Chapter 112: I Did Nothing To Them. They Still Alive.
"Nice. There are enough resources here for Tom to break through as well." Aidan looked at all the loot from the storage rings.
"Not bad. There are also several useful items that Ordun and others can take to increase their survival chances."
Aidan took out resources for Tom, and Tom started without wasting a moment.
[Tom: Humph, I’m tired of being an underdog who just sits and reads threads.]
[Jovan: Underdog or Undercat?]
[Arthur: Bwahahahahaha!]
[Finn: Mwahahahahaha!]
"Now, for Arthur’s requirement of eating to finish his evolutionary breakthrough, how about I feed you one of the four?"
Aidan looked at the four guild masters.
"Which one do you want to eat, buddy?"
Arthur’s eyes glowered like stars, and drool already started dripping as he looked at the four.
[Anrita: I’ve scanned Arthur. If he eats one Final-stage Divine-rank humanoid, he’ll fulfill the requirement more than enough and have a perfect evolutionary breakthrough to Divine-rank.]
"Perfect." Aidan grinned.
Instantly, the four Guild Leaders started trembling.
They were not undead, after all. They were sentient, except that they were now fundamentally a different lifeform of Shadow and a conceptual spirit body vessel, bound to the wielder of the technique.
Hence, they were scared of death.
"I want that one! The big one! He’s juicy."
Arthur’s claw pointed straight at Torvald Kane, the heavyset guild leader still kneeling in his bindings, and the big man’s eyes went wide with terror that had nothing dignified left in it at all.
Torvald felt it happen before anyone else noticed, corruption threading up through his chest.
The Shadow Phantom’s own unstable nature reached for the easiest exit it could find. His skin split along thin violet seams, breath coming out wrong, shape starting to blur at the edges the way Terrors always did right before they stopped being anything recognizable at all.
"Oh no you don’t." Aidan’s voice went flat and cold in an instant.
He didn’t reach for a weapon. He reached inward instead, toward the same old, patient brightness that had carried him through over a billion years without once going out, and pressed it directly against the spreading corruption like a hand closing over a guttering flame.
His golden spirit met the dark violet in a silent, invisible collision, will against hunger, and for one taut second the outcome genuinely hung in the balance.
Then the violet lost.
Torvald’s shape steadied, corruption folding back down into obedient stillness beneath a soul that simply refused to be argued with, and the fear in his eyes shifted into something closer to confused, grateful relief.
"Eat him," Aidan said.
"N-No, My lord!"
Arthur didn’t hesitate.
He surged forward and swallowed Torvald whole in a single motion, and the moment the Shadow Phantom vanished down his throat, gold light rippled across his entire scaled hide, evolution finally uncorking after a full delay it had been waiting to complete.
[Cybercraft Sentinel X: Ascension requirements met.]
[Rank ascension: Divine.]
Arthur’s whole frame shuddered, wings doubling in span, plating thickening along his flanks, and his Digi-Data Bank pulsed once, cataloguing everything it had just consumed before folding the data into something new entirely.
[New Talent generated: Adamant Bastion Core (SSS).]
[Arthur]
[Rank: Divine | Early Stage]
—Attributes—
[Attack = Divine-1]
[Speed = Divine-1]
[Defense = Divine-1]
[Health = Divine-1]
[Control = Divine-1]
—Talents—
Cybercraft Sentinel X (X) Digi-Data Bank (SSS) Gear Morph (SSS) Adamant Bastion Core (SSS)
"Divine-rank." Aidan grinned, watching him stretch newly thickened wings. "About time, buddy."
[Arthur: I FEEL AMAZING. ALSO STILL HUNGRY.]
[Finn: Congrats. Now you are one step closer to me.]
Arthur disappeared.
[Arthur: I am right next to you.]
[Finn: ARGHHH!]
Beside them, Tom finished his own breakthrough in the same breath, Legendary-rank density settling into his small frame with a satisfied stretch.
[Tom: Finally. No more underdog. Just a very small, very powerful god.]
[Jovan: Undercat, technically.]
[Arthur: BWAHAHAHAHA!]
[Finn: MWAHAHAHAH!]
...
Miles away, in a cavern lit by veins of glowing crystal running along the ceiling like frozen lightning, Ordun’s group fought for their lives against ten Divine-rank shapes wheeling through the open air above them.
Winged and taloned, screeching in a register that scraped along the nerves, the creatures dove in staggered waves. The group had already dropped four of them, bloodied and breathing hard, injuries stacking up faster than anyone had time to treat.
Sella fought one-handed, her other arm hanging useless at her side. Elowen’s Sunfall Plate had a scorch mark burned clean through one shoulder plate. Veshan’s shoulder, still healing from the Wraiths days earlier, had torn open again under a fresh talon strike.
They were holding. Barely.
Then the leader dropped.
A Final-stage shape, larger than the rest by a full body length, wings blotting out the glowing crystal light above as it stooped directly for Kyrsa.
Her Bulwark’s durability sat below thirty percent, one solid hit from failing entirely.
She saw it coming and knew, with the particular clarity of someone out of options, that she wasn’t going to raise her guard in time.
The blow never landed.
A flash of golden light arrived first, condensed into a single vast fist that closed around the diving creature mid-air and simply stopped it there. Wings frozen, talons frozen, momentum erased like it had struck a wall the size of the sky.
[Conceptual Technique: Fist of Judgement.]
The fist discharged everything it had absorbed in one continuous, decisive verdict, and the Final-stage creature came apart in a shower of light before its shadow finished falling across Kyrsa’s upturned face.
She stood there a moment, breathing hard, staring up at the space where death had just failed to arrive.
Then she found him standing at the cavern’s far entrance, rolling his shoulders like he’d just strolled in from somewhere pleasant.
"Miss me?" Aidan grinned.
"Absolutely!"
Everyone’s spirit instantly lifted.
"I got some presents. Here."
Everyone got a potion. Those Guild Leaders had a solid stock of recovery potions. Too bad, they didn’t get the chance to use them.
"This stuff is good."
"So what did you do to them?"
Everyone was curious.
John sat down on a rock, watching them fight while he took out a t-bone steak and started eating.
"Well, I did nothing to them. They still alive."
Ordun almost tripped and barely dodged a claw.
The others didn’t fare much better. For a moment, the Divine-rank folks thought their heart would jump out of their throat. Because that would they could be after Aidan, and could be here any moment.
"Oi!"
"I am not lying." Aidan chuckled. "But don’t worry. They won’t appear in public anymore. They are gone. Forever."