The Glorious Evolution

Chapter 434: The Nightmare of the Id. I

Not giving anyone a chance to react, the gigantic hyena prowled at the giant monk’s head and tried to bite it off in one motion!!

Rumble!!

The invisible force slammed into the spiritual barrier and sent spider-webbing cracks across the white surface of Jojo’s constellation!

Jojo knitted her brows tightly, feeling like her soul was hit by a loaded truck... yet, she didn’t stop reciting the sutra, sacrificing her spiritual energy to reinforce the constellation.

Yet, this was only the beginning... before Levi could attempt to seize the misty predator using his aetheric energy, Rain simply disintegrated into fading wisps and reformed in a different location.

Then, he struck the constellation and the squad’s combined spiritual barriers, breaking one or two before disappearing again!

"What power! What spiritual force! He is attacking them while remaining untouched! A ghost is an understatement! Just where did they find these hired blades?!"

Gamemaster Envy shouted passionately at the sight of Rain’s constant bombardment of the giant constellation... meanwhile, inwardly, he had already picked up that something was off about Rain, just like he did with Fang.

However, this time, he didn’t bother to look through it... Rain was the last member of the Conqueror’s faction alive, and he had no intentions of concluding this game with anything but a banger finale.

Though even if he wanted to be a perfect judge, the disposable clones were simply too perfect and operating under the system’s rules.

Rumble! Rumble!...

’Levi... his spiritual prowess is too fearsome.’ Jojo sent a telepathic warning with a hardened expression, ’I will try my best, but I doubt I can hold off for too long... I am already down to my last 30% of spiritual energy.’

Hearing this, Levi switched his focus back to the chameleon far away... he had personally tested the defenses of Jojo’s ultimate and knew that it was of the highest caliber... even a Solarbound Psych Specialist might need five decent spiritual attacks to shatter it.

Jojo had gone through perfect evolutions to the Warden rank like the rest of the squad... all of her mutations and power-ups were spiritual-based. This meant her spiritual prowess should only be weaker than Levi’s in this game.

For Rain to brute-force her best defensive spiritual ultimate, it painted the emergence of another Psych monster in this game... a monster with a full spiritual tank unlike Levi’s!

’I have to eliminate him before he can break through...’

As the barriers continued to groan and fracture under the relentless assault, Levi realized that they were trapped in a losing battle against an enemy they could neither touch nor see clearly.

’The chameleon serves as the anchor for the technique... it holds Rain’s soul, and if I pose enough danger to it, Rain would be forced to retreat and save it.’

Levi turned to Jasmine and sent a telepathic message right away.

’Jasmine, kill him if you can or use whatever you have to hold the line until I get back.’

She was the only Daywalker he fully trusted to protect the entire squad in his absence... then, he used combustion leaps to travel in the direction of the distant invisible chameleon.

’Oki.’

Jasmine’s reply was brief, but it was enough to put Levi’s heart at ease.

’Correct decision, useless attempt...’

Meanwhile, Rain merely took a faint glance at Levi and then refocused on the recovering spiritual constellation before him.

However, just as he was about to strike it again, he felt a slight shiver course through his misty form.

When he looked down, he saw an inked masterpiece stepping out of the constellation with elegant steps... She hugged a giant brush in her arms and had a deadpan expression as she stared in Rain’s direction.

’Her spiritual prowess is decent, but nothing abnormal... is she using some kind of technique or mutation?’

Rain thought only Levi had what it took to view the misty form in this game, but he was dead wrong... In Jasmine’s black-and-white world, Rain stood out as a crimson sore thumb.

When he saw that she had stepped beyond the perimeter of the Great Prayer Ward Constellation, Rain switched his attention to eliminating her right away. His misty form fractured into dozens of smaller hyenas that circled her like a pack of starving ghosts.

With a collective spiritual howl that vibrated through Jasmine’s soul, the pack pounced from every direction, aiming to tear her apart in a single assault!

Jasmine didn’t flinch; she simply dipped her brush into a sphere of white ink and swept it in a wide, fluid circle around her body... A smooth spherical barrier of gleaming white ink emerged into existence, catching Rain by surprise.

’What is this...’

Before he could question the mysterious material of the white sphere, the first hyenas to make contact vanished instantly.

Gamemaster Envy had the hyenas highlighted for the viewers, leaving them confused by the sight... they thought that the hyenas had gone through the white sphere after witnessing Rain’s destructiveness on the constellation.

In reality... Rain felt his soul being torn apart, putting him in enough pain to cripple anyone claiming to be tough!

