The Ultimate Evolution

The deafening rumble lasted for nearly half an hour. The smoke and dust that rose covered almost half the sky. Even the light from the rising suns could barely get through. It took a long time for the dust to settle down.

Sheyan was sure that such a huge ruckus could only be caused by those bunch of contestants. However, such a display of power did not shake Sheyan too much because destruction of this magnitude was certainly not caused by a conventional attack. If this was a normal attack by a contestant, was there a need for other contestants to exist?

It was not too difficult to deduce that, in order to perform a destruction of this magnitude, they must either had used a powerful single-use item, or had paid a great price. Maybe both.

It was also not too difficult to deduce that the person who caused this destruction must had met with great trouble. Otherwise, how could they possibly use something which should be their trump card right at the beginning of the mission?

“What the f*ck were headquarters doing? Did they collect no intel on the mushroom rock at all?”

Sheyan could not help blasting the higher-ups with a rude remark. From the way it looked right now, choosing the mushroom rock as the gathering place was obviously the wrong choice. There may be great danger lurking in its vicinity. If all the contestants rushed over, they would only die a dog’s death.

For example, if there were about 100 Cockatrices near the mushroom rock, the only thing Sheyan could do would be to run away as fast as he could.

If any Intelligence-specialty contestant who was unfamiliar with the Cockatrices happened to be surrounded by them, the contestant would die for sure! Zi included!

The biological power of that damn creature was simply too strong. As long as there were enough of them, their advantage would change from quantity to quality.

Time passed seemingly in the blink of an eye. Soon, the sunflowers began to bear fruit, then withered. The time for Sheyan to leave was ripe.

Sheyan was still deliberating on whether he should go to the mushroom rock when he suddenly saw some thick, brownish-red smoke billowing to the sky in the west. The smoke kept going for a long time. It seemed that someone had ignited some damp leaves together with a specially-made smoke producing agent to make a smoke signal.

Sheyan estimated that the place where the smoke rose was only about 7-8 kilometers in a straight line from where he was. Considering that it should be easy to run away in such a terrain, he immediately rushed towards the smoke.

Covering this distance should not take too long based on Sheyan’s movement speed, but after about two or three kilometers, Ramtas suddenly crouched down. Its nose twitched a few times as if it was carefully sniffing for something. Then, it raised the crude magic staff and slammed it down hard on the ground.

A pale green light-wave rapidly spread in all directions with the landing point of the staff as the centre. Where the light-wave swept through, the grass and shrubs would prostrate themselves to the ground, lying flat like carefully combed hair. Several large, strange-looking footprints in the wet soil were instantly exposed to them.

Sheyan could tell from these footprints that their owner was no doubt an enormous creature that walked on all fours. It was adept at hiding its body while it followed behind its prey. Ramtas then picked up a thick, curly hair from a nearby bush. The hair was a greyish-green colour, and its surface shined with a metallic luster.

When Cyborg No. 1 saw the hair, he came over and inspected it carefully for a while.

“This should belong to a Ferocious Beast, master.”

After a slight pause, he added, “A very powerful Ferocious Beast.”

To understand the origin of the Ferocious Beasts, one must first understand species invasion. When mankind started the interstellar colonisation program, the advancement of science and technology erupted like a geyser. Ten billion humans occupied the solar system like a plague, then expanded in all directions at an alarming rate. It was the Age of Discovery all over again, but instead of sailing to new continents, mankind was flying to new planets.

In this process, the native species of earth were inevitably spread to other planets in the universe. Sometimes, factors limiting the growth of these species, such as natural predators, were not immediately found, so the aftermath of their introduction was often shocking and unpredictable.

One need only look at some examples of controlled species invasions in history to understand how grave the consequences could be.

Rapana thomasiana, a type of carnivorous snail, migrated from the Sea of Japan to the Black Sea in 1947. Ten years later, the oysters on Tauta Beach of the Black Sea almost completely disappeared.

The overpopulation of hairy crabs in Germany had caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage.

Australia had more than 600 million wild rabbits, and the grassland they destroyed had caused more than 40 million goats and sheep to lose their natural habitat, causing heavy economic losses to the government.

When the creatures on Earth migrated to other corners of the vast universe, they first had to withstand the radiation from cosmic rays and solar winds, and then evolve to adapt to the local environment.

After a series of evolutions, the Ferocious Beasts came into being.

