Jin hastily carried his System Rider Belt on his shoulder as he arrived at the air base. Around him, everyone was hurrying to return back to their Dungeon Home Instances before Spiky was transported out of the Southern Capital. Some queried why can’t the all mighty System could not teleport all of them at once including the altered transforming spider but not many know that the System still had its limitations at the moment.
In the meantime, Qiu Yue saw Jin and gave him an upward head nod, her way of asking him what the hell happened. “The Southerners are borderline scums. Let the wheel of fate continue as it has, especially since we’ve interfered quite a bit and anything more would not be proper justice for the mistreated monsters fighting to kill the Southerners.” Jin briefly told her as he equipped his System Rider belt and beckoned Forneus to fetch him up.
“What are you going to do? Force your way into the thick of that horde and try to talk to the Nine Ocean’s Phoenix? Do you think you can convince her? She might not even want to listen to you, since you’re a human.” Qiu Yue replied.
“We got to try first, right? Else we’ll never know if they are willing to listen. Besides, I think I have the charms of a being a monster person instead of a people person.” Jin grinned as he saw Forneus flying towards the edge of Spiky’s Air Base. Jin then activated his Green Panda Wind energy and sped towards Forneus. By aligning himself to the edge of the base, Forneus was ready to receive his master who jumped on top of the large mechanised Devil Dragon.
“Because almost every human you meet would like to either use you and kill you, less the few of us that are on your side.” Qiu Yue shook her head and assisted with the evacuation.
After which, the Devil Dragon Leader informed his mount to get ready to activate the boosters, allowing him to tear through the horde if necessary. In the meantime, the System relayed the message of Meomi disobeying the orders by fighting against Leopardo.
“Let her have her share of fun for now. We can reprimand her later for it. Once the defensive line breaks and the Zurglings come pouring in, she won’t have any choice but to retreat.” Jin said as he held tightly onto Forneus’ dragon. (There was surprisingly a solid metallic handle at the side of the dragon’s saddle.)
The Winged Monster Horde had already experienced how strong the Metal Devil Dragon could be, so instead of facing it, most did their best to evade him as much as possible. Hence, this gave Forneus an easier time charging through the ranks of the Winged Horde and towards their actual target.
Meanwhile, the Nine Ocean Phoenix was not staying idle. Although not happy about the cowardice of her fellow monsters, she understood that they were too afraid to die pointlessly, so she conjured a sphere of foaming water right in front of her, sparkling in pattern as if it was a reflection of the oceans. The Phoenix understood that she would be the primary target and thus, she released a stream of energised magical blast of the seas right towards Forneus.
“Heh! I am raring to use this arm ever since I got it, and this seems to be the perfect time!” Forneus shouted as he raised that barrel arm of his and started to focus his magic into it. Simultaneously, his Devil Dragon was not moving an inch away from the blast zone and too prepared his own Dragon’s breath in case his master failed. (In actual fact, the Dragon was just as competitive as his master and was just itching to shoot at something strong instead of picking on weak minions.)
While his dragon was accumulating for the blast of fire, Forneus already shot out his blast of energy beam towards the Phoenix to counter the water beam that it shot out. The Devil Dragon Leader thought he would have the upper hand in terms of elemental attribute, after all, his energy beam was a blast of energy, able to evaporate any conjured water.
Unfortunately, it turned out that the water beam was a monstrosity of its own, able to withstand the blast of beam energy and continuously streamed towards the incoming Devil Dragon. That was when Forneus’ ride smirked and sent out its prepared dragon blast against the attack, proving to his rider that he had much more to learn.
“Gah! Just because you’ve been augmented way more than me does not give you the right to- Urgh! FINE! You win this time, Carbon!” Forneus grumbled as he let go of his energy barrel arm and instead sent his mana to boost the Dragon’s power.
In the meantime, Jin also did the same by using his Maqi to ensure that they would have the upper end. This caused the stream of dragon breath to be more deadly and destructive, allowing it to compete with the Nine Ocean Phoenix’s attack.
Soon, an explosion ensued after both the Dragon’s Breath and Water Beam reached a certain threshold that caused the energy to disperse into the air because of its incompatibility. However, that gave the Devil Dragon the chance to swoop in.
The Nine Ocean Phoenix was not able to react much after that extended use of her attack. She did not expect someone could be more formidable than her on the humans’ side. But instead of a charge, the Metallic Devil Dragon stopped right in front of the Phoenix even though its breath was still charging and its eyes were glaring at all the other winged monsters at her side including the Zurgling Queen.
“Hold your claws and fangs! I’m not here to kill any of you, so please don’t give me a reason. My name is Jin and I’ve come here before you, because there are certain things I wish to discuss with you. All I ask is that you listen to me.” Jin said as he raised up both his hands to show that he was not holding any weapons. (Even though the System Rider Driver Belt was technically a weapon.)
“You’re more than welcome to send out your minions to attack the Southern Capital without any further interference from my side. As you might have already noticed, I’ve ordered my friends to retreat as a sign of goodwill before coming here. Since you all seem to be the leaders of the hordes, I’d like all of your attention, especially yours truly, Lady Phoenix.”
“What makes you think we are willing to parley with a human?! And even though you might not be holding a weapon, that strange dragon of yours is intimidating us with his attack as we speak!” The Zurgling Queen argued and she made a very valid point. Her Elite Zurglings under her command immediately formed a perimeter along the cliffs, armed with spiked projectiles, awaiting the order to strike if this …emissary proved to be as dangerous and scheming as the Southerners.
However, all the monsters in the vicinity knew that the humans do not usually have such magical powers except a minority. And even among those minority, even fewer were able to exert and portray such powers. After all, in their opinion, the wild had always been a constant struggle for monsters and only the strongest survive. Those monsters that had been tamed could not be as ferocious as those who bare their fangs on a daily basis.
“Apologies. As another sign of trust, I will get him to stand down. Forneus, do you mind telling your body to not attack them?” Jin asked politely and even without Forneus’ approval, Carbon looked straight up and shot his dragon breath upwards, scaring a few of the winged monsters even as they tried to surround Jin from the back.
They all believed that this was an olive branch of trust being handed to them to show that all Jin wanted to do was talk. But all of them did not know that Jin had previously requested the Devil Dragon to be on standby to act as the first bargaining chip in the negotiations to prove that they were really only here to negotiate.
Seeing Jin as the ones protecting the Southerners had indeed abandoned them, and this human even allowed the others to continue with the assault against the Southern Capital, the Phoenix slowly nodded her head. “Speak, but none of us will promise to accede any of your demands. Also, who knows what you will do since you dared to betray them. What makes you think your words would be worthy.”
But even with Jin’s request being accepted, that prompted a few of the Winged Monsters to turn around and proceed towards the rather undefended capital.
“Thank you, Lady Phoenix for your patience and hopefully your understanding after you hear my side of the story. First, I’d like you to know that originally my people had agreed to the Southerners because we needed their help and it seemed that your monster horde was about to attack them without just cause. …until we found out that you are no ordinary Phoenix.” Jin said as he placed his hands down.
“And with however short amount of time we have to find out about the truth, we now know that you’re not just some savage monsters wanting to have a bite at the humans here as they have claimed. No, we’ve come to learn that you have an agenda, something more important than killing these humans for sport or food.” Jin risked it all as he said the next sentence with zeal.
“You’ve come here to take back your kids!”
