Evolution of the Ruined Heir

Despite the chaos, the sound of Seraza's neck breaking seemed to cut through everything.

It reached the ears of Beatrix, and to her, it was as though her life shattered. For a moment, she just hovered, her eyes fixed on the swaying neck of her only child.

How had everything gone wrong?

She had made plans upon plans for everything. How did they discover her underground base? How did they get past Seraza's guard? How did her baby end up lifeless, in the hands of a boy everyone had called thrash?

Her baby was dead.

The thought seemed to snap Beatrix back to reality. She felt something within her break as Malakai flung Seraza's lifeless body away like she was nothing.

Beatrix felt her blood boil. Her temperature grew to the extent that steam rolled off her body in waves. The blood encasing her began to sizzle, and she leaned forward.

At that moment, she saw nothing but Malakai.

"I will kill you."

She blurred forward, leaving sonic booms like explosions in her wake.

"Incoming!" The sound tore from Rhett's mouth, but Malakai knew it wasn't directed at the incoming Beatrix.

'It worked.' His plan from the beginning had been to draw Beatrix away from Nyx. Though it pained him that he gave Seraza such an easy death, he couldn't help it.

'Now… the target.'

Confirming Nyx was okay, except for the incoming grade fours, Malakai turned towards his front. He could instantly see why Rhett had just shouted.

'We're there.'

Their journey was entirely brief, but filled with insane obstacles. However, now, they finally reached their target.

'But it's not over yet.'

As it turned out, it seemed the universe was hell bent on making their journey as hard as possible.

Through his connection with the vita, Malakai could feel the enormous cluster of vita gathered below. However, to reach it, they had to get past this overwhelming pillar of darkness first.

'It's too much.' Malakai had long since slowed down his thoughts, trying to think.

Once death occurred, a pillar of darkness followed, then a darkness creature spawned.

Many had attempted to stop the darkness from forming by getting rid of the pillars once formed. But not once had that ever worked.

The pillars had always been protected by a barrier that was hard to break. The higher the rank, the sturdier the barrier. They had no choice but to wait for the darkness to spawn.

However, Malakai didn't have the luxury of waiting. Any second now, and Beatrix would catch up, then the grade fours.

"We have to go through it!"

Rhett's expression hardened. "Do you realize what you're talking about!?"

"Yes."

"Haa. It's impossible!"

Malakai frowned. He had come to hate that word, impossible. He had heard it for as long as he could remember.

People claimed it was impossible for him to evolve. Impossible for him to win the hunt. Impossible for him to be of any worth.

Yet, here he was. He evolved. He had shattered the hunt's record and won. He had made his name known across the entire dome.

He was the living embodiment of the impossible made possible. And he would be damned if he let that accursed word ever hold him back.

"Nothing's impossible."

Malakai's words had barely dropped when he roared. A deep, primal shout tore from his soul, and as though answering, his vita churned, trembled, then flared.

A blaze of power erupted from him, and in the next instant, plates of green shifting armor encased his form.

His eyes shone with an unearthly green light, and in his outstretched hands, a lance materialized, brimming with raw power.

Rhett's gaze trembled. He could feel it, vita flooding toward Malakai like a black hole, drawn helplessly. Not even he could manipulate the vita in this state.

'What the hell did you birth, Valerian…'

Malakai roared again, and his lance screamed through the air. It struck the looming darkness pillar with a sound that split the heavens.

The earth convulsed. Shockwaves tore outward in violent rings. The lance sang, and around its tip, vita spiraled in blinding streams, winding tighter and tighter until the air fractured.

For one breathless moment, it seemed as though he had struck an impenetrable wall. The pillar held, the darkness pressing back against his might.

But then, it cracked.

Thin fractures spidered across the surface, growing and spreading. Rhett's eyes tore wide in disbelief as Malakai bellowed, exploding in a surge of overwhelming vita.

Light radiated from him like a second sun, blazing through the void. And just like that, the darkness shattered.

In the wake of his roar, he burst through the pillar, heading down to the ground.

'Shit.' Malakai gritted his teeth as he felt the overwhelming vita drain from his body.

