Volcano-shaped protrusions formed over Madon's shell.

Bam! Bam! Bam!

Black eggs, the size of soccer balls, shot out of the holes.

"Careful!" Kang Oh yelled.

They were basically grenades. Enough force and they'd explode, releasing bits and pieces of its thick casing everywhere.

"Arise!"

Eder surrounded himself with bone, while Sephiro dodged the grenades, moved to the side, and shot an arrow. Kang Oh dodged the grenades while zigzagging forward, holding Ubist in his grasp.

Bam, bam, bam!

Touching the ground, the trees, etc., would cause the grenades to explode, causing pieces of debris to go flying everywhere.

Kang Oh's party had prepared for this, so they didn't take any damage from the grenades.

Guooh!

Madon opened its mouth wide.

Kyaahk! Ptoo!

Yellow spittle flew towards Kang Oh. There was more to it than meets the eye.

Its spit was like super glue; it was slightly poisonous too.

In other words, the spit would freeze its target in place and slowly poison them. That would leave them vulnerable to Madon's stomps or its egg grenades!

'It doesn't matter if you don't get hit.' Kang Oh flung his body away, avoiding the spittle.

Bam!

The spit froze the area it'd landed on.

"Let's play, you lizard-faced turtle." Kang Oh suddenly stood up, grinning as he rushed in.

Whoosh.

Kang Oh swung downwards, his blade falling upon Madon's nape.

Guooh!

Madon roared and hid within its shell.

Clang!

Ubist struck its tough shell instead. The opposing force caused his body to shake.

'Its defense is really high.'

Its shell was tougher than steel. Attacking its flesh or its head would be a better option.

Eder's bone spear came flying while Kang Oh readied his next attack.

Whizz!

The white bone spear struck one of its forelegs. However, its skin was tough too, as the bone spear bounced right off.

"Huahp!" Kang Oh continued his assault. With a two-handed grip, Kang Oh raised Ubist into the air and forcefully swung downwards.

Madon curled up.

Kang Oh had originally aimed for its front leg, but was forced to attack its shell instead. However, luck wasn't on its side.

Bam!

That's exactly what he wanted to hear! Black shards of light burst from its shell.

Luckily, 'Fang Bearing Blade' had activated when he needed it most!

Kuhuah!

Madon shrieked and squirmed.

Bam, bam, bam!

Egg bombs shot out of its back once more. However, they were red, not black this time.

Bam, bam, bam!

The red eggs exploded in midair, releasing red powder.

"The powder is poisonous!" Eder quickly yelled and swung his scythe.

Gust!

It was a basic wind spell that even a Necromancer could use! Although it was weak, it was still strong enough to blow the red powder away.

"Good work." Kang Oh complimented him and bombarded Madon with powerful attacks.

Slash!

Lightning Breath!

Tempest Tiger!

Eder and Sephiro helped out too.

Sun Piercing Arrow!

Bone Bind! Bone Bomb!

Madon repeatedly shot its egg grenades, spewed its spit, tackled them with its heavy body, etc., and resisted till the very end. However, its resistance was futile.

"I'll finish it off!" Kang Oh yelled.

Madon's combat abilities weren't very high. However, it possessed a ridiculous ability: immortality! As long it remained in this forest, Madon would never die, no matter how much HP it lost.

During its creation, Diabol had granted it immortality using the God of Creation's power. It wasn't just Madon; all of the prison beasts were immortal.

The Church of Death's paladins and priests had no way of killing them, so they weren't able to save the prisoners. Abandoning them had been their only option.

However, Kang Oh was capable of killing them. The demonic beast, Ubist, was capable of bypassing their immortality.

Ubist had crossed over to this world from another, the Demon World, and could even devour the God of Creation's power.

Stab.

He stabbed Madon's head, causing it to slump onto the ground.

[You have defeated Prison Beast Madon.]

'I should be able to kill Diabol.'

Mayanes Diabol, who'd granted the Prison Beasts their immortality, was also immortal. However, Kang Oh would be able to kill Diabol in much the same way as long as he used Ubist.

Crack, crack, crack!

The spheres on its shell broke, causing liquid, human hands, feet, hair, etc. to spill out.

Kang Oh's party quickly untangled the prisoners, laid them down, and looked them over. They had saved five people in total. They weren't in good condition, but at least they were still alive.

"I wish we could evacuate them using a magic circle, but since that won't work..."

Before they'd initiated their rescue operation, Eder had performed various tests on how returning and transfer magic circles functioned in the ashen wasteland.

Transfer magic circle could be used in the ashen wasteland. However, they couldn't be used to travel outside of the ashen wasteland.

Since the ashen wasteland was meant to seal away the Mayanes, the Goddess of Death must've added this measure to ensure that they couldn't escape.

'People can come and go as they please, so there must be some feature that stops the Mayanes from crossing the River of Despair.'

If not, then the Mayanes would have crossed the River of Despair ages ago.

Anyhow, this is why they couldn't set up a magic circle and teleport the prisoners to safety. They needed to use a different method.

"Let's go with that." Eder stared at Kang Oh.

"Go ahead."

"Yes."

Eder chanted for some time.

"...An unending bridge. Come!"

Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh!

Something had popped out of the pile of bones while he was chanting. It was a bone centipede. Unlike a normal centipede, however, there were spaces inside its body, reminiscent of a rollercoaster ride, that allowed people to sit inside it.

Summon White Centipede!

He'd essentially used Summon Bone Golem, but had adjusted the golem for a more specific task. The white centipede had absolutely no combat ability, but could carry several people at once.

Kang Oh's party immediately placed each person in a different seat.

"Go on," Kang Oh said.

"Yes." Eder climbed onto the centipede.

"You know where to go, right?" Kang Oh asked.

Eder nodded his head.

Cyndia and the Church of Death's paladins were waiting beyond the River of Death. If he passed the prisoners to them, then their first rescue operation would be a success.

"Contact me when you're done." Kang Oh fiddled with his communication earring. Eder was wearing the same communication earring. "I'll summon you then," Kang Oh added.

"Understood. Then I'll be going now."

Eder left on the white centipede. It was quite fast, and was surprisingly much quieter than they'd expected.

"Let's continue the operation."

"Ok."

Kang Oh and Sephiro carefully made their way through the forest.

* * *

Rustle.

"Above us!"

Kang Oh gripped Ubist with both hands and assumed a defensive position. Sephiro instinctively shot an arrow at the top of the tree.

"Is it him?" Sephiro looked at the barren tree and asked.

"Yes. I saw it briefly before it camouflaged itself," Kang Oh replied.

"Mm." Sephiro put his back against Kang Oh's.

The battlefield was rife with tension. However, nothing happened.

Despite that, Kang Oh and Sephiro didn't let down their guard. After all, they had seen the monster in Malak's memories and knew what it could do.

Swish.

A long, pink tongue suddenly came flying at them. Kang Oh and Sephiro simultaneously split apart, and the tongue flew through the space between them.

"Huahp." Sephiro shot an arrow.

Whizz.

The arrow flew through the air, aimed at the area where the tongue had popped out from.

Ting.

Something had blocked it, causing the arrow to bounce off. Then, the creature briefly revealed itself, showing only its face.

The prison beast strongly resembled a chameleon. It was called Branga.

Kang Oh's party had seen it in Malak's memories; had they not, they probably would've been taken by surprise. Its camouflage was nigh perfect.

Like Madon, Branga's back was filled with spheres, which housed trapped humans.

Slither.

Branga retracted its tongue and disappeared once more.

A short while later...

Danger!

His Hyper Intuition sent him a warning. Kang Oh's back felt cold, so he immediately threw himself forward.

Kuwahk!

All of a sudden, he saw Branga's scarlet gums as it bit into his previous location. But once it closed its mouth, he couldn't figure out where it'd gone. It was pretty much invisible at this point.

Then...

Sephiro's arrow came flying. However, there was a cylinder at the end of it, not a sharp arrowhead.

Bam!

Upon contact, the cylinder exploded, releasing red paint everywhere.

Normally, archers would carry a variety of arrows with different special abilities. Sephiro was no different in that regard.

He'd used a paint arrow. As you can see, it doused its target in paint.

The red paint had revealed Branga; they could now see a red outline around its body.

'I got you, you bastard!' Sephiro grinned.

However...!

It began disappearing once more.

"What!?" Sephiro looked shocked.

'How is it doing that?'

Kang Oh, however, knew exactly what it did.

Before the red paint made contact, Branga had created a veil. It had been doused by the paint, not Branga. Thus, once it released the veil, the paint that covered it began to disappear as well! Obviously, there wasn't anything wrong with its camouflaging ability either!

'Then how about this!?' Kang Oh stretched out his right hand.

Darkness Chain!

Like a snake approaching its prey, the black chain wrapped around Branga's foot.

"Huahp!" Kang Oh forcefully pulled the chain.

However, Branga didn't come along for the ride. On the contrary, Kang Oh was the one being pulled.

'It's really strong.' Kang Oh changed his strategy.

Tempest Tiger!

The golden aura roared and charged right at the Darkness Chain!

However...!

The chain suddenly loosened and came off. He couldn't feel any resistance from Branga anymore either.

'What?' Kang Oh widened his eyes.

Boom!

Tempest Tiger struck the tree; it'd obviously missed.

'How did... No way!'

What if it possessed an ability to cross space like Abyss Transfer? If it did, this would all make sense.

Then...

"Uheok!" Sephiro's cry rang out.

Kang Oh instinctively turned his head and saw Sephiro's upper body in Branga's mouth!

"Mr. Sephiro!" Kang Oh kicked off the floor, and ran as fast as he could to save him.

Kuhyaaa!

However, Branga suddenly shrieked and spat out Sephiro.

"Are you alright?" Kang Oh approached him and asked.

"It's fire!"

"Fire?"

"When it bit me, Waryong spat fire at it. It wasn't anything special, but the chameleon backed off," Sephiro yelled.

At the same time, Waryong opened its mouth wide and spewed fire. It was stronger than a lighter now, but it was by no means strong.

"Hoh, so it's weak to fire." Kang Oh quickly summoned a Fire Bomb.

'Let's see how you like it!' Kang Oh grinned.