Chapter 36: Evolution

Taking a sharp inhale to regain her breath, Tyla erupted into a fit of coughing as rubble cascaded down, burying her and others beneath it.

 Those who swiftly assumed their ancestral form survived the explosion relatively unscathed, while those slow to react and too close to the epicenter were obliterated. 

With effort, Tyla struggled free from the rubble's weight, her face ashen and pallid from dust and scratches. Her transformation had unraveled once the worst seemed to have passed. 

Or so she thought.

"Worms" a malevolent voice growled, primal and deep, sending shivers down her spine.

 "What... what is that?" She managed to lift her head and saw a humanoid figure hovering above.

 Its skin, or scales perhaps, had an unsettling creamish-white hue, blending into a pitch-black lower body. Each stubby limb appeared to be composed of thick, twisted muscle fibers or bulging tendrils, with three digits for fingers and toes. Its round head sported a disfigured face, devoid of eyes or a nose, but featuring a fearsome chasm of a mouth lined with rows of pale yellow fangs. 

The creature's slouched posture exuded ugliness and ghastliness as it peered down at the worms below.

"Orraaa!" A loud cry resounded, and an area surrounded by rubbles exploded, revealing a burly figure and a small group of others.

Barak's bare torso was covered with a tapestry of various wounds and gashes, and even burns. He was made ashen by the dus and his chest kept heaving. The burly warrior had a thick pool of blood flowing down one side of his face, and the bandage wrapped across his torso was smeared red from the wounded he got from Huey opening up again.

Barak groaned and fell to one knee, holding his chest.

The other survivors weren't any better than him. Their numbers were no more than five at this point, each were battered and exhausted from the battles so far. Among them, Isha had managed to survive as well, but her complexion was even paler than before, and her eyes lacked her previous focuse.

"Get up." Barak disregarded the pain and immense exhaustion he felt and forced himself to his feet, and the others followed suit, even though just barely.

Throughout the whole time, Huey hadn't taken his eyes of the revolting figure staring down at him from above.

"What is that?" Tyla cautiously approached Huey, her gaze fixed on the humanoid figure. 

Huey, annoyed but restraining his impulse to curse, replied with spite, "That is what happens when you people refuse to do what I tell you and stay away." 

Despite his tone, Tyla focused on the figure, undeterred by Huey's annoyance. "Is that an Elder God? As in the Boss of the Den we were supposed to kill?" she asked, oblivious to his irritation. 

'We? '

Internally sighing, Huey restrained another sarcastic remark. Meanwhile, the malevolent figure slowly descended and stood before the group on its burly legs. 

"Warrior, what's the situation?" Barak approached cautiously from behind. The humanoid Elder God exuded a malevolent aura just by standing there, oozing a dangerous amount of Mana.

"Warrior, what's the situation?" Barak cautiously approached from behind. The humanoid Elder God exuded a malevolent aura, seeping with an ominous type of "Mana" even in its mere presence.

"There's little to say but prepare for battle. That entity was the boss of the Den, an Elder God in its final stages of evolution. Hindered by a lack of resources, it resorted to infiltrating your territory and subduing other Elder Gods to acquire the necessary nutrients for advancement," Huey explained casually.

Barak continued where Huey left off. "It abducted villagers to consume them for energy."

Tyla's expression turned frigid with realization. She turned sharply towards Huey. "You! You knew about this... you knew what we were facing. Why didn't you inform us?" Suspicion had been simmering within her; she felt Huey had been withholding crucial details, but the truth about an evolving Elder God surpassed her expectations.

They hadn't even fathomed the possibility of Elder Gods evolving.

Huey shot a cold glance over his shoulder at the silver-haired lady. "You never inquired."

Tyla ignited with rage, but before she could speak, the Evolved Elder God ceased its patience for prey and signaled its attack with a deafening cry that reverberated through the underground cave.

BOOM!

It burst from the ground, fracturing the surface into a labyrinth of cracks, and launched itself at the group with ferocious speed. The figure, a blend of black and white, streaked past their previous position, demolishing the ground beneath into rubble.

