SSS-Rank Evolving Monster: From Pest to Cosmic Devourer-Chapter 152: signature move

He gave a slight nod, more to himself than her. Perhaps her words did make some sense.

Then, glancing at his clawed fingers, tipped in faintly hissing violet light, he spoke again—calm and resolute.

"Leave. I need time alone to adjust to my new state."

The Guardian Spirit offered no resistance. She bowed once more and vanished into thin air like a breath exhaled into a cold wind—fading until nothing remained.

Now alone, Ricky stood in the dim silence of the chamber.

At last, he could examine himself.

His old monstrous frame—the insectoid limbs, the bloated thorax, the gleaming carapace—was gone. What now stood in its place was something wholly new.

A bipedal being. A dark, humanoid figure wrapped in armor that looked as though it had been forged at the boundary between dreams and nightmares. He resembled something pulled from a high-tier villain’s concept sketch in a dark sci-fi fantasy—a vision of sleek power and elegant brutality.

He easily stood over two meters tall now, with a silhouette both regal and predatory. Each motion he made felt effortless, calculated. The segmented plates along his limbs shifted with a grace that suggested inhuman control, while his wings hummed faintly in the background, arching like silent judges.

But the finer details didn’t matter now.

No—what truly gnawed at him, far deeper than appearance, was one simple, unsettling question:

Where was his proboscis?

He reached up to his face with a clawed hand, fingers brushing the sleek helm. Nothing. No protrusion. No trace. It was gone.

Without it... was he even a mosquito anymore?

Thousands of questions spiraled through his mind like a swarm—questions that no one, not even the Guardian Spirit, could answer.

He needed clarity.

He needed the truth.

And only one thing could provide it now.

Without hesitation, he turned inward, mentally commanding the interface he hadn’t accessed since emerging from the cocoon.

It was time to check the pending system prompts.

Now that Ricky focused on them, he realized the corner of his vision was flooded—almost overwhelmed—by an endless cascade of translucent blue windows.

They floated silently in the air, stacking and shifting like waves made of light. Notifications, system updates, post-evolution logs... The sheer volume was dizzying.

But Ricky ignored most of them.

With practiced ease, he dismissed the irrelevant noise, narrowing his focus to the ones that truly mattered.

[Evolution successfully completed.]

Click here to open the updated Status Window.

Ricky’s eyes lingered on that message, but he didn’t rush to open it. Not yet. Instead, he turned his attention to the next prompt—one that radiated a deeper, more ominous glow.

[Due to the Blessing of the Primordial Mosquito and the devouring of the True Dark Poison—originating from the final remnants of the Eternal Race—the Host’s bloodline has successfully transformed.]

Please open the Status Window for full bloodline analysis.

He frowned behind his mask. The message stirred more questions than it answered.

Primordial Mosquito? True Dark Poison? The Eternal Race?

Each phrase carried weight—mystery and menace packed into every word. His mind buzzed with curiosity, but he pressed on, eyes scanning the remaining notifications.

[All existing skills below Grade C have been reclassified as Core Skills.]

These skills will now evolve automatically with each successful evolution, requiring no additional resources or intervention.

A flicker of surprise passed through him.

That was... monumental.

Skills that evolved on their own, adapting and growing with him—without cost. That alone would place him above most other cultivators and monsters. But the system wasn’t finished yet.

[Notice: The proboscis has not been lost.]

[It has evolved into a retractable external weapon, residing in the Host’s Domain of Darkness formed by the True Dark Poison. The weapon can manifest and strike targets at will, bypassing physical defenses when triggered].

Ricky blinked, then let out a low mental hum of approval.

So it wasn’t gone—it had simply changed. Hidden now, like a viper in the grass, waiting for a moment to strike. It made sense. A monster like him didn’t need to wear his weapons openly anymore. He was the weapon.

And then, the final message among the core prompts pulsed into view:

[Sufficient data has been collected.]

[A unique Signature Skill can now be crafted for the Host].

[Click here to begin custom synthesis].

A rare ripple of emotion passed through him.

A Signature Skill.

That was something unique—personal. Something that wouldn’t just evolve with him, but belong to him. Crafted from everything he had become, from everything he had consumed, learned, and endured.

Each prompt he read chipped away at the uncertainty that had clung to his mind after the transformation.

Whatever he had become, it wasn’t simply a monster in a new skin.

He was something else entirely now.

And the world—no, the system itself—was preparing for it.

