The Real Monster 65 CONFLICT WITH THE NEIGHBORS I

Clay was waiting for the right timing to go to the arena where they held the recognition ceremony. It wasn't that grand now since the arena was not fixed and people were afraid to get inside for fear that lingering magic bursts would kill them instantly. That's how battles that involved high magic outputs would be. Battle fields like that were natural land mines. And only foolish or ignorant bastards would go there and clean up the mess.

Clay knew what was happening through his heightened senses. Hearing, x-ray vision and other sensory abilities that were enhanced by his super genes. It must be remembered that Clay has not really tried to absorb sunlight forcibly these days and not trained his physical attribute too much as well, since it might surpass the level that he should be as a mortal. If his hunch is right, once he steps into the realm of deities, he would undergo a baptism of some kind that would enable himself to ascend to a higher realm of being. And he doesn't want that to happen right when he is still planning to unite the whole Alleucanth, disrupting the god's chess game and then giving them a smack or two after. See in that plan, smacking them some came last. So, he had to get his priorities straight. And his rate of absorption also slowed down the moment he took off the gravity rings and bangles and anklets. This way, he learned to suppress his own mana that leaked uncontrollably when he first took the rings and bracelets off.

His abilities were still ranked [Unique] but rated [Demi-God] by the system that Safir had given him. Totally different and inferior to what Imhoteph gave. As he remembered his goal and desires, he propped himself up. While Clay was looking inwards, examining himself, he noticed that the arena had gotten lively. It seems that the recognition ceremony was already starting. There were no second places in this competition and the over all strongest in this continent would be named. It was already decided that Clay would be given the recognition and so this were all formalities to show the public.

Clay stood up and disappeared from his bed. The next moment the scene changed, and the arena was shown with its broken stage and the holes that the previous battle had resulted in. Kaiser was having a speech about strength and the great strength and defeat he and the rest of the participants have suffered and yet, he was happy to announce that the strongest in the continent was undisputedly Clay!

"Give cheers for the strongest man, in the whole continent, possibly the whole world, Lord Clay!"

Claps and cheers and no meager number of roars resounded and compounded to give the most glorious of events in the continent its close. Clay just stood there and crossed his arms without moving. He even closed his eyes. The four leaders of their own races understood this stance. Clay was waiting for their answers. It had to be now or never. In a way, he was helping them convince their own people and go along the wave of the recognition so that their support could not be faked. Let the people speak, that's what Clay wanted to convey in his stance.

The four looked at each other and nodded in agreement to each other as if they had telepathic abilities. Regulus looked to each of them and then towards Clay. He looked to Jacquellin, empress of the demon folk; to Ak'Aina, strongest warrior berserker of the elf tribe; and Kaise, emperor of the dragonic race. Each nodded without a hint of doubt or hesitation. Then they also disappeared from their seats and seemed to have teleported when they appeared right in front of Clay. This time not as opponents but they were there, kneeling on one knee and heads bowed to the ground. Then their resounding voices echoed in the venue and made history in all Alleucanth.

"The Draconic Empire (The Beast Prairie, The Demon Realm, The Fairy Forest) swears its allegiance to the one true Emperor of the continent, Lord Clay. And with this oath we proclaim that none shall break our bonds through indefinite generations. Our lands will be Ruled by none other than Lord Clay and those who carry his authority in his absence. This is our oath, our pledge of allegiance to the one true Emperor, Lord Clay!"

Their speech made the bones in Clay's body crack in excitement. With these four under his rule, only the human realm was the problem but even that was not something he had to worry about right now, because right now, he had to worry about the neighboring annexed kingdoms that they conquered earlier on. They were right now, surrounding the Village that Clay and co left for them to go on campaigns. They did not consider that an uprising would occur after so many kingdoms were sacked at the same time. However, Clay did not know this, and he continued to plan for the better future.

That aside, the people at the venue had their mouths agape and they could not easily snap out of it. They were speechless as well. However, their condition was considered normal. Nevertheless, they cheered even more loudly when the dragon emperor also pledged allegiance to Clay. The recognition ceremony ended in all cheers being heard in different languages. Since Clay knew all of them, it appears to him as if he was hearing the same language, but he automatically speaks their language when spoken to like that by them. His language levels went up to advance with just hearing a few cheerful shouts and exclamations from the crowd of diverse nation ad culture.

***

"Regulus, we'll go first to your Prairie since it's the closest here and I think your concern is more urgent. Let's give you the priority right now. Then we'll go to Ak'Aina's place and then to the Demonfolk of Jacquellin. That way, it's both linear and would end with my place. I will introduce you to it. So, describe your prairie as vividly as possible while also putting details about each landmark. Go!"

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Regulus was excited he was by becoming the priority for this visit, it showed that Lord Clay does not any leanings towards anything, and just judges everything according to urgency or importance. That was a good way to describe the man as of now.