At the last second, the survivors of the party, including Huey, scattered apart to evade the Elder God's charge. The impact was powerful enough to trigger an explosion of dust, which ballooned up into a large cloud, swallowing a significant area.

None of them had been harmed; they had dodged the attack unscathed. Barak's caution and weariness heightened as he observed the speed and destruction capable of the humanoid Elder God from a single casual charge. His voice rang out for each of them to hear, wherever they were.

"This is no time for infighting," he cautioned, then threw a quick glance to Huey. "Warrior, is there anything else we need to know about the enemy?"

Huey observed the dust cloud from a distance, his enhanced eyes easily piercing through the veil of dust to study the humanoid Elder God directly. Unlike the warriors of the Ntuli Tribe, there was no strain evident in his expression, just indifference.

After a moment, he spoke up. "Luck is on your side. That thing forced its evolution and is incomplete, like a quasi-rank. It will also take some time for it to get used to its new form and capabilities, so its actions might be a bit clumsy." Huey's words conveyed a clear message: "finish it quickly."

The dust cloud suddenly exploded and dispersed with a loud BANG as the Elder God inside pierced through the distance like a lightning-fast needle towards the closest warrior.

"Shit, it's fast," Huey muttered, momentarily surprised at the speed with which a quasi-rank evolved Elder God, which had barely had three minutes to get accustomed to its body, could execute its attack. He moved almost instantly as well, reacting to the imminent threat.

The targeted warrior, an injured young man, was too slow to notice and react against the approaching enemy moving at high speed towards him. All he recognized were the multiple yellow rows of teeth spread open and three black fingers reaching for his face with alarming speed.

BANG!

The air exploded like a drum, and the Humanoid Elder God was blown away towards the other side in the distance.

"Wh...when did he..." The warrior's thoughts trailed off as he awoke from the daze of almost having his face ripped off. It was only then that he noticed Huey standing before him, arm outstretched in a fist. As always, Huey's face was casual and neutral. He retracted his hand, and without sparing a glance at the warrior, he spoke loud enough for everyone to hear.

"Watch out for that thing. It's weak and unstable right now, needs to feed to get stronger. If it catches you, you're done." With that, Huey vanished with a loud sound, then punched the creature, making part of it explode. He punched it again, throwing it into the air, where it crashed into the cave ceiling. Rocks fell, but the creature stayed stuck.

Huey walked calmly through the chaos, impressing everyone with his speed and control. They couldn't keep up, and he had turned the creature into a rag doll.

"I'll take care of this, so this time, nobody gets in my way," Huey declared fiercely at the group, his gaze radiating ferocity, causing them to swallow nervously.

A small crash echoed in the underground structure as the Elder God forcefully pulled itself out of the wall, emitting an enraged roar that shook the ground. Despite half of its right side, from the shoulder and arm, being blown to bits, it quickly began to regenerate at a speed visible to the human eye.

"Hmm, it had enough energy to regenerate after all," Huey thought to himself as he reappraised the quasi-evolved Elder God.

The Elder God tensed its legs and launched itself with explosive power akin to a living spring.

BOOM!

Part of the ceiling collapsed, condensed shockwaves erupted, and Huey's figure took a punch to the face, moving at twice the speed of a bullet. His form vanished in a loud bang across the battlefield.

Huey quickly fixed his form and stopped his momentum by bracing his legs against the wall. Despite taking a blow to the face, he remained unscathed, peering forward with indifference.

"It's getting faster. It's adapting," Huey observed as the creature slowly grew accustomed to its capabilities.

Performing the same movements as his opponent, Huey flexed his legs with enough tension to propel himself forward, leaving the wall he kicked off in shambles. Despite the Elder God being stronger and faster after its partial evolution, it still lacked adequate experience in combat in humanoid form.

Huey tore through the space, traversing the immense distance at an equally absurd speed, and slapped the creature in the side of the face. The Elder God was too slow to react to its opponent's use of momentum from being sent flying, causing it to bounce off the ground like rubber from Huey's attack.

It cried out and quickly got up to engage the ferocious swordsman who, ironically, disregarded his blade and initiated a fistfight against his opponent.

