The damp, sulfur-choked air inside the subterranean vault didn’t just turn cold when Elder Croak stepped out of the dark—it became violently pressurized.

The lead Troll priest didn’t even have the chance to complete his desperate swing toward the nearest iron cage.

Before his jagged ritual dagger could descend, a localized gravity well slammed into the floorboards.

The sheer atmospheric density shattered the stone steps beneath the ritual basin, flattening two acolyte priests instantly into the mud.

Their ribs collapsed inward with a sickening, wet crunch, their life force snuffed out before they could even scream.

"A general... no, this pressure—" The lead priest gasped, his yellow eyes bulging as his knees buckled.

His purple ritual tattoos flared defensively, trying to draw unfiltered mana from the dry array, but the ambient energy in the room had already been entirely seized. "Who are you?!"

Elder Croak didn’t answer with words.

He moved with the terrifying, unhurried grace of an apex predator.

Under the dim green glow of the cavern, his towering, broad-shouldered silhouette shifted.

The metallic-black chitinous plates covering his chest hummed with a low, sub-audible vibration that rattled the iron cages.

With a single, explosive snap of his back, the heavy beetle wing-covers locked over his spine.

He split the distance between them in a fraction of a heartbeat—a blur of flawless obsidian-green flesh.

The lead priest unleashed a panicked, desperate blast of toxic purple miasma from his jagged staff.

Croak didn’t even dodge. He extended his right arm, his webbed digits long since replaced by three massive, razor-sharp obsidian beetle claws.

He drove his fist straight through the center of the toxic cloud, his Intimidation of the Apex Predator passive skill completely unraveling the priest’s mana structure on impact.

Crack.

The obsidian claws punched directly through the Troll priest’s reinforced iron breastplate, sinking deep into his chest cavity.

The impact was so violently precise that the kinetic shockwave tore through the priest’s back, blasting a circle of shredded flesh and shattered bone onto the stone altar behind him.

"For decades, we fed your altars," Croak whispered, his deep, resonant voice echoing through the hollows of the vault like a grinding continental plate.

He leaned close, his multi-faceted, glowing crimson compound lenses locking onto the dying priest’s fracturing pupils. "Today, you have paid the price for invoking the wrath of the Father of Beasts"

With a brutal twist of his wrist, Croak clamped his claws shut inside the priest’s torso and ripped backward.

The lead Troll’s remaining mana cores shattered instantly, his lifeless, mutilated body collapsing into the crimson-stained pool below.

The surviving acolytes dropped their staves, their minds completely broken by the casual execution of their master.

They didn’t even attempt to run; they simply knelt in the blood, waiting for the blade.

This was a moment of absolute horror!

By noon, the frantic ring of clashing iron across the mid-ring terraces ground to a sudden, eerie halt.

A massive, resonant chime—the deep, iron-wrought toll of the Great Citadel Bell—echoed seven times across the volcanic valley.

It was a sound that hadn’t been heard since the founding of the city’s market guilds, a universal decree that overrode all ongoing skirmishes.

From the floating terraces down to the deep, ash-covered slave trenches, public criers and golden-armored Sun Tiger messengers marched through the smoke-choked streets, their voices amplified by low-tier wind arrays.

"By order of the Tiger Lord! All active combat is suspended under penalty of execution! Gather at the Grand City Hall at the apex of the fortress! Let every beastman, merchant, and vanguard commander witness the changing of the tide!"

The confusion in the lower rings was palpable, but the sheer curiosity of a broken military command forced the populace to move.

Hundreds of beastmen—ragged, mud-stained Frog-kin, heavily scarred Hyena cells led by a silent Alpha Brenda, and field-weary Tiger-kin infantry—surged up the winding stone ramps toward the massive, open-air amphitheater of the City Hall.

The central stage was framed by towering obsidian pillars, but the standard banners of the Troll coalition had already been torn down, replaced by empty, burning iron brackets.

Lord Manuses stepped into the light.

The Tiger Lord was a vision of absolute, tyrannical majesty.

