The World Of Demons And Gods

*Caelian Mountain*

*Boom!*

A loud explosion erupted on the forest inside the mountain of Caelian. Many roars of both demi-human and demi-beasts erupted on the thick forest, a fight broke out between the two species. Many people have died lifelessly on the ground with their body missing with parts and most of them are torn apart, there are also countless beasts died with missing heads and many of them have exploded into pieces.

The scene that is happening in this forest could make someone puke due to the stench of blood and corpse around the area.

"Where the hell did these beasts appeared!? There's no stopping of them!" A towering figure of a bald man, with thick brows. He was ripped and wore thick leather armour. On his hand, he wields a ten-inch width and two meters heavy sword as he smashed it into a demi-beast a size of a small cart.

On his sides, there are also multiple cultivators at his side, also ripped with thick muscles but equipped by a variety of weapons as they slashed down the wave of demi-beasts. Meanwhile at the back of them, atop of the tree. There's a blonde youth with his hair covered by a straw hat laying on the trunk. On his hand, there's a huge weapon combined with fine wood and metals, it was a rifle.

Despite his face was covered with girth, his appearance was exceptionally handsome.

*Bang!*

Every time he pulled his trigger, the trunk beneath him would shake, as the bullet travels through the air, he was hitting the head of higher-class demi-beasts, and every shot, he would not miss a single shot.

This was his main job, eliminate those higher-class demi-beasts so that, the people below would not suffer from dealing the demi-beasts. Which worked great as they maintain their short casualties.

As he was shooting his rifle repeatedly, on his mind, he was slightly panicking.

They have arrived this mountain to hunt bandits, and there are three groups of mercenaries competing to eliminate the group of bandits. And when they reached to the given location where there supposed to be a base camp of the enemies, what surprised them was a horde of demi-beasts ranking from grade 1 to grade 3 beasts!

Almost everybody was massacred here except for their team and few other mercenaries from other groups. Their leader was his big brother, a Sky slayer! But he's the only one that has that rank and most of them are only knight rank and the lowest was peak warrior rank!

And this massacre and battle between demi-humans and demi-beasts have been ongoing for an hour now! And it seemed there's no stopping to it!

"By the gods, what's happening!?" Someone shouted and fear slowly creeping out of their hearts.

"Gods, help us out please…" The blonde youth muttered as he wished for this to end. His bullets where is almost used up, if he can't kill high-grade demi-beast anymore, they'd be wrecked to death. His brother alone couldn't defeat this many beasts, he will suffer with them if this continued on.

…

Below the mountains, Cyrus and Krystal were walking side by side, along with the horse behind them. The two of them are looking at the map before looking ahead of them. Ahead of them is a towering mountain, filled with thick trees and groves.

Looking at the map, making sure that this is the right place Cyrus kept the map before looking at the black-haired Krystal, "Have you entered this place? I can smell blood just standing from here." They were at the foot of the mountain, if they passed this mountain, then followed the road they will finally arrive at Alexus city.

However, he didn't expect that there would be already a thick smell of blood just by the foot of the mountain. Although he wasn't afraid, it was still an uneasy feeling.

Krystal didn't respond immediately as she stared at the mountain ahead of her, she too can smell that faint yet thick smell of blood, and she has gotten to the battlefield before so this smell of blood wasn't new to her, even before the war, she has already seen enough blood to make her numb to any feelings regarding dead people.

Shaking her head, she looked at Cyrus, "Nope, not at all. Although it was said that this is the den of the bandits in this country, but this place was filled with demi-beasts ranking one to five, which could threat those bandits, and I hate dealing with beasts so I haven't gotten here."

"I see…" Cyrus contemplated as he stared at the mountain.

Even if they backed out from this mountain, the other route was very far away that it would take them a whole day, but if they passed here, they would arrive at the city by noon.

"Well we got no other choice, we have to pass here." Cyrus sighed.

"What are you worrying about? We're quite strong, combined with our strength, there's no doubt that we could even take out a grade 5 demi-beast easily!" Krystal snickered as she pats Cyrus shoulder, before walking ahead of him.

That's true… we're practically monster together unless we met a peerless expert.

Holding the reins of the horse, he followed Krystal as he raised his senses to its peak.

…

As the two entered the forest, the inclined path ahead of them was very rocky which makes him no wonder that there's no merchant passing here.

As the two of them passed rivers, cliffs and slopes, the two of them didn't stop. Although they have discovered multiple demi-beast, they didn't attack them. Maybe due to the fact that the both he and Krystal are releasing their aura which made these beasts intimidated, thus didn't dare to approach them.

"I have to say, these demi-beasts are quite intelligent." After jumping down from a big boulder, he said at Krystal.

"Yeah, we've crossed many paths now, but we still haven't encountered the source of the stench of blood on this mountain." Krystal frowned as she scanned the area.

"I have noticed this as well, also have you killed demi-beast before?" Crossing his arms together, he asked.

"Why do you ask?"

"Because of the scent of blood… is very similar to human blood." He said seriously.