He closed his eyes for a moment, letting the whispers of data fade into the background. Then, with a mental command, he opened the status window.

It was time to see the truth for himself.

[Abyss Piercer]

Type: Signature Move

Cost: True Darkness Poison + Lifespan

Description: Launch the proboscis drenched in condensed True Darkness Poison, compressed into a singularity-like point wrapped in destruction and death. Strikes with blinding speed, bypassing most spiritual defenses to directly target the enemy’s spiritual core.

Warning: Overuse may accelerate the spread of the True Darkness Poison. Abuse may result in total annihilation.

The moment Ricky read the last line, he involuntarily swallowed hard.

Total annihilation?

The phrase lingered in his mind like a shadow hanging over a blade. Still, despite the dire warning, there was no denying it—this skill was powerful. Lethal, even. A perfect expression of what he had become: swift, silent, and merciless.

He let out a low exhale, letting the weight of the information settle.

A weapon born of darkness and death.

After that, he skimmed through the rest of the remaining system prompts. Most of them were redundant logs—calculations, confirmations, restructured values—but one window stood out like a candle in the dark:

[New Trait Acquired: Passive Lifespan Absorption]

[Direct physical contact no longer required. Host can now drain the lifespan of targets through indirect means, including spiritual proximity and domain suppression.]

Ricky’s eyebrows twitched behind the helm.

That was... interesting.

No contact needed anymore? That changed everything.

It gave him an edge, not just in battle but in survival. A subtle, passive edge that could wear enemies down without them even realizing it—until it was too late.

With that, he finally turned his attention to what he’d been putting off.

The Status Window.

With a mental command, it unfurled before him, bright and silent.

[Status Window]

Name: Ricky Stormwind

Bloodline: Death Emissary Mosquito

Lifespan: 5,000,000 Years

Evolution Progress: 12%

Signature Moves: [Abyss Piercer (AAA-rank)]

Passive Traits: [Lifespan Absorption], [Retractable Proboscis], [Dark Poison Domain]

Spiritual Field Length: [Data Obscured]

System Intelligence: [Online]

(Detailed skill descriptions temporarily unavailable during bloodline synchronization phase.)

Ricky stared at the window in silence.

His gaze lingered at the bottom, where most of the skills he’d cultivated with sweat, pain, and near-death battles were now... missing.

Replaced.

Rewritten.

Erased.

The system had streamlined everything—boiling down his arsenal to one dominant Signature Move and a handful of passive traits. It made sense, from a power-scaling perspective. But emotionally?

It stung.

He wasn’t just some blank slate that had awakened into a new form—he had a history. A path paved with sacrifice, scars, and the people (and beasts) he had crossed along the way.

Iron Frame...

That one especially. A crude skill he had learned from the boar. It had saved him more times than he could count—its firm, rugged defense had been like a loyal shield.

Gone.

And not just that—Blood Infusion, Vein Echo, Piercing Wing Slash, and so many others. All stripped away. Collapsed into nameless core structures, absorbed by the evolution.

He clenched his clawed fingers slowly, the hiss of violet light trailing from his tips.

Disappointment settled over him—not the explosive kind, but a quiet ache. The loss of familiar weight. The loss of history.

But he said nothing.

He simply stood there, surrounded by flickering remnants of blue light, and inhaled deeply through a body that no longer breathed.

Complaining wouldn’t change anything.

Dwelling wouldn’t bring those skills back.

So he let the frustration drift away like dust from a shattered cocoon.

What mattered now was what he could become.

Not what he used to be.

While the evolution had stripped something precious from him—memories etched in the shape of lost skills—it had also bestowed gifts of undeniable power.

Ricky stood quietly, letting the silence of the chamber settle around him like dust after a storm.

He now had a humanoid body.

And though that fact should have filled him with triumph, Ricky felt... conflicted.

He’d spent so long as a monster—crawling, slithering, adapting—that he had started to take pride in it. There had been freedom in that form. A raw, untamed identity. To stand upright on two legs now felt unnatural, almost disorienting. As if he were borrowing a shape that wasn’t quite his.

Still, after taking a few hesitant steps, the strange awkwardness began to fade.

The sensation of heel and toe, of upright balance and deliberate stride—alien at first—soon became manageable. Each movement was accompanied by the whisper of armored plates shifting over muscle, seamless and silent.

He was adjusting.

Quickly.

But among all the changes, one stood above the rest.

The ability to extract lifespan without physical contact.