Evolution Begins with Elemental Domination

SPLAT!

Su Chen brutally thrust his hand through the incubating creature’s skull. Waves of Strong Will pulsed from his palm, scrambling the fungal nucleus in its brain and destroying the Spiritual Authority within.

As he withdrew his hand, he pulled out the Light and Dark Runes and a Spirit Marrow Crystal.

”Ugh...”

The cyborg, its forehead pierced, snapped its eyes wide open.

Its murky, drowsy eyes had been forcibly awakened by the consciousness of the Bloodthirsty Fungus. In less than a second, a fiery, furious aura erupted from it.

THUMP!

With its first waking heartbeat, it sounded like an engine roaring to life. A powerful surge of vital energy was instantly pumped through its body, and its Power skyrocketed.

Its arms, like iron pincers, slammed shut, whipping up a violent gust as it tried to crush the figure before it in a deadly embrace.

At this critical moment.

A warning screamed in Su Chen’s mind, and he instinctively entered his Awakened State.

Bio-electricity surged through him like a web of lightning, stimulating every cell in his body. A faint electric light even coated his eyes as the world around him seemed to slow to a crawl.

In this bullet time, Su Chen finally saw its true form. The new creature whose head he’d pierced in an instant wasn’t an ordinary cyborg. It was more like a perfect chimera—a fusion of man and wolf.

From the neck down, it was covered in silver-gray wolf fur over knotted muscles. It had sharp claws, and with its slightly hunched spine, every inch of it radiated a powerful, bestial savagery.

Without a second thought.

At the same time, Telekinesis guided the materials from his hand into his canvas backpack.

Then, he balled his fingers into a fist. A flicker of fire ignited, and he smashed it into the werewolf’s chest. The body, supposedly harder than steel, crumbled like charcoal, exposing a crimson Wood Crystal that glowed with a red luster.

Patterns of light like flowing magma covered its surface, while fibrous, tree-like veins crisscrossed its interior.

Like roots entwined around a core, it constantly pumped immense Power into the body.

It wasn’t a heart of flesh and blood.

But this strange and beautiful object had clearly taken its place.

’A Heavenly and Earthly Treasure?’

Without hesitation, Su Chen snatched the mysterious crystal and ripped it free.

As the effects of his Awakened State began to fade, he used his control over air currents and his Weightlessness Skill to leap back with ease.

As if he had foreseen it...

The moment time returned to normal, a volley of sharp Earth Spikes erupted from the spot where he had just stood. Inside the incubation chamber, the headless werewolf froze, the power draining from its arms as they slowly drooped to its sides.

”Just die...”

”You filthy animal!”

”Die!”

Sharp, psychic shrieks echoed relentlessly through the canyon.

The Bloodthirsty Fungus had never imagined this nemesis would find his way to its perfectly hidden lair.

It had been caught completely off guard.

”Die!”

As Su Chen leaped into the air, he immediately felt the fungus’s ”warm welcome,” but the Spiritual Shelter granted by his Level 6 Telekinesis left him unfazed.

But the enemy’s assault didn’t end there.

Motes of dust floating in the air began to glow, and an instant later, they detonated violently.

’Dust Storm Skill!’

But before the fiery explosions and shockwaves could reach him, a shimmering, aqueous barrier around his body refracted and deflected them. They transformed into a circular wave of fire that swept across the surroundings.

The Earth Element cyborg from the altar ambush had no choice but to make a hasty retreat, burrowing into the ground to escape.

Su Chen didn’t even bother with him. As he glided down, he cast a Healing Skill on himself. Since he was uninjured, the overflowing Life Force condensed into a lustrous, emerald-green shield around him.

At that moment.

Another Echo Arrow tore through the Optical Camouflage field overhead. An invisible ring of Spiritual Waves expanded from its point of impact, sweeping across the area like a ripple in a pond.

Yan Ruoruo was fighting a cyborg at the canyon’s edge, but she still managed to spare a moment to provide visual support.

’I have to end this quickly.’

A glint appeared in Su Chen’s eyes as he locked onto the second incubation chamber.

The Bloodthirsty Fungus’s evolution speed was completely beyond his expectations. He had thought it was just granting class-based Authority to its cyborgs and outfitting them with Level 7 Runes.

But now, it had clearly entered the next stage of evolution.

Human-beast chimeras!

In a single leap, it had used flesh-and-blood modification to permanently solve the inherent fragility of the cyborgs.

And that wasn’t all.

It was also embedding unknown energy crystals, using its own hyphae as a bridge to graft them into the chimeras and give them a terrifying power boost.

He didn’t waste time thinking.

WHOOSH!

He activated his Torrential Flow Skill again. Rushing water coiled around him. He then merged it with Flame Burst and Holy Radiance, unleashing a torrent of superheated steam from the air toward another incubation chamber in the distance.

A cloud of crimson spores was instantly vaporized by the intense heat. Giant roots that shot up to block the path were pulverized the moment they appeared.

’I can’t wait...’

Through his Resonance, Su Chen could feel it—deep within the earth, more giant tentacles were churning wildly. A subterranean behemoth was about to break through the surface.

The next instant.

BOOM!

The torrent of water, roaring like an angry dragon, slammed into the second incubation chamber with annihilating force.

The incubation sac burst on impact. The nutrient fluid within was flash-boiled into a cloud of white-hot steam.

A burly, three-meter-tall figure opened its eyes. Its vertical, demonic pupils glowed with a cold light. Its skin had undergone a metallic transformation, and even its mane had solidified into metallic threads that gleamed menacingly.