Chapter 77: Evolution Requires Violence [Part 3]

Chapter 77. Evolution Requires Violence [Part 3]

Two more appeared.

Then four.

Then I stopped counting.

Blood covered the floor enough to make ordinary footwork dangerous, so I adjusted. Shorter steps. Lower center of gravity. No unnecessary lunges. Void Shift only when the number of overlapping attacks made physical evasion inefficient.

I slipped between claws.

Turned beneath jaws.

Used stone pillars to force larger monsters into narrow attack angles.

Corruption Bolts hovered around me in groups of three, five, sometimes eight, black-violet projectiles waiting for tiny movements of my fingers before screaming toward exposed throats, eyes, joints, mouths, and cores.

I didn’t waste attacks on armor when something softer existed nearby.

Eyes burst.

Jaws shattered.

Limbs collapsed.

Mana circulation broke wherever Corruption Bolt passed, leaving surviving monsters stumbling as their own magical reinforcement betrayed them.

When something came too close, Eclipse Light became my answer.

Dagger.

Plunge.

Extend.

A tiny wound became a blade buried half a meter inside a monster.

I stabbed one creature beneath the jaw and extended the weapon upward through its skull.

Another took the dagger between two ribs before the blade expanded sideways through both lungs.

A third tried to bite my arm.

I let it come close enough to believe it had me, Void Shifted past its teeth, reappeared against its flank, and drove Eclipse Light through the exposed joint.

Extend.

Twist.

Release.

Move.

My boots splashed through blood.

My clothes became soaked in it.

The cavern walls looked like someone had painted them with an extremely enthusiastic interpretation of violence.

And still the monsters came.

[Evolution Progress: 48%]

I grinned.

Oh, I loved this.

Call me crazy.

I didn’t care.

There was nobody here to judge me.

Just me.

An unreasonable number of monsters.

And a system percentage that kept climbing every time I turned another predator into research data.

My Forbidden Energy surged through me as another wave emerged from the darkness.

I spread my arms.

Corruption Bolts appeared one after another until black-violet lights surrounded me like a murderous constellation.

For once, I didn’t need to pretend to be normal.

I could go all out.

And Hollowgrave was about to discover exactly why giving an obsessive researcher measurable progress for killing things was a catastrophically bad idea.

The next several minutes stopped resembling a battle.

It became harvesting.

My boots struck the blood-slick stone in short, controlled steps as another Bloodfang Ravager lunged from my left. I pivoted instead of retreating, letting its claws pass across my chest by inches before driving my knee beneath its jaw. Its head snapped upward, exposing the softer flesh of its throat.

Three black-violet lights flashed into existence.

[Corruption Bolt]

All three entered the same point.

The first tore through flesh.

The second shattered the spine.

The third continued through the ruined neck and buried itself in the monster behind it.

Two bodies fell almost together.

I didn’t watch them land.

My Domain had already found the next attack.

A monster dropped from the ceiling.

I stepped forward.

Its claws struck behind me.

Eclipse Light condensed into a dagger in my palm, and I drove it backward beneath my arm without even turning completely. The blade entered the creature’s abdomen.

Then lengthened.

Half a meter.

One meter.

The monster convulsed as the blade pierced upward through its torso, splitting organs internally before bursting from its shoulder.

I dissolved the weapon, spun, and kicked the dying creature away.

Another came.

Then another.

My movements became increasingly economical as the fight continued. No dramatic leaps or pointless acrobatics. Every shift of my feet existed to change an angle, expose a weakness, escape an attack, or position another monster between me and something larger.

An A-rank beast charged.

I Void Shifted behind a smaller creature.

The charging monster crushed its own ally.

I appeared beside its neck.

Four Corruption Bolts formed.

Fire.

Its reinforced hide survived the first.

The second broke through.

The third penetrated.

The fourth entered the existing wound and detonated inside.

Blood erupted from its mouth.

It fell.

[Evolution Progress: 50%]

I kept moving.

Claw.

Dodge.

Turn.

Kill.

