Endless Evolution: Last Star

'What is this feeling...?'

Adam muttered to himself, looking at the gray sky covered in thunderclouds. The lightning continued to strike the ground as the main anomalies didn't disappear, on the contrary, they only increased in power.

This place would be covered with molten layers of salts and black spots for a long time, and the Phantoms would remember the deafening rumble of particularly strong lightning, but...

At that moment, Adam heard nothing. He saw the lightning bolts, saw them crash into the ground, raising waves of salt as if from a massive explosion, but nothing could shatter the void in his mind.

Electric shocks ran through his entire body while he soared above the ground, clearly relaxed as if ready to ascend to the heavens.

Electric shocks ran through his fingertips and hair, as well as his feet, which were almost touching the ground, but the lightning seemed to hold him upright.

Adam looked up, his arm was relaxed, heading towards the ground, and his body was slightly arched.

Crackle. Crackle. Crack.

After a few seconds, his black hair, filled with lightning energy, turned bright blue and lifted up slightly, just a few tips.

Then, on the left side of his head, it was on the side Adam had ripped off Thunder Demon's horn, the electricity formed a long, straight horn with a square curve and a sharp tip, constantly shaking due to the array of energy.

Fred was the only one of Adam's squad who was still conscious and could watch what was happening, though he was severely exhausted and couldn't even get to his feet.

He was mesmerized by Adam's appearance, his calmness and serenity, especially considering that Tirana was approaching him, burning everything in its path.

'Fuck... Even if Adam has developed his artifact and used the new ability, he's exhausted probably even more than I am!' Fred internally growled, clutching his legs tightly and trying to get up, leaning against the wall. Well, to some extent he succeeded, only on one knee.

Step. Step. Step.

Tirana raced forward, outwardly feeling confident, but something was bothering her. Her hands gripped the hilt of her sword tightly, but her eyes trembled, filled with mysterious fear.

'Why...? It has no arm, its entire body is covered in wounds, and no energy at all... Even if it's an Artifact Trait, it should be nothing compared to my Nexus and Orders! I'm using half of my arsenal, and he's using one ability!'

Whoooooooooosh.

Excited, Tirana dashed forward, raising her sword high above her head and about to cut Adam in two.

"Oh... I see..." Adam muttered, sorting out his feelings, "This is power..."

Then, the sounds filled his mind again, and he turned to Tirana, meeting her gaze. Adam lowered to the ground, glanced down at his only left hand, and smiled bitterly.

The next thing Adam did was to lean his body forward and take a step further.

Tremble. Tremble. Tremble.

Adam's body shuddered before turning into a blur, disappearing from Tirana's field of vision.

The next thing Tirana saw was a blue flash that traveled to her right, then for some reason, his gaze lifted, heading for the sky.

Crackle.

Adam's fingers plunged into Tirana's neck, tearing her skin and traveling into the flesh, straight to her spine.

With a sharp motion of his hand, Adam broke the solid bone that is the foundation of any human skeleton, tearing Tirana's head away from her shoulders and causing it to fly high up, spinning.

Neither fire armor, scarlet wings, nor a flaming sword, could protect Tirana from that single attack.

Dark blood, streamed from her head, splashing crimson liquid all around, coating the white salt lands, before falling to the side with a blank, lifeless stare.

"Agh..." Adam took a deep breath, looking up at the sun that was hidden behind gray clouds, but a few rays of light managed to break through that shroud to illuminate the battlefield.

A light ray of sunlight fell on the blood-covered and wounded Adam before he closed his eyes.

Whoooooosh.

A moment later, when the lightning bolts seemed to have reached their power limit and were ready to spread further across the battlefield, several fighters appeared in the sky, from which several shadows with powerful auras descended.

Most of them were K2-Phantoms like Prago, but there was one K3-Phantom among them, that one fell first before the others. The K3-Phantom had one task - to get rid of the anomalies.

"Oh... Looks like we can finally rest... Good, I don't want to stay in this place a minute longer..." Fred smiled bitterly, taking a deep breath while hundreds of attacks rained down on the area behind the ruins.

Phantoms mercilessly tore apart anomalous monsters, while K3-Phantom took artifacts from the three main anomalies, stripping them of their powers and destroying the electrical triangle.

...

