Chapter 22: The Fall of the Amazon Elders

At Li Mingxing’s command, nearly two hundred harpies rose into the air. What startled everyone was that they were no longer plainly blue and white; each had wrapped herself in green leaves, concealing the color of her feathers.

With their true hues hidden, the Amazon women could not tell what strength or abilities these harpies possessed. In that brief moment of uncertainty, the harpies broke into squads of ten and scattered in every direction.

Nadoya’s expression changed at once. She understood perfectly where they were headed. Right now, the Amazon chief and the elders were together with the Black Panther Clan.

To show the Black Panthers they were not being used as cannon fodder, the chiefs had not hidden as they usually would have. Instead, they were standing openly beside the Black Panthers.

Now that the harpies had flown off in all directions, it would not be long before they found the Amazon elders. By then, those elders would be under a storm of lightning attacks from the harpies.

If this had been the old kind of harpy, the Amazon elders would still have had little to fear. But these harpies had somehow learned to combine the power of lightning together. Under this barrage, the Amazon elder council would almost certainly be wiped out.

Thinking of this, Nadoya’s face grew darker and darker. Too anxious to think any further, she turned and headed straight for the place where the Amazon elders were gathering.

Li Mingxing noticed her movements, but he said nothing. Instead, he pointed toward the Amazons still fighting the wolf pack and said, “Take care of them first.”

At that moment, about eighty centaurs charged out from Li Mingxing’s side. What they held now were no longer ordinary wooden spears. They had been exchanged from the witches for proper spears. The shafts were still wooden, but the iron spearheads greatly increased their killing power.

A thrust to the right place could kill even a second-tier Amazon outright. But the Amazons themselves were masters of the spear. They had spent as much time on spearwork as the centaurs had, and naturally knew how to dodge when a spear came at them if they wanted to live.

Even with the centaurs armed with new spears, the Amazon troops were not dying at any great rate. Seeing this, Li Mingxing shook his head. After this battle, he would have to strengthen the centaurs’ spear skills.

Meanwhile, about fifteen miles from Li Mingxing’s battlefield, the Amazon chief was speaking with a black panther that had already taken human form. Around them, more than forty sturdy black panthers and several older Amazon women stood guard.

They were in the middle of an animated conversation when a black panther suddenly darted out from nearby and barked several times at the panther in human form.

After hearing it, the human-shaped black panther glared at the Amazon chief and said, “Chief Fidoya, what is the meaning of this?”

“What meaning?” the Amazon chief asked in confusion.

“I’m asking what your people are doing. Why are they leading the enemy harpies this way?” the human-shaped black panther roared.

At that point, the Amazon chief no longer needed to guess. She saw Nadoya running desperately toward them, and behind Nadoya, harpies had appeared in the sky.

The Amazon chief immediately shouted, “Nadoya, what are you doing there?”

Nadoya shouted back at the top of her lungs, “Chief, that man has scattered all his harpies. I was afraid—”

“Forget afraid,” the chief cut her off. “They’ve already found us. We’re leaving, now—”

But just as they were preparing to withdraw, a low buzzing suddenly rose in their ears. Before they could react, vast swarms of bees burst out from the surrounding woods and came crashing down like a storm.

The swarm moved incredibly fast, and there were so many of them that even the Amazon chief and the Black Panther chief could not evade them all. In no time at all, everyone present had been stung into swollen, bruised misery.

After the bees finally departed, the upper ranks of the Amazons and Black Panthers discovered something else: they seemed to have been poisoned. And the effects were not all the same. Some were dizzy and disoriented; others had no strength in their limbs; still others were foaming at the mouth.

With this situation, and with the earlier swarm of bees, both chiefs understood at once who had attacked them. They shouted together, “Sprites! Everyone be careful! Drink your antidote potions! If you see any creature the size of a fist, attack immediately!”

But at that very moment, another shock froze them in place. While they had been ambushed by the sprites, Li Mingxing’s harpies had also arrived in full.

Though they were draped in green leaves, they had not lost their abilities. The nearer harpies, the white ones, were the original white harpies. By now they had drawn their blowpipes, and their only goal was to stop anyone here from escaping.

Behind them, the blue harpies were already preparing large-scale magic. If Li Mingxing had been there, he would have seen that the blue harpies had divided into three waves. The first wave was the largest, and the spell they were preparing was the largest of all, large enough to cover every enemy below.

The second wave was led by three harpy sorceresses, and they were preparing especially powerful spells aimed at important figures such as the Amazon chief and the Black Panther chief.

The third wave was smaller, and its spells were weaker. But their purpose was to make sure no one survived the two previous lightning strikes, so they felt no great pressure at all.

Compared with the harpies’ orderly and disciplined assault, the Amazons and the Black Panthers below were in complete chaos. The upper ranks of these two tribes had not faced a life-and-death crisis like this in many years.

The Black Panther chief was still somewhat better off. After all, he had to roam the forest with his people every day. But the Amazon chiefs and elders were different. They had once maintained contact with the Dragon City of the High Elves, and while training huntresses for the High Elves, they had long since forgotten how to behave when danger struck.

At that moment, they were actually running in all directions, and in the end even collided with one another. The harpies in the sky could not help but laugh.

This left the Amazon chief thoroughly humiliated. Of course, she had no mind to care about that now. Her only thought was to get out of there at once and find a way to escape.

But by then, the harpies’ lightning had already come crashing down. The first wave of lightning covered an enormous area. Under its strike, every living thing below was hit, even the mice and other creatures underground.

Under this blast, among the Amazons, only Nadoya and the Amazon chief were still able to move. On the Black Panther side, four or five could still move.

But the second and third waves did not stop there. The harpies had been preparing this assault for a long time; now was the perfect chance to vent their fury.

Soon, the second wave of lightning struck again. This spell was controlled mainly by three harpy sorceresses, whose mastery of lightning had already reached level four, master rank. And because this spell was not as massive as the first, the lightning net was exceptionally precise, sweeping quickly over the bodies of the few people still moving.

After being struck by this lightning, the Amazon chief was instantly vaporized, not even leaving behind the staff in her hand. The only one who survived was Nadoya. The Black Panther chief also survived.

Of course, at that point, surviving was scarcely different from dying. Watching the third wave of lightning gathering overhead, a trace of fury flashed in Nadoya’s eyes, while the Black Panther chief muttered in a low voice, “I never provoked you people. Can’t you let me go?”

But his voice was far too soft. In the end, he did not survive either. When the third and weakest wave of lightning had fallen, there was no living thing left on the blackened forest floor.

After the blue harpies completed their three waves of lightning attacks, the harpy sorceress commanding the white harpies shouted loudly, “What are you waiting for? Did you forget what the lord said? After the enemy is killed, quickly pick up the round objects on the ground. Move faster, all of you!”

At her command, the original white harpies swooped down one after another and began searching for the spirit coins formed from soldiers and troops. But perhaps the lightning had exploded too violently just now, because all the spirit coins had been scattered across the nearby ground. They were extremely difficult to collect, and the harpies spent a very long time gathering them.

Just as they had nearly finished, a few falcons flew over from Li Mingxing’s battlefield and brought the harpies a far more important piece of news: Li Mingxing, who had been locked in fierce combat with the ordinary Amazon warriors, seemed to have been ambushed, and the force that had attacked him was extraordinarily powerful.