SSS-Rank Evolving Monster: From Pest to Cosmic Devourer-Chapter 79: Aliens

The warriors who had survived the carnage stood frozen, their breath shallow, limbs stiff. All color had drained from their faces.

Their eyes locked onto the silhouette of what they once mockingly called a pest—a lowly mosquito, a creature they’d never taken seriously. But now... that silhouette exuded a power so dense and suffocating that it seemed to distort the very air.

A heavy pressure radiated from Ricky’s frame, not from any spell or overt aura, but from sheer presence alone. Their lungs tightened. Their pores shrank. Their hearts pounded with frantic force, as if attempting to flee from their chests.

It was like standing before something far beyond them—a being from a higher realm, an existence they could neither comprehend nor confront.

Their bodies tensed instinctively, like prey beneath the gaze of a predator whose interest had turned lethal.

"Dark Shadow..."

Ricky’s voice cracked, raw and hoarse, as though he hadn’t spoken in centuries.

The name slipped from his mouth like a dying whisper.

Before him hung the shattered figure of the once gentle and innocent gardener—a spider who had spent her days tending to spiritual herbs and humming forgotten songs. That same Dark Shadow now dangled like refuse, her broken form robbed of all dignity.

Several of her eyes had been crushed, gouged out with cruel precision. Her body hung limp, lifeless, mangled beyond recognition. And beside her...

Alexandria.

If Dark Shadow’s condition was harrowing, Alexandria’s was nightmarish.

The proud feline’s radiant snow-white coat had been skinned off, leaving only bloodied muscle and ragged flesh beneath. Her once-glorious claws—those sharp extensions of pride and strength—had been forcefully torn out, leaving behind cracked, ruined hollow space.

A burning tide of fury rose in Ricky’s chest. Not rage for himself—but for them.

For what they had suffered.

They had endured all of this... simply because they were his companions.

No reason beyond that.

That fact alone ignited something cold and monstrous inside him.

The people who had done this weren’t warriors. They weren’t even human.

They were aliens not even monsters draped in the garb of righteousness.

"Oh, silly Dark Shadow..." Ricky murmured, inching closer.

He raised one of his segmented legs and hesitated—then gently extended it, brushing against the broken carapace of his friend.

An overwhelming wave of regret washed over him.

Why hadn’t he learned a healing ability?

He’d chased power, refined his control, honed his instincts—and in all that pursuit, he had never once thought to learn how to heal.

How useless he felt now. He could kill with ease, command shadows and poison alike—but when it came to easing her pain, he was helpless.

Tremble...

Just then, her body shifted—barely perceptible, a faint twitch against the weight of death.

She had felt his touch.

"Everything is going to be okay, my friend..." Ricky whispered, a promise carved in blood and fire.

But deep inside, a single thought took root and wrapped around his soul like a thorned vine:

I let her stay here.

I let her suffer in this place that treated her with such disdain, such cruelty.

This city... this organization... this entire society. They had all watched. Stood by. Some had even laughed.

Not one hand had reached out to stop the torment.

And so—he reached a conclusion.

These were not people.

They may walk upright and speak with reason, but if they lacked even the most basic empathy for a suffering life, then they were no different than beasts.

No—worse than beasts.

Killing was one thing. He understood killing. He had done it. He had bathed in it.

But this cruelty... this senseless, humiliating torture...

It was barbaric.

Alien.

The warriors that surrounded him now—they weren’t human. They were monsters in the truest sense of the word.

Although he had never considered himself a hero—some might even call him a villain—Ricky didn’t care.

Morality was a line he had long since blurred.

"Go..." he said softly.

With that single thought, his will surged outward.

He envisioned sending both Dark Shadow and Alexandria to the inheritance ground—and at once, the void stirred.

An unseen force emerged, ancient and inviolable, responding to the command like a loyal servant. Darkness coiled around the battered bodies of his companions, enfolding them in a gentle embrace, as though the world itself sought to carry them away.

A familiar voice echoed in his mind.

"Don’t worry about them, Master. Just leave them to me..."

It was the Guardian Spirit.

But this time, her voice lacked its usual playfulness or mischief. It was solemn—reverent.

As if even she understood the depth of what these two meant to him.

And then—they were gone.

The hanging corpses vanished without a trace, dissolved into the ether under the protective veil of the inheritance ground.

