Chapter 208: Evolution of Soul Beast [2]

Alden stared at the warning.

’What? So if I use any beast for evolution it just never goes back to its original form?’

He read it again.

This was the first Act of Soul Rendering that had asked something like this from him. He could only imagine what the locked Acts further down the list would demand. Who knows what kind of ridiculous conditions those things will have.

But that wasn’t the problem right now.

The three monsters were still tearing through the battlefield. Every second he spent reading system notifications was another second soldiers were running out of ground to retreat to.

Whatever the cost. He needed to stop them.

’All right. Open the Evolution tab.’

The system responded immediately.

╔════════════════╗

? SOUL EVOLUTION ?

╚════════════════╝

? Evolve a Soul Beast

Beast 1 [ + ]

Beast 2 [ + ]

Best Possible Compatibility Suggestion: Pyrion + Golden Dragon

Warning: Once combined, the beasts may never separate again.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Alden raised an eyebrow.

’It even recommends which beasts to combine?’

He looked at the two names. Pyrion and the Golden Dragon. One carried the nature of a wolf. The other carried the bloodline and power of a dragon. According to the system these two had the best possible compatibility between all four of his Soul Beasts.

He looked at Flamestone and Glacius. The fire spider clicked its mandibles. The dark-furred polar bear watched the battlefield with blue flames shifting around its neck.

Flamestone and Glacius stay as they are. Pyrion and the Dragon go into this.

He didn’t see a reason to second-guess it. The system’s suggestion wasn’t sitting there without a reason.

"Proceed!"

WHOOOOOOOOOM.

Something deep inside Alden’s chest shifted in a way he had never felt before.

A sensation surged outward from his core to the tips of his fingers. It wasn’t pain but more like something inside him had snapped awake and started expanding in a direction his physical body had no reference for. His heart thumped once hard. Then again.

Crimson light flickered underneath his skin.

He looked at his hands.

Red energy was leaking from his body. It curled around his fingers like living smoke and spiraled up both arms and across his shoulders. In seconds it had wrapped around him entirely.

’Is this the beast evolution or am I the one evolving?!’

The aura swelled.

BOOOOOOOOOOM.

The shockwave blasted outward from him in every direction. Broken stones lifted off the ground. Debris flew sideways. A massive pillar of red energy shot straight up into the sky and the cloud of dust it threw out spread across the entire surrounding field.

Nearby soldiers stumbled and threw their arms over their faces against the pressure. Some fell to their knees. The red light kept expanding. Ten meters from him. Twenty. Fifty.

Then something enormous moved inside it.

A shadow formed in the haze.

Tall enough to look the three gigantic monsters in the eye.

The human soldiers saw the silhouette first.

"Wait! What is that?!"

"Another giant beast?! You’re kidding me!"

Roselle looked up from where she had been helping evacuate the wounded. Her face went pale.

"Another...? There’s a fourth one now?"

Theodore had been dealing with the turtle when the shockwave hit him. He turned slowly toward the new silhouette. Stared at it.

"We’re doomed."

Luna was currently in the middle of wrapping her Anchor’s golden threads around the giant turtle’s leg and pulling with everything she had trying to disrupt its balance. The turtle’s foot dragged. The ground cracked. She gritted her teeth and pulled harder.

Then she noticed the enormous new shadow stretching across the battlefield.

Her eye twitched.

’You’ve got to be kidding me.’

She had barely been managing three monsters. And now a fourth one had appeared.

She slowly turned her head toward the smoke without releasing the thread. "What’s next? Are we getting a fifth one too?"

Nicholas stepped forward narrowing his eyes at the silhouette. "Wait." He studied the outline more carefully. "It looks different from those other monsters."

The shape didn’t have the armored bulk of the turtle. It wasn’t the horse. It wasn’t the serpent. Its outline seemed to shimmer at the edges.

Nicholas’s expression changed. "Is that even a beast?"

He swallowed. "Don’t tell me..."

The smoke began thinning.

"...Alden?" Seris had arrived at the edge of the field. She stood completely still with her eyes fixed on the towering figure above.

She knew that presence. She knew that energy.

And she could see someone moving inside the enormous creature’s head.

The smoke cleared. The battlefield went quiet.

Standing on the broken ground before them was a colossal wolf.

Or something that resembled one.

Its entire body was transparent. Formed from layer after layer of flowing crimson energy that moved continuously beneath its surface like rivers of living light. The red currents spiraled through its limbs and torso and lit the battlefield around it from within.

The head was unmistakably wolf-shaped. An enormous snout with rows of fangs. Two pointed ears rising from the skull. Eyes burning with a deep concentrated crimson glow.

But this was not an ordinary wolf.

Massive dragon wings extended from its back. Their translucent membranes rippled with red energy every time they shifted. A long serpentine dragon tail stretched out behind it and swept the air with enough casual force to scatter debris across the ground.

And beneath the body along its torso were four arms.

Two were positioned like a wolf’s powerful forelimbs. The other two emerged from the sides of the torso shaped like a dragon’s arms. All four ended in enormous claws formed from the same translucent crimson energy as the rest of the body.

The creature was tall enough to look the three colossal monsters directly in the face.

And inside its head, visible through the transparent crimson skull, stood Alden.

His actual body floated within the energy suspended inside the wolf’s head like he was standing inside a giant helmet shaped like a predator. The light flowed around him without hiding him.

He looked at his own hands.

Then he raised his left arm slowly. The gigantic wolf raised its left hand.

He opened his fingers. The enormous hand opened.

He curled them into a fist. The giant’s fingers closed.

KRRRRRKK.