The Glorious Evolution

Chapter 608: A Clash of Powerhouses!

As they approached the Soulleech Maw’s Tree, Sandwitch’s steps suddenly faltered as a crushing spiritual pressure swept through the forest, forcing her attention away from her master.

She raised her head and watched a colossal demonic figure rise above the canopy, crossing kilometers in size!

Its muscular shoulders hunched forward, with long black claws curling beside its body. Dark-red hair whipped around its face while twisted horns curved inward, piercing its skull.

Red steam ran down its temples toward a mouth stretched open in a furious roar.

ROOOOOAR!

The Sandwitch felt her own soul tremble as its scarlet pressure swept across the camps, forcing the nearest soldiers to their knees.

’Fuck... a Tier 8!’

’The pressure... is too much!’

Beneath the overbearing devilish manifestation, a red-skinned, two-meter-tall man wearing an armored black suit advanced with his hands behind his back.

His shoulder-length curly dark hair flowed between small curled black horns, revealing pointed ears.

The nearby Vallow troops recognized an Angrath immediately... and his calm expression frightened them more than the monstrous spiritual aura looming above him.

"To come all the way here to claim this little boy... as an expected of an Unsworn Kin, you sure work a lot."

A mocking, stony voice drew Sandwitch’s gaze toward the opposite treeline... where an enormous gray spiritual image of a monolith began rising above the forest.

A single white eye opened across its surface... at once, an overbearing aura was unleashed, flattening abandoned tents and forcing the Angrath’s spreading devilish aura away from the Soulleech Maw Tree!

The Sandwitch recognized the Monolith Trueborn’s solitary white eye and obsidian-dark skin... and if Levi had been outside, he would have recognized them too... he had seen those same features on the Hollow Titan during the Joker game!

His Monolith Lineage belonged to the established Trueborn bloodlines in the Boundless Expanse.

Now, a Tier 8 powerhouse from the same race stood before Levi’s Tree, pressing back the Angrath’s aura without moving a finger.

Levi had competed in the same game as one of their lineage’s younger members, and it hadn’t taken long before he attracted some of their big shots.

"Isn’t it the same for you, Odrum?"

Before their colliding auras forced Sandwitch to the ground, jade-green fingers settled on her shoulder.

’Stay here... the central zone is no longer safe for anyone below Tier 8.’

Her master’s stern voice steadied her as a colossal likeness of the witch appeared behind them... dark hair framed its veiled face, while jade-green fingers worked above a towering black loom.

The Sandwitch watched pale souls claw at the luminous threads binding them... each movement unraveled their bodies into the weave, leaving their screaming faces intact... resembling a burial shroud embroidered with the damned.

At once, the pressure on Sandwitch’s chest eased.

She remained sheltered beneath it as her master kept walking forward, maintaining the shroud while her spiritual aura clashed with the other two.

Odrum and Bragh’s attention shifted to this harrowing spiritual manifestation, their brows furrowing... but neither seemed surprised by her attendance.

"I assumed the Black Loom would send more witches," Bragh uttered calmly. "Or do they think a single Elder Witch is enough to claim the Soulleech Maw?"

"... Soulleech Maw?" The Elder Witch showed a beautiful smile as her tongue ran across her jade-green lips. "I might be here for the leech... but everyone’s souls seem quite tasty."

The moment a Vallow instructor heard this, it was his cue to get the fuck out of here with his troops.

"Withdraw! Now!"

The Tier 6 instructors used their spiritual auras to cover their troops from the pressure while retreating away from the central area... luckily for them, none of these powerhouses directed their auras at them, but at each other.

The instructors assumed that the powerhouses wouldn’t target them since they hadn’t come for them... but it wasn’t the same for the Soul-Harvester Witches, who were known to target anyone’s soul within reach!

Still, the Elder Witch merely chuckled as she watched everyone running away, not really aiming for them... she just didn’t want the central area overcrowded for no reason.

Hidden in the back, Sandwitch noticed the Bishop’s hired nightcrawlers retreating with the others... their employer never showed.

She wasn’t surprised... his treaty with Cruor’s Saviors restrained his own hand as much as his empire’s troops.

Unaffiliated attackers gave him room to deny responsibility, but coming here in person would force the Saviors to intervene too.

No way in hell would the Saviors be able to explain themselves to the Vallow Natives and the interdimensional public if they sat out this conflict while a Bishop showed up in the flesh.

It was the same situation going on on Earth and many, many other planets with low-to-mid standings in the Supervising Radians’ lists.

Still, unbeknownst to her, the Bishop had already received the deal of the decade from Na’thir... providing him with a very generous payment in the millions of credits to hire someone capable of killing Levi the moment he emerged.

