As the monster horde come near, themembers of defense force finally saw their enemies. Goblins with their ugly faces brandishes different weapons, some uses wooden club, some uses sword taken from unknown adventurer, some holds a rock and some holds fangs of wolves. Their clothing also varies with some wearing tattered leather armor, tattered loincloth, and some pelt of the beast they hunted. Without counting, you can tell that there's a hundred or more of them and on their backmarch the pigmen. Unlike the goblins, they wear uniformly pelts and their weapons are bone mace made from a bone of a big monster, stone axes, stone spears, and stone maces with their handles made from wood with stone as their edge.

"Here they come! Archer and mages prepare to intercept!!"

The guild master shouts then the archers nocked their arrows while magician concentrated. As the horde draws near, the atmoshpere tenses and you'll hear a gulping sound coming from themelee forces. If the archers and magicians attack failed to reduce their enemies number, they will surely loose.

"FIRE!!"

At the guild master commands, countless arrow pours down while you'll see some ball of fire accompanying the arrows. Even if the magic released were low in numbers, it's much more stronger than the arrows.

The arrows and magics hits the horde culling their numbers. While some goblins used the corpses of their fallen commrade against the arrows, the one hits by magic burst into flames burning the ones nearby. The monsters' cry of agony revibrated while the shouts of joy from the defensive force rang out!

"Nock! Aim! Release!"

Another command was issued, another set of rain fell towards the horde. This scene happened for 5 times yet they only managed to kill most of the goblins, the pigmen survives by using the corpses as shield to arrows while they threw them towards the magic if they deem that it will hit them. While some arrows found their mark, it didn't inflict a fatal wound to them.

"Now it's your turn! Melee group chrage!!!"

"""OOOOOHHH!!"""

Raising a war cry to raise their spirits, the melee group entered the fight! Before the fight, they were given only a single order, kill every monster who'll try to attack the village. Some adventurers took at as to kill every monster in the vicinity while most of them decided that if the monster flee, they won't chase them too far.

The clash between the monster horde and the defensive force was chaotic. Goblins died not by the sword of their enemies but crush beneath the feet of the pigmen. The people who trips down got crushed under the foot of their commrades and others was slain by the other humans panicking, killing anything that moves within their vicinities.

The guild master raises his staff and closes his eyes. He's concentrating to cast a spell aiming to reduce the pigmen at the back. He has level 4 Earth attribute skill and level 3 fire attribute skill. He decided to combine those skill to cast his signature move.

Opening his eyes, holes opened beneath the pigmen which made them fall after wards pillars of fire raises from them roasting those pigs alive.

Seeing his magic, the archers and magician decided to help culling the number of pigmen furiously unleashing their arrows and magic.

As the fight goes on, the bandits enjoyed their new "toys". They did anything that comes to their, be it beheading, skinning alive, boiling or frying them alive and other cruel acts. Cry of anguished and voices begging for their lives covered one part of the forest.

Luther, surrounded by unconscious naked women that sometimes quiver with cloudy white liquid dripping down their crotch drinks the wine they got from the raid. All of the women are the good looking one but now their faces swells due to intense beating, their former smooth white skins are now covered with bruises. A little far from them, men can be seen tied hanging their head down. They are either the lovers, siblings, or father of the women. The women were tormented in front of their eyes and even if they closes their eyes, the screams asking them for help enters their ears and tormented their hearts.

Amidst of them, there's a one boy glaring at Luther. He's one of the lover of the women that Luther raped. Within his glare, you can only find intense anger and desire to kill Luther. Looking at it, Luther smiled. He looks around and grabs the hair the boy's lover and dragged her close to the boy.

"Listen here."

Luther said while he held the women in his right arm and on his left he held the boy's chin. The boy intense glare made Luther feel satisfied, after all the more the boy got mad at him, the more he wanted to kill him. Meaning if he let this boy go and if he survives then he'll come back stronger and he will definitely try to kill him.'This will makes this world a little more interesting!'Luther said to himself.

"You're weak, far too weak so you failed to protect her."

Luther kneed the face of the girl and it let out a feeble cry. Blood drips from her nose which made the boy's glare intensifies. His wounded arm, due to struggling too much before, bleed furiously as he put more force at his body trying to break free from the ropes. His mouth was gagged but you can almost understand his muffled shouts. It delivers his intense desire to kill Luther.

