Far from the village paths—
hidden beneath drifting layers of earth, stone, and tangled roots—
a faint spatial distortion lingered soundlessly beside the underground chamber.
Lizarius remained invisible.
Watching.
His pale golden eyes rested calmly upon the buried clam hidden deep beneath the earth.
Inside—
Lian's spiritual energy continued circulating steadily.
The process had already begun.
Yet—
nothing happened.
No warning.
No instinctive pressure.
No suffocating sense of danger tightening around Lizarius the way it always did whenever thoughts of directly harming the child surfaced within his mind.
Only silence.
The white lizard's tail shifted slowly behind him.
*Interesting.*
So far—
the process posed no danger to the child.
Or perhaps—
not yet.
That possibility still existed.
After all, Lizarius still did not fully understand the strange restriction surrounding himself in the first place.
The instinct only reacted under very specific circumstances.
Specific enough that even now—
he still could not clearly define its limits.
His eyes narrowed slightly.
*Perhaps the transformation itself is considered beneficial.*
If so—
then the restriction would naturally remain dormant.
Or perhaps—
the child had never truly been in danger from the beginning.
That possibility also remained valid.
Either way—
Lizarius found himself genuinely curious now.
Not about the child's survival.
That outcome alone meant very little to him.
But the result—
that interested him.
Would a mortal with such poor spiritual roots truly succeed in forming a spiritual physique through external essence refinement?
Even among spirit beasts—
such transformations were uncommon.
Humans possessed weak foundations.
Fragile bodies.
Unstable meridians.
Yet Lian's body had already begun changing after prolonged exposure to the concentrated water essence.
Slowly.
Very slowly.
But undeniably changing.
The white lizard glanced toward the buried clam again.
Faint streams of water-attributed spiritual energy seeped quietly through the tiny openings he had created earlier.
The process remained stable.
For now.
Lizarius closed his eyes briefly.
*Let us see what you become, child.*
---
Time passed slowly inside the clam.
Or perhaps quickly.
Lian honestly could no longer tell.
There was no sunlight.
No moonlight.
No sense of day or night.
Only the endless blue glow reflecting across the enormous inner walls of the clam.
And silence.
A month later—
Lian sat beside one of the massive folds of clam flesh while tearing another piece free with his teeth.
Rip.
The sound echoed wetly through the chamber.
He chewed slowly.
At first—
the taste had nearly made him throw up.
Raw spiritual beast flesh was cold, rubbery, and strangely sweet beneath the surface, carrying a faint metallic aftertaste that lingered unpleasantly on the tongue.
But after enough time—
hunger had forced adaptation.
Now he barely reacted anymore.
"…I wonder how long it's actually been."
His quiet voice echoed faintly throughout the enormous chamber.
Days?
Weeks?
A full month?
He had stopped properly keeping track a long time ago.
Lian swallowed another mouthful before leaning back against the soft inner wall behind him.
The flesh pulsed faintly beneath his back like something half-alive.
"…Feels like I've barely done anything."
Yet when he looked around—
the changes were impossible to ignore.
Several smaller sections of clam flesh had already disappeared completely.
One of the smaller pearls was gone as well.
Absorbed.
Refined.
Reduced entirely into spiritual essence within his body.
And the Water Essence Crystals scattered throughout the chamber had grown visibly dimmer compared to before.
Still—
the chamber remained enormous.
Almost oppressively so.
Lian stared upward quietly toward the glowing ceiling of flesh.
"…I wonder what mother told the villagers."
That thought surfaced more often recently.
At first, cultivation and survival had occupied nearly all of his focus.
But the longer the silence stretched—
the more his thoughts wandered.
Did people think he vanished again?
Did Wa Shi suspect something?
Did the villagers search for him?
Did his mother stay at the village head's residence like he asked her to?
Lian exhaled softly.
"…She's probably worried to death."
A faint trace of guilt flickered through him.
But only briefly.
Because even now—
he still believed leaving had been the right choice.
If he had stayed—
eventually someone would have noticed the abnormalities surrounding him.
And once cultivators became involved—
ordinary villagers would suffer first.
Slowly, he pushed himself upright.
The remaining spiritual energy from the clam flesh still flowed warmly through his stomach.
His body already felt different compared to before.
Stronger.
Denser.
Not merely from cultivation—
but physically.
Even his breathing felt deeper now.
More stable.
His muscles carried a faint heaviness beneath the skin, while his senses had sharpened enough that he could hear tiny streams of water essence flowing through certain sections of the clam walls.
Lian walked toward the center of the chamber again before sitting down cross-legged.
The Water Vein Compression Art began circulating almost automatically.
Cold spiritual energy flowed steadily through his meridians.
The nearby pearls trembled faintly as streams of water essence slowly drifted toward him like pale mist.
Lian closed his eyes.
