The Ultimate Evolution

“Another 100 meters….until I leave the area of activity of these Violent Beasts, or at least leave the damn tunnels that lie beneath the swamp!” Sheyan muttered in his heart. He looked at Ramtas, who was coming towards him at full speed, with deep regret.

“It’s a real shame… Good thing I’ve already collected some of your tissue, so there should be opportunities to re-cultivate you in the future.”

“Fifty meters.”

“Forty meters!”

“Twenty meters!”

“These monsters sure are patient.”

When Sheyan was only fifteen metres away from the outermost tunnel and was about to leave the territory of the Violent Beasts, something burst forth from the swamp to his left and right!!

Amidst the splashing mud, two huge black shadows covered in dirt pounced on him. This time, the monster on the left came from the front while the one on the right struck from the back, almost covering all the spaces around Sheyan!

Sheyan first took a deep breath. His eyes were full of rage. He didn’t even care about the monster behind him. A terrible aura was already brewing madly on his fist.

In this instant, behind Sheyan appeared the illusion of a horrifying giant demonic tree. The demonic tree had no leaves, only branches that looked like tendrils which danced and whipped wildly in the air.

More terrifying were the illusionary roots of the demonic tree that penetrated hundreds of meters deep underground. Each root branched into tens, then further branched into hundreds, then thousands of roots! They spread and occupied the area several kilometers around, then started absorbing fiercely at the same time!

The purple reeds, water bamboos, duckweeds and other plants within a few kilometers of Sheyan immediately withered. The initially healthy, green leaves turned dry and yellow in an instant, completely losing their moisture, as if they had been overexposed to the sun. They would break down into dry powders with a pinch of the fingers! Their vitality had been completely sucked out of them!!

Next, Sheyan’s fist struck out!

A main tendril of the ‘Stairway of the Sun’ appeared in front of his fist. The tendril then burst into a network of tendrils, splitting at an incredible speed and spreading forward. The tendrils wrapped themselves around the monster in front of Sheyan!

Immediately afterwards, the illusionary image of the ‘Stairway of the Sun’ solidified, turning an eerie dark black the same colour as the venom of the Cockatrices. Thousands of tiny tendrils clung tightly to the body of the bizarre giant monster!

The monster’s tough, black shell turned as fragile as tofu.An astonishing amount of tiny wounds appeared all over its body, and a lot of yellowish-green liquid gushed out from the wounds.

‘Beast of Corrosion’!

Sheyan had actually activated his ‘Pestilence Aura’ in the very beginning. The diseases did infect the Violent Beasts and the monsters near him, and they did cause a little damage, but probably because he had too few diseases at his disposal, they did not prove to be very effective.

For example, the negative condition “severe coughing”, which was normally the most useful, was proven useless in this situation as the Violent Beasts had no lungs and trachea; they relied on the pores on their skin to breathe. Although the ‘Stairway of the Sun’ had evolved after consuming its own kind when Sheyan broke through to a Growth Hunter, and could transform this coughing effect into other forms of injury, the pain only made the Violent Beasts more violent, so it was not very effective.

Only the powerful ‘Beast of Corrosion’ remained as fierce and as terrifying as ever!

After the ‘Beast of Corrosion’ wrapped itself around the monster’s body, the monster immediately screamed in extreme agony. All the people who heard it felt as if their souls were trembling in pain.

Pokan stared wide-eyed at all this from the distance. He could not help muttering to himself, “How many secrets does Seaman have? Is this guy really just a Growth Hunter?”

Ronnie, who was running for his life in front of Sheyan, could not help turning back. When he saw the spectacle, he stopped unconsciously like a child who saw a magnificent firework display. His jaw dropped down in shock and stayed there for several seconds before he snapped out of his daze and continued to run for his life in silence. However, his head was hanging down lower than ever.

Ronnie did not know what to say about Sheyan, or to be precise, he was speechless. The instantaneous burst of damage shown by this MT was even higher than his, and he was a damage dealer! He could do naught but admit his defeat.

Aldaris’ face, however, had turned rather ugly. His fingers that were gripping the handle of his dagger had turned white. He could only squeeze these words out through gritted teeth:

“How…How can this bastard be so insane?!!”

