SSS-Rank Evolving Monster: From Pest to Cosmic Devourer-Chapter 128: Titu

Ricky watched from above, his compound eyes gleaming with faint disinterest. The chaos unfolding below—the screaming soldiers, the crashing formations, the desperate attempts at resistance—meant little to him.

The Federation’s performance was of no concern. Whether they succeeded or fell was irrelevant.

His true focus lay elsewhere.

His gaze swept across the battlefield like a cold, calculating specter. The tide of undead stretched endlessly beneath him, a black sea of death advancing with unrelenting hunger. But Ricky wasn’t looking at the foot soldiers.

His skill—Lifespan Sense—was already activated, humming like a finely-tuned instrument. Glowing threads of residual vitality flickered across his vision, painting a spectral map of the battlefield. Most were dim and brittle, weak echoes of life barely clinging to rotting flesh. But among them...

Ricky’s eyes narrowed.

He weaved his perception deeper, threading through denser clusters of death energy, bypassing the pawns and lesser commanders. Then—he felt it.

An overwhelming aura. Suffocating. Ancient. Powerful.

It coiled in the heart of the undead wave like a serpent made of shadows, waiting... watching... calculating.

Ricky’s mandibles curled upward.

"Found one."

His thoughts were calm, composed. "Now, where are the others hiding?"

One Undead Princess wouldn’t be enough to manage a wave of this scale. That much he knew for certain. There had to be more—lurking, veiled behind spells and shrouded in layers of dark Amma.

He dove deeper into the river of death energy, sifting through the undercurrents with unsettling ease.

---

Meanwhile, on the ground below, things had turned catastrophic for the Federation.

The initial clash had been brutal beyond measure.

Half—yes, half—of their frontline forces were wiped out in mere minutes.

The traps, pits, and defensive formations meant to delay the enemy had barely bought them time. The undead advanced like an endless tide, crashing over their defenses in a relentless, mindless surge.

The battlefield was chaos incarnate—shrieking soldiers, crumbling barriers, and bursts of destructive light exploding across the horizon.

But amidst that despair, a single pillar of resistance held firm.

Titu.

He stood like a bulwark at the frontlines, his spiritual field blazing outward in sweeping arcs, shielding those behind him. His elegant robes were stained with blood and dirt, but his expression never cracked.

He was the eye of the storm.

Every time an elite undead commander tried to break through the defense, a flash of multicolored light would erupt—his spiritual field clashing with their own, causing shockwaves that shook the earth beneath their feet.

He was giving everything he had. Not to win. But to survive. To buy time.

Then—

A strange whine rose from the depths of the undead ranks.

Low at first. A frequency that vibrated in the bones. Then higher. Louder.

It wasn’t a sound meant for ears. It was a call. A summons.

Titu froze.

His instincts screamed at him—this was no ordinary attack.

His head whipped to the right. He didn’t hesitate.

"Get down!" he roared, voice booming with authority.

The soldiers around him dropped like felled trees, trusting in his command.

A heartbeat later, the very air exploded.

The battlefield trembled beneath the weight of death.

The Monster Queen and the Spirit Queen—commanders of their respective races—fought with grit etched into every movement, their spiritual fields pushed to their very limits. They had faced many life-and-death encounters in their time, but never anything like this.

And then, it hit them.

Goosebumps.

A sickly chill crept up their spines, and a primal sense of dread gripped their hearts.

"What... is this feeling?"

Neither of them had the time to question it. Their instincts—honed through countless battles—screamed in unison:

Run. Now.

Even before Titu could voice his desperate warning, the two queens had already moved. Their bodies blurred with speed, leaping back from the frontlines like lightning bolts across the sky.

But they were too late.

A blinding crimson flash tore across the sky, painting the heavens red.

BOOM!

Their heads exploded mid-flight.

Gory mist splattered the battlefield.

Blood. Bone. Shattered hopes.

The shockwave that followed flattened formations and cracked through defensive barriers. All that remained in their place was a churning cloud of red smoke, thick and metallic in scent.

Titu stood frozen. His eyes bulged. His breath caught in his throat.

The last flicker of hope he had harbored—the sliver of belief that they might hold out just long enough—was obliterated before his eyes.

Gone. In an instant.

His mind screamed in horror, but his body was numb.

How was he supposed to fight this?