A surge of weakness assaulted him, and his blinding green light began to dim. He no longer had any vita to feed the life essence.

'I'm losing consciousness.'

The darkness began to close up around him, hovering at the edge of his body as though waiting for the last bits of his power to vanish.

Malakai's thoughts were in disarray. 'I'm so close.'

His eyes bore into the ground. Just below this was an overwhelming source of vita. Enough to solve this entire situation. He just had to reach it.

'Shit shit shit.'

Malakai felt his vision waning, darkness replacing the light.

'I can't make it…'

Was this the end? Would the darkness swallow him whole, and everyone he loved end up dead?

'At the end of the day, I still couldn't do anything.'

A sudden grip snapped his eyes open. Malakai saw intense crimson eyes gazing at him. Captain Rhett.

He had followed him into the darkness?

"I have no idea how you gained this power. But… you're our last hope. Take my vita, and return these evil bastards to the pit they belong to."

Malakai felt a surge of vita roaring through his body, and the haze that had engulfed his eyes vanished.

His expression hardened as he spoke two words. "I will."

His body erupted in a blinding green light, blasting the encroaching darkness away. Malakai spun, faced the ground, and his thoughts narrowed in on the target. He moved.

He tore across the darkness and pierced into the ground with force.

In the next moment, Malakai burst into a vast cavernous space. His eyes swept the area, and he took in the large number of Gor'Mekhai clustered around the edges of a green lake that shimmered like life.

The blooms in the cavern reacted instantly, narrowed eyes fixed on Malakai. As they saw his target, they lunged toward him like missiles, weapons bared.

But Malakai didn't seem to see the warriors tearing towards him. His eyes were fixed only on one thing, the fountain of natural Vitaeon.

Even before making contact, Malakai felt a hunger the likes of which he had never known erupt from the life essence.

He whizzed past the attacking blooms and plunged into the fountain.

For a moment, there was nothing but silence. The Gor'Mekhai watched, wide eyed, as an outsider desecrated their fountain of life.

Outside, Nyx had regrouped with Rhett and the surviving blooms. They hovered just a few meters away from the pillar of darkness.

Nyx's eyes were filled with worry, Rhett's were firm. There was no one he trusted more than Valerian, and now he had offered his son the same trust.

Beatrix had torn straight into the pillar, right on Malakai's trail. The grade four darkness creatures had suddenly stopped their chase.

They hovered high in the sky, cold gazes fixed downward toward where Malakai had gone through.

The tension was so heavy it gripped the spines of everyone present.

Only a moment had passed since Malakai plunged into the pool. And in that moment, Beatrix had reached the underground cavern, following his trail.

Her bloodlust was like an unending surge of water. It drowned the cavern, rendering the Gor'Mekhai unable to breathe.

Eyes burning crimson, Beatrix surged toward the fountain, about to enter when a light suddenly erupted from it.

Its magnitude was indescribable. It was akin to a star going supernova, a core collapsing into brilliance.

The unyielding wave of vita slammed into Beatrix, blasting her backward, hurling her across the cavern.

Then, like a ripple in a pool, the wave surged outward, flooding the underground and racing upward into the world above.

Rings of violent green light erupted in every direction, sweeping across the Murkroot Hollow and far beyond, until the entire stronghold of Sylvestine was drenched in its glow.

And in its wake, countless things occurred.

First, Nyx. As the torrent washed over her, she felt her wounds heal in an instant, pain vanishing, bones mending. Her exhausted vita that had been drained to the brink flooded back in full force.

Rhett felt the same, his broken body restored, his reserves filled. And so did every single human within the stronghold of Sylvestine.

Then the screams suddenly stopped. Confused, the people looked around, only to see every darkness creature frozen mid motion.

Their trembling white eyes widened, and for the first time, only one emotion shone through them.

Fear.

Then, as though a switch had been flipped, the creatures imploded. One after another, bodies exploded with sickening pops, black ichor erupting in showers across the land.

Before anyone could comprehend the situation, a cataclysmic boom split the air. A pillar of blinding green tore upward, spearing into the heavens.