SSS-Rank Evolving Monster: From Pest to Cosmic Devourer-Chapter 92: Mistaken as an alchemist

"Stop acting all mysterious and explain properly..." Ricky commanded, his voice sharp and laced with impatience.

At his words, Noctyss offered a tight, reluctant smile—one that barely reached her eyes.

"Okay, okay, I’ll explain," she said, raising her hands slightly in mock surrender. Then her tone shifted, her gaze darting around the ancient ruins with barely concealed unease. "But we can’t stay here any longer..."

Her voice dropped into a hush, as though even speaking too loudly might invite something lurking in the shadows.

A subtle tension clung to the air like mist.

"I also don’t feel comfortable..." Boar grunted, his tone unusually subdued. His powerful frame twitched as he glanced over his shoulder, instincts flaring. "It’s like... I’m being watched. Constantly. By something that shouldn’t be alive."

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t shake the gnawing sensation. It was like invisible eyes were embedded in the very stones around them, tracking their every move with ancient hunger.

Ricky’s compound eyes narrowed. He could feel it too—that faint, hair-raising pressure pressing against his spiritual senses like a whisper brushing against his ear.

Something was very, very wrong.

Without another word, he stretched out his spiritual field, locked onto the familiar essence of the Emerald Green Forest, and launched into the air with a powerful beat of his wings.

Noctyss and Boar followed immediately, both relieved to put distance between themselves and whatever hidden terror lingered behind.

As they flew in formation through the grey-tinted skies, Noctyss finally broke the silence.

"Legend has it that long ago, before the Eldros Kingdom was even founded, this entire region was overrun by undead creatures—ghastly things that feasted on the flesh of the living without rest or reason..." she began, her voice low and grim.

She spoke not like a storyteller, but like a scholar recounting something half-remembered from forbidden tomes.

"To deal with this ever-growing menace, a group of Stage 4 Magus Sovereigns banded together. They were powerful—heroes in their own right—but even they underestimated the horror they faced."

Ricky glanced back, intrigued.

"After a drawn-out war soaked in blood and soulfire, they realized the undead army couldn’t be eradicated. It was endless. Unnatural. Every soldier that fell simply rose again. So instead of trying to wipe them out... they sealed the remaining horde inside a forbidden zone, deep beneath the land."

She paused, her eyes darkening.

"And from time to time... that seal weakens."

A heavy silence followed her words, thick with unspoken implications.

"When it does," she continued, "the world plunges into darkness. The sky dims, the soil rots, and the dead begin to whisper again. Those times are known in records as the Black Epochs—ages where kingdoms collapsed and entire bloodlines vanished."

Boar shuddered, clearly unnerved despite his bulk.

"Have... you ever seen them?" he asked, his voice unusually soft.

Noctyss shook her head slowly, the silver strands of her hair dancing in the wind.

"Never. Not with my own eyes. All of this... it’s what I’ve read in ancient archives and soul-bound records. But even I—who’ve lived for thousands of years—have never encountered the undead army. Not truly."

Ricky remained silent, but his thoughts churned like a restless tide.

Something had shifted today. He didn’t know if it was the presence of the sealed undead, the Abyssal Corruption still coiling like a serpent inside him, or something else entirely...

But one thing was certain—the past wasn’t as dead as it should be.

And the seal that had held it in place for millennia might not last much longer.

---

"Undead army... and a group of Stage 4 Magus Sovereigns..."

Ricky’s expression darkened as he processed the information. This wasn’t just a worsening situation—it was a storm on the horizon.

His wings buzzed lightly as he hovered in silence, thoughts racing.

Their journey back to the Thousand Emerald Green Forest had been short, but not uneventful.

Even along the outer fringes, they encountered stray undead, shambling and restless, their hollow eyes glowing faintly with necrotic fire.

Of course, none posed a threat.

The group dispatched them effortlessly—mere echoes of a greater tide.

Undead only became catastrophic when they moved in hordes. Alone, they were just fuel for Ricky’s spiritual growth.

Finally, as they neared the forest’s core, a wave of familiar mana washed over Ricky.

A grin tugged at his lips.

"We’re back..." he murmured with a rare note of warmth.

He could feel it—the heartbeat of the land. The mana-rich forest had already begun to recover, its resilience terrifying. The broken trees had sprouted fresh growth, and wounded beasts now patrolled their territories once more with watchful caution.

It was as if the catastrophe had only been a temporary scar on an otherwise eternal body.

But Ricky’s eyes narrowed.

