SSS-Rank Evolving Monster: From Pest to Cosmic Devourer-Chapter 114: Forty two

"What did she just call me?"

Ricky’s voice was quiet, almost disbelieving—more a question to the universe than to anyone present. There was no one around who could read his thoughts, and yet...

As if sensing his confusion, the girl’s expression changed. Her wide, innocent eyes sparkled with emotion, and she tilted her head, her voice trembling with a childlike purity that sent a chill through the air.

"Father, you’re finally here!"

She blinked rapidly, her cheeks puffing out in an adorably angry pout.

"Uwu, I thought I’d never get to see you again! These people were going to kill me! Where were you? Why didn’t you protect me?"

Ricky’s jaw slackened.

What?

Each word hit him like a spiritual hammer to the chest. Her tone wasn’t aggressive—it was vulnerable, soft, and accusing in the way only a child speaking to a negligent parent could manage. The sheer emotional weight behind her words made even him falter.

A trace of guilt flickered in his heart.

Am I really... irresponsible?

The thought was absurd. He didn’t even know her! He was supposed to be the Venom Fang Overlord—a being feared across regions—yet here he was, feeling chastised by a girl who looked no older than ten.

Unbeknownst to him, while he stood lost in contemplation, the girl moved.

Her movement was soundless. Smooth. Lethal in its grace.

Like a phantom wrapped in innocence, she glided across the ground without disturbing so much as a blade of grass. Her feet didn’t make a sound. Her steps didn’t ripple the air.

It was only when she was just a few breaths away that Ricky snapped out of his daze.

His senses flared. Danger. Proximity.

Just as his body began to shift defensively, the space nearby shuddered.

In a single moment, two figures emerged from warped air like ghosts stepping through mist—Robert and Felicia, followed closely by the fast-moving blur that was Darius.

The girl didn’t flinch.

Instead, she clutched the edge of Ricky’s carapace and pointed an accusing finger toward them, her voice rising in pitch with childlike indignation.

"Uwuw! Bad guys! You’re finally here! Just wait—my father’s going to punish you for trying to hurt me!"

Robert and Felicia froze.

Their minds struggled to comprehend what they were seeing.

This creature—this spawn of the undead plane, born from the Zygote that nearly destabilized the entire forest—was clutching Ricky like he was her guardian... no, like he was her parent.

Their heads turned to Ricky, who looked equally stunned, his compound eyes twitching slightly.

Darius arrived just a heartbeat later and stopped dead in his tracks, staring at the bizarre scene unfolding before him.

There was no logic. No precedent. No explanation.

A monstrous entity of death and corruption had just called Ricky—of all beings—her father.

And from the way she clung to him, wide-eyed and gleeful, there was no doubt in her mind that it was true.

Was this reality?

Or had they all fallen into some unspeakable nightmare?

Even the air itself felt like it was holding its breath, unsure of what was about to happen next.

.....

Forty-Two always knew she was different from all her sisters.

The world called her the most talented among the Undead Princesses, the crown jewel of the Netherblood Plane, and the destined heir of the Undead God. But deep in her heart, Forty-Two scoffed at such titles.

She had no intention of inheriting anything.

She loathed this place.

Ever since she was young, surrounded by the bone-cloaked priests and fanatical followers in the Holy City of the Undead God, she’d known she didn’t belong. The cold cathedrals made of black obsidian, the endless prayers, the stagnant air reeking of decay—it was not her home, and it never would be.

Yes, she went through the motions.

She dined at their wretched tables. She memorized and recited the gospel of the Undead God like the rest of them. She played the part of the obedient daughter. She offered lip service and hollow reverence.

But it was all just an act.

A carefully curated performance while she waited. Waited for the moment where she could tear away the mask and run.

She had no desire to waste eternity serving a rotting god in a war she had never chosen. Her dreams stretched far beyond the plane of endless death. She yearned for light. For freedom. For something—anything—that didn’t stink of ash and blood.

So when the opportunity came—a mission to a nearby life-rich plane—she didn’t hesitate.

Forty-Two accepted the mission without question. But in the shadows, she prepared. Somehow, whether by luck or sheer will, she managed to evade drinking the Potion of Bloodthirstiness—a cursed concoction designed to hollow out the mind and chain one’s soul forever to the will of the Undead God.

