Chapter 149: Confronting the Cataclysmic Divine Beast

"What kind of bugs?"

Bean frowned, sensing a suffocating sense of crisis slowly creeping over him. He realized the other person was not lying to him.

He waved his hand to release a giant black bird totem, and images suddenly flashed in his eyes. Through the vision of his flying totem, he witnessed a startling scene in the distance.

Countless bizarre bugs formed a vast army, annihilating all living things in their path. Patches of forests and gardens, along with any Spirit Masters who failed to dodge in time, were devoured by them!

This was the first time he had ever seen such creatures. They scraped the earth clean so thoroughly that the land in their wake became a scorched wasteland, devoid of even a blade of grass!

What was even more terrifying was that this swarm of monsters was still growing, seemingly unbound by any hereditary level restrictions, capable of infinite growth!

Bean was instantly alarmed and thought, "What kind of monsters are these?"

If left unchecked, he had no doubt these monsters could sweep across the entirety of Morrent, slaughtering the millions of people living on this island!

"Unclear. It seems they were unleashed by that mysterious monster. Just now, my flying totem saw the other party appear at the exact location where these mutated bugs emerged." Charles shifted the blame without hesitation; after all, there was no way they could trace it back to him anymore.

Let alone the underground base, even the houses in District 1's villa complex had been completely and cleanly destroyed by these monsters. Absolutely no one could confirm where they had originated.

Even if there had been some special surveillance-type plant totems, they had already entered the bellies of the mutated bugs by now.

"Ah, damn it!" Bean let out a roar, abandoned Charles without hesitation, and dashed toward the target location of the bug army.

That was the teaching district where the students attended classes, home to tens of thousands of trainees, the vast majority of whom were Level 1 Spirit Masters or hadn't even awakened their spirits yet.

If this swarm of monsters swept through there—the consequences would be unimaginable!

"Goodbye, Morrent." Charles cast one last glance behind him and jumped into the underground tunnel dug by the Burrowing Beast.

When he had previously entered the underground laboratory, he had already acquired the core data of the totem armor. Along the way, he had also broken into the core stronghold of the evolution serum and found the raw material formulas for it.

Now, everything was ready except for the eastern wind. Once he returned, an invincible army would be born in his hands.

The terrifying price he had paid to obtain the totem armor data was not just for forging it for himself; more importantly...

Creak!

Charles's train of thought was interrupted as he abruptly felt the earth tremble, as if underground earth dragons were thrashing and struggling wildly.

Bang, bang, bang!

Rows of brown tree roots violently struck out. As far as the eye could see, densely packed roots occupied his entire field of vision, instantly blocking his path forward.

What was even more astonishing was that these tree roots coiled and intertwined, forming three-meter-tall treants that charged frantically toward him within the underground tunnel!

"Mere root monsters!"

Faced with a three-meter-tall root monster throwing a punch at him, Charles did not dodge or evade, fiercely throwing a punch of his own.

Bang!

The two collided. The plate-sized fist of the root monster shattered explosively, blasted into pieces by Charles's single punch. Following up with an uppercut, he blew its head apart.

However, its head seemed to be merely decorative; even after being blown to pieces, it did not affect its actions in the slightest, and its remaining fist still swung toward him.

"Alright, as expected, they aren't true life forms, just temporarily derived offspring."

Charles remained unbothered, cleanly and decisively delivering a punch to its chest, blowing it apart entirely.

Yet the next one had already lunged forward, plunging him and the second-form Moon Child into a bitter battle.

Every single one of these root monsters possessed strength infinitely close to the Ultimate Form, and their numbers were continuously regenerating, appearing as endless as the sea.

Charles grew increasingly anxious. These root monsters were clearly split off from the academy's eight Guardian Trees, and their purpose was naturally to prevent him from escaping.

If he delayed any longer, the Dean Stuart—a Tier 4 powerhouse—would rush over, and he would have zero capacity to resist.

Boom, boom, boom!

Violent roaring echoed through the underground tunnel. Head after head of the root monsters were smashed to pieces by him and the Moon Child, yet within their line of sight, more than a dozen more charged forward, pincering them from front and back.

Fortunately, the tunnel was less than four meters high and under three meters wide, allowing only two root monsters to pass through at a time. Otherwise, if this swarm of monsters had surged forward in a mob, even with Charles's explosively enhanced physique, he wouldn't have been able to fully resist them.

Swish, swish, swish!

At that moment, he saw the swarm of root monsters suddenly and automatically disintegrate, turning back into tree roots that burrowed into the ground.

Before he could feel puzzled, the ground beneath his feet trembled violently. Charles was shocked to discover that the rock strata within a radius of dozens of meters beneath his feet were actually being hoisted directly into the air!

A giant palm composed of countless tree roots rapidly took shape underneath, lifting a boulder weighing hundreds of tons as it rose into mid-air.