He wore his heavy, floor-length coat of golden sun-spider silk, glowing with liquid fire under the midday sun.

His face was stern, his hand resting casually on the hilt of his massive broadsword.

Beside him stood Commander Trojan, his armor still splattered with the fresh, dark blood of the Orc captains he had executed throughout the morning.

The massive crowd fell into a suffocating, dead silence as the Tiger Lord looked down upon his people.

The City of Tempest was infamous across the Hudeii Desert because it was the center of the slave market.

Thanks to that, many beastmen flee from the north. It’s inhabitants were mainly slavers, slave traders, the Sun Tiger-Kin and their vassal races such as Hyena-kin, Fox-kin and now the newly released slaves.

"Beastmen of Tempest City," Manuses’s voice rumbled, amplified by the natural acoustics of the obsidian walls until it shook the very bedrock beneath their feet.

"For generations, we have held this city by playing the part of the submissive hound. We hoarded low-level cultivators, we guarded the outer borders, and we allowed our brothers and sisters to be dragged into the dark as sacrifices to buy our survival."

He paused, his amber eyes scanning the crowd, catching the suspicious glints in the eyes of the hidden rebel cells.

"We were told it was the price of peace. We were told the Troll King’s evil god would spare our lineage," Manuses growled, his thick tail slamming against the stone stage with a crack like thunder.

"It was a lie! The Troll King does not seek a covenant; he seeks our absolute eradication to fuel a dormant divine array beneath our very feet!"

A collective, horrified murmur rippled through the thousands of gathered beastmen.

"We will keep no slave pens. Your children are free to roam the desert plains, there will be no slaves amongst us."

"Tempest City will not be known as the slave city. No longer!" Manuses drew his massive broadsword, hoisting the gleaming steel toward the sky.

"As of this sunrise, Tempest City declares absolute, unyielding enmity with the Troll King! We will no longer line the pockets of his priests, and we will no longer offer our blood to the parasites of the north!"

The crowd gasped, the sheer weight of declaring war on a Martial General’s unified coalition sending waves of panic through the merchant guilds.

But before the fear could take root, Manuses lowered his blade, pointing it toward the horizon.

"We do not march into this storm alone. The old, silent gods of the wastes are dead, but an ancient primordial has awakened from his millennial slumber to reclaim his children," the Warlord declared, his voice filled with an uncharacteristic, fanatical conviction that made the system notifications in Roy’s hidden interface begin to chime at a frantic pace.

"From this day forth, Tempest City casts aside the shadows of misfortune! We bow to no foreign tyrants! We follow the Father of all Beastmen... the Great Primordial of the Feral Domain!"

Manuses slammed the pommel of his sword against the obsidian floor, his roar echoing to the heavens.

"Praise be to the God of Beasts, Lord Varanus!"

Meanwhile, a tiny rat was watching everything from the shadows, its eyes flickering.

Lord Manuses cleared his throat, "Close your eyes and repeat after me as we pray in ancient Lydora to the God of Beasts, Lord Varanus!"

Everyone obeyed, their eyes shut closed, including Commander Trojan.

"Blessed hath thou O Great Eternal One," the voice of the Tiger Lord boomed across the city.

"Blessed hath thou O Great Eternal One," everyone repeated in ancient Lydora.

"Thy name, Varanus, is the truth."

"Thy name, Varanus, is the truth."

"You are the Great Primordial of the Feral Domain."

"You are the Great Primordial of the Feral Domain."

"You are the Principal of the Fractured Mind."

"You are the Principal of the Fractured Mind."

"You are the God of Beasts and Men, Who Shall Devour All."

"You are the God of Beasts and Men, Who Shall Devour All!"

They prayed.

From the shadows, the tiny rat transformed into a beautiful man with cascading golden hair that touched his waist.

[Ding!]

The status window shimmered before his eyes.

[You have gained 2,867 followers]

[You have gained 2,867 Faith Points]

[Congratulations...]

[You have leveled up]