Chapter 231: The Beast Tide That Turned Back

Chapter 231: Chapter 231: The Beast Tide That Turned Back

Few hours ago

~~~~

Lang Yao stood at the edge of the cliff, clenching his jaw so tightly it felt like his teeth would shatter.

He had come here with a simple plan.

Throw the mutated Fire Wolf pup’s corpse near the forest that bordered the Dawn Base. Stir up some chaos. Let a few mutated beasts gather and maybe push them toward Liora’s gate. Just enough to weaken her. Just enough to prove that base of hers wasn’t as invincible as everyone claimed.

But what he saw now was not chaos.

It was destruction.

Beasts. Hundreds of them.

No—thousands.

From every direction, a black tide of mutated creatures surged toward the Dawn Base like a flood. Their eyes glowed red with madness, their claws tearing through earth and bark as they stampeded. Some were beasts he had never even seen before. Massive, scaled creatures with tusks. Others flew overhead, screeching like banshees.

Lang Yao’s face filled with fear.



"This... isn’t right," he muttered.

His followers behind him looked pale, shifting nervously, whispering among themselves.

"C-Captain Lang, what the hell is this?" one of them stammered.

"There weren’t supposed to be this many! We only threw one damn corpse!"

Lang Yao didn’t answer.

His plan was to watch from a safe distance, maybe take a few proofs, bring back the news that Dawn Base was overwhelmed. And then? He’d report to their leader with a smug face, claiming victory. Maybe even use the chaos as an excuse to steal from their resources. He had even imagined confronting Liora, watching her cry as her precious walls crumbled.

He wanted her humiliated.

But now?

Now the only one being humiliated was him.

His legs trembled.

Because those beasts—some of them had stopped.

Stopped tearing at the wall.

And turned their heads.

Toward him.

As if they could smell something.

As if they remembered who threw that pup.

Lang Yao stumbled back. "No. No. No no no—"

A low growl rolled across the field.

Then a howl.

And then—

The beasts surged.

"RUN!" he shouted.

His men didn’t need to be told twice. Panic swept through them as they turned, fleeing through the broken woods and dry riverbeds. Lang Yao ran with all his strength, his boots crashing against the ground, lungs burning. Behind them, the monsters followed like shadows.

They didn’t stop.

Not even for a second.

One of his men tripped on a root and screamed—only for a massive claw to rip through him like paper. Blood sprayed the trees. Lang Yao didn’t even look back.

"Faster! Keep going! Don’t stop, you useless dogs!"

But the noise—the crashing, the growling, the shouting—it drew more attention.

Other beasts, lurking in the forest, heard the commotion and joined the hunt. The air shook with their cries. The forest seemed alive with death. It was no longer a chase.



It was a massacre in motion.

By the time Lang Yao and his men reached the East River Base gates, they were bloodied, wild-eyed, screaming at the guards.

"Open the gate! OPEN IT!"

The guards were stunned at first.

Then they saw the beasts.

The gates were opened just long enough for the survivors to scramble through. Archers and ability users on the walls immediately launched attacks to push back the closest monsters.

The gate slammed shut.

Boom!

The beasts crashed against it with full force.

The walls shook.

People screamed.

The tide had turned. What was supposed to be a trick to weaken another base had now circled back to destroy them.

Lang Yao sat slumped against a crate, breathing hard, his chest rising and falling like a bellows. His coat was torn. One arm was badly scratched. Blood dripped from his temple. But worse than the wounds was the look in his eyes.

Fear.

He was completely, utterly afraid.

He looked up at the base wall. Mutated beasts were crawling over one another to reach the top. Some were already scaling the outer layers. Screams echoed from every corner. Explosions of ability and elemental power filled the air. The East River Base was not ready for this. Their defenses were built for bandits and some few beast.

Not this.

Not a real beast tide.

He cursed under his breath. He had wanted Liora to suffer. Wanted to break her. He had whispered to his people, called her a pretender, a coward hiding behind a powerful man.

Now?

He wished she would die a brutual death in the beast tide.

Because if this continued, it wouldn’t be Dawn Base that fell first.

It would be his.

He had no answer for the leader. No excuse to offer. And all the fantasies he once had about conquering that girl, about standing proudly over her crushed dream—all of it was gone.

All he wanted now...was to live.

And the wall behind him shuddered again.

As if even that was no longer guaranteed.

The ground thundered.

The stone wall of East River Base, once seen as unbreakable, cracked with a deafening boom. Screams echoed across the battlements as mutated beasts slammed their massive bodies into the gate again—BOOM!—and again—BOOM!—until the iron hinges screamed and burst apart.

The wall collapsed in a storm of shattered stone and splinters.



And then the beasts rushed in.

Like a flood of nightmares, the tide poured through the gap. Bloodied fangs. Razor-sharp claws. Glowing red eyes filled with madness.

Within seconds, the inside of the base turned into chaos.

People ran in every direction. Mothers dragged their children, soldiers abandoned their posts. Supplies were knocked over, carts overturned, and tents burst into flames as elemental abilities misfired in the panic. It was no longer a defense.

It was survival.

Lang Yao, still breathing heavily and covered in blood, watched it all from near the inner courtyard. He had no interest in protecting the base. He wasn’t a hero. He never had been. His only thought was to run—run and survive.

"Captain Lang!" one of his men shouted, limping toward him. "What do we do?! They’ve broken in!"

Lang Yao’s eyes were wild. "What do you think?! RUN, you idiot!"

And with that, he grabbed the man by the collar—and threw him.

Right into the path of the oncoming beasts.

The man barely had time to scream before a hulking, bear-like creature snapped him in half with its massive jaws. His spine cracked like dry wood, and a gush of blood sprayed across the dirt, painting the ground in a dark crimson color.

Lang Yao didn’t look back. His only concern was staying alive.