"Bad omen in the clouds, my lord." The Shaman uttered in fright after tracing her boney fingers across the blue sky. "I've never seen anything like it before."

When Kaiya, the leader of the tribe, saw the terrified look of the village Shaman, he had a premonition which sent a chilli down his spine. Bad omen, again?

The Ironwood patriarch was clearing his thoughts when a danger alarm sounded in his head. Immediately, he arched his waist forward, covered his ears with both hands, and screamed in pain.

He was about to fall on his knees, when the pain began to ease. When he slowly raised his head, he found that everybody around him seemed to be trying to get away from the place, but they appeared to be moving slowly. What were they running away from?

Looking around again, he saw the village Shaman running towards him. Her lips were moving fast, releasing some incoherently intermittent words.

He shook his head to clear his mind and the scenes before him began to distort in shapes. The originally peaceful landscape, mountains, trees, huts, clansmen, everything began to slowly twist and rotate in his eyes.

Although the chirping in his ears had disappeared, he felt he had lost his hearing. The surroundings became so quiet all of a sudden that only the sounds of his own breathing and the voice inside his head, kept echoing in his mind. The voice was so clear.

"Antherions!"

Antherions, why? Kaiya shook his head vigorously, and the spinning scene finally stopped, only to be replaced by an inferno. The whole village was on fire. The villagers were running helter-skelter, and behind them were his fears.

The antherions. They kept chasing and killing his clansmen. He could clearly see everything in details, even the saliva at the corners of the antherions' mouths. So much spilled blood.

What was going on here? What's wrong with him? Kaiya stood there blankly, watching his turned into a sea of fire.

Was he dreaming? He slowly raised his hands and put them in front of his eyes. They were really his own hands. He was about to rub his eyes, when he suddenly stopped. He seemed to have regained his hearings. What was that sound? Somebody calling his name? Who could be calling him?

When he turned around, he saw his wife dashing towards him, shouting in horror. Her voice coming intermittently. "The... antherions...attacking...."

Antherions, attacking his village? So he wasn't dreaming? Kaiya was in deep thought when he suddenly saw his own reflection in his son's eyes. Approaching behind him was an antherion of the wolfkind, rushing towards him with its mouth wide opened.

The Ironwood leader turned around abruptly, and saw a huge mouth with two rows of sharp teeth suddenly gnawing at him. He could even smelled a foul stench in the mouth of the antherion. He screamed in fright, raising his hands to cover his head. "Aaargh..."

"Patriarch....."

Kaiya was startled as he felt someone tapping him on the back. Immediately, he put down his arm which was covering his head and tried to open his eyes. There was nothing in front of him but darkness. Did he just see an apparition of a wolf antherion in front of him?

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When he turned around, he saw it was Wynter who was patting him on the back, asking anxiously. "Are you okay?"

Kaiya glanced at Wynter blankly, and then looked around in utter surprise. There was no fire, no antherions killing the villagers. It was just a lot of clansmen running around due to the alarm raised by the village Shaman.

Kneeling on the ground, Kaiya lowered his head and began to gasp for breath. His whole body was already soaked in sweat. At this moment, he knew he just had a premonition.

"My lord, something deadly is coming our way. I can sense its disastrous power." The voice of the Shaman also sounded again. "We must evacuate the village immediately!"

"Patriarch, we really need to go. I've also detected high power fluctuations coming from the forest. It's like nothing I've seen before. We must run away." Wynter also shouted anxiously. He was a gold-level conveyor, the highest power among the Ironwood clansmen, but he himself knew he couldn't compare to what was coming.

"Wynter." Kaiya quickly took a deep breath, raised his head sharply, grabbed Wynter's hand and said. "You have to protect my wife and son. As the leader, I have to ensure the safety of the whole clan."

The patriarch of the Ironwood tribe was about to run towards the middle of the village when he was pulled back by Wynter. "We are out of time. I have to get you to safety."

"You must go, my lord. Leave the rest to me." Saphira reached into her storage bag and brought out a small artifact, her cherished treasure. She recited a spell and threw the item into the air, releasing small ripples. "I've alerted them. We'll be right behind you."

"Sometimes, I forgot how good a seer you are. Stay alive, Saphira. May the gods be with you."

"And you too, my lord."

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"Attack! Kill them all!" Seeing they had been discovered, Germeyes, leader of the bearkind, shouted, and at the same time, leaped in the direction of the Ironwood village, just behind Harbonok, the second born of the dragonkind.

The antherions who were on the ground, after hearing Germeyes's order, roared from different directions and rushed towards the Ironwood village.

One of the silver-level antherions, Yaka of the bearkind, took the lead. Although it could perform partial transformation into human form, because of his low magical power, it was grouped among the inferior antherions. So it was only doing errands for the higher-level antherions. But this time, it was here to prove itself worthy of higher status.

Maybe it could even get a good standing in the eyes of the second-born of the dragonkind and be allowed to stay by his side. Then, he would even be regarded as part of royalty.

Approching the human village, it saw that more than a dozen humans, shouting and running towards him. It couldn't believe his luck. It roared in delight, and went straight to meet them.

It knew that the powerful earth magic of its bearkind was not minor at all. Each attack had the capacity to strike down a good number of the humans. One after another, it raised earth walls, pushing back the humans, while its earth-spears ruthlessly ravaged the lives of the people in front of it.

A few seconds later, Yaka saw that more than half of the humans had stopped their attempt to approach it, and were aiming their bows at it. The antherion couldn't help but wonder what these humans were trying to do. What was this with their confidence? They had to be up to something. So, it began to slow down.

But before it could realize what was happening, five bloody holes were made in his body by the ether arrows, and its body flew backward involuntarily. It fell on the ground, and stopped breathing.

The swooshing sound of the arrows continued to come from all directions, mixed with the painful roars of the antherions and the cries of the humans.

The power of the bows was exceptional, but it was only for antherions below the gold-level. For the antherions above the silver-level, apart from causing them minor pains and injuries, most of them could only be itchy best.

What was this weapon of the humans? Harbonok snorted. As a higher-leveled antherion of the dragonkind, he had already achieved full human transformation. He floated into the mid-air and looked at the battlefield below, his eyes following the humans who were firing the deadly arrows which kept killing his own anths. These humans must be completely destroyed.