The Ultimate Evolution

A holy light flashed. This time, no accident happened. Zi and Sanzi descended from the sky and landed behind Reef.

At the same time, the scattering light from ‘Holy Grasp’ slowly fell on them and healed them, freeing them from the state of near death.

Only then did Sanzi recover from his shock. The god of destiny makes fools of the people. Sanzi was definitely not unkillable even if he was a Chosen; it was just that the mastermind had used the most inappropriate means to try and kill him.

And also, thanks to the fact that most of the battlefield was now covered in light blue ice dust, the long-range attackers in the periphery were temporarily unable to take aim or find out the situation on the battlefield. They could not just carpet bomb the place blindly either; there were three different parties collaborating in this attack, so they could easily injure other people. Otherwise, even if Sanzi had escaped the murderous situation arranged by the mastermind, him and Zi would still not have made it!

After Reef finished performing ‘Holy Grasp’, a behemoth also came down from the sky. It was the dark gold leech! Its huge body could not only be used to slow down the enemy; it was also an excellent shield.

But the primary objective of the dark gold leech this time was not to shield Reef and those behind him, but to shield a painting, that had unexpectedly appeared, from sight.

The painting that was a dark gold item made from the skin of a powerful mage!

The Ukiyo-e!

The surface of the dark gold item was already covered with numerous cracks. It had only one use remaining. Currently, it was emitting a strong light!

The light was reminiscent of the brilliance of the sunset.

Currently, the Ukiyo-e was desperately burning away its own soul, burning away everything it had! Like fireworks, it seeked only the brilliant eternity of that short moment, even if it had to destroy itself in the process.

Since the summoning had been done once before, Sheyan did not need to use his mind to paint the figure again. A dot, formed by mental power, appeared on the Ukiyo-e, and it quickly started painting.

It painted in rapid, ingenious and complicated strokes.

The image of Melody soon appeared once more on the Ukiyo-e. The girl’s image was very vivid on the Ukiyo-e, and her strong nature aura was brimming out of the painting. Her face on the portrait was grave, probably because she knew that the situation over here was critical.

Then, the Ukiyo-e started to burn, but instead of smoke, it produced a large number of complex, mysterious, and primitive runes. The runes quickly spread to the surroundings and finally formed an ivy arch, filled with vitality.

Almost immediately afterwards, Melody leaped out of the arch in a fiery red leather armour and the dazzling Phoenix bow on her back. There were traces of sunburn on her leather armour. These strange-looking burn marks were the legendary battle marks of the scorching sun. She seemed to know that the situation was an emergency, so as soon as she appeared, she sprinkled several maple seeds from her hand. Several large maple trees immediately grew from the ground, their leaves as red as fire, providing Party Ace with cover.

The next moment, a huge earth mound began to take shape in the place where Sheyan had lain immobile previously. Ramtas broke out of the soil while roaring furiously. Reef’s servant, No. 7, also jumped out from the void and hid in the wreckage like a spider.

This was the consequences of losing the initiative in a surprise attack.

Party Ace had not summoned Ramtas and No. 7 previously because in the battle between the top superheroes of the world, they were only there to do the odd jobs with no intention of getting tangled up in the fight. After all, Ramtas was too slow, and No. 7’s HP was too low. They would just be cannon fodders and a huge waste of utility points….How could Party Ace have known that they would be ambushed?

In just over ten seconds, Sheyan had completely turned the situation around and built a perfect protective circle for his three teammates. Now that he did not need to worry about them, he silently lowered his head and charged towards the remaining three enemies with a crazy momentum, as if he would sweep away everything in his path!

***

Among those three, Lamb and another man named Bosch belonged to the category of assassins. Both of them had typical speed-oriented builds, especially Bosch. Before Zi had transformed, he alone kept Zi busy for as long as five minutes!

Bosch’s way of attacking was very simple. He liked to launch a flurry of frenzied, unending strikes. Once his opponent was entangled with him, he would launch a continuous storm of attacks. Each attack may not cause a lot of damage by itself, but the amount would stack up to a shocking value. Furthermore, Bosch had collected a number of equipment which increased his explosive strike rate in order to make up for his low attack power. That was how he had comprehensively and completely suppressed Zi! Under his incessant attacks and ghost-like footwork, Zi could not even lock-on to his figure to attack back until she had retreated to a wall.

