SSS-Rank Evolving Monster: From Pest to Cosmic Devourer-Chapter 131: That’s it?

Although the Crimson-Eyed Princess was strong—terrifyingly so—under the combined assault of Ricky, Darius, and Felicia, she was clearly struggling to hold her ground.

Blades clashed in rapid succession. freēnovelkiss.com

Felicia’s burning hands tore through the air, Darius’s spiritual field hammered down like a celestial storm, and Ricky’s silver sword shimmered like a divine executioner—each strike laced with lethal intent.

Multicolored light exploded in all directions as the undead princess activated her Domain, a warped, crimson space that distorted the laws of physics. Ripples of blood-red energy pulsated outward, trying to repel the crushing trio that surrounded her.

The very air trembled, whining under the unnatural pressure. It sounded like glass grinding against broken bone, a grating, piercing tone that made even trees shiver.

Despite having the advantage in numbers, Ricky wasn’t pleased.

His mandibles twitched slightly. His expression was grim.

This is not right.

Even surrounded, even forced on the defensive, the Crimson-Eyed Princess hadn’t broken formation. Her defenses held, and worse—she was adapting.

Every few seconds, their weapons collided tens of times, unleashing shockwaves that turned nearby trees to splinters and shook the very roots of the forest. The ground quaked beneath them, and glowing cracks spread like spiderwebs through the terrain.

Ricky’s exoskeleton, hardened to withstand immense force, rattled with each impact. Even with his three spiritual seeds resonating in unison, each clash sent painful vibrations crawling up his spine.

The undead princess’s movements were growing faster. Sharper. Each swing of her blood-colored blade carried more power, more precision.

And with every exchange, she pushed them back—even if only slightly.

That was enough to sound the alarms.

Darius, watching her closely while ducking a sweeping arc of crimson energy, turned toward Ricky. His eyes were narrowed.

"We can’t let this go on," he growled. "If this continues—"

He didn’t finish the sentence.

He didn’t have to.

Everyone understood.

If this dragged on, if they failed to end it quickly, then the true threat would begin.

The undead horde—legions without end—would breach deeper into Emerald Green Kingdom’s territory. And if that happened, the losses would be unimaginable.

They couldn’t allow it.

They had to end this now.

Once the undead managed to break through, stopping them would be near impossible.

Ricky knew this just as well as Darius. He could feel the weight of the battlefield shifting—an invisible line inching ever closer to collapse.

Without wasting another second, he issued a sharp command, voice calm but heavy with urgency.

"Darius, you distract her."

There was no protest. No hesitation.

Darius gave a short nod. Not because he agreed—but because he had no choice. Ricky’s words weren’t a suggestion—they were law.

Even if a part of him burned at the submission, another part accepted it. He was a servant now, bound by contract, and worse—by inferiority.

Yet deep down, resentment was the least of his worries.

His body still hadn’t fully recovered from his previous clash with Akroa. A dull ache gnawed at his bones. His internal organs felt like cracked stone sealed with spiritual thread

But then, there was that technique...

A forbidden art he stumbled upon, a dangerous path—refining blood into essence, purifying it until it reached the required threshold for true transformation.

He hadn’t dared use it again since the last attempt left him half-dead.

But now?

Now there was no choice.

"Fuck it." Darius spat, and his pupils turned blood-red.

Suddenly, crimson lightning erupted from his body, cracking the sky open like a divine punishment descending from the heavens.

Thunder boomed.

Smoke and dust surged outward like a volcanic plume. The battlefield turned murky, obscured by the debris of exploded spiritual energy.

Felicia, sharp as ever, noticed the strange shift. Although she didn’t know what Darius was attempting, her instincts screamed caution. Without hesitation, she jumped back and gave him space.

Then it came.

A low, primal roar rumbled across the battlefield—like sacred bells chiming from the abyss.

A sound that echoed deep within every soul present.

The transformation had begun.

And then... he rose.

A towering figure over a hundred feet tall surged into existence, a giant cloaked in the roaring winds of awakened power. The ground trembled with each step he took. His body, carved from glowing bronze and streaked with veins of crimson lightning, radiated heat like a living forge.

Divine Transformation.

A forgotten bloodline flickering back to life—just enough to awaken the sleeping titan within.

His form was bare, clothes obliterated in the transformation... but fate, in its twisted mercy, allowed a tree to crash down at just the right time, saving what little modesty he had left.

Coincidence or divine humor? No one could say.