"Lord Clay, the prairie is basically shaped like a horse-shoe. The mountain range looks like that and at the mouth of it was a great body of water that was neither fresh nor saltwater. It was a lake that was not a lake. The reason for that was because of the monsters that lurked within the deep. It hasn't been measured after all this time, the depth is still a mystery, partially because we lacked the technology to go down there and because we did not have enough strength to conquer even one mile of it from its shores. The greatest threat that we encountered there so far was the so-called Squid Kraken, that had white body with its spear-like shape and head full of tentacles that often stayed underwater. They're not the strongest creatures of that lake but they had the greatest kill count for our race since the beginning of our stay there. Another threat was a cause for worry from time to time, it would attack us and everyone that's close to the shore would perish, the monster looked like an octopus with a body even larger than the Squid Kraken, so we called it Red Death, from the red tinge and color of its body."

"Once we enter the prairie, my people would be notified immediately through your unfamiliar smell. That's the barrier-like ability that we must avoid conflict with creatures or beings that were too unreasonable to talk with. With it, we are well-protected from anything that walks in the ground. That's why we can't pinpoint the location of that Red Death, whenever it may be before it starts attacking, because we can't smell underwater."

"Our race in general is called Beast folk, however, we are divided into tribes according to our lineage. We the Lion-head Tribe primarily rule over the whole prairie, then the rest of the tribes make up the senate." It sounded important so Regulus talked about it so when talks about him coming home a loser comes biting him, he can boast that at least he lost from the strongest being in the continent.

Clay listened carefully and already checked the lake Regulus was taking about and saw that the waters below the line where light can still penetrate was fraught with danger in that, it contains more than a thousand secreatures eating each other, but seemed to not be working according to leadership.

Clay stopped on his track and gave a hand signal. He made a fist and ordered the rest to stay quiet if possible. Why make them stay quiet? Because he found prey that just showed up. A red octopus-like thing that's quite delicious looking for him. At that place, he felt the presence of a creature that held magic power at the scale of one of these people with him. It was understandable that they could not detect it because it was underwater. However, to Clay whose senses have been enhanced greatly by his own genes, it was a piece of cake. He wanted to test the waters so immediately when the rest stopped and kept silent, he willed for his heat vision, a.k.a laser vision, to shoot directly at it from this distance. At the speed of light, a ray of visible red-hot laser shot out from both his eyes towards the lake in front of them. And they barely even stepped into the peak of one of the mountains in the mountain range of the Prairie. His eyesight was extraordinary indeed. His heat vision arrived at its target a few milliseconds later and a great upheaval in the waters began. Large bubbling bursts erupted from below as if in protest for whatever grievance the ocean had towards the sky. If ordinary modern-day humans were to look at it, it would seem as if Poseidon was about to emerge in anger as the waters caved down and a giant bald head came out of the center of that cave-in.

ROAR!

The giant octopus fully emerged from under the sea and filled the sky with its roar.

"Hmph." Clay sneered at it since it really did look just like a giant octopus but with added features like its tentacles having thousands of thorn-like protrusions. Another thing to note was that it had a face like the combination of hornless Hellboy and a shoe. It was hideous indeed.

"Lord Clay, what have you done? You woke the sleeping Red Death. My people are in danger, I need to evacuate them!" Regulus as a responsible king already rushed towards the camp that they called home at the center of the mountain range. However even with his speed he would still need five minutes to arrive to his destination. It was absurdly wide the Dodecagon Beast Prairie. However, he heard someone's voice saying,

"Fret not. I merely tested if it can withstand a shot of my lesser abilities. I'll go take care of it now."

It seems Clay talked to them all, through telepathy and disappeared right then.

*** Clay ***

Hoho~ This giant octopus really is a badass! It healed itself almost instantly right after my heat vision bore two holes in its body. It rivals my regenerative abilities I think, when it comes to wounds. What the hell, if it's like that then I would not be unique in this world anymore. I can't have that, now can I.

Kidding aside, I need to get rid of this eyesore or Regulus would cry like a baby because of his responsibility to his people. I already passed him as he ran, I'm not even sure if he felt me going past him. Anyway, moving hyper-speed sure is nice. I can choose to walk run or even jump towards any place and it would all seem as if I'm teleporting.

That thing, what was it called again, Red Death? I'll just clobber it for now. And see if it can withstand the full brunt of my strength.

Arriving at the lake's shore after passing by the beast camp that seemed to have been thrown into a panic, I stood and released some of my mana to provoke the octopus. Its mana perception might be very sensitive because I only released mana comparable to itself and jerked its body in my direction and its face was looking at me from up high. Its body-head was as big Agamemkeru's whole body, yet that its tentacles made up a bigger part of it. So, one can imagine how huge this monster was. Compared to my puny human size? Even I am wondering now how so much power can be stored to this human body.

Well, a fight is brewing. I have to pump myself up!

Chapter end