The Glorious Evolution

The Hound launched himself out of the pit toward Levi, his muzzled face contorted with murderous malice.

The prolonged agony hadn’t been kind to him, as he didn’t come out in as good a state as when he had fallen in.

His thoughts were in fragments, his subconscious barrier was pulsing nonstop from the heat, and his soul appeared to have melted a little.

Yet... only Seraphis’s face remained clear in his fractured mind... and the need to tear it apart drove him towards the closest link before him.

Levi.

...

Just as the Hound was seeking him out, Levi kept using his aetheric vision to scan the entire forest akin to a green radar.

This time... his vision didn’t show him the Hound still burning and struggling in the pit... instead, it caught the Hound rushing in his direction akin to a bulldozer, leaving a trail of destruction through the crimson forest!

Still, the Hound was dozens of kilometers away from their battlefield... Levi had a little time before that monster reached them.

’Levi! The Hound is free!’

Jasmine’s warning reached him as Rain’s katana struck his weapon... Levi pushed the blade aside and swept his perception toward the others.

At once, he saw two gigantic spiritual trees rise above their battlefield.

Shia’s aura filled one.

Fang’s filled the other.

Levi’s heart sank.

’You reckless idiot...’

She had explained her Dominion before the mission, giving him some peace of mind about its capabilities... but Fang wasn’t someone she could afford to underestimate.

’What if her tree still falls?’

His grip tightened as his perception caught Idriss kneeling outside the Trees, his ruined body barely holding together... and Levi understood why she had taken that risk.

Jasmine remained near him... her spiritual aura weakened to the limit, making him discern that she had already reached the limit, energy-wise.

Still, none of them had escaped as planned... worse, the Hound was free and coming at him with murderous intent; he could feel it all the way here.

His plan went to shit in less than a few minutes... which was quite expected of a rushed fifteen-minute plan against a Bishop’s elites.

Levi swallowed his frustration, forcing himself to focus despite the dread tightening his chest.

’Think... you can’t pull her out.’

Rushing toward her Tree would accomplish nothing except dragging Rain and the Hound straight to Jasmine and Idriss.

He needed to trust Shia to survive... and protect the father she had risked her life to save.

First, Rain and the Lurker must die... and quickly.

His attention returned to the Lurker, which immediately blinked a great distance away from them.

Levi only needed Rain and the Lurker within range of his latest ultimate... yet every attempt to bring them together had failed.

His remaining options relied on his Sun and Void Aspects, or Nine Senses techniques he had already revealed as Celestial during broadcast games.

He had used his Sun Jets and Star-Forged Skeleton before pulling the Hound through the portal... since then, Levi had avoided anything that could expose him.

He had even changed his fighting style.

He wasn’t trying to erase Na’thir’s suspicions... that was a foolish attempt.

The Bishop already knew his weapon could transform into a sniper rifle; Levi doubted he could fool someone that shrewd completely.

But suspicion was one thing... recorded proof was another.

Levi let out a long breath.

’If I keep holding back... someone is going to die before those fanatics even learn my name.’

’You gave it your best,’ the Titan replied. ’You can’t protect them while refusing to use what you have.’

’Then be ready for your entire universe to turn upside down,’ Ash’Kral warned.

’I’m not ready,’ Levi admitted. ’But if this is what it takes to get them home... so be it.’

He already knew which ability could stop the Lurker from escaping.

Whatever followed, he would face it afterward.

A flicker of dark energy gathered within him... but just as he was about to consume it to activate the technique, Jasmine’s message reached his mind.

’Levi... use your ultimate.’

He halted the activation.

’Trust me.’

Confused, Levi’s aetheric vision swept toward Jasmine again.

’What?’

He was left stunned at once.

Her spiritual aura still barely gathered around her exhausted body... yet its quality had changed so drastically since his last scan that he recognized the difference immediately.

’Solarbound?!’

Then her words from their earlier conversation returned to him.

She needed to understand Scripture... to unlock its affinity naturally before her Seed permitted her next evolution.

’She finally understood it?’

Levi knew how elusive that moment could be.

He had practiced with his violin and Harmonic Spine repeatedly before his battle against Light Eater finally brought everything together... until he felt the harmony he had spent so long trying to create.

Jasmine had searched for her own understanding just as stubbornly, which she had told him she believed was an intellectual process, not an emotional one like his.

Yet, somehow, she had found it here, which left him baffled by how she had managed to pull it off.

But this wasn’t the time for questions.

He couldn’t tell what had changed or how much her new Aspect allowed her to accomplish... her depleted aura made him understand that whatever she intended to do, she was about to spend her own life force to make it happen.

But she had asked him to trust her... and despite knowing nothing about her new ability, Levi placed his life in her hands.

