Academic gathering with a lich-Chapter 857 - 798: Solve the Problem with Violence, or Solve Yourself

Chapter 857: Chapter 798: Solve the Problem with Violence, or Solve Yourself

Alcalon revealed his sharp teeth with every word he spoke, resembling a row of razors. The Berserker thought the Giant Dragon had come to control the situation, only to learn from his mouth the unsettling news that was taking over the tense atmosphere from another angle.

[An enemy is among us.]

The throbbing in his throat bobbed up and down as he struggled to contain his emotions and prevent his inner frenzy from surging. The Hunting Team had a fixed formation, with small teams of two or three usually being close-knit. For this very reason, now seated around the campfire, to his left was his childhood friend Sarei, and to his right, Mikael, his wife’s brother. With the help of these two, hunting had always been successful, but now he had to reassess his kin, or enemies disguised as kin.

The gaze of suspicion was mutual; silent confrontations flickered above the dancing flames. The Black Dragon had confiscated every person’s weapon to suppress the tumult that would ensue should an undercover operative be exposed. Every Berserker intended to identify and beat the enemy senseless themselves, even though Alcalon had little faith in the barbarians’ discernment abilities.

He wished he had four more eyes. His eyes, bloodshot and unblinking amidst the drifting ashes, frightened Sarei with their intensity. This red-eyed brute looked like he was about to devour someone.

"My home is at..."

"The biggest tent on the third level, second from the start, with a panther skin stitched on the left door seam, that’s compensation for my blunder..." Such dialogues had been repeated many times without any progress, frustrating him further. He was unaware of the shift in his own mentality. He no longer hoped to recognize his friends but rather for them to quickly make a mistake, to be identified as undercover so he could send a heavy punch right to their face.

They found no solution. Not being thinkers was a fatal flaw of the Berserkers. As Alcalon toyed with his weapon, looking down upon the squabbling ancient human hunters, he mused that if the Heart-snatcher Worms truly had infiltrated, the Black Dragon would have applauded their parasitic prowess for having eluded the discernment of the Giant Dragon. The scent of magic, the fluctuations in life’s breath—Alcalon’s blood sense could detect new life within a mother, but it failed to recognize the parasitic worms. The Black Dragon sniffed the dust in the air, and its golden dragon eyes focused on someone—they were becoming impatient.

"The leopard I speared with a long spear on my first hunt when I was five years old, how many spots were around the wound?" Mountain hummed in self-satisfaction, watching as Sarei’s face slowly turned red. He was sure he had stumped him. Although it was a distant childhood memory, the sense of accomplishment from the first hunt remained clear in his heart, and he remembered every detail of the prey, especially the hole where the Stone Spear had pierced. Mountain was not joking; he had indeed counted the surrounding spots carefully and had tirelessly boasted about this "trophy" to his good brother numerous times.

Sarei surely remembered if he really was Sarei.

"...Twelve? Or maybe eleven?" Sarei, clutching his hair, had dirtied himself in ashes, stirring his mind in search of past memories, attempting to escape the torment of his friend’s interrogation. With the tension winding up to the limit, the Berserker’s tone had a tinge of resignation.

"Ha! The correct answer is eleven and a half! There was a diseased spot among them! You answered wrongly!" Mountain propped himself up on his knees, eager to stand and initiate an attack from above on Sarei, intending to exercise all his strength, channeling all the fatigue from racking his brains into Sarei’s facial muscles. That’s exactly what he planned to do, no doubt about it.

The blood-red shadow was quicker, with Sarei raising clenched fists above his head, arms bending like a bow, the hot blood energy more striking than the campfire flames, his hair bristling, as he succumbed to rage.

The spot where Mountain had been sitting looked as though it had been bombarded. Everyone felt a tremor and turned to see Sarei standing on the edge of the smoke, the blood color fading from his exposed skin.

"What happened?"

"I’ve found the undercover. He was disguised as Mountain. I subdued him before he erupted."

Emotions are an easily detected scent, especially anger, to which ancient humans were particularly sensitive. None of them dared to contradict the still-raging Sarei. Like him, they too were under scrutiny by their close ones, and none believed they could do better than Sarei, not wanting to be the spark that set off the entire brawl.

A horizontal punch sent Sarei flying. Mountain crawled out of the pit, his skin red and steaming, twisting his neck with a fresh streak of blood flowing through his hair. A sadistic smile hung on his lips as Mountain too entered Berserker mode.

"You are the undercover. Sarei’s fists were not as weak as yours."