Yet, he didn’t even scream inwardly... he ate the pain like it was nothing and swiftly scattered the rest of the hyenas into particles. The wind carried them away before they could suffer the fate of the first victims!

Then, Rain’s form scrambled backward, his many shapes bleeding back into one large, twitching cloud of mist as he reformed at a safe distance away.

His predatory instincts, which had been screaming at him to be cautious, finally made sense; he was facing something that didn’t just hurt him, but erased him... physically and spiritually!

This time, even the expressionless chameleon showed a tint of emotion after sensing the erasure of part of Rain’s soul within it.

’What is that..’

’How did his soul get erased with a single touch?’

’White ink that erases even souls? Huh...’

Meanwhile, Bishop Na’thir, Bishop Va’ren, and many upper powerhouses were left confused at such power.

Jasmine might not have been unbothered about hiding her powers, but until now... not a single powerhouse had seen them! Even Dominic and the rest gained information about her aspects from Feng Ling, who, in turn, was told by Jasmine and her Father.

Even when she battled in front of the Pyramids, the news of her powers was buried due to Levi and Yanhuan’s unexpected ending to their battle that shook the network.

This was the first time Jasmine had truly faught in public and in front of entities like Gamemaster Envy, the Bishops, and billions of spectators.

And yet... only a single entity seemed to know what Jasmine wielded.

’White ink that erases souls... it can’t be... Erasu...Erasure Aspect? Is she...’

Gamemaster Envy’s mouth hung open in a rare display of genuine disbelief. His composure, usually as sharp and calculated as the rules he enforced, fractured as his gaze shifted between two points on the rope.

On one side, Jasmine stepped calmly out of the white ink sphere, her expression as unreadable as the black ink she commanded; on the other, Levi had finally closed the distance, standing like a silent executioner directly in front of the hovering spiritual chameleon.

’What exactly is this game? Who are these monstrous children, and how is it possible they were all born in the same region?!’

In that moment, the Gamemaster realized that he might be witnessing more than just a high-stakes competition; he was standing at the epicenter of a localized fracture in fate itself.

It was as if the universe had concentrated all its chaotic potential into a single generation, gathering these anomalies into a single coordinate to force a pivot in the history of the universe.

He knew he was pushing it by thinking like this based on a single technique, but that technique was all he needed to figure out Jasmine’s horrifying origin.

As he looked at Jasmine and Levi, the two ends of a strange spectrum, Envy felt deep within that something was off about these two.

He had spent centuries observing the rise and fall of "prodigies," but this was different. To his eyes, the idea that two entities... each considered a "one of one" in the universe... could share the same origin, the same path, and the same story was a coincidence far too staged to be anything but fate.

He was a big believer in fated destinies.

For the first time in his long tenure, the Gamemaster felt like a spectator in his own arena, watching the threads of a fate he couldn’t alter even if he wanted.

For he had realized at once... Jasmine was approved to have her powers and Aspects hidden under Nocturn’s Authority!

This meant... the viewers’ rain of questions was bound to be left unanswered as they watched Jasmine swing her brush in the direction of Rain, firing dozens of white-inked arrows!

Rain, who acted invincible in this game, was forced to respect the white-inked projectiles and evade them cleanly.

"What kind of Aspect are you wielding..."

Even Rain forced himself out of his spiritual shell to seek answers, his lethargic voice resounding in the skies. As the viewers went silent, eagerly awaiting a response, Jasmine pointed her brush in his direction and continued her barrage.

"Ignoring me... how impolite." Rain’s tone turned slightly cold.

Jasmine still kept up with her barrage, forcing Rain to keep scattering his form everywhere... He had no clue that her world was as silent as a grave, a void where his cold, resounding questions and taunts could never reach.

"Fine... I shall extract the answers myself and end this entire farce at once."

Abruptly, Rain’s voice turned deep and echoy as he manifested as a gigantic crimson hexagon above Jasmine and the others.

Within that crimson glow, the figure of a chameleon showed itself... It was enormous and moved as slowly as a snail, its jaw lowering bit by bit.

When it finally stretched open, its tongue rolled outside of its mouth until it exposed a lone haunting eye at the far back of its neck.

The eyeball was huge and unblinking, fixed directly on Jasmine and the others with an icy, ghastly gaze that felt as though it were piercing their soul.

"Scarlet Noctem Arts: The Nightmare of the Id..."

As Rain’s lethargic voice echoed through the air, the massive hexagon erupted with a blinding flash, tearing through the darkness like a supernova in the midnight sky.

Shatter!