If she had drunk it, there would have been no escape. No will left to resist. She would have become a perfect puppet.

Instead, she fled.

Now, she was here—on this vibrant, living world—in the process of reconstructing her body from the last fragments of death essence that had survived the transfer.

She could feel the pull of reality stitching her form together, layer by layer.

And then, it happened.

Before she could even open her eyes, before her thoughts had fully formed, she felt it—two hostile energies, violent and righteous, crashing toward her like divine spears hurled from the heavens.

Enemies.

Her instincts screamed.

They were trying to destroy her before she had even taken her first breath of this new world.

Alongside the two overwhelming hostile energies bearing down on her, Forty-Two also sensed a third presence—a subtle yet strangely familiar energy, calm and ancient, humming with quiet authority. Though not as overtly aggressive, this third force was undeniably stronger than the other two.

And in that moment, her instincts screamed louder than reason.

That was her lifeline.

Without hesitation, Forty-Two’s mind raced. She wove a desperate plan from sheer intuition, a last gamble to save her existence before it was snuffed out in its infancy.

With a quick step forward, she clutched her chest and looked toward the shadowed figure looming nearby.

Her voice cracked, innocent yet tinged with something raw and rasping, like a child who had never truly learned how to speak kindness.

"Father... it was them—those two who wanted to hurt me..."

Her eyes shifted, locking onto Robert and Felicia, and in a single blink, the emotion behind them changed. That wide-eyed fear gave way to something colder, deeper—a glacial edge hidden behind the surface.

Though her tone remained innocent, her gaze was like frost cutting through silk, laced with veiled resentment.

Felicia’s heart skipped a beat, but her face remained composed.

"What a clever little demon," she whispered internally, her voice barely registering even within her own thoughts.

Her delicate eyebrows arched upward in surprise. Felicia had encountered many undead creatures in her life—monsters cloaked in decay, cursed princesses who bathed in soul fire—but never something like this.

Never one that could manipulate emotion so naturally.

Never one that pretended to feel love.

Still stunned, Felicia held her silence.

She turned her head with the practiced grace of nobility and glanced at Robert, her expression returning to that of solemn duty. She gave a slight, deliberate nod.

A silent signal.

The mission must proceed.

They had come here for a reason, and even this bizarre encounter couldn’t make her forget that. Whatever façade this princess wore, no matter how human her words sounded—it did not change the fact that she was a creature of the undead. A danger.

And the moment would soon come when masks had to fall.

Although no words were exchanged, the message was unmistakable.

It was an order.

Simple. Absolute. Irrevocable.

Eliminate her.

Robert gave a slight nod, his expression shifting from composed reverence to one of divine conviction. The tranquil silence shattered as his body blurred, vanishing from his original spot like a sunbeam piercing through clouds.

In the blink of an eye, he reappeared—hovering directly above the undead princess.

His outstretched hand surged with divine energy, golden light crackling along his fingers. With each passing moment, his palm expanded unnaturally, like a membrane infused with celestial power. The air warped around it, space itself seeming to bend under the pressure of the growing force.

He wasn’t trying to strike.

He wanted to seize her whole, to trap her within the divine shell of his palm, and bind her like a heretic beneath the Sun God’s gaze.

The undead princess didn’t flinch. She simply looked up, her eyes wide—not in fear, but in quiet calculation.

Then—

Boom!

A pulse of power tore through the air. Not a roar, not an explosion—just a dense, quiet collapse, as if reality had folded in on itself for a brief second.

The divine palm halted mid-air.

A terrifying pressure surged upward, stopping Robert cold, his divine aura flickering as resistance crashed into him like a tidal wave.

Then, cutting through the still air, came a voice—cold, controlled, and absolute.

"Didn’t you hear what I said?"

It didn’t need to be loud.

It didn’t need to be angry.

The weight behind it was enough to still the breath of the forest.

Robert’s eyes widened. His outstretched hand trembled, the golden glow around it stuttering like a candle in the wind.

Because the one who spoke wasn’t the undead princess.

It was Ricky.

And he wasn’t asking.

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