The Glorious Evolution

The blue smoke split apart as he shot across the arena with unprecedented speed, arriving above the stunned Evangeline in less than a split second.

Boom! Boom!

Levi released two sound shockwaves from his palms to rebalance himself in midair while flipping upside down, making everyone watch as his head slid past Evangeline’s head a mere few centimeters.

Yet, he was only starting... he had a segment of his staff separated before he made his move, and now... as his head moved past hers, he reached out with his hands and used the chain to roll around Evangeline’s neck.

Evangeline saw the chains touching her neck in slow motion, her mind processing everything as fast as it could to save her from this lightning-quick ambush. But as she tried to move her head away, she found her neck frozen in place.

Levi tapped into his aetheric chains, but used them mostly on her neck, making it nearly impossible for her to move it!

Cling!

The instant the bottom crown clicked with the chain, Levi landed on the ground a couple of meters away from her, sliding across the dirt while the chains spilled from his staff nonstop... until they tightened up!

Argh!

Evangeline’s eyes popped out of her head immediately, feeling like an insane crushing weight on her neck, like the chains wanted to snap it off!

If it wasn’t for the Aura of Order and her knight armor getting in the way, her neck would have been snapped the instant the chains tightened up... after all, they were crafted out of unbreakable materials... Getting choked by actual steel chains was merciful compared to this.

’Frequency Overload...’ Levi uttered inwardly, popping off another addition to his ever-expanding library of techniques.

Levi’s chains rattled noisily as he infused the full power of Death Chime Field into the chains, sending a fierce attack of high-pitched, multi-tonal frequency straight to Evangeline’s brain and internal system!!

The Death Chime Field cast a sonic domain, but it was too weak, useful only against mob-like creatures... but this technique? It was overtuned to deliver as much devastation as possible to one’s internal system in the shortest period of time!

Sure, it needed direct contact with the target and could only attack one at a time... but its effects were absolutely fierce.

Before Evangeline could use one of her ultimate abilities to free herself, her body stiffened, and her brain went stale.

Then came the spasms... her limbs jerked violently, her eyes rolled, and her teeth ground against each other as the piercing resonance overloaded her nerves from within!

She felt like she was put in an electric chair, serving a death penalty... her mind incapable of forming a single proper thought.

”...”

”...”

”...”

The arena went silent; no one uttered a single word or gasp... all they could do was watch in horror as Evangeline’s mouth started foaming while her body buzzed with a harsh noise.

No aura, armor, or ability could save her from such a physical attack that targeted her brain primarily... the moment she was touched by the chains, it was over for her.

With one last violent shudder, Evangeline collapsed onto the ground, her chest rising and falling faintly... unconscious, but alive.

Levi was in complete control, stopping the moment he noticed that her brain had reached its breaking point.

He exhaled slowly and retracted the bottom crown, reattaching it to his staff... then, he turned around to face the stunned Yanhuan, who was still floating in the air akin to an eastern cultivator from a wuxia novel.

”Now, it’s just us... as you wanted... can you start taking this seriously so I can get this over with before dinner?” Levi said calmly while leaning against the staff that was embedded in the ground.

Levi wasn’t too interested in acting arrogant, but he was a firm believer in giving back the same energy he received... since Yanhuan had been nothing but a disrespectful prick from the very start, clearly believing himself to be much superior to him, Levi had no desire to act friendly.

Szzlzlzl...

Before Yanhuan could respond, Dominic appeared next to Evangeline, picked her up, and swiftly delivered her to Justice’s team.

When they saw her poor condition, they swiftly used high-grade recovery totems to help her heal up before she turned into a vegetable. They could see, Levi was so close to frying her brain off.

They immediately gave him nasty glares, but when they remembered how Levi took their captain down, those vengeful thoughts evaporated.

Although everyone could tell that Levi defeated her because he acted fast and brutally while she was distracted by Yanhuan, giving her no chance to use anything to save herself... still, the fact that he managed to put her in this state spoke volumes of his strength, as it didn’t seem like he went all out at all.

The entire sequence took less than two seconds, leaving even Levi’s friends stunned briefly, not expecting him to finish off Evangeline this quickly.

They knew he was strong, but Levi had never entered his deadly mode when next to them, always acting as their strategist... but in individual battles? This was the first time they saw his true deadliness after he became a ’Pathfinder’.

No flashiness, no transformation needed, no extra movement, no bullshit... just a chained staff, and two powers that were invisible to normal eyes, leaving anyone incapable of guessing his next move.

’His strength is increasing at an abnormal rate for a mere newly evolved ’Pathfinder’...’ N’ibby commented depressively, ’Jas... you should be wary of him and his nightcrawler; they aren’t normal.’

’Wary of what?’ Jasmine tilted her head in confusion as she gazed at Levi’s back, ’He has been nothing but nice to me.’

