Evolution Begins with Elemental Domination

SHIING!

A sharp, golden gleam slashed through the air like a divine weapon, but it only cut through the lingering afterimage that hadn’t fully faded.

’A Three-Star Obsidian Shadow Warlock?’

This was Callum’s first reaction. His opponent, who had launched such a brazen, point-blank attack, had clearly entered a state of phase-superposition while enveloped in the Light and Dark Particle Stream.

But this intuition clashed with the world-shaking Wind Blade Slash from just a moment ago.

’No...’

’This guy’s Class Authority must be at least Four-Star.’

’Run!’

With his one strike having failed, Callum felt a surge of panic. His figure instantly split into multiple golden flashes, which streaked away like phantoms. Each one was cloaked in high-frequency vibrating metal particles, making it impossible to tell the real from the fake. In an instant, he had already fled a hundred meters.

Although it was Su Chen’s first time seeing this Gold Element escape technique...

...it didn’t stop him from using his Resonance Perception to detect that the core of one of the golden streams of light was solid, unlike the chaotic fluctuations of the others.

”Found you.”

Su Chen used Aurora Flash to instantly shoot forward.

No matter how his target turned, Su Chen stuck to him like a shadow, relentlessly closing the distance.

Finally, Callum could no longer sustain the Golden Light Escape. Forced into a corner, his body was instantly covered in a dazzling golden light that wove together to form a suit of dense armor.

In less than a breath, he transformed into a three-meter-tall Golden Armor Warrior, surrounded by a Gold Element shield.

HUM!

He clenched his right hand in the air, and a long Golden Sword materialized, condensed from a stream of metal particles. He immediately slashed at the approaching Su Chen!

CLANG!

The sound of metal striking metal suddenly erupted.

Su Chen’s Holy Sword was already unsheathed, its blade flowing with a faint golden radiance as it casually parried the Golden Sword.

The next moment, he twisted his wrist.

The flat of his blade pressed down like a collapsing mountain, sliding along his opponent’s sword. An irresistible, terrifying Power advanced layer by layer, instantly splitting the webbing of Callum’s thumb and making the bones in his arm groan under the strain.

CLANG!

The Golden Sword flew from his grasp, spun several times in the air, and plunged deep into the distant forest.

”You!”

Callum looked to be on the verge of a complete breakdown. Seeing that his opponent’s Sword Momentum hadn’t faltered and was continuing its forward slash, he instinctively activated his elemental conversion property. The flesh of half his body instantly transformed into fluctuating Gold Elemental Particles.

However, this incomplete Elementalization was crude and clumsy.

Su Chen’s blade, meanwhile, trailed a plume of Plasma Holy Flame that fluttered like silk, burning and distorting the very air.

Under the extreme heat, the Gold Elemental Particles instantly melted and vaporized like wax, incinerated into nothingness along with the flesh that hadn’t fully converted. An entire arm simply vanished.

”Argh...”

Callum let out a blood-curdling scream, the agony nearly shattering his consciousness.

He staggered backward, wanting to use the light-splitting phantoms of his Golden Light Escape to flee for his life again.

But Su Chen was already in front of him.

The Holy Sword flashed like light, piercing through his abdomen and exiting diagonally from his back.

Callum spat out a mouthful of blood as a tsunami of pain flooded his mind. His Rune Circuits shattered instantly, and the magical backlash felt like millions of red-hot steel needles stabbing into his soul.

The golden glow around him rapidly dimmed as his body knelt and collapsed to the ground.

The next instant, with a rattling of chains, Dark Shackles extended from the Void and bound his fallen form, preventing him from struggling or escaping.

At the same time, a frigid killing intent erupted. A Spiritual Arrow shot through the air, ignoring and passing straight through the body of an Earth Element mire giant.

Its momentum undiminished, the arrow’s remaining power pierced through to the other side, accurately striking the shoulder blade of a Summoner hiding behind the giant.

Strangely, no blood flowed from the wound, but the man’s entire arm hung limp, like a puppet with its strings cut.

’Not good!’

’If I hadn’t dodged sideways instinctively, that arrow would have gone right through my spine.’

The next moment, as the Summoner felt a threatening presence sweep through his Sea of Consciousness, he activated one of his class abilities without hesitation. His figure instantly appeared beside his Summoned Beast far in the rear.

This was the escape route he had prepared for himself.

However, the battle didn’t stop there.

High in the sky, a water heron acting as an aerial scout and fire support unit craned its neck, let out a long cry, and with a beat of its wings, quickly flew toward the rear.

Soon, the clear cry of a phoenix rang out from the sky.

An Ice Element summoning formation appeared, and Xiaolin—covered from head to tail in crystalline frost feathers—officially descended in her new evolved form: the Frost Phoenix Bird.

SWOOSH!

With a single flap of her wings, she released a vast cloud of freezing mist. After a burst of high-speed flight that transitioned smoothly into a Frost Escape, her tail feathers left a trail of frost as she dove from the sky toward the large bird in the distance.

The water heron sensed the immense pressure surging from behind and immediately opened its beak to spray out a high-pressure jet of water. The jet let out a piercing whistle as it tore through the air, only to crash into an Ice Storm.

