SSS-Rank Evolving Monster: From Pest to Cosmic Devourer-Chapter 134: This must be it

Valemont’s mind often wandered in strange and unfathomable directions, and today was no exception.

He sat hunched over his alchemical desk, fingers twitching, eyes glinting with a fervent light as if grasping the edge of some cosmic revelation.

After gathering all the clues, and watching Ricky all this time he had come to understand something which normal people might have trouble understanding.

A theory had taken shape—a ridiculous, awe-inspiring, heartfelt theory.

Valemont was the only person who could have thought of something so absurd.

To him, Ricky wasn’t just some powerful overlord. No... he was an ancient guardian, a being who had willingly consumed the venomous dark poison in order to save the world from catastrophe. A selfless act, one so noble and extreme that only a mythic figure from legend would dare undertake it.

Yeah this was not simply a theory, it was the truth, he muttered under his breath.

Valemont’s pupils trembled as he recalled the sheer lethality of that poison. He had witnessed its potency firsthand—how it warped, how it devastated, how no living thing should have survived even a drop.

And yet... Ricky had not only survived it, he had embraced it.

That could only mean one thing.

In Valemont’s alchemically warped mind, Ricky must have once been a god-tier alchemist. One so mighty and unparalleled that he had stood at the pinnacle of the path, perhaps even challenging heaven itself.

But now, bound by the poison’s curse, he had fallen from grace. A once-legendary figure—now rendered powerless to concoct even the cure to his own affliction.

It made too much sense.

Too much.

"There’s only one explanation..." Valemont whispered, his voice trembling with fervor as his body leaned forward, nearly knocking over a tray of powdered herbs. "The poison didn’t just weaken him—it stole his ability to refine. It shackled his gifts. That’s why he hasn’t cured himself yet."

Now everything made perfect sense the admiration that Valemont for Ricky suddenly surged manyfolds.

Then, as if the heavens had granted him enlightenment, his eyes gleamed with newfound clarity.

"I understand everything now!"

His voice boomed across the chamber, startling Rosary, who nearly dropped the pill bottle in her hand.

Tears welled up in the corners of his eyes. The truth—his truth—was almost too beautiful to bear.

The great master, burdened with eternal suffering, still walked among the weak to guide them with patience and care.

He must have seen something in me what’s why he was willing to accept me as a disciple.

"I must work harder," Valemont swore with shaking hands, placing a fist over his heart. "As his disciple... his filial disciple, I cannot let Master carry this weight alone!"

He was determined, to do everything that he possibly could.

Across the room, Rosary observed this escalating monologue with a complex expression. Her brows twitched. The look in her eyes spoke of restrained confusion, and a deep, tired curiosity at the strange man she was now forced to collaborate with.

She watched as Valemont’s face shifted rapidly—from manic joy to somber dignity to emotional breakdown, all within the span of two minutes.

At last, she sighed and muttered under her breath.

"...Is this guy even right in the head?"

Her voice was barely audible, but her tone carried the heavy weight of genuine concern.

If Valemont could have heard her, he probably would’ve just waved it off.

Feelings? Sanity? Human interaction?

None of that mattered.

Not when alchemical pills were involved.

In his world, only one thing truly burned eternal: the furnace of creation, and the desire to reach a perfection no one else could see.

Completely opposite to Valemont, whose thoughts wandered into wild fantasies of poisoned legends and divine discipleship, Rosary’s focus remained grounded—cold and unwavering.

Her mind was fixed on the battlefield.

She could almost hear it... the clash of blades, the screams of men, the roar of flame as it devoured ancient trees. Every breath she took felt heavy, as if each second brought them closer to some inevitable collapse.

...

"Felicia, watch out!"

Darius’s voice boomed like thunder, sharp and urgent, cutting through the chaos.

His hands crushed the skull of yet another undead soldier with a clean punch, his spiritual field radiating raw power. He stood bloodied but unbowed, a wall between death and the Emerald Green Forest.

Some distance away, Felicia had just sliced through a trio of undead when she heard the warning. She turned her head—

—and froze.

Her eyes widened.

An abomination, twisted and skeletal with glowing blue veins, had slipped past the frontline. She had no idea when or how it had gotten behind her.