"So be strong. Strong enough to protect everything you found valuable, if you don't another bandit will surely break it. Remember this kid, only the strong survives in this world.."

The boy continued to struggle whileLuther sowed the desire for strength to the boy. He then lifts the girl with one hand. Various liquid drips down to the floor and Luther, confirming that the boy is clearly watching, breaks the neck using his free hand.

*Craaaackk!!*

The cracking sound clearly rang out from the girls neck despite the noises in their surroundings. The girl's body convulses then she stopped breathing. The boy's eyes widen and became much more fiercer than before. His eyes becomes red as tears falls down through it. His face contorted akin to a demon while Luther pleasingly laugh at it. Luther then throws the corpse near the boy and left.

He wears his clothes and armor once more and look towards the combat zone. It's already few hours already yet the fight between the monster horde and the adventurers continued. The number on both side diminished greatly and the monster horde gained the upper hand in terms of number. There are lights flashing behind the monster horde but Luther ignored it, he's not interested enough to know what causes it. He's much more interested on what will happen to the village.

"Will they win or will they lose? Either of the two is favorable to us... Kukuku..."

While the defense force fought at the Pinar village. The attacking force finally found their target. It's standing alone insidethe forest looking at the battlefield as if it's not related to it.

"Target found! About 200 meters away in front of us!"

The archer, Peet said. Clark look forward and saw the strange monster. It's head looks like the combination of dog and cat with a hold of a ram growing on it's temple. Instead of fur, it's whole body is covered with scales. It's left side has tentacles with suckers all over it which reminded Clark the lower part of the monster called Syllica, it's right hand was covered by a crytals with red gems emitting an eerie light. It's torso was the same as a human but there's a big mouth on it's stomach while the lower part was the same as the harpy. On it's back, a skeletal wings grew and it sometimes twitches while it's tail produces purple smoke at it's tip. No doubt it's the monster.

"Range squadready your weapons, vanguard's bring out your swords and shield, be ready to charge any moment."

Clark silently commanded as he draws his sword. The A-ranked adventurers, whether they are retired or not, followed his command.

"Archers and magicians, Fire!!"

Arrows and magics flew towards the monster but it's tentacles intercepted all of it.Arrows was slapped down while magic was sucked by the suckers and slowly fades away until it completely disappears.

"So it can absorb magic huh... Vanguards, to battle!!"

Raising a command Clark charges at the very front followed by the dwarf and the others. The rearguard also shots their arrow and casted their magic to distract the monster.

The monster frown as it's attention shifted from the battle of monster horde to them. It's tentacle intercepted the ranged attack while it's crystal hands glows becomes brighter. As the vanguard charges, the ground shook then suddenly, a crystal spike emerged from the ground, being an A-ranked adventurer, they are already used to surprise attack. They dodged the spike with minimum movements but spike suddenly branched out from it. Some failed to dodge and the spike pierce their bodyreaping their life with one hit. The spikes are sharp enough to penetrate a Mithril made armor of one of it's victim making it a dangerous weapon to be used against the heavy looking warriors.

'Damn!'

As Clark curses within, another set of spike emerges. This time, it made a wall protecting it's caster, it looks solid like a castle gate but too bad for itthere's a battering ram nearby.

"Hmmp!!"

The dwarf put all of his strength on his arms then swings his hammer while infusingMana as long as he can. The hammer's weight suddenly skyrocketed making it too heavy to use but due to it's momentum, the heavy hammer hits the wall letting out a *BOOM* sound.

The crystals cracked then breaks apart. Clark jumped over the crumbling wall and found out that the monster was already gone. Few seconds later, scream breaks out from the rearguard. Clark quickly turns his face towards it and saw the monster attacking their comrades. The magicians quickly dies while the archer managed to dodge one or two attacks yet they still fell. Only a little number of them survived. It makes Clark question if they were really A-ranked Adventurers. In his time, A-ranked are the peak a normal human can reach. A rank where everyone can kill normal wyverns alone yet these A-ranked guys looks like a B-ranked adventurers pretending to be A-rank.

"The guild's might fell down huh..."

The dwarf said and picked up a crystal. The crystal feels good at his hand and throws it towards the monster. The monster tried to brush it away using it's tentacles but it failedand piercesone of it's tentacle.

"Look even my throw are alot more stronger than their bow."

The dwarf said while smiling wry. He ejected the Mana inside and charges towards the monster while dragging his hammer. Clark smiled wryly at that and followed suite.