In the flow of mana, there was a ripple. Faint... but violently discordant.

"Huh? That aura... Radiant Knight Order?"

Someone had dared to trespass again?

Even after the warning he’d given—after the death and carnage—they still had the gall to return?

"I wasn’t ruthless enough."

A notification blinked into his vision.

---

[Target Identified: Truth Seeker Valemont]

[Absorbable Lifespan: 240 Years]

---

Interesting. This one seemed stronger than Noctyss. Ricky’s interest piqued.

But what amused him more was that despite Ricky’s spiritual pressure seeping into the forest, Valemont hadn’t noticed him yet.

...

Meanwhile, crouched behind a large stone veiled in dense mist, a pale man in white and silver armor muttered to himself.

His lips twisted in frustration.

"That old man has gone completely senile... Sending me here, in times like these? He wants me dead!"

Valemont cursed under his breath. He was many things—prideful, curious, talented—but above all, he was cautious. He never made a move unless it was calculated. ƒгeeweɓn૦vel.com

That very trait had allowed him to become one of the youngest Truth Seekers in the Radiant Knight Order.

And yet, now he was here—alone, surrounded by the remnants of a corrupted battlefield.

"That pest..." he growled. "After what he did at headquarters, why would he even dare to show his face again—"

He froze mid-sentence.

His sharp senses flared.

Three presences. Moving fast. Very fast. And stronger than him.

His face went pale as the blood drained from it.

"Shit—!"

He didn’t hesitate. In an instant, Valemont burst into motion, turning into a fiery streak of light across the treetops, fleeing at top speed.

He chanced a look back—and what he saw caused his heart to lurch.

Trailing behind him with unrelenting precision was a terrifying figure—small, winged, cloaked in malevolence.

That appearance... he had seen the reports.

He knew what this was.

"Venom Fang Sovereign!?"

There was no mistake. The pest-like figure, the spiritual aura laced with poison, that crawling pressure seeping into his bones—it was all real.

No illusion could fake this.

Valemont’s pupils shrank as terror took over.

He accelerated, blazing through the forest like a comet, desperate to escape.

And then—

A cold voice, like a whisper of death, echoed inside his mind.

---

"Stop."

---

A single word.

Yet it struck him like a hammer to the soul.

His legs buckled. His mind quivered. His spirit faltered.

Still, he ran.

Until—he didn’t.

His body froze, halted in place as if the air itself had turned solid. The forest around him had grown unnaturally silent.

He looked up—and there he stood.

Venom. Fang. Overlord.

Ricky floated in front of him, his compound eyes gleaming faintly, and venomous aura rolling off him like toxic fog. His spiritual field expanded outward in every direction like an unseen cage, sealing every possible escape route.

There would be no running.

"Gentleman, didn’t you hear what I said?" Ricky asked calmly, his voice raspy, almost polite—but deathly.

Valemont swallowed hard.

His spine stiffened under the crushing weight of the spiritual field, and the young Truth Seeker managed a forced smile.

His voice trembled slightly as he spoke:

"So it is... Lord Venom Fang. I didn’t... I didn’t notice your mighty presence, Overlord. Please forgive me..."

"Then why were you running?"

Ricky asked sarcastically.

If he didn’t notice his presence, then why was he running like a dog.

Valemont’s face turned pale—he’d been exposed.

Just then, Ricky’s antenna twitched. A familiar scent drifted through the air.

Such a strong herbal smell... Ricky thought, a strange look flickering in his eyes.

Only a person, who spent most of their time dealing with herbs, would emit such a scent.

Suddenly a thought popped up in his head.

To confirm his suspicion, he asked,

"Young man, are you an alchemist by any chance?"

At the question, Valemont stiffened.

How does he know? Valemont eyes widened in surprise.

He was indeed an Alchemists, this is also the reason, why he was to reach Stage 2 at such a young age.

Thinking of something, Valemont forgot to feel fear and asked in a curious tone.

"Why do you ask?"

Meanwhile his thoughts were all over the place, could it be Venom Fang overlord is also an Alchemist?

Now thinking about it, Venom Fang overlord rose like a rocket, from a mere pest to someome terrfying, he also dealt with Poison.

Everything pointed toward one direction.

Suddenly Valemont swolled hard, the way he looked at Ricky changed, there was no longer fear in those eyes but something else.

Hunger had replaced the fear... hunger for knowledge.

This 𝓬ontent is taken from fre𝒆webnove(l).𝐜𝐨𝗺