The rasping voice was a death knell. The survivors, still reeling from the last battle, felt their newfound courage disintegrate. Despair spread like a plague.
"It's impossible…"
"We're doomed…"
Some dropped their weapons,collapsing to the ground, weeping.
The robed figure—the self-proclaimed "Divine Emissary"—raised his skeletal staff. Blood-red light flared. The horde roared as one, a sound that shook the very earth, and began their charge. A black tsunami, crashing towards the battered shelter.
The ground trembled.
"Hold the line! Ranged fire, free volleys! Melee, stand ready!" Lin Yuan's shout was a whisper against the cacophony.
Arrows and bullets rained into the horde, making barely a dent. Su Qingxue took to the air, hurling blizzards and massive ice spears, freezing scores of monsters at a time. But against such numbers, it was a drop in the ocean.
The monsters surged over their own dead, breaching the defenses in multiple places. The shelter became a charnel house.
Lin Yuan and Xiao Yue fought like demons, plugging gaps wherever they appeared. The fruit knife was long gone, replaced by a fire axe he swung with brutal efficiency. Xiao Yue's Wind Blades scythed through the enemy.
But they were endless. Lin Yuan's stamina plummeted, his Golden Scales flickering. Wounds covered his body. Xiao Yue was a bloody mess, his movements slowing.
"This isn't working!" Qingxue landed beside him, breathless, face pale from exertion.
As if bored, the Divine Emissary moved. His staff tapped the ground. A lance of pure, solidified darkness shot across the battlefield, aimed directly at Lin Yuan's heart!
It was faster, deadlier than anything Long Xiaotian had conjured.
Lin Yuan had no time. He barely got the axe in front of his chest.
CLANG!
The axe shattered. The dark lance tore through his weakened Golden Scales and punched straight through his chest.
"AGHH—!"
He was thrown back, crashing through a half-standing wall. Agony, unlike any before, ripped through him. He felt his life force gushing out. His vision dimmed, sound faded to a dull roar.
"LIN YUAN!!" Qingxue's scream sounded distant.
Is this it? Qingxue… I just got you back… Not like this…
As his consciousness teetered on the brink of the abyss, the green jade pendant his mother had left him—worn always against his skin—suddenly turned searing hot!
A torrent of warm, vast, life-giving energy erupted from it, flooding his broken body! It resonated with his Infinite Evolution talent, singing through his veins. Shattered organs knitted together, broken bones fused, his drained power surged back, stronger than ever.
The horrific wound in his chest closed before his eyes.
[High-level Life Energy detected…]
[Talent 'Infinite Evolution' deeply activated…]
[Host life form beginning ascension…]
"NO! IMPOSSIBLE! That is… a Life Source Jade?! How do you possess such a thing?!" The Divine Emissary shrieked, his voice laced with fury and a hint of panic for the first time.
Lin Yuan's eyes snapped open. They were no longer human, but swirling vortexes of cosmic depth. He rose, wreathed in an aura of emerald life and golden evolution.
He felt power beyond mere levels—a fundamental transformation. He looked at the Emissary, his gaze calm, yet holding the finality of a judge's sentence.
"Your apocalypse is here."
He raised a hand. No words were needed. His mind connected with Xiao Yue, with Qingxue, with the earth beneath his feet, with the energy flowing in the air.
The very ground around the shelter erupted. Giant, primeval roots and vines burst forth, coiling around the horde like monstrous pythons! Simultaneously, Qingxue's ice power, amplified by the life energy, transformed. The sky rained not snow, but countless, razor-sharp swords of ice!
And Lin Yuan himself, fused with Xiao Yue into a single streak of gold and green, shot towards the horrified Divine Emissary…
The true counterattack began now. Was the end of evolution creation, or destruction? The answer lay in his hands.