"Yes! Did you see that!? Fucking hell! He did it!" A man with black and green eyes said excitedly, tossing aside a can of soda that had fallen next to something large, unnatural to the city.

"Yeah, that was impressive. I'm not even upset that we interrupted our mission because of it." A man with dark eyes in a long black coat muttered, glancing at the 3D screen that hovered above Damien's NEP.

Erden was lying relaxedly on a soft surface, but... it wasn't a bed or a couch, but a huge purple arm of a monster with his head resting on its shoulder, throwing one leg over the other and crossing his arms on his chest like he was relaxing on the beach.

"And... Now you're even more confident that he can do it, aren't you?" Erden said thoughtfully, looking at the passed-out Adam.

Damien smirked slyly.

"Sure. After he defeated North Keeper, I already realized that if he can survive long enough, the day when he becomes one of us will surely come."

Erden shrugged.

"Becoming a Second Rank Phantom isn't something that can be achieved through persistence or talent alone. Well, you know that yourself." Erden uttered before standing up and looking around.

Strangely enough, they were surrounded only by dark rocks, among which a black fog wandered, thick and ominous, as if something lurked behind it that could bring disaster to the human world.

Damien nodded.

"You're right, but if it worked for us, it means that in the future, someone can do it too, some already do..." Damien muttered, casting his gaze to one point.

Strangely enough, soon, several amber eyes with vertical pupils opened in the darkness. The fog completely concealed the creature as well as its silhouette, but that was more than enough for Damien.

"Can you figure it out? I'm kind of lazy, this place is nothing but trouble." Erden asked, turning to Damien, even though the monster was looking directly at them.

Damien lifted his chin arrogantly, a smirk forming on his face.

"You don't want to get your hands dirty, right? Fine, I'll do it, but then you'll have to show me the best cafe in your Bastion."

"No problems." Erden shrugged.

Then, Damien walked up to the already-killed monster and ripped from its head a huge horn that was several times Damien's size.

Purple smoke came out of the monster's flesh, which didn't embarrass Damien at all, but Erden frowned with slight disgust and raised the collar of his coat high, hiding half of his face, especially his nose.

He didn't seem to want to take a single breath of that smoke, not because it was dangerous, but because Erden was squeamish.

Then Damien firmly grasped the monster's horn, cracked it, tilted his body back slightly, and threw the horn at the monster with all his might, like a spear.

Whoooooooosh.

The simple throw caused powerful wind currents, raising black dust from the ground and allowing the horn to reach the monster at a dangerous speed.

At the same moment, the horn swept through the monster's head, smashing into the rock with a loud crack.

The monster's head exploded, scattering bloody chunks all around. The farthest of them reached Erden, aiming to crash into him.

Erden narrowed his eyes slightly as he took a few steps back so the pieces of flesh wouldn't hit him as well as the drops of blood.

"Good, it seems watching Adam's fight was the right decision. Otherwise, we would have spent even more time searching for the last of this wave." Erden muttered, looking up as if that was where the exit was.

Damien chuckled.

"I'm never wrong."

Erden nodded as his eyes grew colder.

"Yeah... But, only those who have the power to fix a mistake say that. If you can undo a failure, then it didn't happen, that's your secret."

Damien smirked but didn't say anything.

Then, he touched his earbud and said, "Beth, we're leaving."

'Good, get me something tasty from Bastion.'

"Tsk."

...

Adam opened his eyes, and the first thing he saw was green bubbles floating in front of him, as well as a lot of people in white and blue coats doing something in a hurry. Obviously, their tasks were important and required an immediate response.

'No... It's not enough... I want more... Sleep feels too good...' Adam inwardly muttered before closing his eyes.

...

Step. Step. Step.

After an unknown period, a middle-aged woman with long blonde hair headed down the hallway. She was followed by a girl with purple hair that used to be long and tied up in a ponytail, but now it was short, down to her chin.

"Are you sure he'll be okay?" Jena asked with obvious concern.

"Sure, by the way, where is his Operator?" The woman asked sternly.

Jena looked away to the side.

"I don't know... I haven't been able to contact her..."

"Tsk, youths. Things are always complicated with you."

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Hi, this is the author. I will try my best to post another chapter a little later. Also, a few past chapters were poorly edited, I'll try to fix that too. Just sick, so hopefully I'll be back to a normal pace soon.

I hope you enjoyed the Essence Monster chapters!