How could a mere mortal army—hell, even he himself—hope to stand against such power? No plan, no strategy, no reinforcements could change the reality of what stood before him now.

And worst of all...

He wasn’t sure even the Venom Fang Overlord could help.

As the red smoke began to thin, a figure slowly stepped forth.

Each movement carried elegance wrapped in menace, like a predator who had no need to hide its fangs.

She emerged—unhurried, confident—revealing the source of the carnage.

A woman. Stunningly beautiful. Terrifyingly inhuman.

She wore a sleek black one-piece that clung to her flawless skin, exposing legs long and lean, her silhouette curving with seductive grace. Her high heels tapped softly against the blood-soaked earth, echoing with chilling finality.

Crimson eyes glowed beneath long lashes, flicking through the wreckage with a hunter’s awareness.

This was no mere undead.

This was a sovereign.

An Undead Princess.

Her gaze swept over the battlefield with practiced caution, as though she expected resistance.

But when she spotted only Titu—alone, weary, and shaking—her posture eased.

The tension in her limbs vanished.

Her smile turned... playful.

Titu could only stare at her in stunned silence, the ghost of his courage bleeding into the dirt beneath his feet.

Just then, her crimson eyes narrowed.

A faint ripple—barely perceptible, yet unmistakable—brushed against her finely honed senses. Someone was watching.

No... someone was analyzing her.

Her gaze snapped sharply to the east, slicing through the battlefield, through forest and fog, her eyes zeroing in on one particular direction—far, far beyond what the naked eye should see.

And yet, she saw.

Hundreds of kilometers away, Ricky froze.

His mandibles twitched slightly as a chill ran down his spine.

She noticed.

He hadn’t expected it—hadn’t even considered it possible. For the briefest second, his mind blanked. All his usual casual composure, the confident glint in his compound eyes... gone.

He straightened.

The playful smile that so often curled his mandibles vanished. In its place came steely focus.

This was not a foe he could afford to underestimate.

Back at the frontline, the crimson-eyed princess continued to stare in his direction, her eyes glowing faintly. She seemed to reach some kind of conclusion, as if she’d just assessed the true weight behind that distant presence.

Then, without a word, she turned away from the battlefield.

She ignored Titu completely—left him frozen in terror, a statue carved by despair.

In a single, fluid motion, she leapt skyward.

Boom!

The very ground ruptured beneath her takeoff, sending a shockwave outward. The crater she left behind still sizzled with black flames.

The sky trembled as her silhouette vanished into the horizon, streaking through clouds like a blood-tipped spear.

And just like that—Titu lived.

Not because of his skill. Not because of luck.

But because Ricky existed.

And she had deemed him the greater threat.

Titu never knew.

Below, the undead tide pressed forward, an endless sea of rot and bone crashing into the federation lines. Soldiers screamed, blades clashed, and bodies fell. Blood soaked into the land, turning soil into sludge.

But even amidst that chaos, the true war had shifted. A different confrontation had begun.

---

Emerald Green Forest – Spiritual Tree Grove

Serenity whispered through the canopy. freёnovelkiss.com

Sunlight filtered through the ancient leaves, casting a mosaic of soft greens and golden rays across the shaded grove. The spiritual trees hummed quietly, as if breathing in tune with the world.

Underneath one particularly wide, moss-draped tree, Dark Shadow sat beside Alexandria.

Both were transformed, their auras faintly glowing with residual power. Whatever walls once existed between them had been softened—shaped by the fire of shared battle and lingering scars.

Their words were quiet, gentle. At times, laughter trickled between them like a forgotten melody.

But every now and then, Dark Shadow’s gaze wandered—drawn not by curiosity, but something deeper.

A child sat a short distance away.

Still. Serious. Her delicate brows were furrowed in quiet thought, tiny fists resting on her knees. The weight on her face belonged to someone far older than her years.

Each time Dark Shadow’s eyes landed on the child, a strange emotion flickered across her face—uncertainty, grief, and something else she didn’t want to name.

Regret?

She didn’t know.

Just then, a soft but urgent voice rang out, cutting through the air like a pebble dropped into still water.

"Big sister, did you hear what I said?"

Dark Shadow blinked.

Startled—not by the voice itself, but by how deeply she’d been lost in thought.

She turned slowly toward Alexandria, lips parting as if to respond...

But her eyes flicked once more to the child.

And the unease in her chest refused to leave.

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