—BANG —BANG —BANG

Their fists collided repeatedly at insane speeds, each blow intensifying with dramatic power. Strong gales made from their shockwaves tore apart the ground underneath their feet with each collision.

"It's growing. It's getting stronger and faster... it's reacting quicker to my moves... it's learning!" Huey screamed internally, a frenzied smile slowly tearing across his lips.

"More. More — more — more — more — MORE!" Huey's blood-red eyes gleamed vibrantly, betraying the excitement he felt as he doubled and tripled the intensity of his blows to pressure his opponent.

And pressure he applied.

The Elder God began to falter under the relentless barrage of blows. Some strikes landed, tearing off bits of its torso and arms, yet they were promptly regenerated as the creature slowly but surely adapted.

As the apparent stalemate persisted, Huey maintained his silent observation.

"It's nearly on par with complete Evolved Elder Gods in terms of physical prowess now, but would ultimately still fall short against a true one. True Elder Gods inspire terror not just for their overwhelming physical strength, but for their intelligence. It hasn't even been twenty minutes since this one partially evolved, meaning it's akin to a newborn and retains some of its primal savagery from before the evolution. Well... we'll have to remedy that," Huey mused silently, seemingly guiding the Elder God with his actions.

Huey's fist landed a blow that bypassed all of the Elder God's defenses and struck its face. But to his surprise, aside from a few centimeters, the creature remained unfazed. Huey's toothy smile widened.

Then, with a loud boom, a fist met his face as well.

"This is incredible! But it's not enough. I need to stimulate the core more!" Huey twisted on his right heel and threw a hook into the creature's mid-section with enough power to stretch its gut back to touch its back.

As Huey's grin nearly consumed his glowing red eyes, he muttered a small sound, barely audible, only he and the creature could hear.

"Bam~"

Injecting a bit of his "Mana" behind the punch, Huey laid waste to the internal organs of the creature, sending it flying backwards and crashing into the ground dozens of feet away.

For a moment, the creature lay still against the ground. Then, slowly, it got up and shook. Pools and puddles of violet blood and innards stuck to its feet, painting its rows of yellow teeth. The point on its abdomen where Huey had attacked was marked by an ugly purple bruise, covering one third of the surface.

The creature continued to vomit blood and viscera as it struggled to stay on its feet. Normally, any human receiving such a devastating blow from Huey would be dead before they touched the ground, but Evolved Elder Gods were different. They possessed a broken self-regeneration that could bring them back from the point of death if not finished off in a single blow.

But this ability also had a drawback. It consumed too much energy in the body, and for a quasi Elder God which barely had enough after the evolution to begin with, this one was starving immensely after regenerating over and over from multiple damages that could have ended it in single blows.

Then something began to happen around the Humanoid Elder God. Space seemed to distort slightly around its shoulders and body as strange energy fluctuations ran through the air.

When a 'True Elder God', as Huey called them, suffers from starvation while under life-threatening wounds, their cores overload and push the body to devour itself and their life-force for energy.

What resembled red steam or red wisps emanated from the hunched figure of the humanoid Elder God, raising the density in the air.

Huey smiled even more widely as he watched this, his entire row of sharp white teeth on full display for anyone who wished to see.

 "It's happening." Finally, what he had been hoping for was about to start.

The creature's body wiggled and bulged in various places as the pressure it emitted multiplied increasingly. Red "Mana" radiation shrouded its body, and bloodlust violently burst forth, consuming the atmosphere.

Unseen to human eyes, all internal wounds dealt to the humanoid Elder God rapidly healed, but at what cost.

"Yes! That's what I'm talking about — Marvelous!" Huey, unable to restrain himself any longer, broke into deranged laughter that echoed under the billowing aura swelling in the air.

Then he vanished and appeared centimeters away from the Elder God, his ecstatic smile still plastered broadly on his face.

Huey whispered dreadfully, "Commendably done."

Faster than any eye could follow, h

is fist ran through the chest of the Elder God, and in a fluid movement, he ripped out its core in a fountain of violet blood.