Without an ounce of hesitation, Levi stopped chasing the Lurker and took off into the sky using his Aetheric Grasp.

As he floated above the ruined forest’s canopy, Levi summoned the Soulleech Maw and uttered under his breath:

”Banquet of Endless Hunger.”

WHOOOOSH!!

At once, Levi’s green aetheric glow faded as dark purple light erupted from within him.

It washed over the forest as a gigantic table formed in front of him.

Its broad surface resembled a purple tongue laid flat... wet flesh glistened under the light, with a deep groove running down its center before dividing the far end into two pointed tips.

Tall chairs formed along its sides, their pale frames resembling enormous teeth.

Smaller tongues hung over the armrests, their slippery tips curling toward the table.

At the head of the table, a larger master chair rose behind Levi, crafted out of ivory bones.

He sat without a change of expression...

The spiritual table’s purple glow illuminated his bloodied face, and the plum-colored strands in his black hair as a shallow crystal plate appeared before him.

Then, the groove at the table’s center split open, akin to an eldritch monster’s mouth.

Whoosh!!

An enormous spiritual form of the Soulleech Maw rose through it... But its appearance wasn’t a carbon copy of Levi’s leech.

In fact... it resembled the Soulleech Monarch much more, except for its body matching the table’s color!

Its flesh joined with the table around its base, while fleshy petals peeled apart at the top, revealing a circular mouth lined with pale teeth.

The same curved teeth that formed the chairs around it.

A long, forked tongue slipped between them... its dark purple surface shared the same black inscriptions that covered its length, shifting as it tasted the air.

But that mouth wasn’t alone.

Thick, fleshy necks grew from its sides and bent over the rows of chairs... their ends opened into smaller flower-shaped mouths, each large enough to engulf a seated guest’s torso!

Violet saliva dripped onto the table and flowed along its central groove toward the Maw.

”...”

”...”

”...”

Rain, the Lurker, and even Na’thir stared at this eldritch image in utter silence... their thinned pupils locked on the smaller mouths biting down over an empty chair.

Then, the giant Soulleech Maw’s largest mouth turned toward them... its petals opened wider... revealing millions of tiny teeth deep inside its throat.

Rain’s soul shivered and bent on its own, appearing like it was instinctively attempting to hide from its gaze... the gaze of the infamous soul predator.

’Move!’

The Hexgaze Lurker had already turned spiritual and fled between the trees while Rain swiftly withdrew his projection after it, unwilling to remain anywhere near that damned table!

They didn’t know what it did, and their imagination left them unwilling to learn the answer.

In no time, both of them had placed about one kilometer of distance between themselves and the ominous floating gigantic table in the air.

’Master... that ability isn’t normal.’ Rain’s voice trembled a little, still incapable of forgetting his soul’s reaction to it. ’I think I should stay further away until Hou...’

Before Rain could finish his request, his sleepy eyes widened against their will at the sight of floating black Ilthorien letters being written in front of his own face.

It wasn’t just him... the chameleon saw the same inked sentence, its letters forming in beautiful calligraphy, with flowing curves and slender strokes tapering into delicate points.

Yet... its content was anything but beautiful.

The guests shall take their seats at the Banquet of The Endless Hunger.

THUD! THUD!

Two chairs snapped toward the table as Rain and the Lurker suddenly found themselves sitting at the table... facing each other.

’Huh?’

Utterly stunned, Rain lifted his head... and froze.

One of the Soulleech Maw’s enormous mouths bent toward him, its petals spreading until rows of glistening teeth filled his vision.

A thick strand of saliva dropped onto his head.

Rain flinched, still confused by how he had gotten onto the table when he had been one kilometer away from it!

Alas, his mind couldn’t process such a question when saliva kept dripping over his face and shoulders.

His nose smelled nothing, but like a deer catching a wolf’s scent, his soul recoiled instinctively... that stench belonged to something that fed on its kind.

’M-Master...?’

Rain tried to stand, to pull away, to do anything... but the chair held his soul in place.

Once he took a seat at the table of Endless Hunger, he was no different from a fly caught inside a Venus flytrap... the welcoming leaves had already closed, and the meal could only struggle.

His breathing grew frantic.

’MASTER! GET ME OUT!’

Across the table, the Lurker thrashed just as desperately... another enormous mouth already hovered over its head.

Rain knew these reactions too well.

The trembling.

The useless struggling.

The desperate calls for someone who might still come to help.

He had watched his victims go through them countless times... sometimes prolonging their suffering just to squeeze a little more fear out of them to harvest.

Now, he couldn’t even close his eyes as those teeth descended toward his face.

Through the gap between them, he caught sight of Levi’s emotionless expression, seated in the master’s chair with a plate in front of him.

Awaiting to be fed.

And then...

Chomp!