The other man was Rogenvader, a berserker. In sharp contrast to Lamb and Bosch, who were fast but had weak attack power, Rogenvader had very strong attack power. Naturally, that meant he had a lower attack speed. His weapon was a two-handed dark gold heavy club specifically selected by the mastermind to deal with Reef.

Heavy weapons like giant clubs were characterised by their impact penetration. Even if they were blocked by the enemy, they would still cause a certain percentage of damage which ignored defence. That was why Reef did not persist for too long despite his really high defence. Defence-ignoring attacks were always the nemesis of people with high defence!

Sheyan’s first target was actually Rogenvader!

With his head lowered, Sheyan marched barehanded towards Rogenvader. That indeed surprised Rogenvader, who was still looking to attack Reef even though the pale blue dust was beginning to thin out.

“You…How did you get free?”

He was surprised, yes, but he was still an Awakener who had experienced hundreds of battles. He turned his body, and borrowing the momentum, he swung the dark gold club down diagonally! The front end of the club shone with a ferocious glow.

At the same time, Lamb and Bosch quietly attacked from his left and right. The three had never cooperated before, but they all had rich combat experiences. They instantly formed a triangle, surrounding Sheyan from all sides.

Facing Rogenvader’s fierce blow, Sheyan’s eyes turned red and actually took it with the left side of his body!

My body is my best shield!

A harsh sound could be heard as the dark gold heavy club collided with Sheyan’s muscles and bones, but Sheyan’s expression was indifferent. This degree of pain was a thousand times better compared to the agony of watching his teammate die while he was unable to do anything!

A potion bottle slipped down quietly between Sheyan’s fingers. An invisible shockwave burst outwards, stunning the three Awakeners.

Then, a dark green light that almost blinded their eyes came from Sheyan’s hands. It was the light from his gloves, the ‘Planetary-Grade High-Energy Mechanical Power Gloves’!

The glow on this eye-catching pair of gloves was originally very gentle, but there was now a different layer of strange light on their surface. This layer of light should have been on the blade of ‘+13 West’!

That’s right. Not long after Sheyan returned to the Nightmare Realm previously, the liquid metal life-form had awakened from its dormancy because it was hungry again.

What was it hungry for? Of course it was hungry for the 100 pieces of equipment stated in the mission! However, Sheyan felt that the party did not have enough financial and material resources to satisfy its desire because everything they had to do required utility points. So, he put it at the back of his mind temporarily.

When Sheyan’s body was restrained, he could only free himself if he was attacked, but he was maliciously protected by a protective layer on his body. That seemed to be a puzzle with no solution, but the ‘Life-Link’ between him and Reef became the key to breaking the conundrum. As soon as Reef entered the state of near death, the damage he received immediately shifted to Sheyan. Sheyan was instantly jolted awake!

Sheyan had never been so eager for the enemy’s blood! While the ‘+13 West’ was powerful, its strongest property had a 90% chance of not triggering on a contestant….

Sheyan had always believed that the ‘Planetary-Grade High-Energy Mechanical Power Gloves’ were more suited for support tasks, until he met that man on Uplos, the skull-wearing man called Test Subject Type E No. 7. This guy taught Sheyan with his unusual but ferocious throwing skills that gloves could be powerful too.

So when he needed the most offensive power, Sheyan chose to use the liquid metal life-form to strengthen the +4 mechanical power gloves instead of ‘+7 West’ (Author’s note: It’s been mentioned before that the gloves had been strengthened to +4). After all, ‘+7 West’ was only a dark blue weapon — its starting point was too low — while a dark green set was even half a grade higher than dark gold weapons. There were black, silver storyline and dark gold between them, a gap of three grades!

Under normal circumstances, ‘+13 West’ should be equivalent to a +10 silver storyline weapon. It could absolutely not surpass the dark green set weapons.

So, strictly speaking, the culprit of the previous assassination of Shali was not the sabre ‘West’ which had degenerated to +7, but the powerful pair of dark green gloves.

‘+10 Planetary-Grade High-Energy Mechanical Power Gloves’!

In fact, this was also one of Sheyan’s trump cards to deal with the mastermind! After gaining the extra +6 strengthening, the pair of powerful gloves, which seemed like they could only be used for support, had instantly transformed into a pair of terrifying killer weapons!!!