Infinite Evolution Hunter - Chapter 159
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————
159
There was no chance of victory if I continued this war of attrition at Aither’s Origin. It was time to gamble.
Instead of evading the cascading waves of light, I charged straight through them toward Aither.
The light was several times more intense when struck directly than when dodged, but the duration of impact was correspondingly shorter.
As my body burned, it regenerated simultaneously.
Aither’s eyes widened—he clearly hadn’t expected me to dare attack him—but his reaction was swift enough to counter.
Thwip.
Aither aligned his fingers and ruthlessly pierced my heart.
“….”
“How arrogant. It’s remarkable that your tier has risen again in such a short time, but does an ant that’s become a rat dare to attack an eagle?”
“A rat, you say? When cornered, even a rat bites the eagle’s throat.”
I seized Aither’s arm and absorbed his spiritual essence using the same technique I employed to drain life force.
Absorbing a spiritual essence was a gamble, but as the depleted essence filled me, power surged through my being.
“Dare you?! You attempt to absorb the spiritual essence of the Spirit of Light itself?!”
Aither erupted with light across his entire form, and I was sent flying backward, charred black once more.
The spiritual essence I’d barely absorbed was consumed in regeneration and vanished. Only a speck of essence remained. Even with my S-rank Regeneration skill, was this the limit?
No. If I had accumulated and fortified my spiritual essence beforehand, the outcome might have differed. But with my essence severely damaged from the start, it was natural that I couldn’t match him.
Aither gathered light to finish me, launching it forward. Perhaps from the strain of consecutive attacks, his assault was weaker than before, but it was still sufficient to obliterate my remaining essence and body.
Just before the wave engulfed me.
A torrent of darkness poured through the gap I’d entered from.
“What?! How is Mother here?!”
Aither redirected the light he’d aimed at me to block the cascading darkness.
Aither’s light and the darkness collided, neutralizing each other and dispersing in all directions.
“No…. This can’t be!”
A tiny fragment of darkness touched the prison of light where Eres was confined, and the black mass writhed.
“Kill that creature!”
Aither blocked the darkness flowing from the gap with his entire body, and from his back emerged a mass of flame and a bolt of blue lightning.
One was a serpent composed entirely of fire, the other a bird crackling with electricity throughout its form.
“A single human has disrupted the plan far too much.”
The serpent flicked its tongue as it spoke.
“Agni, Indra, you’ve come far.”
“…. How do you know our names?”
They were the ones who appeared on Earth when the Gate Break occurred in my previous life.
“Your comrades told me as they died.”
“…. Loose-tongued fools.”
“But should only a few Legion Commanders come all this way just to kill me? Don’t you need to invade other worlds as well?”
“We only need to kill you. Then we won’t have to hear that damned bastard nagging us anymore.”
“Damned bastard?”
“The commander of the Legion Commanders. A repulsive creature that looks human but possesses inhuman power.”
This was the first time I learned that the Legion Commander’s superior was human. He never appeared in my previous life, even until Earth was destroyed.
“Why don’t you all turn back? I’ll handle the humans myself and put them to death.”
“You certainly have a way with words, trying to buy time. Even if Aither is weakened, he can still block darkness of that caliber.”
“That’s what you call weakened?”
“He’s been reinforcing the light across all of Telus, so naturally.”
I hadn’t realized he was still reinforcing the light across all of Telus.
Then how much stronger would he be at full power? Despair washed over me, but relief followed close behind. If Aither had possessed his full divine strength, I would have been reduced to ash in a single blow.
“I’ve lingered too long on this wretched planet. I’ll incinerate you and this world, then return!”
Agni’s very body became a raging inferno, surging toward me.
Aither’s light had passed through my body and ignited everything in its path in an instant, but this was pure flame and heat itself.
The arm Agni brushed past sizzled and charred.
Without a moment’s respite, Indra—a being of living lightning—dove at me. I gathered aura and fired a beam, but he zigzagged through the air, evading it, and pierced straight through my torso.
I knew their true nature, and I knew how to defeat them.
In my past life, I had subjugated creatures made of fire and electricity by pouring countless ice mages’ spells and liquid nitrogen upon them to weaken their power before exterminating them.
I never expected to encounter them here, but fortunately, I possessed the blood and power of the Blue Dragon, allowing me to recreate similar conditions.
I sprayed frigid breath from my mouth across my burning body and surroundings. Since this was the Light Origin, the cold wasn’t sufficiently potent, but as I continued exhaling, filling the area with freezing air, frost began to fall.
“Struggling with mere fragments of the Blue Dragon’s power!”
Their speed diminished slightly and their force weakened, but the cold proved insufficient—I still couldn’t completely evade their attacks.
But.
This wasn’t my first disadvantageous battle. Now that my regeneration skill had risen to S-rank, it mattered little if these creatures were slightly stronger than me.
It was time for a brawl.
The moment Agni pierced through my body, I seized his torso with both hands. My hands charred and even my spirit burned within, but I refused to release him, biting down on his neck.
“Krraaahhh!!”
Agni shrieked, caught off guard by my unexpected assault.