’That’s how they get you...’ N’ibby stressed, ’Remember how he said that his mutated spine happened after his breakthrough to Pathfinder rank? Why did he need to lie about it?’

’...’ Jasmine went silent for a moment.

She recalled how Levi lied to everyone about his Harmonic Spine being a new mutation when she had been seeing it for a long while through her peculiar eye. At the time, she didn’t understand why he did it and meant to ask him... but N’ibby stopped her.

’His nightcrawler’s peculiar evolution, his abnormal strength that doesn’t fit a Pathfinder, the three colorful auras... others can be fooled, but not me...’ She said, her gaze indifferent.

’What do you mean?’ Jasmine asked curiously.

’I used to think that he might have contracted with just a powerful nightcrawler, but now... I am starting to see the signs.’

’Signs of what?’

’That he might be just like us...’

’Huh... how sure can you be? It seems too far-fetched.’ Jasmine was stunned.

’About 10%... once he becomes a Solarbound, the truth will come out.’ N’ibby warned again, ’For now, just don’t trust him blindly.’

’Ah... oki.’

Although Jasmine responded with approval, she found it too hard to believe... she knew what she was, and understood that it shouldn’t be possible for anyone to have what she had... especially, not when they were from the same dimensional sector, planet, region, and city.

She knew her contracted nightcrawler was suspicious by nature and believed that it might be just a false alarm.

For now, she put those thoughts in the back of her mind and watched as Levi and Yanhuan sharpened their weapons as they gazed at each other coldly.

”I am glad you took care of her... but, you shouldn’t have let it get into your head.” Yanhuan uttered while standing up from his blue cloud, ”You want me to take it seriously? I will...”

’I have enough spiritual energy to use it.’ As this thought coursed Levi’s mind, he uttered, ”You talk too much.”

Levi tightened his grip on his staff and, without an ounce of hesitation, he hurled it in Yanhuan’s direction! It was already embedded with Aetheric Combustion, turning it into a deadly rocket.

But Yanhuan was no average Tier 4 nightcrawler... the Aetheric spear pierced through the blue cloud and his body... yet, instead of blood pouring out, Yanhuan’s form collapsed into blue smoke. Then, his body rearranged itself to perfection a short distance away.

’What a bothersome power.’ Levi frowned.

He had done thorough research on Yanhuan... finding out about his powers and abilities wasn’t a secret when he loved being on camera all the time, flaunting his supreme strength and unique powers to the public.

He found out that Yanhuan owned a peculiar Aspect called Immersive Cloud.

This aspect was based on a rare gas imbued with faint spatial energy. It’s believed to have an origin traced back to destroyed realms that were connected to many other dimensions... once they were destroyed, everything returned to their natural form... clouds of gas.

However, some of this gas made it through the spatial tears that were still linked to other dimensions... this process occurred across rich spatial environments, making this gas absorb and merge with it over many, many years until it finally emerged in other worlds as dangerous blue gas.

Levi knew that some peculiar races were born and thrived over this gas, giving them a high affinity towards it... with the nightcrawlers’ possessive qualities, many of them must have inhabited some of those races and spread out across the universe... until one of them decided to give Yanhuan a chance.

Although the faint spatial energy within it allowed only a limited and grounded access to spatial manipulation, like short-distance teleportation and such... still, spatial powers must always be respected.

”Interrupting me mid-speech... how impolite.” Yanhuan narrowed his eyes coldly, ”But, you’re right... enough chatter.”

Without an ounce of hesitation, Yanhuan gripped his Briar akin to a sword and surrounded it with a long blue cloud, turning it into a gassy whip.

Then... in a blink, he disappeared from his place, reappearing behind Levi with a burst of blue smoke akin to a magician reappearing after a smoke bomb!

He flicked his Briar, and the blue whip slithered like a snake, attempting to entrap Levi. Yet the resonance barrier was still active, battering against the contained form of the smoke particles.

Yet.

Yanhuan knew this would happen and reinforced the spatial aspect of his Immersive Cloud to fight against the agitated frequencies desiring to break it!

This made the whip forcefully breakthrough Levi’s resonance barrier, leaving Levi to notice that each blue particle was flickering out of the spatial plane!

It was like the smoke was no longer traveling across the planet’s spacetime, but flickering between other dimensions unstably... unorthodox, but the method worked.

Whoosh!

Levi was forced to crouch down without turning his head and avoid the smoke’s grasp that was about to hug him, his 360-degree vision giving him no blind spots!

In an instant, he pulled a leg sweep, targeting Yanhuan’s ankle... but he was forced to halt it once he noticed blue smoke coming outside of Yanhuan’s robe from underneath.

”Aren’t you a bright one?” Yanhuan sneered as he swung his Briar down, wanting to smack Levi in his exposed head.

The weapon itself was nothing extraordinary, but Levi had seen too many videos of what happened to nightcrawlers once they were touched by it when it was covered in the blue gas... an instant death!