The moment the crystal shattered, the entire underground cave seemed to freeze for an instant, no sound, nothing happening at all, and then, like a chain reaction, several things began happening at once.
The giant plant, already in a strange state, began withering rapidly. The eye sockets covering its surface went hollow, then shriveled away. The toothed mouths watched their teeth thin out, turning yellow, then black, then nothing at all.
Within only a few seconds, the terrifying plant that had been a nightmare for Lirien’s group finally died, withering down to nothing but a dry husk that began crumbling away into strange black particles.
Lirien, who had been relentlessly killing those creatures until now, having already taken down about a dozen Forsaken and gathered several of their cores, had realized that even if she killed a hundred more, it wouldn’t make a real dent, because for every being she eliminated, three more seemed to take its place.
At a certain point, she noticed that no matter how many she killed, there was no visible difference in their numbers, and that realization chipped away at the confidence the current stalemate had given her.
Then came that rain of arrows, wiping out several dozen of them instantly, unexpected, but a very welcome surprise. That was what finally drew her attention back to the battle behind her, and what happened from that point on was something she couldn’t quite find the words to describe, the sequence of events unfolded so fast that in the blink of an eye, the plant had already been eliminated, and along with it, that invisible pressure she’d felt radiating from that being simply vanished too.
’He... he did it, he actually killed that thing,’ she thought, a little stunned but also thrilled. That excitement didn’t last long though, because she soon noticed something else.
The plant was gone. And with it, that strange pressure that had kept those creatures at bay had vanished too.
What did that mean? It meant she was cooked.
’Shit, what do I do now?’ she wondered, running was already off the table as an option, there was no way she could shake off these creatures just by sprinting in the opposite direction.
There was still that being and its subordinates nearby, which gave her a little reassurance, but then, running the numbers on these creatures again, she couldn’t help but wonder if that would actually be enough.
Shadow, meanwhile, noticed the presence of nearby enemies, and so did Ash, who had just landed close by.
Both of them looked at these creatures without saying a word, and without needing to coordinate with each other, both immediately charged at the group of Forsaken, who, sensing that invisible danger was no longer present, gathered their courage and lunged at the prey now standing before them.
In the blink of an eye, the battlefield in the clearing, which had finally quieted down, found itself thrown into a new battle, one with far greater numbers on both sides, but also much easier for Shadow and Ash to handle.
Lirien managed to stay safe, thanks to the fact that these shadow creatures weren’t attacking her, something she’d already experienced before, though there was no telling if that might change now. Luckily, it didn’t, and she felt reassured enough to immediately join the fight.
While all of this was happening on the surface, inside the underground cave, another phenomenon was taking place.
[Ding! You have killed an A-rank (Advanced-stage) Avatar of an Abyss God!]
[You have gained +700,000,000 ESS]
[Ding! Your affinity with Void Energy has increased by 5%]
[Ding! Your affinity with Void Energy has increased by 5%]
[Ding! Your affinity with Void Energy has increased by 5%]
[Ding! You have fulfilled the requirements for an advancement mission!]
---
[Advancement Mission]
Rank: B
Description: You have reached the peak of your current rank. It is time to take the next step.
Due to your particular circumstances, the advancement criteria have been modified accordingly.
Bring your clones to the peak of their current rank, and kill the Avatar of one of the Abyssal Gods.
Mission Status:
> Advance your clones to C-rank peak: 2/2 (Completed!)
> Kill an Avatar of the Abyss Gods: 1/1 (Completed!)
---
[Initializing advancement process...]
[Congratulations! You have successfully advanced to B-Rank]
The moment that notification rang out in Evan’s mind, he felt his strength surge and grow beyond measure. He could feel that the bottleneck had finally been broken, and more than that, he could feel his strength going far beyond what it should normally have reached.
He understood, obviously, that it was thanks to the massive amount of ESS he’d accumulated, just from the avatar alone he’d gained seven hundred million ESS, not to mention all the other ESS he’d built up over the past two days before the battle with the avatar even began, which alone amounted to nearly 200,000,000 ESS.
He’d essentially taken a single step into B-rank, and instead of starting at Early-Stage, he’d skyrocketed straight to Advanced-Stage, already well on his way toward the peak of B-rank.
This alone was an extremely pleasant surprise, but it wasn’t what he’d really been waiting for. No, he would have reached B-rank sooner or later regardless, it was what this rank actually carried with it that had him excited.
He was no longer an Ascendant. He was an Elite.
To everyone else, that was just a title, one that came with prestige and various advantages, both in terms of strength and status within the kingdom, but for him, it was different.
With every title advancement, he gained something else too.
And sure enough, that something else didn’t take long to arrive.
[Ding! You have met all the requirements to unlock your next clone.]
[Processing...]
[Congratulations! You have unlocked yoU! =$éç§]
’Hm?’
The system’s mechanical voice seemed to suddenly twist, growing almost unintelligible, before disappearing entirely.
But Evan didn’t have time to focus on that, because another change was happening, this time not to the system, but to him.
’This... what’s going on?’he thought, noticing that the area around him had gone completely dark. He could no longer sense the cave around him, no, in fact, he couldn’t sense anything at all.
Everything had been cut away, as if it had simply vanished, but he understood that wasn’t quite it.
It wasn’t the cave that had disappeared.
It was him.
***
Seraphine, still on the surface at the edge of the battlefield, had noticed Evan’s surge in strength and realized he’d reached B-rank, in fact, from what she could sense, she could tell he was already close to the peak of B-rank.
That had already happened once before, when he’d reached C-rank, so she wasn’t overly surprised, it was well within her expectations, and seeing it come true only made her more excited.
She was about to go check on him and offer her congratulations, but she didn’t even manage a single step before his presence suddenly vanished.
’What? What’s happening, why can’t I sense him anymore?’ she thought, immediately on alert.
She was a fragment of what had once been, or more precisely, what Evan had managed to recover after trying to steal a bit of life energy from that palace.
She was far from her original level of strength, but even so, her perception remained extremely high, despite having only a meager fraction of her former power.
With her current strength, her senses were still incredibly sharp, allowing her to perceive even the smallest fluctuations of energy from kilometers away. And yet, the moment his presence vanished, she sensed absolutely nothing. No disturbance. No change. Nothing within the underground cave had registered at all.
That alone confused her, but if that had been all, she wouldn’t have been quite this alarmed. What put her fully on high alert was that the bond linking them, through the bloodline Evan now carried from her, was gone too, as if it had been severed outright.
That shouldn’t have been possible at all, and so she suddenly snapped into a frenzy.
She was about to tear the entire area apart, ripping open the underground cavern to see what had happened, when her senses caught another change.
Evan’s clones, who had remained on the battlefield until now, holding off the group of Forsaken with overwhelming, absolute force, suddenly vanished, as if they’d been abruptly called back.
That left the battlefield instantly empty in the spot where Shadow’s army had once stood.
The sudden change caught both the Forsaken and Lirien off guard.Moments ago, Lirien had been surrounded by Shadow’s forces, but now she stood alone in the open field, facing the Forsaken army.
Even the creatures before her seemed confused, frozen in place as they tried to comprehend the sudden shift that had occurred.
"What the hell just happened?!" she couldn’t help but curse.
She stared at the battlefield before her, unable to process what she was seeing.
One moment, they had been standing there, overwhelming the battlefield.
The next...
Her allies... were gone.