Fire transferred to my face, flames erupting from my mouth. Savoring his screams, I swallowed the inferno.
The sensation was dozens of times more intense than the fire liquor Eres had given me, melting my insides.
I absorbed the spirit within the flesh I’d swallowed, restoring my melted body, then bit into him again.
“Let… let go!!”
My spirit blazed in his flames, but I continued tearing into his body, driving my fingers deep into his flesh, absorbing his spirit as if draining his regenerative power.
“Die!”
Indra swooped down and pecked at my body with his beak. While the physical impact wasn’t severe, each strike sent lightning coursing across my entire form.
However, while I offset the damage by taking hits and absorbing energy, Agni’s body was being absorbed into me, growing progressively fainter.
Soon he wasn’t even hot enough to burn my body. Indra, sensing the urgency of the situation, intensified his assault.
While grappling with Agni and Indra, I fired aura at the prison of light where Eres was trapped. My strength was depleted, making the attack weak, but the writhing darkness mass showed it was having an effect.
My body was battered beyond recognition, but if Eres could break free, victory would be ours.
“Useless creatures!”
Aither held back the surging tide of darkness with one hand while extending the other, firing light directly at me.
Indra evaded, but Agni and I took the blast head-on.
I held Agni’s body before the light, using him as a shield to block Aither’s attack.
The serpent’s already diminished form became transparent, nearly vanishing, but Aither showed no signs of stopping—this time he intended to finish me.
“Aither! Stop! Do you intend to kill me?!”
Indra screamed.
“Silence! You couldn’t kill me anyway! Once Mother awakens, everything ends!”
The light Aither unleashed scattered Agni completely, and now it engulfed me entirely.
With my slightly elevated spirit force and the dwindling spiritual essence remaining, I couldn’t hold back his assault for long. My body, scorched by Agni’s flames and seared by Aither’s light, wouldn’t move—I couldn’t even dodge.
As my mind burned away into numbness, I saw Bae Na-young slip through the gap, wrapped in a violet shield.
With one hand, she absorbed mana from the Blue Dragon Heart Core, and with the other, she conjured needles from her staff and unleashed them upon Aither.
Bae Na-young’s power alone meant little against Aither, but borrowing the Core’s strength, the needles came in greater numbers and struck with far greater force than usual.
Yet drawing upon such immense power was shattering her body, just as it had Helen’s.
Dozens of mana needles rained down relentlessly each second, most missing Aither and dispersing around him.
“No!”
One of them struck Eres’s seal.
The seal remained intact, but Aither halted the assault he’d been pouring upon me to block the mana needles.
My body, transformed like charred wood, and my spiritual essence regenerated.
Just as my body grew harder with each destruction and rebirth, my spiritual essence too gradually hardened, bit by bit.
I leaped onto Indra’s back as he turned to rush to Aither’s aid, thinking me dead, and seized his wings.
“What?!”
I absorbed the spiritual essence from his wings and fired an aura beam from my jaws at the back of his skull.
Indra, unable to resist with his wings seized, took the aura beam head-on and crashed into the ground.
The spiritual essence damaged by Aither’s assault recovered. But there was no time to rest.
That attack transcended Bae Na-young’s power. If I continued like this, my body wouldn’t endure. Yet Bae Na-young would never stop first.
And Aither wouldn’t simply accept this punishment.
I unleashed my aura beam at maximum intensity from my jaws while tearing my wings apart, pulling them in opposite directions.
The lightning that composed Indra’s body scattered in all directions and vanished.
If I’d absorbed it slowly, I could have gained more power, but there was no time.
I hurled my still-incomplete body at Aither.
“You wretched vermin! How dare you!”
Light erupted from Aither’s body in all directions.
My approaching body was blown back like a fallen leaf.
Bae Na-young stopped her needles and raised her shield, but the light piercing through both shield and darkness burned her body away. Had she not hidden herself within the waves of Darkness, she would have been incinerated in an instant.
“Even if Mother awakens, I will kill you all with these hands!”
Aither, burning with fury to the crown of his head, had apparently reclaimed not only the light from Aither’s Origin but also the light that had warmed Telus—his body itself had become pure light.
I couldn’t even block Aither’s weakened attacks, and now that he’d regained his true power, my vision went dark.
Aither unleashed waves of light toward Bae Na-young and me with both hands.
There was no point in attacking Aither, and I couldn’t block his assault anyway.
I fired my aura beam at where Eres was imprisoned.
Aither bent the wave he’d unleashed to block my aura beam.
Understanding my intention, Bae Na-young also fired her mana needles—not at Aither, but at Eres.
Aither unleashed light in all directions once more to block the attacks coming from both sides.
My body was torn to shreds and Bae Na-young’s burned further.
At this rate, we both would die.
Faster. Stronger. I had to move with greater intensity. To survive. To keep those precious to me from perishing.
But my body burned away, refusing to obey. My muscles, my bones—they had long since ceased their function.
Then I would simply discard them.
I ceased the regeneration of my flesh and poured all my strength into my spirit form.
My body incinerated to dust and dissolved away, transforming into crimson vitality itself—into pure life force. Just like the Aither before my eyes.
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————