Then—
he refined once more.
---
Another month passed.
Outside the village—
far beyond the quiet human paths and cultivated fields—
the forest no longer looked like a forest.
Trees had been snapped apart as though crushed beneath invisible mountains.
The earth itself had been carved open into massive trenches stretching across the land like scars.
Stone had melted and re-hardened into twisted jagged ridges.
Entire sections of terrain looked as though they had simply been erased from existence.
Yet—
there were no corpses.
Not a single intact body remained.
Only scattered stains of blood clinging to bark, stone, shattered roots, and broken earth.
As though whatever had happened here had not merely killed its victims—
but consumed them completely.
At the center of the devastation—
Lizarius stood in his ordinary size.
Small.
Unassuming.
A pale white creature standing quietly within a ruined world.
His tongue slowly traced across the faint smear of blood lingering at the edge of his maw.
Lazily.
Unbothered.
Almost bored.
Then—
a faint flicker passed through his eyes.
A cold mechanical tone echoed within his consciousness.
**[Evolution Points Gained: 16,376]**
**[Bloodline Genes Acquired]**
**+ Crystal Centipede Bloodline**
**+ Iron Scale Python Bloodline**
The lizard's tongue swept once more across the blood staining his maw.
Unhurried.
The devastated forest remained silent around him.
Broken trees.
Collapsed earth.
Blood-soaked stone.
Not even insects dared make noise anymore.
Then—
his eyes stopped mid-motion.
A faint shift entered his gaze.
He turned slightly.
Not fully.
Just enough.
His attention drifted toward the distant forest beyond the destruction.
Far away—
hidden among an ordinary-looking tree line—
a subtle ripple of presence trembled faintly.
Invisible.
Perfectly concealed from mortal senses.
Even most spiritual perception would have failed to detect it.
But the instant Lizarius looked in that direction—
the concealment shattered internally.
The hidden observer flinched violently.
A cold wave of shock surged through his entire body.
*Impossible.*
*He noticed me? From this distance?*
The man did not hesitate.
He immediately crushed a communication talisman.
A sharp spiritual transmission burst outward.
> "Retreat. We've been spotted."
No second thoughts.
No delay.
Elsewhere throughout the forest—
three more figures exploded out of concealment at the exact same moment.
Their bodies flickered into visibility for half a breath before their concealment techniques stabilized again.
All of them Foundation Establishment cultivators.
All hidden observers.
All now panicking.
"Move!"
One of them immediately pulled out a spatial escape talisman, his hands trembling as spiritual energy flooded into it.
But before the talisman could activate—
his head vanished.
No sound.
No warning.
No visible attack.
Just—
absence.
His corpse collapsed a moment later while blood sprayed violently into the air.
The remaining two cultivators froze for a fraction of a second.
Then terror truly set in.
"Wha—?!"
Another ripple passed silently through the air.
The second cultivator split cleanly in half vertically, as though an invisible blade had sliced through him without resistance.
Blood and organs scattered across the trees below.
The third never even managed to scream.
His body simply exploded apart mid-air—
shredded into fragments by something unseen before he even realized death had arrived.
Silence returned instantly.
Only one remained.
The man still holding the spatial talisman.
He stood completely motionless.
Not because he wanted to.
But because something had locked him in place.
Even his flying sword hovered uselessly beside him, frozen mid-air as though reality itself had pinned it down.
His pupils trembled violently.
"No… no no no…"
His eyes darted frantically.
Left.
Right.
Above.
Below.
Nothing.
Then—
he saw it.
Standing directly in front of him.
Close enough that he could see his own reflection within pale golden eyes.
The white creature.
Lizarius.
He was no longer where he had been moments ago.
No one had seen him move.
No fluctuation.
No spatial distortion.
But now—
he was simply there.
The lizard tilted his head slightly.
Then casually licked the remaining blood from his maw again, as though finishing a meal that had merely been interrupted halfway through.
His golden eyes fixed calmly upon the man.
The cultivator's body trembled uncontrollably.
His instincts screamed at him to flee.
To activate the talisman.
To fight.
To do *something.*
But nothing responded.
Even his spiritual energy felt frozen beneath that gaze.
Lizarius studied him quietly for a moment.
Then spoke.
Calmly.
A small voice.
Almost childlike in tone—
yet carrying something far too absolute to belong to anything mortal.
"…Why were you watching me?"
Silence.
The cultivator's lips moved weakly.
But no sound came out.
Fear had already stolen his voice.
Lizarius blinked once.
Slowly.
Then his gaze shifted slightly—
as though considering something.
The forest around them remained deathly still.
Even the wind had stopped moving.
The cultivator suddenly realized something horrifying in that moment.
The creature standing before him was not releasing pressure.
Not displaying cultivation.
Not emitting killing intent.
And yet—
everything around him had already surrendered instinctively.