The Ferocious Beasts inherited the features of Earth’s creatures, but they became bigger, more ferocious, more difficult to deal with, and more aggressive. The most notable characteristic of the Ferocious Beasts was that the more severe their injuries, the greater they fought — until death claimed them!

Sheyan and his entourage continued moving forward. As more and more signs were discovered along the way, Cyborg No. 1 finally compiled an accurate set of information on the beast.

“The creature is a Ferocious Wolverine that’s twenty feet long and weighs 3500 pounds.”

“According to the offline database, the fangs of the Ferocious Wolverines are as sharp as razors. There were incidents where a soldier’s armour was effortlessly torn apart by a Ferocious Wolverine’s fangs, so we can pretty much confirm that they have the biological power to ignore defence.”

“If a Ferocious Beast is wounded in battle, it won’t run away. Instead, it’ll fall into a ferocious state, gaining a 25% increase in all attributes. If it can’t attack any enemies while in a ferocious state (like when it’s kept in a cage), it’ll kill itself.”

“The Ferocious Wolverine’s first strike often carries the strong impact from a charge. The impact is no less than that of a speeding tank, and it’s so strong that it has knocked down medium-sized exoskeleton armours before. Those ambushed by the Ferocious Wolverine will often fall down due to being knocked off balance. After that, they’d have to face the Ferocious Wolverine’s fangs and claws.”

“The Ferocious Wolverine’s amazing sense of smell lets it easily track its prey from as far as two kilometers away, where its prey usually can’t see it.”

“…”

Sheyan, looking at this series of information, could not help but feel chills creeping down his back. He immediately searched the surroundings to see if any Ferocious Beasts were following him. The way the Ferocious Wolverines attacked was just too violent; it was simple, yet effective and lethal! And don’t forget, there was also that insane biological power to ignore defence!!

Don’t think for a second that only MTs would hate this power. In truth, other contestants hated this power even more. Without defence, at least MTs still had an abundance of HP to withstand the Wolverine’s attack, but when the defences of other contestants were “ignored”, what else could they do besides resigning themselves to fate?

***

Soon, the group found a bonfire that was still giving off smoke. The bonfire was at least 10 square meters in size. It seemed that the trees around the area had all been cut down to make the bonfire. Sheyan confirmed that the Empire’s custom-made smoke producing agent had been added to the bonfire, which meant that it was definitely not made by the natives. Around the fire were a lot of chaotic footprints, showing that the situation here had gotten frantic just now.

At that moment, Ramtas suddenly twitched its nose and issued a sharp grunt. It raised its stick and knocked on the ground again. The thick vegetation immediately parted to both sides and lay flat on the ground. A straight path towards a nearby bush was formed, where half of a severed limb was visible.

Sheyan only needed one glance to tell that it was the limb of a cyborg. The cross-section was uneven and had wires as well as other things hanging out of it. Milky-white nutrient solution dripped down from the cross-section onto the soil. A colony of large red ants seemed very interested in this never-before-seen liquid and had gathered around it.

Cyborg No. 1 went over and picked up the arm to have a look. He then told Sheyan, “It was torn off with one blow. This cyborg seemed to have gotten in the way of a Ferocious Wolverine, master.”

Sheyan nodded in acknowledgement. The cyborgs assigned to the contestants for this mission were marked as “for special uses”, and their limb strength was ensured to be of the highest standard. Despite that, the Ferocious Wolverine still managed to sever the arm with one blow. It appeared that the Ferocious Wolverine’s ability to ignore defence was quite powerful.

Cyborg No. 1 held up the severed arm in front of Sheyan and said, “I have no intention of embezzling your legitimate spoils, master, but the probability of you successfully bringing this arm back as a trophy is 1.14%, and its value if you bring it back is 214 utility points. However, if you reward us with this arm, it may save you 4,000 points in maintenance fee, and may ensure that you’ll have sufficient manpower at critical moments. Are you willing to give this to us?”

Looking at Cyborg No. 1 who was standing tall with his back straight and the other two cyborgs who had started to carefully collect the dripping nutrient solution, Sheyan had a strange sensation of cold-blooded cannibalism. Although the cyborgs were doing this for his sake, their behaviour made him feel quite uncomfortable, as if he was looking at a group of emotionless ghouls.

Sheyan soon restrained this emotion — he could not let the occasional negative emotion affect his calm judgment, and merely for the limb of a cyborg at that.

He nodded and replied, “Your request is approved.”

Not long afterwards, Sheyan and his party found a corpse nearby. More precisely, it was the corpse which the severed arm belonged to.