A monster tried to crawl along the wall toward my blind side.

Abyssal Hunter’s Domain made the concept of a blind side rather optimistic.

I ducked beneath its leap, caught one leg, used its momentum to slam it into the floor, and planted my boot against its spine.

Two Corruption Bolts descended.

One through the skull.

One through the core.

The body went limp beneath me.

[Evolution Progress: 52%]

Then, suddenly, there was nothing left to kill.

I remained still for several seconds, breathing steadily as my Domain swept the surrounding tunnels.

Nothing.

Apparently Hollowgrave had finally developed survival instincts.

Pity.

A twisted smile slowly spread across my face as I looked around.

The cavern was an absolute disaster.

Corpses were scattered everywhere. Some had holes punched completely through them. Others were missing limbs, sections of armor, or considerable portions of what had previously qualified as internal anatomy. Blood coated the floor, splashed across the walls, dripped from broken stone, and soaked my clothes until I looked less like a Royal Magus and more like someone who had personally offended the concept of cleanliness.

And I was standing in the middle of it.

Smiling.

I probably looked like a psychopath.

For normal people, standing among dozens of mutilated corpses while wearing a delighted smile was generally considered concerning behavior.

But in my defense, this view was beautiful.

Those weren’t corpses.

Those were resources.

Monster cores.

B-rank cores.

A-rank cores.

High-quality ones too.

There were hides that could become armor, claws and fangs useful for weapons, reinforced bones for alchemical processing, venom glands, mana-rich organs for medicine, and several mineralized plates that Liora could probably sell for an obscene amount of money.

Money.

Research materials.

Crafting materials.

More money.

My researcher instincts were throwing a private festival inside my skull.

Sadly, I couldn’t use the Core Imprint Project here. The entire point of coming to Hollowgrave was to kill as many monsters as possible and force my skills toward evolution. Turning them into obedient experimental pets would directly interfere with that.

A tragedy for science.

Then the system appeared.

[Congratulations!]

[You have used Corruption Bolt to kill 100 targets.]

[Evolution Requirement Fulfilled.]

[Corruption Bolt is eligible for Arcana Evolution.]

My smile froze.

Then widened.

There it was.

Exactly what I’d been waiting for.

[Arcana Evolution]

[Target Selected: Corruption Bolt]

Black-violet energy surged around my body.

[Evolution initiated.]

[Corruption Bolt has evolved.]

[New Skill Acquired: Corruption Bloom]

[Corruption Bloom]

[Condense Forbidden Energy into multiple destructive projectiles. Upon penetrating or striking a target, each projectile can be detonated into a radial bloom of Corruption Shards. Corruption Shards pierce nearby physical matter, disrupt mana circulation, and prioritize living mana signatures within the affected area. Multiple Blooms may overlap, allowing chained area destruction.]

I stared at the description.

A projectile that penetrated the first target...

Then exploded inside it...

And released smaller Corruption projectiles outward to strike everything around it.

If several enemies stood together, each impact could create another overlapping zone of destruction.

So instead of killing monsters individually, I could turn the first monster into the center of an area attack.

My grin became downright indecent.

Perfect!

I swept my hand across the cavern.

One corpse after another vanished into my Dimensional Ring. Ravagers, basilisks, Devourers, intact corpses, damaged corpses, cores still buried inside them, I stored everything. Sorting could happen later when I wasn’t standing inside a dungeon wearing enough blood to make my wives ask extremely reasonable questions.

Within moments, the cavern was empty except for pools of blood, scattered fragments, and several pieces too mangled to be worth collecting.

I started deeper into Hollowgrave.

A bottle appeared in my hand.

[Forbidden Mana Elixir]

I pulled the stopper free and drank while walking, letting the familiar energy spread through my body as my footsteps echoed through the dungeon.

The empty bottle disappeared into particles of mana.

My hands slipped casually into my pockets.

And I began to whistle.

A cheerful little melody followed me into the darkness while blood dripped from my clothes and my newly evolved skill settled into my mana pathways.

Ah... What a perfect day to kill.