"…" Krystal stared at Cyrus before nodding her head. True, the stench of blood on this area doesn't seem came from beasts, but from humans instead, because she's already numb to the smell of human blood, she has forgotten that this is indeed a smell of human blood. "Let's search around to find more clues," Krystal said.

The two of them off tracked for now and used their spiritual sense to search around.

*Shriek!*

A canine pained shriek echoed on the forest which has startled both Cyrus and Krystal .

The two of them looked at each other before sprinting towards the original location where the shrieking sound came from. The two arrived side by side and saw a bloodied and weakened wolf-like demi-beast.

"A class two demi-beast Wolfshire?" Cyrus quickly recognized the beasts thanks to the books that he had read back from his home. The two of them approached the beast without fear.

*Growl*

Sensing the approaching figures, the wolfshire growled trying to intimidate the two of them. But with its appearance and almost not moving at all on the ground, its intimidation would make people mock it instead.

"These are blade cuts." Cyrus examined the wounds of the wolfshire, its wounds are very deep revealing its thick white bones and ripped meat. "These wounds are caused by multiple people gangbanging this poor fellow." He muttered. His poor choice of words didn't catch by the girl right beside him but was heard clearly by those two spirits inside his dantian, in which displeased noise can be heard inside his thought.

He could only laugh bitterly, before looking behind the path where did this wolfshire went.

"If we follow its blood trace on the ground, we will probably find the source of this blood smell on the air." Krystal pondered as she suggested to Cyrus.

Cyrus nodded, before standing up.

"Let's go." Cyrus was about to walk away when he sensed a high concentration of anima is gathering behind his back. When he turned around, Krystal materialized a meter-long needle made out of her anima and pierced the heart of the wolfshire.

The wolfshire didn't shriek anymore but only accepted its own death.

She removed the needle weapon out and using her hand she struck it inside the needle hole grabbing something. When she pulled out her hand, her milky white arms have now turned bloody and on her hands, there's a piece of shiny rock, radiating with pure and clean anima.

Seeing this, Cyrus eyes widened and walked towards Krystal. He took a cloth out from his storage and gave it to Krystal in which she accepted quickly and wiped the blood out.

"Is this a monster core?" He asked.

"Yeah, this is good stuff too. Want it?" Krystal smiled while wiping her arm and the monster core staining the cloth bright red colour. Once she has cleaned herself, she threw the bloodied cloth aside.

"I'm good, I just haven't seen one before." Cyrus smiled as he rejected, but he didn't remove his gaze on the monster core on her hand.

Demi-beast is capable of cultivating anima on the surrounding, and they store that anima on a core below the heart of a demi-beast, in which this is called monster core. This core grows over time depending on the rank of the demi-beast. It was said that the largest monster core that the cultivators have taken is a size of a fifteen feet boulder and it was from a legendary demi-beast called taotie.

If monster cores haven't collected within hours after the death of the demi-beast, it will be absorbed by the carcass of the demi-beast increasing the chance of decomposing the demi-beast quickly.

Monster cores are very beneficial to cultivators/demi-humans because this helps on their cultivation by absorbing the energy from the monster core for their dantian to expand. Increasing the chance and lowering the duration of having a breakthrough, and it might even help those cultivators who are suffering from the bottleneck.

And Cyrus was aware by this fact, he just nicely rejected it because he was pretty sure that they will encounter more demi-beasts ahead. He wasn't that greedy.

Rejecting her offer, Krystal didn't pursue the matter as she kept the monster core on her spatial ring.

The two of them walked side by side as they followed the bloodied path and just soon enough, they can find multiple dead bodies mixed with humans and demi-beasts. The two of them quickly ran towards the closest person and examined it.

"The body is already cold it must have been dead for a half of hour now." Cyrus touched the corpse and estimated the time of its death before standing up.

Cyrus then checked the demi-beasts only to find that these beasts were the first one to die thus their cores are gone now. The two of them continued walking forward, and they have noticed that there are three groups of people that have entered this forest. Krystal has said that the clothing of these people was the one worn by mercenaries, and since these people were already dead, the two of them couldn't determine the strength of these people.

But what made them bothered the most is that this place is like a war zone, which is weird since beasts don't attack together at a massive amount unless there is a beast tide.

"It isn't a beast tide?" Cyrus asked Krystal when she denied that this is isn't a beast tide which made the situation weirder.

"Yeah, the beast tide always happens during the first day of the month of frost fall." She said seriously.

The two of them pondered to what has caused to this event, as soon as they walked farther and farther away from their original location, the faint stench blood wasn't faint anymore, in fact, it's slightly bothering them now.

"Did you hear that?" Cyrus asked as he put his index finger on her mouth signalling her to get quiet and listen to the sound on the surroundings.

"…"

"…"

The two of them turned quiet and listened to the noise on the surrounding, aside from the blowing winds and crickets, they could hear a barely noticeable sound of roars of beast and shouts of men.

The two had their eyes wide opened as they looked to each other.

There are still people fighting!