Purplish-black spots appeared and spread rapidly on the surface of the body of the monster that tried to intercept Sheyan. Then, its tough skin swelled and the spots on the skin rapidly rotted. The skin that was now as soft as tofu looked like it would tear open with a slight touch of the finger. Foul-smelling chunks of flesh and blood fell out whenever the monster made any intense movements.

The monster screamed in pain as it was sent flying by Sheyan’s punch. It then ran away staggering for ten meters before it slipped and fell into the mud. After it climbed back up with much difficulty, it ran for 20 more meters before it burrowed back into the tunnels under the ground.

However, the moment Sheyan chose to punch the monster in front, it meant that he had also completely exposed his back to the other enemy. The monster that was attacking him from behind could do whatever it wanted to Sheyan. It first extended its forelimbs in an attempt to grapple him.

But Sheyan could not turn back to block the attack as he was in the process of rushing forward and was also preparing the ‘Beast of Corrosion’ at that time. Fortunately, the intimidating aura of the ‘Stairway of the Sun’ managed to deter the monster and slow the monster’s reaction by a fraction of a second. Thanks to that, Sheyan narrowly avoided the strike, but the sharp nails on the monster’s forelimbs still tore away a large chunk of flesh from Sheyan’s back.

The bad news was, after launching the ‘Beast of Corrosion’, there was a short moment of stiffness while Sheyan recovered his breath, so he was now completely defenceless.

As soon as the monster behind him realised that its attack missed, it instantly pounced forward again. Its fierce-looking black spine tail shot out like a flash of lightning, stabbing into Sheyan’s back and pierced all the way to the front amidst a splashing of blood!

The damage from this blow was astonishing, but fortunately, Sheyan had expected to receive a fatal blow right after launching the ‘Beast of Corrosion’, so he had immediately taken an honorary dosage to return to full health.

No matter how powerful the monster was, there was no way it could kill Sheyan in one strike!

An intense pain spread to Sheyan’s entire body. The severe pain was not only caused by the stab of the tail, but also because there were numerous tiny holes on the tail which penetrated through the body that were crazily spraying a corrosive venom. The powerful ‘Stairway of the Sun’ could only absorb and neutralise the venom as fast as possible, but it could not do anything about the first round of corrosion when the venom was secreted.

Borrowing the impact from that tail stab, Sheyan gritted his teeth and rushed forward again. However, this behaviour was tantamount to pulling the tail out, which caused further injury, just like the secondary injury one would suffer when one pulled an arrow out of a wound. Blood instantly came pouring out. Sheyan could only hold the bleeding wound with his hand and ran hard, but his movement speed was inevitably affected.

The huge black monster continued to pursue him. Based on the monster’s speed, it would catch up to Sheyan soon. The three guys in the distance were going to come to Sheyan’s rescue, but they saw that Ramtas had arrived in time, roaring as it pounced on the huge black monster.

Ramtas’ abnormal strength had an instant effect. Its boar tusks fiercely rammed into the monster’s side, pushing it into the mud.

When the monster was intercepted by Ramtas’ torrent of suicidal attacks, Sheyan finally managed to escape from the territory of the Violent Beasts. At least, now he did not have to worry about the sneak attacks that could come at him at any time from below. With his hand pressing down on his chest, he watched with a complicated look as Ramtas was overwhelmed by the waves of legendary and ordinary Violent Beasts that had caught up.

He sighed faintly and then told the others, “Let’s go.”

The Violent Beasts kept pursuing them all the way, but after the four men joined hands, although they were a group of injured and defeated people, their combat effectiveness was totally different from that in the battle previously when they were surrounded on all sides. In addition, they had pulled open some distance between them and the enemies and only needed to focus on running away.

They employed a hit-and-run tactic, retreating as they fought. At one time, Sheyan, Pokan and Aldaris even performed a nice combo attack. The crowd control from Pokan’s terrain modelling and Sheyan’s curse-mix, as well as the damage from Aldaris’ ‘Spiritual Storm’ that had finished its cooldown, combined into a giant trap for the Violent Beasts. The momentum of the beasts was instantly halted.

Now that Pokan had the protection from three companions and the enemy was only coming from a single direction, his spells were naturally no longer in danger of being interrupted. After his MP had recovered to a certain extent, he chanted a spell to summon a huge rolling stone on a dry ground, and crushed more than twenty beasts into meat paste.

These continual losses eventually caused the pursuers to give up on the humans and return to their nests.