The old woman covers her staff with ice and engage a close combat with the monster. Dodging every attack of it while counter attacking at the same time. Wounds caused by her staff froze the blood dripping from it. While Peetuses his arrows as a melee weapon stabbing it to the monsters back.

"Amazing..."

One of the survivors of the rearguard said, admiring the way the two of them handles the monsters. It made him wonder if they really are the same rank.He's also an archer but he's confident enough to enter a close combat using only his arrows. As an archer, he focused on improving his aim and shooting speed but the archer in front of him right now exceeded his aim and shooting speed but not only that, he's also proficient with close quarter combat.

"How long are you going to watch!? Aren't you also an A-ranked adventurer!?"

A dwarf passed him by and reprimanded him. After the dwarf, Clark also entered the fray. As the two vanguard entered the fight, the old woman and Peet retreated and attack again using arrow and magic.

The man watching before wakes up and draw his bowbut he can't carelessly shoot arrows since he might hit the vanguards but arrows and magic continued to fly towards the monster. The arrows and magic which looks like it will hit the vanguards suddenly flew past through them. At first he thought that it was done by magic but upon closer look, he realized that the vanguard covers the incoming arrows and magic then barely jump away from it letting it hit the monster.

"Amazing...."

As if he doesn't know any other words besides that, the man mutters to himself. Even though their party was already 9 years old, without changing members due to death or other reasons, they can't cooperate like that. He admired the team play Clark and company shown and came to the conclusion that they knew each other for a long time. While that isn't wrong,knowing each other for a long time, this is the first battle where they fought together as a team. It's just that back in their days these types of movement were common to A-ranked adventurers but the adventurers of present seems to be much more weaker. It maybe because the disappearance of the strong monster within the vicinity.

At their time, strong monster runamok and monster territory are closer to the human settlements due to a family of black wyvern settling at the forest and mountains but those said wyverns were hunted by the now S-ranked adventurer party "Odyssey". It was said that they did it because the king told them so, or they did it to avenge therelative of their member who fell victim to those wyverns but the truth was never known. It's just that one day, the Odyssey started their hunt killing the black wyverns who messed up the ecosystem of the monsters. At their death, the monster retreated back to their original territory and seldomly went out.

The dwarf's hammer bashes out the monster while Clark's sword slashes it. Arrows pierce the monster's breast while there are places frozen throughout the monsters body. The monster opened it's bone wings and flapped as hard as it could. Despite it's wing being made up of bone without meat or skin, strong gust of wind are generated then it ascended to air.

Peet and the old woman shoot it with arrows and magic but it's tentacle slapped the arrow away and absorbs the magic.It's tail swells up and pointed it self to the vanguards.

"Incoming!!"

As Clark shouted that, the dwarf and Clark separates themselves to each other. A purple gas was thrown out from the tail and spreads out as it touches the ground. The weeds touched by the grass witters and dies.

"It seems that itisn't a normal poison hun...It's much more troublesome than that farting monkey's fart!"

Clark curses while getting away from the range of the purple gas. The archer and old woman stops attacking and focused on getting away from the creeping gas. The man also run away as fast as he can but what Clark said bothered him. The Farting Monkeys are monsters located deep within unpopulated forest or mountain, they are monsters ranked as S-class Subjugation monster yet Clark talked about it as if it he hunted those monsters before.

Back in Clark's day, the farting monkeys are considered as B-class subjugation monsterwhich only proves that their times are much more dangerous than today. Farting monkeys and the like wanders the forest near human settlements in their day so it was given the rank of B-class while this days, those monsters went back to their original territory making them harder to encounter and if you need to hunt them, you'll need to prepare for a long journey, week for the shortest but it could take years.

The monster flew and attack using it's talon and the purple gas it releases on it's tail while Clark and others keeps on dodging. This repeated itself for 3 minutes until Clarkadjusted to it's speed. The monster once more attacked using it's talon but Clark seized it's feet and slam at hard to the ground near the dwarf. The monster bounces back but it was brought back to the ground by the dwarf's hammer, then the dwarf fills his hammer with Mana making it heavier.

The monster struggles to lift the hammer but it's just too heavy for it. It's tentacles trashes around trying tohit the dwarf but the dwarf nimbly dodges them. Clark stabs his sword towards the monster's head intending to end it's life. The sword burried itself deep and the monster convulsed a little then ceased to move.