After losing the Hound, a Tier 6 Elite, to that boy, Na’thir finally understood that this was no longer a matter he could handle internally or afford to be stingy about.

And Na’thir made sure to pick a mercenary who wouldn’t fail him.

Thud... Thud...

The Sandwitch turned toward the heavy hoofbeats coming from another direction in the forest.

Then, a headless knight crossed into the open central area, his torso joined to the body of an armored warhorse like a Centaur.

Black plate armor encased his four-legged frame, while black mist escaped his empty collar.

His severed, skeletal head hung within an iron cage chained against his chest, while a white mane trailed down his spine.

Black Death Energy coiled beneath his hooves... then an enormous spiritual likeness emerged behind him, its caged skull swinging above the forest.

The manifestation was accompanied by a small army of similar headless centaur knights, their hooves stamping through the air.

His emergence left even the Elder Witch with a slight frown.

"Headless Gallows..." Bragh’s smile thinned as well.

They knew the name well, too well... as he was one of the Boundless Expanse’s rare Calamity Mercenaries... and among its most infamous.

The Elder Witch knew that Calamity rank qualified its holders to accept SS-grade missions and higher.

Worse.

He was a genuine Death Knight from the Lower Corrupted Realms, no less.

His past deeds left Sandwitch and many other powerful fighters reeling from shock as they spectated from a ’safe’ distance.

"I heard he once dragged a Tier 8 king out of his own fortified capital and delivered him alive to a rival kingdom..." one of them murmured.

Another remembered a different commission.

Two Noble Houses had sheltered Headless Gallows’ target behind their combined armies... he eventually delivered the fugitive with both commanders’ heads tied to his saddle.

Neither House dared to pursue him afterward for vengeance.

The Elder Witch watched the headless cavalry gather around his manifestation, her slender fingers slowing over the loom.

She realized that hiring a household name like the Headless Gallows to pursue a target surrounded by other Tier 8 powerhouses meant commissioning a mission with a difficulty rating beyond SS grade!

This meant the price was above ten million credits, if not more... and yet, someone had agreed to that ludicrous payment even if the mission had a high chance of failure!

’Who did this? I know Soulleech Maw is incredibly rare, but to waste ten million like this... who?’ She frowned.

When it came to this kind of mission, the payment went through whether the mission succeeded or failed.

The reason success wasn’t enforced was that these kinds of high-ranked mercenaries had a reputation, and their rank was put on the line with each mission.

A single failure meant a demotion and a significant hit on their reputation... so everyone here knew that the Headless Gallows didn’t come to make friends.

He wouldn’t hesitate to kill them all if it meant succeeding in his mission!

Before the Elder Witch and other powerhouses could rethink their approach, a hidden Dimensional Hexagon Array flared beside the abandoned camps.

Its inscriptions came to life, manifesting floating spatial Ilthorien letters that spiraled nonstop into a storm.

At its zenith, Severin emerged in his dark-red coat, white hair swept back from his pale face... the Dean followed, his long silver braid swaying behind him.

They teleported over from the academy thanks to the stable array dimensional portals built by the Everwritten Kingdom’s delegate to assist with the war.

It was a must, considering that the spatial jammer totems were hidden around the Soulleech Maw to make it impossible for Levi to teleport back to the Boundless Expanse.

WHOOSH!

Without hesitation, blood poured from Severin’s aura as a gigantic batlike gargoyle clawed its way out.

Its pale lips peeled back from long fangs while its wings unfurled wide. Thick veins divided the blood-filled membranes like the leadwork of cathedral windows.

His gigantic manifestation collided with the opposing auras, creating his own protected scarlet territory under the immense pressure.

With one step, Severin blinked into position near the Soulleech Maw, keeping the Tree beneath his protective aura... the Dean remained farther behind to direct the troops.

"What do we have here?"

His cold crimson eyes passed over the four monsters surrounding the Tree.

Above them, the Angrath’s devil roared next to the Monolith’s glaring white eye, while headless cavalry trampled through black Death Energy and countless souls strained across the Elder Witch’s loom.

Severin’s Gargoyle soon joined them.

Rumble!!

Five colored zones divided the central area.

Along their borders, opposing pressures uprooted trees and crushed their trunks into fine dust before they touched the ground.

In less than a second, the Soulleech Maw was the sole remaining Tree within a five-hundred-meter radius...

Everyone watched with bated breath as those manifestations towered several kilometers into the sky, making Levi’s dreadful spiritual Tree look pitifully small... like a bonsai caught in a custody dispute between five giants.

Sandwitch, the instructors, and the rest of the troops from both sides shared a single thought at this epic but horrific scene...

Whether Levi emerged alive or as a corpse, he wasn’t walking out of here of his own will!