The Ultimate Evolution

The Kurut minerals were placed in a cave that was long and narrow at the entrance but wide inside. It could be seen from the outside that the Kurut mineral reserve was so large that it must be calculated in units of tons. They sparkled like a mountain of black gemstones.

But at the entrance of the cave lay two Buffalo Criminal Warbeasts!! Perhaps there had been cases where ordinary Buffalo Criminals had tried to steal Kurut minerals before, so those two strange, powerful beasts were extremely vigilant, showing no signs of resting at all. Ronnie could not find any chance to sneak in!

Such a situation caused Sheyan’s eyes to narrow. If Mogensha or his other party members were here, they would be able to tell that Sheyan was coming up with some evil schemes again.

After a while of silent contemplation, Sheyan asked Ronnie to come back, then had a few words with Pokan. When Pokan heard what Sheyan said, he could not help showing a surprised expression. He then carefully surveyed the surrounding terrain, and finally nodded his head.

It must be mentioned here that the contestants were only able to sneak so close to the Buffalo Criminal’s valley thanks to the recipe for the ointment to mask their smell provided by the native humans from before. But from what they know now, the recipe should have been formulated and improved by the spaceship, so the credit should not fall to those people.

After another round of discussion, Sheyan and his team dived back into the darkness. Ten minutes later, the Warbeasts at the entrance of the cave suddenly stood up and sniffed around nervously. They then rushed into the cave in a hurry. But after a while, they slowly walked back out, shaking their heads and blowing their noses from time to time.

By the looks of it, they must have heard or detected something unusual, but found nothing after a round of inspections, so they thought they had made a mistake.

After another twenty minutes or so, Pokan returned in an exhausted state, breathing heavily and looking very pale. He looked like a director who had had a fun session with his secretary, but after he returned home, his dissatisfied wife also asked for it and he ended up being cruelly squeezed dry until he was on the verge of collapsing. His power had been boosted thanks to Stone Blader Raijo, and yet he seemed completely spent – what he had just done must be something that required a lot of power.

Sheyan softly heaved a sigh of relief. He had not expected so much Kurut mineral to be stored in the camp, so he had to improvise this plan. Now that the first step of the plan had been perfectly executed, the next step was naturally to target the black liver mushrooms.

There were surprisingly few guards around the black livers. There were probably four or five Buffalo Criminals curled up on the ground, sleeping with their heads wrapped in animal skin. Ronnie immediately felt relieved when he saw this. After signalling to the others, he quietly blended into the darkness.

Theoretically speaking, his task was not too difficult, but after five minutes, an accident occurred. The guards around him showed no movement, but all of a sudden, a huge black liver mushroom trembled violently and spilled a large amount of fluorescent spores which immediately flew to an empty spot nearby. All the bright spores stuck to Ronnie’s body and completely exposed him!

“This is bad!” Sheyan suddenly realised that he had made a big mistake – he had treated the “Kurut mineral” and the “black liver” as the same thing, although the latter was a living plant rather than a mineral! Humans were too used to thinking of plants as inanimate objects that posed no threat to them!

Sheyan completely forgot the fact that the ‘Stairway of the Sun’ inside his body was also an extremely dangerous plant!

Actually, when he thought about it more carefully, something was obviously wrong. The Kurut minerals and black livers were both just as important to the Buffalo Criminal tribe, so why would the former be kept in an enclosed space with the powerful Warbeasts standing guard outside, while the latter was guarded by a few lazy fools?

The reason was that the black livers did not need any protection! They were very strong!

This time, it was clear that Sheyan had made a mistake. As the old saying goes, even the wise are not always free from error. He instantly racked his brain to think of a way to make up for it.

He said to Pokan, “Follow the original plan. As soon as something goes wrong, trigger the first trap immediately!”

Then, Sheyan rushed towards Ronnie. As an MT, he could not ignore a comrade in trouble. This was not only because the others were watching, but also a matter of principle. Unless there was no other choice, an MT who abandoned their companion would absolutely lose all respect.

