The Ultimate Evolution

After the fireball hit its target, a man with deep eye sockets lowered his magic staff and sat down with his eyes closed.

In his opinion, this attack of his had been decisive. A man as noble as he should take no part in the subsequent dirty work of “clearing the battlefield” and “finishing off the heavily-wounded enemy”.

However, at that moment, the Vulture suddenly dashed out of the flames!

Although the attack had destroyed its propulsion system and the flames had burned it to the point where it only had its frame left, and an incomplete one at that, its inertia continued to push it forward at high speed, making it crash into the midst of the surprised enemies.

After that, the Vulture broke into pieces –

– not because of external attacks, but due to the violent force which erupted from within!!

The burst of energy shook the group of people like thunder.

In that instant, time seemed to have slowed down. They could clearly see, as if in slow motion, the metal frame of the Vulture bend out of shape, and what was left of the Vulture’s shell wrinkle, split apart, and shatter. Some of the fragments scraped Sheyan’s face, leaving bloody trails on his cheeks. They could even see the blood separating into droplets and dripping onto the ground….

Sheyan leaped out of all that and landed steadily.

His knees bent slightly as he landed, his leg muscles taut and compressed. His black hair was originally flying about, but it rapidly fell down with the sudden halt of his body, sticking to his forehead. Meanwhile, Sheyan’s burning gaze happened to land on Yanigan. The two of them locked eyes.

Sheyan took a deep breath, but during the time for this breath, at least four people had attacked him!

These attacks erupted with violent bursts when they fell on Sheyan’s body. If it was any other person suffering these attacks, including Aldaris who had extremely strong survivability after his transformation, they would be heavily injured for sure!

But the one they attacked was Sheyan!

A unique, powerful warrior whose toughness was no inferior to any MT even without a shield!

Although the joint attack of the four enemies was powerful, they only managed to reduce less than half of Sheyan’s HP. It was not enough to cause him heavy injury. The rest of the enemies wished to follow up with attacks of their own, but the sound of something cracking suddenly came from all directions. Sheyan’s feet had sunk deep into the road surface, up to his ankles.

With his feet as the centre, countless cracks spread outwards like dense clusters of roots, extending seemingly without end.

As if they had lives of their own, the cracks would reach towards the nearby living creatures and wrap around them mercilessly. As the cracks spread, all the contestants they came into contact with instantly turned stiff. Something rough, akin to tree bark, started growing on their skin. The condition was rather similar to petrification, but to be more precise, it was lignification – instead of their skin being turned to stone, it was being turned to wood!

This extremely rapid spread of the lignification effect forcibly halted the actions of several of the enemies who were trying to attack Sheyan at that moment, and some of the attacks had even backfired on them.

Yanigan, of course, did not escape the fate of being lignified either. He tried various ways to free himself of the negative condition, but everything he tried could only cure the symptoms instead of eliminating the source of the problem. The lignified state kept coming back into effect. If blood is dripping onto the floor from a wound, and you wipe the blood on the floor with a clean cloth, the spot on the floor would just immediately be soiled with blood again.

Sheyan suddenly let out a terrible roar from his throat. It did not sound like his voice at all, but shrill, angry, and filled with arrogance and bloodlust. After that, an illusionary figure emerged from his back. It looked at first glance like ‘Stairway of the Sun’, but if you look carefully, you would see some fierce white war marks on the trunk and some red stripes on the branches. And, for some reason, it gave off a feeling of surging with power!

The metal glove on Sheyan’s hand liquified – G-spot was transforming into Evil Sword Apophis! Sheyan instantly stabbed the sword into Yanigan’s abdomen!

Yanigan cried out in pain from the heavy blow, but he still could not move an inch. Sheyan then threw him into the air. The throw was executed seemingly in a casual manner, but a loud explosion sounded beneath Sheyan’s feet. At the same time, more than a few of the ‘Stairway of the Sun’s tendrils lashed out at Yanigan’s body hard!

Yanigan was thrown at least 70 meters into the air. Sheyan suddenly vanished from where he stood. He reappeared in front of the falling Yanigan with his right hand raised high.