Outside, a ripple of silence passed over the square.

Vice Leader Marcus, ever composed, didn’t react at first.

But when his gaze swept over the empty iron rod where his trophies had been displayed—

His eyes narrowed.

His smile twitched.

His posture stiffened.

"...How?"

The word escaped him before he realized it.

For the first time in this entire confrontation—Marcus lost his composure.

He had no idea how it had happened. There was no spatial ripple. No activation of any known skill. The two had simply... vanished.

Gone.

Although the momentary surprise flashed across his face, it faded quickly.

He didn’t truly care about the spider or the cat. They were nothing more than broken tokens to provoke the mosquito.

And now—his real trophy stood before him, shrouded in rage and darkness.

The true prize.

But unlike Marcus, Elina and Seraphina couldn’t mask their shock.

Their eyes widened—round and trembling—as they stared at the empty space where the ruined spider had once hung.

"...Where did they go?" Seraphina whispered, more to herself than anyone else.

Elina’s throat tightened.

A strange, unspoken fear slithered into their hearts.

Unknown to them, while they stood frozen in shock and disbelief, something far more insidious had already begun.

Ricky, silent and unmoving, had quietly unleashed a storm.

Hundreds of thousands—perhaps even millions—of microscopic sleeper cells spilled into the air from his body like a ghostly mist. Each one was thinner than a strand of hair, so small they were invisible to the naked eye, yet lethal beyond measure.

They drifted silently on the breeze, slipping between armor gaps, sliding through masks, infiltrating skin pores. They carried no sound, no scent, no warning.

And yet, they were everywhere.

Within minutes, half the population of the city had unknowingly become hosts—walking time bombs infected with Ricky’s wrath.

The cells, created through a dark blend of evolution and vengeance, replicated at a terrifying pace. They spread faster with every heartbeat, each exhalation infecting ten more. This was not a plague.

This was justice.

Most of the warriors in the city were merely Stage 1. They lacked the strength to manifest spiritual fields strong enough to defend their internal organs, their bloodstreams, their very souls.

And then, finally—

Marcus felt it.

His danger sense screamed—no, howled—in the depths of his being. Cold sweat dripped down his spine as a visceral instinct clawed its way to the surface.

His pupils contracted as the entire city seemed to shift under his gaze.

It looked... unstable. As if he were standing atop a vast ticking bomb, its fuse already lit.

He had underestimated the pest. Completely.

"What... what did you do!?" Marcus snarled, his voice laced with panic, fury, and disbelief.

But Ricky didn’t respond right away.

His compound eyes shimmered with cold detachment, his segmented body eerily still. His mind was fully engaged, locked in a storm of data streaming from the sleeper cells. Each one a silent spy, a microscopic sentinel reporting back their findings.

And then—

He found them.

The ones responsible.

All the warriors who carried traces of Dark Shadow’s scent, remnants of the torment they had inflicted upon her. Ricky cataloged every single one with cold precision.

Then, without an ounce of hesitation, he gave the command.

Let them run wild.

The cells inside the guilty flared to life.

Unseen but undeniable.

Turning back to Marcus, Ricky spoke—his voice devoid of emotion, stripped of warmth, forged in vengeance.

"Something that should have been done long ago."

It was then the screams began.

A familiar voice, sharp and panicked, cut through the growing tension like a dagger.

"M-My skin! What... what is happening to my skin!?"

Elina’s terrified wail rang out, drawing every gaze.

Fiery red pimples had erupted across her once flawless skin—boils swelling at unnatural speed, mutating, glowing with heat and pressure.

Her spiritual energy surged wildly in panic, but it was already too late.

Her body swelled grotesquely, skin stretching like an overfilled water balloon.

Boom!

With a horrific pop, Elina exploded.

Chunks of flesh and bone rained down across the stone platform, coating nearby warriors in a splatter of gore and despair.

A moment of stunned silence followed—shocked gasps, widened eyes.

Then came Marcus’s scream.

"Nooooo! Elina! My precious daughter!!"

In a flash, he teleported to the spot where she had just stood, now reduced to blood-soaked stone and charred fragments. His knees buckled. His expression crumpled into raw grief—eyes bloodshot, mouth twisted in a broken sob.

He had never looked more vulnerable. Never sounded more human.

But Ricky no longer cared.

The city would fall. Every single one of them would pay.

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