Charles roared, "Moon Child, give me the third form! Burrowing Beast, attack from the outside!"

Faced with such an unreasonable behemoth, Firefly could not unleash a shred of power; its mental attacks were completely ineffective against these monsters.

At his command, the Moon Child roared without hesitation, its body swelling violently. Growing rapidly from just over four meters, the top of its head pressed against a dense web of tree roots while its two large feet sank deeply into the rock.

Under its terrifying immense strength, the root palm that was about to close was slowly pried open, causing a figure from ancient mythological legends to involuntarily surface in Charles's mind—the entity that had split heaven and earth apart.

Wuwah!

The Moon Child roared once more, a layer of blood-red light emerging over its body, dyeing its silver-white scales entirely red.

This was the Absolute Berserk ability, an attack that required burning one's vitality to execute, and each use consumed a massive amount of evolution points to compensate.

Under the circumstances of its burning vitality erupting, it finally pried the root palm completely open. Then, it threw a punch toward the densest area of the roots—the wrist position that formed the palm.

Boom!!!

A terrifying and peerless explosion rang out. A huge hollow five meters in diameter appeared at the spot where it struck, and the wrist of the giant root hand was punched straight through!

Afterward, the Moon Child lunged forward, its two massive hands grabbing both sides of the wound, while the tentacles on top of its head also exerted force together, tearing it apart violently.

Crack, crack!

The sound of densely packed tree roots snapping echoed out. The entire wrist was completely destroyed by it, and the unimaginably huge root hand plummeted heavily from over ten meters in the air down to the ground.

Just as the light returned above Charles's head, a magnificent golden figure filled his entire field of vision.

Sky-Winged Bird!

A divine calamity beast that transcended tens of millions of totems, a peerless existence capable of slaughtering a city with a single strike!

Kaa!

A piercing, deafening roar descended from the sky. Charles instantly felt the air in front of him turn into a solid wall, smashing down toward him with a thunderous impact.

Boom, boom, boom!

The ground where he stood collapsed dozens of meters as a whole, forming an unimaginably massive meteorite crater!

...

The Sky-Winged Bird, a creature most adept at sonic attacks, acted like the most terrifying sonic weapon; at full-power shrieking, it could shatter the entire academy's buildings!

Although the opponent had shrunk the attack range, targeting only a radius of several hundred meters centered entirely on him, this attack remained far too formidable. It fell like a mountain crashing down, literally carving out a massive meteorite crater, and Charles was located precisely at the bottom of the pit!

He only felt his mind daze for a moment, but his protective spiritual light was too formidable. The protective spiritual light provided by so many Ultimate Forms kept him from suffering fatal trauma under this attack, causing him to merely cough up a mouthful of blood.

Charles climbed up from underground and found that the ground beneath his feet had turned as hard as steel, making it difficult even for the Burrowing Beast beneath the earth to dig through!

"We're in deep trouble now." He couldn't help but reveal a bitter smile, not expecting the calamity divine beast to lock onto him with a single glance rather than pursuing the three decoys.

Kaa!

The Sky-Winged Bird let out another fatal cry. Charles's newly stood-up body was once again pressed flat against the ground, feeling the surrounding air as solid as packed earth.

"Heh, an attack like this can't kill me."

Lying flat on his back on the ground, he opened his eyes to look at the water-ripple-like air undulating above him as a terrifying pressure descended upon him.

Puff!

This time, he coughed up a large mouthful of blood, feeling as though his entire body had undergone a baptism, accompanied by a pain akin to being gnawed on by countless ants.

Yet, under the consumption of evolution points, these injuries were healing at a rapid pace.

"Why do such a thing?" An oppressive, cold voice descended from the sky.

"Nothing, just convenience." Charles stubbornly straightened his body, looking up at the bird that spanned hundreds of meters, blotting out the sky.

A calamity divine beast—such an invincible existence truly could not be worn down by sheer numbers.

For the first time, Charles directly experienced their offensive power. Putting everything else aside, just these two cries alone were enough to blast consecutive patches of evolved beings into oblivion.

Even Ultimate Forms found it difficult to persist; the Moon Child beside him had already collapsed completely onto the ground, on the verge of being blasted into fragments!

At that moment, towering giant trees in the distance jointly constructed a giant net spanning over a thousand meters, trapping all the bugs within it.

However, these bugs lunged forward to devour them without the slightest fear, inflicting horrific damage upon the Guardian Trees.

After devouring the Guardian Trees, the bugs mutated once again, their aura intensity surging wildly as their strength doubled explosively.

What was even more astonishing was that tens of thousands of bugs gathered together, piling up into a gray bug mountain over a hundred meters high!

Then, the bug mountain transformed, turning into a hundred-meter-tall hundred-armed giant composed entirely of bugs!