Ronnie appeared to be in extreme agony after the spores of the black liver attached themselves to him. Not only that; from the ground below him, several white hyphae shot out and stretched straight towards his nostrils and groin. The hyphae were different from the tendrils of the ‘Stairway of the Sun’. The tendrils of the ‘Stairway of the Sun’ were reminiscent of octopus limbs, while the hyphae looked like disgusting horsehair worms!

But at that moment, Ronnie’s entire body turned blurry, and seven different Ronnies appeared in an instant within ten square meters around the spot he was originally in. The spores that were originally attached to Ronnie scattered after suddenly losing their target.

‘Shadow Clone Technique’!

One of the seven Ronnies slipped into the darkness. Sheyan noticed that the Ronnie closest to the black liver was holding a black object in his hand. It turned out to be the left arm of a Predator. That Ronnie rushed towards the black liver and was instantly pierced like a pin cushion by the mushroom’s hyphae. He vanished like an illusion.

Before the left arm of the Predator had even landed, it was already grabbed by a hypha. The mushroom “identified” the arm as an organic matter and simply threw the arm under its cap. It even moved other corpses and bodily pieces over the arm, as if to accelerate the ripening and decay of the arm….

“Beautiful!” Sheyan, who was sprinting there, could not help bursting out in praise. No one knew if the praise was directed at Ronnie or the black liver. By now, the camp had already been alerted. A large number of Buffalo Criminals rushed out screaming from the shacks and covered half the valley like a tide.

Sheyan made one move at that moment, because he saw Ronnie performing the same action – jump behind a large stone! Alas, there was no stone near Sheyan, but there wa a big tree!

As soon as Sheyan landed behind the tree and ducked down, a dazzling flash erupted from the “collection pile” of the black liver at the other end. A large bright white semi-sphere of high-energy shockwave spread rapidly outwards, reaching a diameter of more than 20 meters, and abruptly exploded!

A small mushroom cloud rose and more than 20 large black liver mushrooms in the vicinity were destroyed. Terrifying photothermal radiation, shockwaves and induced radioactivity resulted in a horrible destruction! The giant mushrooms close to the center of the explosion were reduced to ashes by the instantaneous spike in temperature, while the rest were either torn by the shockwave or scorched by light radiation.

Only two or three black livers at the periphery survived thanks to their tenacious vitality. They uttered a miserable wail which made the atmosphere even ghastlier than it already was.

Many of the Buffalo Criminals were also howling in pain. At the moment of explosion , they foolishly looked straight at the explosion, so their eyes were burned by the strong light. Because the Buffalo Criminals usually moved in dark environments underground, their eyes were extremely sensitive to light. The eyes of some of the weaker Buffalo Criminals had even burst from the intense light.

At that moment, Sheyan suddenly felt a throb from the ‘Stairway of the Sun’. He instinctively wanted to have close contact with the black livers. Sheyan looked at the chaos in the field, then decisively rushed forward. Fortunately, the high heat had vapourised most of the corpses there. Otherwise, Sheyan’s greatest obstacle would have been the terrible stench.

A black liver which had half its mushroom cap blown away by the shockwave was trembling violently while secreting a large amount of liquid to plug the wound. Sheyan charged towards it.

The black liver immediately released what little spores it had left to wrap around Sheyan, then stabbed more than a dozen hyphae into Sheyan’s body! The ‘Stairway of the Sun’ remained quiet until the hyphae penetrated into his body, after which it launched a fierce counter-attack! Not only did it instantly gobble the hyphae up, it also infiltrated the black liver through the hyphae. The mushroom withered in an instant and was reduced to ashes!

When the ‘Stairway of the Sun’ achieved its objective, it completely retracted back into Sheyan’s body and huddled behind his sternum. It seemed to be evolving again after getting some good stuff.

The others saw this but did not think too much of it. Only Dardanian, who was an expert in plants, suddenly opened his eyes wide. He understood what it meant! He also realised that the terrifying power he had vaguely sensed in Sheyan’s body before was absolutely not just a goddamn illusion!