Friend or foe held no meaning to the Berserkers who by now, in the heat of the fight, only wanted to smash each other’s heads. The question of who was the undercover became a perfect excuse to trade blows. The Berserkers, facing a life-threatening situation, still abandoned their minds and chose to fight even without weapons, although they didn’t need any.

Having endured mental torture under Mr. Ohmhead’s leadership, every single one of the ancient humans from the Hunting Team were psychopaths. This was not evident when mingling with the bloody and barbaric tribe, but the slightest oppression could trigger a volatile rebound into fury. Ohmhead still had some conscience to restrain his subordinates, but as for the Black Dragon Alcalon’s thoughts...

"Vitality abundant, easily provoked to wrath, my kin always stand at the pinnacle of the food chain." Alcalon had turned the ancient humans into numerical monsters with ever-accumulating rage buffs.

The melee raged on. After one hour, the Berserkers beat the ground down a layer; after two hours, not a spot on their bodies was unmarked, all bruised or imprinted, sustained only by the Berserkers’ rapid regeneration. Three hours in, someone threw up.

Mikael knelt on the ground, vomiting a five-meter-long blackened, necrotic mass of flesh from his throat. Mountain relaxed his fists slightly, attempting to discern which organ his brother-in-law had spilled.

With its last breath, the Heart-snatcher Worm twitched, dying from internal injuries.

Feeling slightly exhausted from the fight, the Berserkers gathered around the creature, their expressions puzzled as they nearly forgot the original reason for their brawl.

"What is this, Mountain? Did you punch Mikael’s intestines out?"

"Mikael’s intestines don’t look like this. He must have eaten something unclean..."

"Could it be... is this the enemy that Lord Black Dragon spoke of?"

"It’s absolutely impossible, how could there be such an ugly enemy, we definitely still have a traitor hidden among us! This is simply food poisoning!"

"Keep hitting them! Beat them up!"

The Berserkers became entangled in a fight again.

...

In the deep dark strata.

The Heart-snatcher Worms’ chieftain was holding a war council. The Swarm network kept receiving bad news of warriors’ deaths, plunging the Swarm into chaos.

"It’s not yet time to start a rebellion! Our goal is to contaminate the land nodes! What are you doing!"

"...It’s the Black Dragon Kin themselves who started the riot! They’re fighting their own people!"

"Have we been exposed?"

"No, they attacked everything in sight, we were accidentally harmed."

"How is it an accident? We’re lurking deep within their flesh, close to vital organs. You’re telling me this is accidental. Are they not afraid of killing their own people?"

Restless voices echoed through the Swarm network.

"Yes, Worm Mother, our warriors were killed by the shockwaves of the punches. The physical strength of the Black Dragon Kin has become unfathomably strong compared to the last divine war, turning into flesh monsters nearly rivaling the great gods."

"Evolve to increase the physical hardness of our species, weave new genes, at least to withstand the aftershocks..."

"We can’t, Worm Mother. Continuing to increase the physical hardness would hinder the Swarm’s parasitic abilities, we’d lose our finest battlefield."

Dense gnawing sounds signified the Worm Mother’s fury. It was infuriated by the Swarm’s uselessness, fighting the worst battles in the best theatres, a profound insult to its spawn.

"Useless, getting counter-killed inside their bodies, we might as well just fight them head-on!"

The Swarm network went silent for a moment.

Head-on? Seriously, Mother? Combat face-to-face with those monsters capable of killing with their punches, did the great creator not install brains in you?

The Heart-snatcher Swarm was at a loss, but another piece of bad news completely corroded the Swarm network.

[I’ve···found···you···]

A malevolent, sinister whisper, like iron tools coated with solidified bodily fluids, made the Swarm feel a terrifying presence steadily closing in, pressing from both the material and the spiritual worlds.

"How can this be, this is the underground, even the tunnels used by my people shouldn’t..."

The billowing blood-essence, a black serpent reshaped itself before the Worm Mother and its ovarian throne, as the Black Dragon, Alcalon, sensitive to unusual mental fluctuations, drilled its way through following the scent, ensnaring a dragon within the Swarm network.

"Hahahaha, I promised Ohmhead I would treat you well! Come on! Let the revelry begin!" The Evil God-possessed Black Dragon spread its body, and the black-red pus oozing from its pores melted the Heart-snatcher Worm. Now, it was the Black Dragon’s turn to want to merge.

Before the Swarm network was crushed by the war’s eldest son, the Worm Mother transmitted its final message.

"The Heart-snatchers are vanquished; the God of Betrayal is within the Black Dragon Tribe."

Mistaking the Black Dragon gifted with the power of the Evil God for its old father, Yemotar, that was the last piece of misinformation the Heart-snatcher Worm provided.