Super Gene Ascension Chapter 17

Woody, being a giant Sacred Blood Mount, was perfectly fine with dealing with the odd mutant-tier snake and other bugs that tried to snap at it in the thick grass that made up the plains we were rushing through.

The other three and their Primitive tier horses? Not so much, and Yang Manli rather rudely told the heir Kalio to go pound sand. When he asked if he and his two women could also ride atop my mount's back.

Besides that, however, we kept moving without any real incidents as we made our way into the Minotaur's tribes territory.

"I am surprised the Minotaurs are living right next to that giant ant nest." I muttered thoughtfully as in the distance while atop Woody's back. I could see the very Minotaur's we would be hunting.

A tribe of Sacred Blood creatures, innately, they were strong beings with humanoid forms but only a cow's intelligence, and besides walking upright and having humanoid hands, they had no other human features.

To which Yang Manli said quietly in turn as she was sucking on a medicine-filled pouch to help the healing of her fucked up shoulder.

I woudn't be surprised if they were predators of those ants. As the ants are blind after all. And I woudn't be surprised at all if they used the acid from those ants to help digest the tough grass that covers these plains."

That was a fair point... I remember in my old life, some birds would use the acid spat by certain ants as flea and tick medicine.

Hell, ant eaters also lived off eating ants as well. And I doubted that eating ants straight was good for you.

Either way, from atop the large mount that Woody. Yang Manli was also able to pinpoint other people making their way towards the Minotaur tribes current location with ease.

"Now would be a good time to use a flare." She said and I watched as she pulled out a bundle of tightly wrapped moss and wood before lighting the end on fire with a metal lighter.

The bundle then let out an orange smoke from what looked like the moss burning, which contrasted heavily with the clear skies above us. So all to soon, the other group members quickly made their way towards us. Only Yang Manli, Qin Xuan, and a couple of others had the signal flares to make the group come together.

"Looks as though more than a quarter of our expedition defected and went back home." Kalio spoke rather blandly as he rode around Woody to see the dots in the distance of our group coming back together.

To which Yang Manli said rather flatly. "Or they had little choice but to retreat backwards with that nest cutting them off from heading towards the minotaur tribe."

Then from across the horizon came the silver horse form of Qin Xuan's transformed Beast Soul, and at seeing Yang Manli she nodded and then gave me a look before she asked calmly. "Jake, may I use your mount to lead with the height advantage?" 

"Sure." I nodded with Qin Xuan showing her inner strength and easily jumping from the ground onto Woody's back and saddle which was more than five meters off the ground.

And I noticed that Qin Xuan herself wasn't hurt at all, thankfully though as she noticed Yang Manli who had lowered herself. Qin Xuan sent me a thankful nod as she said. "Thank you for saving Yang Manli... I woudn't be able to lead the Steel Legion without her."

"Really feeling the love her." Yang Manli groused with a chuckle escaping Qin Xuan who said with a small smile.

"And she is also my best friend, I suppose... Now, I am going to go over the orders for the battle to come as people continue to stream in."

Soon enough as more people streamed in from across the horizon, as they could see the stream of thick orange smoke entering the air. Qin Xuan began sharing her orders for how the group was going to deal with the minotaurs.

First was the people skilled in the rarer ranged Beast Souls, like bow's boomerangs and the one time use Beast Souls.

Secondly were the mounted hunters like mine who were of large size, as we could knock them over so that the last wave in the on foot hunters could get in close and do more damage.

Normally I would say it was a fucking terrible idea, because we were doing so much running around and moving into three different groups. But it wasn't like we could press the minotaurs down in a legion line with shields or anything.

The Sacred Blood tier Minotaurs would after all... Utterly fucking body some poor bastard trying to brace themselves behind a shield and what not.

Still I was obviously part of the charge line along with Qin Xuan who was in charge of helping split up the tribe of Minotaurs so they could be more easily picked off.

With everyone in place as we approached the tribe and we were only split apart by a good three or four hundred meters and the minotaurs were already watching us at distance wary of what we were up to.

Qin Xuan blew into what looked like a goat horn that made a loud thrumming noise. And then a long series of hissing noices rang out as from behind the charging line dozens of archers let loose arrows that shot past up and into the air towards the minotaurs.

"Go!" Qin Xuan ordered even as the archers set up another volley as they were only going to be able to shoot ten arrows before we got into the thick of it, and they had to join in with the backline of the melee focused hunters.

Woody kept up with even Qin Xuan's horse as we charged in and as we reached the line of the adult minotaurs who roared at our charging challenge. I watched Woody the fart filled big bastard, he was, angle himself for the tribes clear alpha that had a massive set of bull horns atop it's head.

Woody lowered its bull elephant-sized head with it's thick water buffalo-style horns towards the bul,l and I thought. 'Whelp here is how I die.' Even as Yang Manli wrapped her legs around me as we held onto the rim side of the large saddle.

As we both knew... When these large Sacred Blood Creatures finally smashed into one another as they were running to meet one another at more than forty miles per hour.

Our asses were going to get flying!

And with a loud double mooing roar from both creatures, a loud crack of bone horns meeting rang out as both Yang Manli and I was thrown off of Woody's back.

But we were thrown together and in slow motion with my Observation Haki running as hard as it could. As we were thrown off of Woody's back.

Like I was slamming the spear of Longinus into the ground. I brought all of my weight, Yang Manli's own weight, and our falling speed on the tip of my spear as we slammed spear first into the large muscular back of the alpha minotaur, with my spear shattering it's spine and going through a lung before shooting out the front of its chest.