A layer of silver metal squirmed on his right hand. G-spot was transforming into the shape of a glove, which was more suitable for this hit.

Sheyan’s right hand gripped Yanigan’s throat. In this instant, the two became one, turning into a burning comet which fell from the sky at an unimaginable speed. They slammed into a nearby building four hundred meters away. The impact gave rise to a black shockwave circle which burst outwards. The building collapsed, while all the other buildings nearby rapidly decayed as if they had been soaking in a rotten swamp for a thousand years!

This was the new ability of the ‘Stairway of the Sun’ after devouring the ‘Scalp of Crete’ produced by Pandora’s Box; a new skill that combined the ‘Beast of Corrosion’ with the custom-tailored S-level ability!

‘Withering Impact!’!!

***

[ Advanced Ability: Withering Impact ]

[ This is an extremely terrifying ability produced by combining the formidable power of the ‘Stairway of the Sun’ and the secrets of the goddess Crete. ]

[ First of all, this ability will instantly spread the roots of the ‘Stairway of the Sun’ in an area of 100 square meters around the caster with the help of the goddess Crete’s understanding of the world’s mystery. The roots will forcibly bind all hostile creatures and turn them into wood for three seconds. They will receive a damage equivalent to 3% of their maximum HP every second. ]

[ During the lignification process, the caster can attack any target without interrupting the lignification! ]

[ During the lignification process, the ‘Stairway of the Sun’ will accumulate energy while analysing the enemy’s weakness. Then, it will throw the enemy into the air and attack the enemy’s weak points, causing a shocking amount of damage to the enemy. Damage = (50 ~ 300) + 10% of enemy’s maximum HP (cannot exceed 10,000) + 2% of caster’s maximum HP. ]

[ Nothing can defend against this attack from the ‘Stairway of the Sun’, so this ability will cause true damage to any enemy. ]

[ At the same time, the ‘Stairway of the Sun’ will warp the caster next to the enemy. When the caster makes contact with the enemy, the positive energy in the caster’s body will react strongly to the negative energy in the enemy, just like in the generation of lightning. They will plummet to the ground like a terrifying comet. ]

[ At this time, the caster will have one second to choose a target location within two square kilometers of them. The caster and the enemy will crash into the chosen spot, causing (500 + 33% of enemy’s maximum HP) of area-wide true damage. The closer someone is to the core impact zone, the higher the damage suffered. The shockwave from the impact will also weaken all the enemies it comes into contact with, lowering their attack power and movement speed by 33% for 30 seconds. ]

[ The bodies of all contestants are enhanced by Nightmare Realms, so the process of component structure analysis by ‘Withering Impact’ on contestants will be extended to 600 seconds. Therefore, if you attack the enemy with the ‘Beast of Corrosion’, the cooldown will be 600 seconds. ]

[ Every time you use ‘Withering Impact’, it will consume some of your achievement points and potential points. ]

[ Comment: Any time the enemy let you get close to them, they’re in trouble. ]

***

Everyone was in shock at the sight of the horrifying gray mushroom cloud rising in the distance, which was slowly spreading outwards.

The tall Protoss building Sheyan and Yanigan had crashed into was close to crumbling. It shook a few times and completely collapsed, stirring up so much dust that it almost obscured the entire sky!

A burly figure slowly walked out of the billowing dust with steady steps. His expression was calm and nonchalant, while in his hand was something which looked suspiciously like a human head! Something red was seeping out of it.

The opposing party instantly received a frightening notification:

[ Your party’s vice leader, Yanigan, is dead. Please designate his successor as soon as you can! ]

“That’s….that’s impossible!! ”

“Yanigan has 3000 HP and 78 points of defence! Not only is his honorary dosage usable, he also has a golden apple that can instantly restore his HP to full! There’s no way he would die! How could he die! ”

“There’s something fishy about that guy’s weapon! I saw it glow crimson red and change shape!”

“Did Ronnie help him?”

“What do we do if he comes straight at us this time and do the same thing again?”

“The time limit! The time limit for the mission – ten more minutes have passed!”