Too fast.

Too quiet.

Too deadly.

She braced herself, but in her heart, she cursed. The numbers were simply overwhelming. No matter how strong one was, even a goddess could bleed when facing an endless tide.

Ricky watched it all from above—unmoving, his compound eyes glinting with cold light as they scanned the battlefield.

He didn’t interfere.

Not out of apathy, but caution. His presence at the forefront served a greater purpose. A single distraction, one lapse in attention, and the other undead princesses hidden among the tide would seize their moment.

He couldn’t allow that.

This wasn’t arrogance. It was calculation. The battlefield hadn’t spiraled out of control—yet.

But just as that thought passed through his mind, a chill ran down his spine.

A ripple in space.

A disturbance like a blade drawn across reality itself.

"What is that..." Ricky muttered, eyes narrowing as his senses sharpened to the extreme.

Right before his compound eyes, the air warped and tore apart, splitting open like the jagged maw of a prehistoric beast, teeth bared and jaws wide in a soundless scream.

Darkness beyond darkness spilled forth—inky and vast, swallowing all light in its path.

Then—

WOOOOOOM!

A sound—not quite a scream, not quite a roar—echoed across the sky. It didn’t strike his ears. It struck his soul.

A bone-deep chill washed over him, and for a brief moment, Ricky felt... vulnerable. As though something had peeled back the veil of the world and stared directly into his essence.

Below him, the air convulsed. Winds twisted violently, trees bent in protest, and even the undead halted mid-step—as if the very laws of the world paused to witness the arrival.

The space pulsed again... then tore wider.

The battlefield would never be the same again.

However, the sensation vanished as quickly as it had come—like a phantom wind slipping through cracks in an ancient tomb.

But the damage was already done.

Even Ricky, whose spiritual foundation was anchored by three spiritual spaces and reinforced through countless battles, found himself momentarily stunned. His eyes widened imperceptibly, spiritual field faltering for a heartbeat—a brief silence in a storm of perpetual chaos.

If someone like him could be shaken...

Then others didn’t stand a chance.

Darius recovered relatively quickly, though even he looked shaken—his massive frame twitching slightly as his spiritual field stuttered back into rhythm. He blinked rapidly, sweat beading across his brow, and clenched his fists to dispel the remnants of disorientation.

Felicia, however, remained motionless—her eyes glazed, lips parted slightly as if lost in a waking dream.

Her breathing slowed.

Her shoulders relaxed.

Like a puppet with its strings momentarily cut, she stood still—vulnerable.

It took a full second, maybe more, for her pupils to contract back to focus, for the fog in her gaze to lift. She sucked in a sharp breath as awareness returned.

It wasn’t weakness. No one could call Felicia weak.

But this attack—whatever it was—targeted her.

Deliberately. Surgically.

And it had succeeded.

In that short, fractured moment of vulnerability, the dam cracked.

The undead, sensing the lapse in resistance like starving wolves sniffing out spilled blood, surged forward.

Their howls merged into one guttural roar of hunger and madness as they poured through the newly formed gap like a flood crashing over a weakened levee.

A moment ago, the horde had been held at bay—kept outside the fragile boundary between life and death.

Now, that line was blurred.

Like ants breaking through a wall, they swarmed—rushing into the sacred domain of the forest.

Felicia’s eyes followed the chaos below, the guilt already tightening like a noose around her chest.

Her voice came out quiet, remorseful.

"...This is bad."

She didn’t need to say more. The guilt in her tone said it all.

She hadn’t meant for this to happen. She hadn’t faltered intentionally. But intent mattered little in war. Results did.

Ricky remained aloft, his compound eyes cold, unblinking.

He watched the undead pour into his territory with a predator’s gaze—measuring, calculating.

Then he sighed softly, a dry exhalation through twitching mandibles that curled ever so slightly upward.

"Fine..." he murmured to himself, voice low and dangerous.

"You got me this time."

His spiritual field quivered with suppressed energy. His wings twitched like drawn bowstrings. A shadow passed over his features—not fear, not anger, but a kind of grim amusement.

"...But don’t think you’re the only one with surprises."

Updat𝒆d fr𝒐m freew𝒆bnov𝒆l.c(o)m