But the battlefield had changed.

With Darius in his giant form, the skies themselves seemed to grow tense.

And Ricky, watching from above, narrowed his eyes.

It was time to end this.

To Darius, none of it mattered.

Not the fallen tree, not the eyes watching from afar, not the slight absurdity of standing unclothed in his colossal form.

Right now, he was in the heart of battle. And in war, the only shame was defeat—everything else was noise.

The next moment, the transformed Crown Prince raised his enormous arm, his muscles coiling with the tension of condensed spiritual force. His golden skin glistened under the crimson sky, crackling with the remnants of lightning still dancing across his veins.

He brandished his fist—one that could level fortresses with a swing. Yet what followed wasn’t brute force.

No, this was art.

Before his clenched knuckles, a sequence of formation circles appeared, blooming one after another like glowing lotuses in reverse—shrinking, converging, compressing power into a single point of terrifying density.

From the largest ring to the smallest rune, they collapsed into a glowing, tightly packed sigil no larger than the crimson-eyed Princess’s head.

"Imperial Fist."

The name echoed silently in his mind, and the world responded.

With a sharp burst of energy, his fist shot forward, guided not by raw might but by condensed intent and precision—like a divine arrow fired from the hands of a war god.

It struck true.

The sigil expanded the moment it connected, latching onto the undead princess’s forehead. The impact rippled through the air like a thunderclap.

Her head jerked sideways.

The sheer force momentarily warped her skull, deforming her face just slightly before the blow sent a shockwave reverberating outward. Dust exploded from beneath her feet, and a deep crater split open in the forest floor beneath her heels.

But even so—she did not fall.

Ricky’s compound eyes narrowed.

"This was it?"

He had expected devastation.

After all, he remembered the last time Darius used this form—it had torn apart landscapes, sundered walls, and left trails of destruction in its wake.

But now?

The result felt... underwhelming.

No limbs broken. No blood. No stunned expression on the crimson princess’s face.

Just the barest sign of damage—a scuff. A tilt. A flicker of annoyance in her crimson eyes.

Ricky’s mandibles twitched in irritation.

> She tanked that? No... something’s off.

And he was right. Because this was no ordinary foe. The Crimson-Eyed Princess wasn’t just strong—she was evolving, adapting to their every move.

And the longer they let her stay in the fight, the worse things were going to get.

But Ricky didn’t yet grasp the full significance of what Darius had just unleashed.

The technique—Imperial Fist—was not just any bloodline art. It was a top-tier legacy technique of the Eldros family, forged during the golden age of the giants. It was crafted with a single purpose: to allow colossi like Darius to concentrate their enormous force into precise, lethal strikes, compressing their raw power into an almost surgical blow.

It wasn’t flashy.

It didn’t explode entire mountains in an instant.

But when it landed—it shattered what it touched.

And a moment later, proof of that rang clear through the battlefield.

A dull, wet pop echoed in the air as the side of the Crimson-Eyed Princess’s temple burst open, blood and spiritual residue splashing across her face like crimson ink spilled on porcelain.

One eye dimmed slightly, the fluid in her skull rupturing in unnatural coils.

Yet her expression didn’t change.

No pain. No fury. No shock.

Just that same cold, mechanical intensity—as if flesh and bone meant nothing to her.

A puppet made for war.

Her gaze—flickering with crimson intelligence—drifted from Darius’s giant form and locked onto Ricky behind him.

For the first time, Ricky felt an unmistakable chill crawl down his spine. She wasn’t attacking blindly. She wasn’t flailing.

She was calculating.

"Damn," Ricky muttered under his breath, wings shivering, "She’s smart."

The moment their eyes met, he felt it—a flash of warning, of danger yet to come.

He didn’t hesitate.

His form shimmered and collapsed into the shadows.

In the next breath, Ricky’s figure vanished entirely, his presence merging seamlessly into the growing web of darkness around them.

Shadow Merge.

A movement skill Ricky had refined personally, drawing from both the innate stealth of his mosquito race and the affinity granted by his darkness-aligned spiritual seed. In this state, his spiritual signature was nearly undetectable, his body one with the shadows.

From a distance, only the faint ripple of distorted air marked his position.

You want me? Come find me then.

Meanwhile, the princess stood still, expression blank despite her half-destroyed face. Her gaze flicked left, then right, then up—searching, not with eyes, but with something deeper.

Some ancient sensing method passed down through undead bloodlines.

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