The death of the last Fallen Ironfang marked the official end of the battle.
But the battlefield had not calmed down yet, where a few hours earlier it looked like a green forest, now it had turned into a ruined land.
The trees were broken, the soil had been turned over by continuous explosions, massive craters could be seen in various places.
The smell of blood, smoke, burnt flesh, and mana was in the air.
Hundreds of Ironfang Ravager corpses lay on the ground, some of them had turned into piles of crushed flesh.
Some others remained exactly in the state they were killed in.
Hunters and awakened ones were scattered all over the area, busy collecting loot.
Teeth were being separated, horns were being cut off, the hearts of the monsters were being placed in special boxes.
The skins were being carefully removed from the bodies, almost no part of a monster was worthless, every part could become a weapon, armor, medicine, or magical material.
Of course, maximum caution had to be taken, otherwise their poisonous skin and blood could cause harm.
Shortly after, caravans carrying loot arrived from the base, massive pack monsters whose height was taller than some buildings entered the field.
Steel chains were tied to the corpses, armored carts were filled one after another, within a few minutes the entire area looked like a massive mine being extracted.
Lian was standing on one of the rocks watching everything, after much difficulty and effort he had managed to calm that egg which seemed to want to devour all the creatures here, now he had a chance to look at this scene.
Even without a precise calculation, he could guess that the financial value of this operation would be staggering.
Just the corpses of the Ironfang Ravagers were worth millions of dollars, and that was before counting the Fallen ones.
A few minutes later, the commander’s voice spread across the entire field.
Everyone slowly gathered, and the female commander stood on a large rock.
Her face was still tired, her armor was damaged in several places, one of the biggest burdens of responsibility for this battle was on her shoulders.
Fighting for several hours against Fallen monsters that had passed their first evolution was not easy, if it were not for everyone’s help in killing them, they might not have even been able to win.
When silence fell, she spoke.
"The cleansing operation was completed successfully."
The sound of cheering and shouting spread through the crowd, this was very good news for everyone, this was the first step in securing the base area up to a 400 kilometer radius.
The commander let them release their excitement for a few seconds and then continued.
"The thirty million dollar reward has been confirmed and it has been decided to double it for your efforts."
This time the crowd’s sound became even louder, smiles appeared on many faces, and some raised their fists in excitement.
The commander raised her hand and silence fell again.
"The main reward will be divided based on Contribution, also for each monster killed, a separate reward has been considered."
"Group kills have a smaller share, solo kills have a full share."
A few people immediately started discussing and calculating, some were happy and some were dissatisfied.
But no one could deny that this operation was the most profitable mission of the past few months, each of them had easily earned tens of thousands of dollars today.
Those who had done more hunting and helped much more could have even made hundreds of thousands of dollars in profit.
Lian, however, did not pay much attention to the financial discussions, after the ceremony ended, he mounted the Windrunner Strider and returned to the base.
When he finally reached his room, for the first time he had the chance to check the system.
The moment he opened the status panel, several notifications appeared one after another.
[Level Up]
[Level 14 Reached]
His eyes fixed on the experience bar, the bar was almost halfway full, he had gone from level thirteen to fourteen in just one operation and had also covered half the path of the next level.
[ Stats Points : 290 ]
He had obtained 290 stats points!
He had managed to get a total of 240 points from killing all the monsters below level 22 and those few monsters in the river.
The other 50 points were for helping to kill the two Fallen ones, he had gotten 25 stats for each, considering that due to the group kill, he had only gotten half of one percent, this number was insane.
If he had killed those two monsters alone by himself, he would have gotten 50 stats points for each.
He also noticed a point, it did not matter how many members were in the group and how many people took part in killing the monster, if it was a group kill, he would get half of one percent of the monster’s stats.
If he killed the monster alone, he would get one percent of its stats as stats points, this gave him a fuller view of his innate skill.
Overall, the result was better than what he had expected, a brief smile appeared on his face.
But very soon that smile faded, because something more important than leveling up was waiting for him.
The egg.
He reached his hand toward the storage space and the next moment the massive egg appeared on the room floor, red and black lights were flowing on its surface.
The shining veins on the shell were moving calmly, and more importantly... it was still pulsing.
Calmly, regularly, like the heart of a creature that had not yet been born.
Lian stared at it for a few minutes, the more he looked, the more he felt that something about this egg was not normal.
He took out the book of treasure to see if any change had occurred in the description of this monster... and there was no change.
Finally, a thought came to his mind, on the battlefield, when the surroundings were full of monster corpses.
The egg had reacted, so maybe... there was a connection.
He took out one of the monster corpses he had obtained yesterday from the storage space.
The heavy corpse fell on the floor, the egg showed no reaction.
One second passed.
Two seconds.
Three seconds.
Then suddenly... a pulse... the red light on the shell shone.
Lian frowned, the next moment something happened that even shocked him.
No mouth opened, no organ appeared, no visible physical change occurred.
But the corpse began to dry up, first the blood disappeared from its body, then the flesh sank, the muscles shrank, the bones cracked, and the entire body withered before his eyes.
In less than a minute, nothing remained but a dry and lifeless shell.
Lian was silent for a few moments.
Then he took out the second corpse, the same thing happened again.
Third.
Fourth.
Fifth.
One after another, all the corpses disappeared in the same way, not really disappeared, but as if all their energy had been drained.
Like a fruit that had its water completely taken out and the fruit itself was eaten too, finally a few dry shells remained on the ground.
Lian whispered quietly.
"What kind of creature is this..." He had seen many monsters.
Fallen ones, even saw an Unholy, treasures and legendary plants in the Celestial Treasury, but none of them were like this.
None of them.
Many questions formed in his mind, if this creature comes out of the egg, what will it look like?
A monster? A legendary creature? Or something completely different? Although his intuition told him that this thing would not only bring no good but could be a nightmare for the world.
At that same moment, the book of treasure reacted and new lines appeared.
[The Devourer of Devourers]
[Growth Progress Updated]
[Current Completion: 1%]
Lian was stunned for a moment, ten corpses and only one percent?
He was not sure if this rate would remain constant or variable and the more it devours, the harder it gets to fill it, but this way, if he wanted to complete this, he would have to stop selling the corpses or cut it in half.
His gaze fixed on the egg again, the red light on its surface had become calmer, as if it had calmed down after eating.
Then for the first time, a new line appeared below the information.
[Feeding Requirement Detected]
[Additional Biomass Recommended]
Lian waited, but before more information appeared, the window faded, as if even the book of treasure still could not analyze the true nature of this creature.
A few seconds of silence ruled the room.
Then he sighed and did not take his gaze off the egg and quietly whispered.
"I feel like I have brought a very big trouble with myself..."