It turned out Xiaolin had already dissolved into frost, instantly breaking down into endless Ice Element particles and whipping up a massive Ice Storm that charged head-on against the water jet.

In that moment, a furious blizzard swept over and completely engulfed the water heron.

”GAAH!”

The giant bird cried out in agony. Its wings instantly frosted over and locked together, turning it into a translucent ice sculpture that plummeted from several hundred meters up.

BAM!

The block of ice shattered upon impact, sending shards flying everywhere.

”The recall failed,” Yan Ruoruo noted with a glance.

The reason was simple: a second earlier, Su Chen’s figure had appeared like a ghost, cutting in from an extreme distance to the mire giant’s flank.

His hands never stopped moving. He swung his right hand, bringing the Holy Sword down. A blade of light, wreathed in the fluctuations of four different Elements, sliced through the giant’s massive body as if it were paper.

Killed in a single strike, just like before.

With two of his Summoned Pet Beasts, both as high as Lv. 6, falling one after another, the Summoner was bound to feel the pain of the spiritual backlash.

Besides, a Summoned Pet Beast can’t be too far from its master. Restricted by this fact, his safe escape point couldn’t have been too far away.

”Found you.”

And after Yan Ruoruo had successfully landed that hit with the Spiritual Energy Arrow, the target’s presence now flickered in her Sea of Consciousness’s Perception like a candle flame.

After a thorough search, she finally located him.

She had been maintaining her Mind Transmission the whole time, so this discovery was simultaneously shared with Su Chen.

To be honest, if it weren’t for this mental tracking method, the enemy might have actually escaped.

Without Su Chen needing to act personally, Xiaolin, high in the sky, suddenly folded her wings, retracting all the frosty aura around her. Like an icy meteor falling from the heavens, she plummeted toward a patch of forest.

”No!!”

The Summoner only had time to let out half a scream before the ring-shaped frost explosion from the impact blasted him to pieces.

A giant tree frog was blasted to death along with him.

Of course, his helplessness was undoubtedly related to the two instances of magical backlash he had suffered. The tide of pain had made it difficult for him to take evasive action.

And after advancing to Lv. 7, Xiaolin was displaying a terrifying, supreme dominance.

This new evolved form, the Frost Phoenix Bird, clearly had a perfect hexagon for a stat panel. Not only were her offense and defense both top-notch, but her mobility and large-scale burst damage were maxed out as well.

”Smashed to death.”

Su Chen felt no regret at this outcome. The man didn’t have a ”death-substitution doll,” so without any way to cheat death, all of his Runes dropped upon his demise.

The results were very pleasing.

Of the eight Runes, three were Summoning Element Runes of Lv. 6.

It was worth noting that the Summoning Element, as a major Rune category, had a vast network of branches.

Each Element clearly had its own type of flying Summoned Pet: Cyan Bird, water heron, Ice Bird, Flame Bird, Golden Roc, and so on.

The opponent’s Lv. 6 water heron Rune was, in terms of strength, quite powerful.

But since it hadn’t successfully advanced to its next evolutionary stage, it was mercilessly and completely outclassed by Xiaolin.

”There’s also an Ice Element Rune.”

Yan Ruoruo’s eyes were immediately drawn to a uniquely dazzling, ice-blue Rune among the dropped loot.

’Did he get it by ambushing and killing an Ice Bird passing through the extreme cold of night?’

’Doesn’t seem likely.’

’He didn’t seem to have a hidden Class Authority, and it has nothing to do with Rune completion either.’

”It’s from the Trial Tower.” Yan Ruoruo was more inclined toward this conclusion.

”...Please, I’m begging you.”

The pathetic figure, who had been dragged all this way by the Dark Chain, prostrated himself on the ground, begging the two for forgiveness.

It seemed this week of dark, apocalyptic times hadn’t extinguished the man’s weak nature; the knife just hadn’t been at his own throat.

When the invader realized the miserable fate that awaited him, he naturally broke down in tears, frantically praying to God to forgive his sins.

”Your God has no jurisdiction in this Earth Realm. If he were so mighty, he wouldn’t have let Oran City be ravaged like this,” Su Chen sneered.

After searching him with his Strong Will, Su Chen confirmed that the man had no ”death-substitution doll.” He couldn’t rule out the possibility of a Soul Contract, but the man’s despairing expression more or less confirmed the reality of the situation.

’Might as well kill him.’

HUM!

Su Chen couldn’t be bothered to listen. With a Strong Thought Burst, he instantly blew the man’s head apart.

A major reason he had killed him so quickly was the sound of a radio crackling from the nearby woods. A scan with his Perception revealed three corpses. Judging by their faces and uniforms, they were members of the Investigation Legion.

’...Vice-captain, the South-2 Teleportation Gate has indeed been breached. Enemies have also been spotted in multiple locations to the west.’

’Intel shared by the 2nd Investigation Battalion indicates an enemy Teleportation Gate has been discovered in the Eagle’s Beak Valley area of the southern hills. As per high-command’s directive, we are to immediately gather all nearby squads for a destruction operation. We must be quick, time is of the essence. We are departing immediately.

’Vice-captain, please return to the unit with your people immediately. Acknowledge if you copy. Over.’

Su Chen arrived and stood in silence for a moment. He didn’t pick up the radio.

However, the message had given him a new target.

”Let’s go.”