163: Wild Gnoll

After dealing with the Kobolds, Ryan walked south alone.

Randall and the others still followed from a distance.

More than an hour later, when the characteristic clicking sound of bone armor came from the southwest, the sunlight swept across the crescent blade of a Gnoll's halberd.

Fifteen figures, over two meters tall, swayed in the cold wind; although the Gnolls' bodies looked like tall humans, a closer look revealed that they possessed the genetic traits of hyenas.

They stood upright on two legs, and their hands could use various tools like normal humans.

Dark green skin covered bulging tendons, the area near their noses was black, and their yellow fur was tinged with grayish-red.

Their mottled manes trembled with each step, and the skull wind chimes hanging from their halberd shafts played a rhythm of death.

The warriors in the front row clawed at the ground with their toes, their bloodshot sclera rotating with the twitching of their snouts—these hybrids of the Abyss and hyenas were always restless with hunger.

Ryan crouched behind a tree trunk, watching the half-eaten human corpses impaled on their halberd tips, with putrid fluid dripping down the halberd shafts carved with patterns of carnivorous plants.

The young man stealthily crept in the direction they were heading and set up a warning arrow trap.

Then, he summoned the invisible Pearl Dragon.

For the past two months, every morning, the Pearl Dragon would return to Black Panther Fortress.

Then it would fly to the seaside, split into two Level 1 magical beasts, and begin to maintain the salt fields, irrigate with seawater, dry salt, boil salt, cultivate pearls, dive to the seabed to catch mother-of-pearl, implant pearl nuclei (every day, craftsmen from the South District would give the processed bone pearl nuclei to the Pearl Dragon), manage the mother-of-pearl, patrol (to prevent invasion by beasts or sea monsters)…

With the Pearl Dragon's current efficiency, the estimated fine salt production for this year is over 400 tons, and pearl production is several thousand pieces.

To avoid affecting production at the seaside, the young man rarely summoned the Pearl Dragon now.

When a Gnoll stepped into the trap, an arrow shot towards it.

The arrow pierced the Gnoll's leather armor, and then another arrow followed.

“Clang…”

The Gnoll swung its halberd, blocking the second arrow.

“Puff… puff…”

The third and fourth arrows pierced its eye socket and throat before the Gnoll could react.

The falling body kicked up snow dust, like a withered thorn flower.

The fourteen Gnolls behind it immediately let out warning howls, vigilantly looking around and quickly contracting into a battle formation, their halberd tips interlocked like a thorny cage.

The Pearl Dragon transformed into a Pearl Dragon, and with a flash, appeared above the Gnoll horde.

Three-ring Arcane: Tidal Ice Arrow!

The Pearl Dragon fired an acid arrow, encased in ice crystals, from its mouth at the largest Gnoll in the center, hitting it squarely in the chest.

The arrowhead instantly penetrated the target's chest, not only causing a massive piercing wound to this Gnoll, but also producing sizzling sounds around the wound as it was corroded by acid.

At the same time, a frozen area of about 10 feet formed at its feet, causing a 50% slow effect on creatures within the area.

Then, the Pearl Dragon cast its spell-like ability: Cone of Cold.

From its mouth, countless foot-long ice cones spewed out, covering a conical area of nearly 30 feet over the Gnoll horde below.

Most of the Gnolls suffered immense cold and piercing damage.

Four or five Gnolls died on the spot, and another seven or eight were severely wounded or dying.

Only two Gnolls standing on the edge, agile in their movements, managed to dodge the attack range of the Cone of Cold.

One of them flicked its large hand, throwing the huge halberd in its hand towards the Pearl Dragon in mid-air.

It missed!

Before the halberd blade touched it, the Pearl Dragon used its spell-like ability: Misty Step, appearing 30 feet away.

The Gnoll that threw the halberd only felt its vision blur, and the silver dragon was gone.

Then a lightning bolt struck it, and it could no longer get up.

It was the Pearl Dragon's Three-ring Arcane: Deep Sea Resonance Chain!

Within a 60-foot range, the lightning chain instantly killed this Gnoll.

Then came the Level 1 One-ring Arcane: Acid Missile!

3 pearl-colored acid missiles were fired by the Pearl Dragon at the other escaping Gnoll.

In the middle of the field, there were still 4 severely wounded and 3 dying Gnolls left.

Breath!

The Pearl Dragon in the air aimed at these 7 Gnolls and exhaled a cloud of boiling steam, enveloping them.

This steam cloud continuously dealt 1d10 points of scorching damage to creatures within it every six seconds.

Within a few breaths, all fourteen Gnolls were dead.

Ryan looked at the rapidly growing strength of the Pearl Dragon, his heart filled with joy.

Originally, he had wanted to cooperate with the Pearl Dragon.

He hadn't expected the Pearl Dragon to handle everything in such a short amount of time.

He came before the fifteen corpses and grasped a Gnoll's halberd.

This is… made of Hell Iron!

As expected, they are creatures that crossed over from the Hell plane.

For the past two months, Ryan had consulted a large amount of information related to Gnolls.

Legend has it that Gnolls are the corrupted products of Yeenoghu.

According to Abyssal legends, Yeenoghu once threw packs of hyenas into the chaotic energy of the Bottomless Abyss, causing them to mutate into the first Gnolls.

These creatures inherited the Abyss's bloodthirsty instincts and became Yeenoghu's servants.

Gnolls primarily operate in the Material Plane, but their racial origins stem from the 422nd layer of the Bottomless Abyss, Yeenoghu's domain.

This layer is composed of scorched earth, hills of bones, and rotting swamps, with a blood-red vortex hanging in the sky, known as the “Hunger Wastes,” filled with bone deserts and eternal slaughter fields.

The Gnoll god: Yeenoghu, titles: Devourer of Hunger, Lord of Hyenas, King of Blood Claws.

The primary inhabitants of his domain include Gnoll fanatics, Abyssal hyenas, and corrupted beasts.

His core tenets:

“Only slaughter can quell hunger, only blood can nourish power”;

Demanding that believers offer sacrifices through massacres, piling flesh and blood into a “Skull Throne” to please Yeenoghu.

“Gnolls are a chaotic evil race created by the Abyssal Lord Yeenoghu; their very existence is a manifestation of the corrupting power of the Bottomless Abyss.

Yeenoghu controls Gnolls through a divine cycle of hunger and violence, making them a source of disaster for the Material Plane.

—Varo”

This was a sentence recorded in a miscellany that Ryan's subordinates bought a month ago from a traveling Bard at the Gorebest Red Scroll Inn.

It is said that the Bard was being chased by the innkeeper for his drink money at the time and was about to use this notebook as collateral.

Could these man-eating beasts, these monsters that capture people to sacrifice back at Quagmire Fortress, truly have crossed over from Yeenoghu's domain in Hell through a planar rift?