Beast Calamity Grotto-Heaven.
The sky had vanished months ago. The entire grotto-heaven was choked with black poisonous miasma.
Vast quantities of poisonous smoke blotted out the firmament, its clouds roiling without cease. From time to time they coalesced into the shape of dragons, thrusting out tendrils of venomous haze to wreak havoc upon the world.
The Beast Calamity Grotto-Heaven had become nothing but a chorus of wailing, its prospects bleak beyond measure.
Star Luo City was the largest city in the grotto-heaven, and it had become the single greatest concentration of humanity remaining.
Its walls towered high, and within them a forest of watchtowers rose.
Zhan Budu stood atop the tallest tower, his head tilted upward as he watched the billowing miasma overhead.
His face was drawn with exhaustion, his body riddled with wounds.
Behind him, a female Beast Warrior was healing his injuries.
"The main body adjusted the flow of time in the Beast Calamity Grotto-Heaven to be far too fast, causing calamities to descend with excessive frequency. In this grotto-heaven, every calamity transforms into a beast disaster. Before one beast disaster could be fully eliminated, the next would come crashing in on its heels. These beast disasters sprang up across every corner, tying down the strength of all the Gu Immortals in the grotto-heaven. As they accumulated, they ultimately fused together into this monstrous entity! Sigh… this time, the main body miscalculated."
Zhan Budu's brow was tightly furrowed, worry etched across every line of his face.
The Beast Warrior tending to his wounds urged him gently, "Xiao Du, you really should get some rest. You've been fighting non-stop for three days and nights without sleep. Keep this up and even an iron body won't hold."
Zhan Budu let out a long sigh. "I'm the strongest Beast Warrior there is now. I have to give everything I have. If I'm out on the battlefield, everyone else's sacrifices will be far fewer!"
"Xiao Du, you've already done more than enough. If you hadn't sensed the danger ahead of time and warned everyone, allowing the various cities to evacuate the civilians early, the death toll would have been catastrophic. You truly are our savior — you saved hundreds of thousands of lives," the Beast Warrior said.
Although she was a veteran Beast Warrior, she held the younger generation member Zhan Budu in exceptionally high regard and admiration.
In the time since the crisis began, Zhan Budu had won over the hearts of everyone in the grotto-heaven. It was not merely his formidable combat strength — more importantly, it was his care for the common people, his willingness to sacrifice himself for others, and his repeated charging to the front lines. That great selflessness had cemented his place in their hearts.
Zhan Budu had become a great hero, a paragon of virtue, and an idol to all.
But in truth, Zhan Budu was simply trying his best to preserve his own assets. Both he and Fang Yuan's main body had long since regarded everything in the Beast Calamity Grotto-Heaven as their personal property.
Though Zhan Budu's timely warning had allowed the gretto-heaven to preserve the vast majority of its vital energy, the portion that had already been lost was enough to make his heart ache.
"They're coming again!" Zhan Budu said sharply, his expression taut.
The Beast Warrior beside him tensed as well, quickly raising her head to look skyward.
In the heavens, the poisonous miasma churned violently. With a draconic roar, a colossal dragon formed from condensed venom plummeted downward.
The dragon was immense — its body stretched eighty zhang long, and its enormous head was like a small mountain as it smashed toward Star Luo City on the ground below.
If it struck home, more than half of Star Luo City would be obliterated in an instant, and the spreading miasma would claim the lives of over a hundred thousand civilians.
Zhan Budu would never allow that to happen.
With the sharp cry of a hawk, an Arrow-Tail Eagle flew out from his immortal aperture.
Beast Warrior transformation!
In an instant, he took the form of a man with the body of an eagle, beating his powerful wings as he soared into the sky.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
Zhan Budu attacked with abandon, unleashing countless razor-sharp wind blades in a ferocious barrage like a raging storm.
Hundreds upon hundreds of colossal wind blades hammered into the dragon's head. The miasma dragon held for a brief moment before crumbling apart with a thunderous collapse.
"It's Xiao Du."
"As expected, it's him again."
"Truly worthy of being Xiao Du."
The Beast Warriors rallied one after another, heaping praise upon him.
Meanwhile, the civilians scattered across Star Luo City witnessed the spectacle and began crying out, "Savior Zhan Budu!" The chant spread rapidly throughout the city, rising and falling in waves that filled every street with fervent adoration.
Zhan Budu did not relax. Instead, he gazed upward with vigilant eyes and called out, "Everyone, be warned — another wave is coming!"
The miasma surged, and more than a dozen colossal dragons materialized out of nowhere, hurtling toward Star Luo City.
The civilians' cheering cut off abruptly.
The Beast Warriors' faces went white as paper.
Previous attacks had involved at most three or five miasma dragons. Now the number had quintupled — far beyond anything they could hope to withstand.
"Is this where it ends?"
"Damn it!"
"I don't want to die!"
At that critical moment, the Star Conch Palace blazed with towering starlight, and a giant materialized upon the battlefield.
Joy erupted among the crowd. Zhan Budu also put on an expression of wild relief — though inwardly he had known all along, "The old man finally decided to show his hand."
This was the current Beast Warrior King, wielding the corpse of the Star Sea Conch to assume a titanic form. He was the most powerful fighting force in the Beast Calamity Grotto-Heaven — and the card of last resort.
In the past, when Fang Yuan had transformed into the Ox-Head Demon God, he had crossed swords with the Beast Warrior King as well.
The giant wore heavy armor and unleashed punch after punch. Fist-shaped imprints of force rocketed outward, streaking skyward like shooting stars.
The meteors struck the miasma dragons to devastating effect. Several dragon heads were blasted apart on the spot, and the charge of the rest was violently halted — buying the other Beast Warriors a crucial window of time.
Then the giant planted both feet on the earth, raised both hands to the sky, and a hemispheric curtain of starlight rose in a slow, majestic arc, enveloping the entire city.
The miasma dragons were temporarily held at bay behind the starlight barrier. One by one, the Beast Warriors, wreathed in a blue luminous halo, drifted outward to engage the dragons in fierce combat.