade as Gahar exhaled softly.
As a master, his eyes focused upon the figures of the pursuers that were visible now, only a dozen kilometres away, "We're from the same Clan, but I'm sorry. I have to do this. After all, your deaths won't mean much for the Mammoth Clan's future. But my son's would. And for him to survive, our ownership of the baby Empyrean Tusk is a necessity."
"He'll be the one to prevent the Mammoth Clan's annihilation." As he spoke, faint images flickered in his head, like the initial drizzle of rain. As the seconds passed, the images became frequent, before soon, it was like a storm as an entire life's worth of memories surged in him, causing him to smile warmly, "Ahh, the fact that I can remember everything means my end's arrived."
"My son, I'll pray for you from the other side." Gahar's body shrivelled up until only his skin remained. All his power surged into the bone bullet as it shot forward, rotating thanks to the rifling in the barrel.
It blasted forth, creating a vapour cone as it broke through the speed of sound, heading towards the approaching masters at hypersonic speeds.
"What the…" One of the masters muttered in shock as everyone instinctively took on their Pranic Beast forms and raised their defence to the maximum.
The bone bullet slammed into the closest master and penetrated his body easily. A vapour cone bloomed once again as its speed dropped to sonic levels, resulting in shockwaves that sent the nearby masters slamming into the cliff walls.
Like bowling pins, they were smacked away, with those in the bullet's path shredded without resistance. The cause was simple. Every second, hundreds of minor explosions occurred behind the bone bullet, propelling it, causing it to accelerate even when it slammed into targets repeatedly.
Prime Skill—Shock Rail!
Forty masters lost their lives directly to the bullet while the rest sustained grave injuries, incapacitated for the time being. But that wasn't the end.
The walls of the dam exploded, making the high-pressured water behind—one that had almost stacked to a height of four hundred metres—rush out like a tsunami. It drowned the masters, further adding to their injuries as they were washed away for tens of kilometres.
Many masters had fallen unconscious due to the outpour while the conscious ones fought to protect everyone. After all, their current situation was different from their initial, unstoppable selves. Therefore…
"Kuugugukakaka!" The Zingers began targeting them.