"Is it dead?" Asked the dwarf while resting it's hammer to the monster.

"It must be. The head is the weakness of everything living in Tala. I pierced it so it must be dead."

Clark confidently said. While it's true that the head was the weakness of everything in Tala, there are some exception. Like the undeads, as long as it's core was safe it will rise again and fight.

The dwarf ejected the Mana from his hammer and lifted it to his shoulder. The monster corpse looks horrible, like a tomato smashed by a hammerit's blood and organs scatters around. On it's chest, a red round jewel could be seen. It's the magic core of the monster.

"Despite being flattened by your hammer, it remained unscathed."

Clark said amazed by the core's durability. He bent down to pick it up but the blood and organs scattered around fly towards it. Clark draws back his hand and jump away from the corpse.

The dwarf clicked his tongue and prepared his hammer while Peet and the old lady shoots it with magic and arrows but as usual, it got slapped down by it's tentacles.

Then, something horrifying happened. The corpes of the A-ranked Adventurers flew towards the core as if it was being sucked and as soon as it touches the core, it got absorbedso fast that the corpse let's out a cracking sound due to it's bone breaking from the pressure.

"What's happening!?"

Asked Clark but before the others could answer, they felt that they are being sucked towards the core. They resisted it with all their might but the new generation of A-ranked got sucked alive. Screams accompanied by the sound of breaking bones filled the air and after a while, the sucking stops but the core vibrated.

A human heart started to form mid-air with the core as it base followed by blood vessels connected to it, the bone and meat, internal organs and finally the skin. Clark watched it happened with his mouth wide open.After all, he just witnessedthe construction of human's body.

It's skin looks so smooth and it's breast looks bouncy, sadly enough it doesn't have nipples. It's body ressembled a female human yet on it's groins you can see a psuedo male organ. Why psuedo? It just look likes a meat dangling down it's waist without any holes to it as if it was just put there as a decoration like it's breast. After a while, hair started to grow on it's head, it's fast growth stop after the hair touches it's waist. Then clothes suddenly appears to cover its naked body then the armor for it's defense and a headband which looks like a helmet visor appears on it's forehead. Three holes emerged from it's featureless face. Two small holes that serves as eye socket and a big one that ressembled a mouth. Then pink lips emerges at it's mouth hole accompanied by beautifully aligned teeth. Black ball appears on it's socket while eyebrows grew. In the middle of the black ball, a white circle emerges and it's nose started to grow until it reaches to the point where it looks good combined with it's newly created face.

There stood a monster that looks like a female human in the age of 20's wearing a full plate armor. At first glance, she looks like a female knight but if you noticed her black eyes, you'll realize that she isn't normal.

"Oi oi what the fuck is this!?"

Clark curses while readies his stance. The ugly monster suddenly changes it's form after they beat it. It now looks a beautiful female knight.

"I don't know but what we need to do doesn't change!"

Said the dwarf while Peet and the old woman nodded. Their team started with 18 people but right now there's only 4 left.

"Ah... Ahhh.. aahhh.."

A beautiful voice came out from the girl as if she's testing her vocal chords. After a few trials, she seemed to be satisfied by something and nodded.

"Pleased to meet you, I am a demon loyal to the demon king. Currently doesn't have a name."

The girl introduces herself as demon but it greatly differs from the demon they know. The Demon Race, also known as Shadowkins, are a race similar to humans. They have the same lifespan as humans but much more attached to nature than elves. They are a kind race which prefers talking than fighting though there are a race with a superior abilities than the other races.They were discovered 1,350 years ago by the Vrae Kingdom and they live at the North Continent. For 333 years they were enslaved to the said kingdom and one demon unified hisrace to raise a revolt to the Vrae Kingdom, he was known as the Demon king which Hero Ayskrimm subjugated.

Anyways, their appearance looks like a human but they grow horns at their forehead, wings at their back and tails at their waist. Also their lower part ressembled a goat so they were called the demon race.

But the female knight in front of Clark greatly differs from the demon he knows. They don't have cores in their heart and they won't manipulate monsters to attack villages since they dislike combat lastly, they don't transform to other forms.

"Did you not hear me perhaps?"

The beautiful female knight tilted her head. It looks cute but knowing that she's a monster, the remaining men found it disgusting since a monster, who slaughtered humans and feels happy to watch them die, acts like a normal human.

