SSS-Rank Evolving Monster: From Pest to Cosmic Devourer-Chapter 168: Unable to accept

What a sight.

High above the wooden castle, the heavens split open in a storm of crimson light.

King Eldros stood suspended in the air, his body wreathed in crackling arcs of lightning that painted the sky like blood. His presence was absolute, the kind that made the earth itself seem to shrink beneath his gaze. His eyes, cold and indifferent, swept across the ground where more than a dozen Stage 3 beings stood rooted to the spot.

Such a force—so many powerhouses gathered in one place—was enough to tilt the balance of any region, to dominate entire kingdoms.

Yet until this very moment, Eldros had known nothing about their existence.

His gaze lingered, the stormlight reflecting in his eyes. Slowly, a frown creased his face, sharp and cutting, but just as quickly it faded. Calm replaced doubt. His will settled like stone.

In the end, the reason did not matter.

What mattered was simple: this force, this gathering of strength, would be the stepping stone he required. Through them, his breakthrough was inevitable. There was no need to waste thought on anything else.

A faint smile tugged at his lips as he spoke, his voice rumbling like distant thunder.

"Hmm. Let’s first see how my son is doing."

And then—he vanished.

The sky rippled, and only a lone spark of crimson lightning remained where he had stood.

...

Darius sat cross-legged in silence, his breath steady, his mind clear. Yet in the next instant, his body stiffened.

Something had appeared above him.

No sound. No warning. Just an overwhelming presence that pressed against his very soul.

His lips parted, and before he realized it, the word tumbled out, trembling.

"Father!"

The shake in his voice betrayed him. Not just his voice—his entire body quivered, unable to resist the weight of that aura.

"Uncle!"

Kael’s voice followed, sharp with terror, his face drained of color as his eyes locked on the figure now standing before them.

The crimson storm parted, and King Elros turned his head. His gaze, vast and suffocating, fell upon Kael. When he finally spoke, his voice was low, but it carried the weight of judgment, like a hammer striking against Kael’s chest.

"Little Kael... even you too? Why did you betray your uncle?"

The words weren’t loud, yet the tone cut deeper than any blade. There was no anger—only disappointment, and that made it far worse.

Kael’s heart lurched. His expression twisted as though he had swallowed something foul, his jaw tightening until his teeth creaked. He wanted to scream that it wasn’t his choice, that he had never wanted this. But under that gaze, his voice caught in his throat.

Naturally, Kael had never wished to betray King Eldros. Yet what choice did he truly have?

After taking a long look at his son and nephew, King Eldros’s gaze drifted across the gathered crowd. His eyes brushed over the Insect Queen, then Gorath, before lingering faintly on Dark Shadow and Alexandria.

The moment his senses locked onto them, something shifted. He froze, as though struck by an invisible spark, and his calm mask twisted into something raw and unrestrained. The ancient, oppressive weight of his bloodline clashed with the aura of the two, and his expression warped in a way that betrayed hunger more than majesty.

Dark Shadow instinctively recoiled, taking a sharp step back. Disgust flickered across her cold features as if the king’s stare was something foul and rotten. Beside her, Alexandria’s face flushed crimson, not in shame but in unbridled fury.

King Eldros, however, didn’t falter. He drank in their reactions with the serenity of a predator watching prey. His lips curled into something far too playful for the situation.

"How cute..." he murmured, his tongue dragging across his lips in anticipation.

The air seemed to tear apart as he moved. One instant he was standing high above, the next he was a hair’s breadth away from Dark Shadow. His hand, pale and veined with faint arcs of crimson lightning, stretched forward with agonizing slowness toward her throat. The greedy fire in his eyes burned brighter, almost feverish.

"Yeah," he whispered, his voice thick with obsession. "This is it."

For a fleeting moment, King Eldros could already envision it—his hands crushing their throats, his bloodline ascending, his body surging past the barrier that had chained him for years.

Darius’s eyes bulged, disbelief etched across his face as he stared at his father. "Damn it!" His chest tightened, a pressure far heavier than the king’s aura choking him.

