Chapter 37: Masks are Suffocating

"Wonderfully done," I whispered the last words, as my fist dug through the chest of the Elder God and fluently tore out its core. Disregarding all the blood and grim that spurted out of the fatal wound, I watched as the lifeless corpse of the abomination fall forward to the ground, dead.

'That was the best!' I couldn't stop myself from grinning madly. The exchange between the quasi-evolved Elder God went on a bit longer than I expected it to, and proved to be exciting while I watched the abomination slowly further grow and evolve.

'Ah~ bliss, ' i looked down at the bloody core in my dirty hand. It was crystalline in nature and pulsed with a vibrant red hue. The core of the quasi-evolved Elder God was as big as half the size of my whole palm, and held a red violently swirling fog of energy inside of it.

I could feel the densely packed and concentrated "Mana" radiation contained in this little thing. This much and yet the body of the Elder God found it insufficient to complete the evolution.

Since the beginning, I had suspected from the actions of the rumored Boss, was an Elder God on the verge of evolving. Only those were capable of making feral Elder Gods, comparably more weaker than them, and have them doing their bidding as minions.

Usually an evolution process required a long amount of time and a vast amount of resources. It takes many years for those creatures to reach the final stages and make a break through. Elder Gods exist to devour and evolve; their years are spent slowly absorbing radiation and expanding and compressing their cores to push forward unto the next evolution path.

This Elder God in question, from what I observed, seemed to have been at the last stages for quite a while, but still failed to push forward and evolved from the lack of required energy and resources. The energy required of an Elder God varies from each, and this one demanded a particularly incredible amount.

That was why the Edler God settled in what mankind now calls a Den, and using its influence, turned the territorial Elder God's into its minion to bring to it energy sources, which in this case, were the unfortunate Ntuli people.

That was why I was particular adamant about going in alone.

If anyone else other than me faced the Elder God, they would simply be devoured and turned to fuel to push forward the evolution process.

Yet, those warrior retards couldn't take a hint after all the threats I threw at them.

But I had to admit there was only a slight misconception myself. My very presence was more than enough to make the almighty boss, feel cornered.

Indeed, even if those unfortunate party members hadn't even showed up when they did, the Elder God would have forced its Evolution regardless. They merely heped to give it a little more energy to capitalize on. 

"Uwa~ I feel refreshed." I turned towards the direction of the survivors of the party, underneath their befuddled gazes with a fresh smile on my face.

I had made sure to be explicitly clear one last time for these people to not interfere against my decision to confront the quasi-evolved Elder God alone.

Seeing their looks and expressions, it was clear they failed to comprehend all of my actions.

I couldn't blame them.

After all, to the eyes of battle hardened warriors like these, it would have appeared as I was training the Elder God and providing it the chance to evolve and grow by extending the duration of the fight.

Oh. I also hadn't obtained a single scratch throughout all of the terrifying blows that shook the air. The only blood on me belonged to my opponent.

This was one of the first exciting fights I have had in years. I mean, the one with Barak two days ago, during the first half was thrilling, but even then I hadn't been able to let myself go wild enough.

Strangely I had gotten too absorbed in my cool and graceful facade that I even search for ways to appear cooler.

But against an ever-growing enemy like the quasi-evolved Elder God, for some reason I threw all pretenses out the window. Obviously, the fight was by no means hard, If I had gotten even a little bit serious, it would gave been dead since the first time i hit it.

It was, after all, just partially evolved and was low on energy to support its new and superior body. Plus, its intelligence was still lacking.

The Elder God never had a chance.

Plus, I also had my agenda for doing what I did.

"Hm~hm~hm~hm~" humming leisurely to myself, I walked to the group with a self-satisfactory smile. This probably set them off as they kept staring emptily at me, lost in my expression.

I disregarded their conditions and turned to Barak instead then flashed open my palm.

"You don't mind me keeping this~" I asked amiably, but cringed soon.