"Oh well, I won't remember you anyways but let me give you an advise. Our king will soon come back and different from the last time, we will surely conquer this world. With that said, bye~"

Wings grew at her back and with a single flap, she flew up. Peet tried to shoot her down but the girl raises her hand then suddenly, black rings appears to her back and releases white crystal ressembling weapons and it rained down to Peet. Peet tried to dodge but five black rings appeared on his sides and from them, crystal chain emerged constricting his movements. The weapon like crystal was blocked by Clark and the dwarf and the chains was broken using ice magic by the old woman.

"Your quite eager to die aren't you? I am giving you the task to spread it to the whole world about the return of the King so just do it okay~~"

With a playful tone, the female knight said to the 4 people. Then she flew away.

From what that demon said, the demon king will revive but they don't know whenwill it happen. They first thought of the North Continent but they disregards it after the considering that the demon race they knew were clearly different to the demons that the female knight said.

With bad news in tow, they walk back to the village.

The fierce battle in Pinar Village continues. Countless corpses of Pigmen and goblins scatters around mixed with them are the corpses of adventurers who aren't lucky enough to survive. Pigmen, a C-class subjugation monster shows it might with their numbers. C-ranked adventurers normally struggled to kill one of them yet there's a whole horde attacking now and they are somehow holding them down with the help of B-ranked adventurers. The average level of C-ranked are 25 yet they still find it hard to figure a level 10 pigmens this is because the status values of monsters are much more stronger than the people of the races, the higher the level of the monsters the greater it's status values.

The guild master surveys the battlefield while resting. His Mana was already exhausted so he can't fight and normally magician will meditate to recover it faster but he doesn't have the leeway to do that. Meditation needs you to concentrate to recover your mana faster making him unable to issue commands if the situation suddenly change and also, meditation can't be canceled unless the practitioner was attacked and when that happened, instead of recovering, his/her mana will be drained to zero.

The battle looks hopeless at glance. There are still 600 pigmen and there's only57 adventurers lefton battlefield but the barricades they made aren't breached and there are adventurers being healed at the back. There's also the A-ranked adventurers at the forest but the guild master knows that they can't count on them, they might be heavily injured at best and at worst dead. They are facing an unknown monster with unknown abilities after all, it's not good to pin their hopes to them.

"At this rate we will lose..."

Muttered by the guild master when he noticed something flying from the forest approaching them at fast speed. It stopped when it was above the pigmen and the guild master can somehow see it. It looks like one of the demon (Shadowkin) race but this one doesn't have a horn, tail and it's feet appears like a human. It raises it's left hand a big black ring come out. Big enough to cover the whole battlefield.

At first the guild master dont know what it is doing and curiously watch it. He thought that it was one of the magician reinforcement coming from the capital and a user of dark magic so he thought that it was either the king or the queen but the alarms in his head keeps ringing. At the time he was going to issue a command to retreat, black lightning fell to the ground engulfing pigmen and adventurers alike.

He feels terrified at the Mana released by that magic and hopes that the adventurers are alright. The lightning settled down leaving the pigmen and adventurers unscatched. He doesn't understand what happened but after a few seconds, the pigmen started to change. Their tusk became longer and releases a sinister aura, their skin becomes black and their weapons transformed into a pure black metal that looks like it was forged using the legendary ore Night Shade, the ore used to forged the legendary weapon Rebellion used by Hero Ayskrimm. It's hardnest was second to none and it allows better Mana circulation than adamantite but a little lower than orichalcum.

Also, the pigmen armors changed from being made of pelts, now it shines a black luster as if it was forged. The pigmen's fatty body changes and now it rivals the muscular race of orcs and undoubtedly they are much more stronger than before.

The adventurers also changed, like the pigmen their weapons and armor became pure black butthere's something much more noticable to them. The white and blacks of their eyes switched places and a red gem, which looks like a monster core, appears on their head. Their body also changed with bones picking out of their shoulders and their hands became pointed.

"What is this..."

The guild master was dumbfounded by what happened. He doesn't know what to do, the 57 adventurers transformed and he can sense that they became monsters. He looks again at the flying person but it disappeared without him noticing.

Now, the former adventurers and pigmen marched towards the village. In this desperate situation, the offensive party went out of the woods and they noticed that the pigmen seems different to what they know. Regardless of that, they knew that if they let them alone the village will be devastated by it. Without creating a plan or reporting to the guild master, they charges towards the horde hoping to lessen the damage to the village.