By the time Sage had dealt a deathblow to the boar, Beast Keeper Deng had opened the door and fled from the enclosure. The small door that led from the caged off walkway to the outside had already slammed shut when Sage smashed his Qi blade into the barrier over the bars. Then he heard a click from the door and the barrier on the bars disappeared.

Damn.

This was the second best option. The villain had left them here. That meant the Beast Keeper could be going on the run or preparing a trap for them, which was not good. On the plus side, it was still better than having him standing to the side constantly releasing dangerous beasts on them. It would have been better if Beast Keeper Deng hid inside the den area to escape. Then it would stop the flood of new beasts and also make it more inconvenient to escape.

Whatever the case, it was too late to do anything now and Sage turned back towards the Demonic Beasts that were running amok. Even without the Beast Keeper in the enclosure with them, they were still following their prior orders. The big frog was shooting its tongue out at the Discipline Keeper, but the man had turned his wide cleaver sword to the side and was using it like a shield. Behind the frog, the Gold Scaled Porcelain Crocodile was pacing back and forth, constantly releasing water from its mouth. Every so often it would close its jaws and then aim its snout at Teacher Zhou and Gray. When it opened its mouth a large water bullet was shot out and the two teachers worked together to smash it apart. They were standing in the doorway to the conical tree while the Discipline Keeper was a few steps in front to act as the main defensive force.

This little standoff was enough to put some pressure on both sides, but neither was being injured. The problem was that there were still two more beasts. The Charming Slate Boar was little more than an annoyance at this point as it was running around the outside of the enclosure trying to run away from the deadly wound that was already inside it. The frantic motion still caused its tusks to clang against its rib plates, but the chaos of its actions meant this musical attack was only a tiny fraction of its original power. On the other hand, the huge lungfish was hiding in the back and the other two beasts had been protecting it. In fact, Sage suspected the croc was here merely to enable the lungfish to act with more strength, which meant it was truly the main force in this attack.

Sage ran towards the back of the lungfish and finally got to see why it was deemed so important. Previously, when he’d rushed past it, he’d avoided a swipe of its tail while it was spinning around. At the same time, it looked like the lungfish’s four limbs had fallen off. Now he got to see the tentacle-like limbs hadn’t just fallen off, they’d separated on purpose. There was no splash of blood and the four limbs weren’t just squirming aimlessly. They slithered rapidly through the muddy water, each of them over ten feet long and as wide as a man’s torso. As they moved, each of them sprouted their own sets of four small limbs and Sage realized that each of these ‘limbs’ were actually small copies of the big lungfish. At this moment he also saw that the big lungfish had started to grow another four sets of limbs. The tail end of this eel-like fish sprouted out first, slowly extending outwards and then growing thicker as it went.

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It was at this point that Sage recognized what beast this was. In many of the encyclopedias he read there were only text-like descriptions of Demonic Beasts and no illustrations. Well, that wasn’t entirely true, as they were usually contained in Jade Tablets. The tablets contained ideas similar to the written form, in a way he could experience directly with his consciousness. It was much more effective than actual written text for comprehending the verses and intent of words, but it was not good for conveying images. It was only after he saw some of the capabilities of most beasts that he could match it with their physical characteristics to positively identify them.

The Thousand Limbed Lungfish. It was an apt, but also not perfectly descriptive name. The Thousand Limbed Lungfish would keep growing limbs, which with enough time meant it could really have a thousand of them. On the other hand, those limbs were not on its body like might be thought from the name. Instead, it grew smaller clones of itself that it could direct: like they were its own limbs. Each of these ‘limbs’ were a tier lower than the main body, but all it needed was time to build up a large army.

With enough time, and food to fuel it, the Thousand Limbed Lungfish could create a whole army on its own. It now made sense why the Beast Keeper would go to the trouble of using so many other beasts just to set up the battlefield for it. The Charming Slate Boar was great at causing havoc and would disrupt them, if not outright kill the weaker members. The Gold Scaled Porcelain Crocodile was there to fill the place with water and prepare the battlefield. Then the Thousand Limbed Lungfish would create wave after wave of clones to defeat them through attrition. This revelation also helped Sage to identify what the bullfrog was by guessing at what would be the most beneficial.

He was a moment too late reaching this conclusion as the first wave of ‘limbs’ reached the Discipline Keeper. He’d also seen what the lungfish was doing and he didn’t want to get beat by superior numbers. Stepping to the side, he spun around and whirled his giant cleaver in a circle, releasing a rippling wave of energy from it that moved towards the four at high speed. The cutting energy oscillated up and down like the waves on a coast, leaving no room for the smaller lungfish to avoid it. They slithered out of the way of a few peaks and crests, but the cutting tide continued to wash outwards until they were finally caught up in it.

Blood splashed into the water, drawing deep channels into the lungfishes’ scaled bodies. Large chunks of flesh were sheared off of them and splattered in a wide pattern around the four fresh corpses. The Discipline Keeper was breathing heavily after that expenditure, burning through most of his reserves. They already saw how it took time for the lungfish to spawn these clones, which would give him enough time to recover all the energy he just expended.

It was a good plan, but the Discipline Keeper didn’t realize what the bullfrog was. Sage had just recognized it: The Black Fire Bullfrog. It put its ability into play just before Sage could warn him. Its tongue slipped out of its mouth and slurped up to its own head. It wrapped around one of the horns and the horn detached from its head. Then the tongue pulled back into its mouth with just the horn poking out like a tooth. Then, the tongue slid up and grabbed another horn, pulling it down to its mouth. When the four big fangs were poking out it paused for a moment.

It shot its tongue out again, but it wasn’t aimed at the Discipline Keeper like before. Instead it stabbed the horn into one of the dead lungfish clones. It wasn’t just one tongue, they all saw that at this time, each of those horns was not just in its mouth, they were all being held by the ends of individual tongues. At this moment a look of recognition came over the Discipline Keeper’s face and he also realized what the frog was. After the horns were stabbed into each of the dead lungfish, the tongues retracted rapidly, leaving the horns behind. Then a dark light came into existence on top of the frog’s head. The places where the four horns had been removed suddenly ignited with black flame. The fire formed into the shape of four horns and as it did, a matching black fire lit up upon the four corpses.