Barak's eyes were burning with disturbing fury and a wide unsettling grin plastered in his face.

'Fuck! I forgot this guy was warmonger too! '

"No! Not at all! You were the one to finish it off." His loud voice boomed then he laughed. 

Feeling my smile weaken a little, I responded.

"S...sweet."

But it was god-damned refreshing to put away my cold mask.

Why had I done that again?

Putting away the core I obtained from the quasi evolved Elder God, I restrained myself a bit and turned to the others. Flashing a light smile, I drew them out of their daze.

"Can we leave now?"

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The expedition had run longer than we expected and was accompanied by a lot of multiple surprises. The party was dealt a big blow during that latter half of the raid, amongst twenty two members, barely five were left alive.

And from this, the overall man power of the Ntuli Tribe has been dealt a big blow considering the other warriors they had deployed on other failed raid attempts. 

The report mentioned no survivors.

This group was the only and last one to came back after demolishing the Den

'Literally, ' well, in all accuracy, it was the Elder God which brought down the Den.

The location of the boss fight was a large district under the territory of the Tribe that bordered its region. That was how it was prone to external threats like Elder God's, and even a Den.

But now the entire district was leveled and turned into a toxic wasteland. The vast amount of radiation exploded in the region made the location almost uninhabitable and dangerous.

In addition to loosing man power, the Ntuli ppl have also lost vast land mass and territory.

I almost felt sorry for them. 

I said 'almost'. 

Chances were high, another Den would emerge there.

'But that's not my problem.' Maybe, the current situation was my fault, but I've held my part of the deal.

I was going to return back to Lyra then head out to search for my old neighborhood.

The group was exhausted mental and physically, as well as severely wounded, and had required a short respite before returning back to the inner settlement.

I was in a good mood, so I let them.

'Even though these retards almost made the situation worse...' 

The Elder God needed large amount of energy to evolve, and would have made up, no matter how little part of it, with Ntuli people. That was precisely how it had been surviving for the past God knows how long they've had this problem.

It was most likely going to take its precious time gathering and accumulating the necessary energy before going into hibernation and metamorphosis for a few more years, and emerging a True Elder God.

I had seen many Elder God's evolve over time, I knew the process by heart. Once evolved, those creatures take on a humanoid form and are insanely troublesome to deal with, with their new found intelligence and 'base' abilities.

That was the reason why the quasi-evolved Elder God could, even if just a single guttural word, speak. 

Unfortunately for it, my prescence was a wrench in its plan. It felt cornered and forced its Evolution process, skipping over long years of necessary steps by burning a severe part of its life force to push it's existence into the next stage.

Thereby resulting in a quasi-evolved Elder God with half-baked transformation, half-baked power and, half-baked intelligence. 

This sacrifice left it with a deeper hunger and far lower reserves of energy. It wasn't complete and had severe drawbacks.

Chances were, even if I hadn't done anything, it would die in a few days. As long as it couldn't complete it's evolution, death was inevitable.

But I had other plans for the creature.

The core was the most unstable and lacked the necessary energy to push forward. An Elder God's core wasn't just a necessary organ to these creatures...it was more deeply involved with their existence actually.

I glanced at my sword for a quick second.... 

But humanity doesn't seem yet to have realized.

I engaged the quasi-evolved Elder God and through it, forced it to push its core to the limit to keep up. Therebye forcing the organ to generate more energy and compressing it, by constantly dealing fatal blows to the body and forcing it to regenerate continuously.

With no more energy to expend enough, the Elder God burned it's life-force, turning it to immense energy to feed its core and in return, power it's body.

Ironically, this would grant the quasi-evolved Elder God tremendous abilities, on the level of a True Elder God for a limited period of time, before dying a dog's death in a trench somewhere, after destroying its body and core 

'Basically, I forced it to evolve again during the fight...all for this,'

I pulled out the glowing red crystal from my tattered robes.

This here was my first gift to Lyra.