Before he could even move, Alexandria acted. Though weaker than her companions, though her power paled before Elros’s overwhelming might, she still threw herself forward without hesitation. Her entire body trembled, not with fear, but with wrath. Her eyes blazed like twin furnaces, spitting fire at the king.

"How dare you!"

Her roar cracked the suffocating silence, a defiance so reckless it bordered on madness.

Dark Shadow’s lips parted in alarm, the words to stop her barely forming—but it was already far too late.

From the edge of the battlefield, Noctyss’s gaze sharpened. She stood utterly still, but her heart pounded a rhythm too fast, too heavy. Her pupils contracted, reflecting the bloody light of the crimson sky as her mind raced.

She, more than anyone else present, understood the chasm between power. Once, she had stood proudly as a Stage Four being, looking down upon countless others. She knew better than most what it meant to face someone at the peak of Stage Three.

The gap was merciless, a canyon no desperate courage could cross. Even if dozens of beings like Alexandria, Darius, and the others combined, their strength would not even graze Elros’s peak. He was untouchable.

And yet... 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

Noctyss’s lips curved ever so slightly, her fingers tightening against her palm as her sharp eyes glimmered with thought.

An opportunity.

That was what this chaos represented. A fleeting crack in the wall, a chance to slip a knife into fate itself.

Bang!

Thunder rolled across the heavens, a deafening roar that made the earth tremble. Scarlet arcs of lightning split the sky, bathing the wooden castle in a blood-red glow.

King Eldros’s outstretched hand continued to inch forward, his fingers crooked like talons as they reached for Dark Shadow’s throat. The air around him sizzled with crimson sparks, the oppressive weight of his presence suffocating everyone present.

Then—

"Are you tired of living?"

The words cut through the storm like a blade of ice. Cold, sharp, and merciless.

For the briefest of moments, King Eldros’s hand halted mid-air. His gaze flickered, pupils narrowing, but the hunger in his eyes quickly flared again. With grim determination, he pushed on, as if no voice under the heavens could shake him.

Yet in the instant his fingers were about to close around Dark Shadow’s neck—she vanished.

Not a blur of speed. Not a technique of concealment. She was simply gone.

"How?!"

King Eldros’s eyes widened, disbelief flashing across his face. His aura crackled violently, crimson lightning snapping out in every direction, scarring the ground and searing the air. He couldn’t comprehend it—one heartbeat she was there, the next, she had ceased to exist.

And then, it happened again.

One after another, the Stage 3 beings began to disappear. Gorath, the Insect Queen, Alexandria—each of them swallowed by the unseen force. Not a sound, not a ripple, only silence where they had stood a breath before.

The castle courtyard, once overflowing with monstrous auras, became hollow and empty in mere seconds.

Even the prisoners scattered across the Emerald Green Kingdom, shackled and broken, vanished in the same eerie fashion. They had all been pulled away, transported into a realm beyond King Eldros’s reach.

The king’s crimson lightning flared violently, tearing fissures into the sky. His expression contorted, caught between rage and bewilderment, unable to comprehend the sudden emptiness before him.

...

Inside the Saint Library, Ricky sat cross-legged, his face illuminated by the faint glow of floating runes. A shiver crawled up his spine the instant he sensed the overwhelming aura above the wooden castle.

King Eldros.

Never—not even in his darkest fears—had Ricky expected the king to wield such terrifying strength.

The pressure alone was enough to make his spiritual body tremble, its fragile threads quivering as if they might unravel at any moment. One wrong move, one reckless clash, and his very existence would collapse into nothingness.

And collapse meant death.

There was no option of direct confrontation. Not against this man.

The choice was immediate, instinctive. He gathered his will and pulled the trigger hidden within the inheritance space.

And so the scene unfolded—the Stage 3 beings vanishing in silence, the kingdom’s prisoners swept into safety—while above, King Eldros stood alone in a storm of crimson lightning, fury burning in his eyes.

"Who is it?"

King Eldros rage filled howl reverberated in the surrounding.

His fury at

this time was boundless, he was Just one step away from success when someone took it away from him.

King Eldros couldn’t accept it.