"What kind of existence have I actually created!" Charles couldn't help but groan.

This swarm of bugs had been uncontrollable from the beginning; even the broodmother that bred them was merely a reproductive tool and could not control this massive number of bugs the way Kerrigan could.

Now, these monsters were like fish returning to the sea, beginning to develop and mutate wantonly, ultimately forming an existence that even he could not predict.

"Infinite Alienation Technique... So a Grandmaster-tier Infinite Alienation Technique can be this terrifying!" he muttered, a brilliant light erupting in his eyes.

Source Power Transplantation, Directional Amplification, and Infinite Alienation—these were Garfield's three core inheritances, all of which he had pushed to the Grandmaster tier using evolution points.

This level hadn't even been reached by Garfield, the founder himself; it had merely existed at a theoretical level of imagination.

In cultivating that broodmother, he had flawlessly applied these three combined spiritual arts, consumed precious resources worth hundreds of millions, and grafted and modified the inheritance pedigree using the hereditary factors of various Ultimate Forms.

Coupled with the intervention of that mysterious monster, they had been turned into freaks that completely transcended the mortal world!

Screeeeee!!!

The hundred-armed gray giant let out a shrill shriek, its numerous arms slamming toward the towering giant trees that trapped it.

This time, one of the giant trees was knocked over with a crash, smashing a massive depression hundreds of meters wide into the ground.

It lunged forward, opening its giant maw, intending to devour it completely.

However, the giant trees emitted a dazzling green light, forming a green light net that trapped it once more.

The giant trees extended their massive branches, interlocking with one another before drawing close and rapidly fusing together!

Screeeeee!!!

The hundred-armed gray giant let out another sharp roar, its numerous arms turning into daggers, spears, giant axes, and other weapons, slamming fiercely into the green light net and causing it to emit terrifying booms as root after root snapped.

Then, it bit down onto the light net!

This time, the light net could no longer restrain it, bitten apart and swallowed whole by it.

Its size swelled violently once more, breaking through the light net and skyrocketing to over one hundred and fifty meters!

"A calamity divine beast!" Bean looked up at the opponent, his face filled with endless shock.

A calamity divine beast had been born right before his eyes!

The eight giant trees completely connected, their thick trunks fusing together while their roots likewise merged to form massive legs several meters in diameter.

Then, its body similarly swelled, transforming into a two-hundred-meter-tall giant tree, turning the legends passed down in students' memories into reality.

At a time of crisis, the giant trees at the school gate would fuse together to become an invincible Tree King to save the academy—and now it had become reality. They truly had fused into a calamity divine beast!

"Whoa, this is actually real!"

Students a thousand meters away cheered one after another, their previous despair vanishing into nothingness because there were actually two calamity divine beasts protecting them!

With the protection constructed by two invincible entities, who in this world could possibly break through it?

The two-hundred-meter-tall Tree King thrust out a fist dozens of meters in diameter, slamming down from above toward the head of the hundred-armed giant.

Boom!!!

The terrifying immense strength completely ignited the surrounding air, forming brilliant fireworks that struck the head of the hundred-armed giant like a rapidly descending shooting star.

Its head shattered instantly, smashed straight through from top to bottom by the giant fist, and the entire hundred-armed giant was brutally pulverized into nothingness!

Dazzling flames erupted, igniting all the bugs and sending up thick black smoke, but the green light net appeared, trapping all the smoke within it.

A newly born calamity divine beast—had fallen!

"Truly formidable!" Charles sighed. He had originally hoped the opponent could stall a little longer so he could escape leisurely.

But now, with the threat of the bug army lifted, the Sky-Winged Bird, which had been preparing to go and provide reinforcement, no longer needed to do so, its boundless might locked dead onto him.

Charles now felt that he was nothing more than a tiny bug targeted by a dragon, with zero opportunity to escape.

"Surrender, and be of use to me!"

A god-like voice descended from the sky, a spiritual force as vast as the ocean pouring downward.

Firefly unhesitatingly unleashed the fire of spirit once more, yet the moment this flame ignited, it was extinguished under the opponent's endless spiritual force impact, like a candle in the wind!

Mew!

It let out a mournful cry, its body shattering with a bang and turning into a stream of light that merged into Charles's glabella.

Charles felt a head-splitting pain; the opponent's spiritual force was simply too formidable.

To put it into perspective, if his spiritual force was cotton, the opponent's was solid rock, destined to be utterly crushed upon contact!

"Want me to surrender? Keep dreaming! Moon Child, go get him!"

At his roar, the Moon Child leaped up abruptly, its legs kicking off the ground as it sprang high into the air, charging toward the descending, sky-blotting golden giant bird like a giant hurtling toward the sun.

And then, its body exploded violently, a mighty, surging blood-red shock wave sweeping across a radius of hundreds of meters!