Parallel (A Virtual Gamer's Story) [Vol.1 - Vol.4 Complete]

Chapter 173: Longma Tribe

Longma, Kirkcour Woods.

10:30 pm. 14th Banem, 1092.

"What the hell?" Kashi muttered in shock as he looked upon the battle occurring at the Longma tribe from an overhanging cliff.

The Longma tribe was located at a small clearing within the forest, but unlike other tribes, they did not have any protective walls. Furthermore, their buildings comprised of simple large tents for each family. From the hill, it appeared very much like these tents were not placed in any determined order or formation.

Anyone with the slightest intelligence could imagine what would happen to a village with such weak defenses in the event of a monster invasion. Or at least, it should have been obvious.

At the moment, Kashi had begun to doubt his own intelligence.

Hundreds of corpses littered the field below, but Kashi's sharp eyes could see that over 99% of the bodies belonged to the monster army, while the remaining 1% belonged to the daunting Longma tribe.

Kashi swallowed hard and had to resist the urge to jump into battle when he saw the Longma tribespeople. The centaur generals' descriptions did not do the magnificent tribe justice.

The Longma tribe looked like a cross between a dragon and a regular centaur. In fact, given the promiscuous nature of dragons, Kashi would not be surprised if that was, in fact, their origin.

The horse portion of the Longma tribe centaurs was robust and sturdy, protected by hardened black scales grown strategically on their backs and sides. It was no surprise then that the Blights' wood-based attacks kept breaking against the Longma tribe's bodies as they ran through the monsters.

The Longma tribe retaliated by stabbing and slicing up monsters with scythe-like bone spurs that grew at the end of tails that resembled scaled reptilian snakes.

Kashi's eyes widened as a direwolf spat out a ki-blade at a Longma tribesman. The Longma tribesman did not falter. He continued his charge and the ki-blade shattered against the dense, interlocked muscles on his broad chest. He then grabbed the direwolf with clawed, demon-like hands with fingers that were longer than Kashi's face.

The Longma tribesman roared, and his massive, scaled arms bulged as he ripped the direwolf in half. The Longma tribesman seemed to sense Kashi's gaze as he turned and looked up at the hill, giving the daeben a full view of his face.

Kashi finally understood why the other centaurs were not so accepting of this tribe. The Longma tribe indeed had more in common with monsters than they did humes. Aethir designed humes to be aesthetically pleasing to the eye.

This rule applied to all races, whether humans, elves, dwarves, or beast-kin. Even the drakul, after their transformation, carried a sense of security in their features.

However, it seemed like Aethir had skipped over the Longma tribe. They could not look any more monstrous if they tried. Their facial features were sharp and angular, with bone-spurs jutting out of their chin and the sides of their heads to form massive horns. Their small eyes were sunken, and their skull's bone structure made it look like they were always in a bad mood.

Couple all these traits with sharp teeth you would expect to see in monsters like tigers, and you had creatures that, without context, anyone would assume were monsters. Even worse, their fighting methods were both primitive and savage, involving tearing their opponents apart with their bare hands and tails.

The Longma tribesman could not make out Kashi's full form from so far away, so he gave up, snorted, and returned to the battle at hand. He did not care about Kashi's status. If he was a friend, good. If Kashi turned out to be an enemy, it would only mean more invaders they had to kill.