Infinite Evolution Hunter - Chapter 212

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

212
Bourbon’s tentacles cascaded toward Ridi, and she no longer possessed the strength to defend herself.
Ridi closed her eyes, thinking of Ban. Death held no terror for her—only the anguish of being unable to support him in reclaiming the throne.
The moment one of the tentacle’s blades touched the center of Ridi’s chest.
“SCREEEEEECH!!!”
Bourbon’s agonized shriek tore through the air.
A blade no thicker than a finger had pierced Ridi’s chest, but before it could penetrate her body, the tentacle was severed cleanly and fell to the ground.
“AHHHHHHH!! WHO DARES?! WHAT WRETCHED CREATURE ARE YOU?!”
Until now, not a single Metalim—not even Ridi—had inflicted serious damage on the enhanced Bourbon’s limbs, yet his arm had been sliced clean through with surgical precision.
“I arrived in time, then?”
Jung Min-gi, his entire face concealed behind a mask, surveyed the surroundings. Behind him, the hole through which he’d entered gaped in the wall.
“Seems a bit late though~? You could’ve called sooner~”
“Let’s wrap this up quickly and head back.”
Amy and Yang Sang-heon emerged from the opening as well.
“Cursed humans! I won’t forgive any of you!”
Bourbon cursed violently and burrowed rapidly into the earth.
“Don’t let him escape!”
Jung Min-gi unleashed an aura blast while Amy fired lightning, but Bourbon had already vanished underground.
“What kind of creature acts like that?! His words and behavior are completely contradictory!”
Yang Sang-heon watched Bourbon’s pathetic escape with disbelief.
“What do we do about him….”
Jung Min-gi’s expression was equally troubled.
“Do not worry. The magical circle in the Sanctuary has been destroyed, so communications are severed and the sand passages are inoperative. He cannot travel far.”
Ridi leaned her back against the stone wall, enduring the pain. The blade hadn’t pierced through, but it had driven deep.
“Ridi, eat this.”
Jae-in, the last to emerge from the opening, handed Ridi titanium and magical ore.
“Thank you.”
Ridi accepted the titanium and pressed it against her chest; the metal seeped into her body and healed the wound.
“You’ve heard about the alloy, right? Absorb these metals too.”
Jae-in offered the metals needed to create a titanium alloy.
…
Ridi looked at Paren—a silent question of whether it was safe to consume this.
Anyone would hesitate when offered something they’d believed to be poison while being told it was medicine.
“Don’t worry. Look at me.”
At Paren’s words, accompanied by a confident pat on his own chest, Ridi nodded.
She took a deep breath.
Then she poured the metals Jae-in had given her into her mouth. While she could absorb through her hands, consuming it orally or in slime form allowed the transformation to spread throughout her entire body more effectively.
“Wow….”
Ridi felt her body transform instantaneously.
“So it was this simple all along….”
“It’s not simple. Humans underwent countless trials to create alloys. Since the Metalim had to stake their lives on it, even an Imperial Noble wouldn’t have found it easy.”
“Ah….”
“But where is Pascal?”
Jae-in looked around, and Ridi and Paren’s faces turned ashen.
At the end of their gazes lay a metal statue shattered beyond half its body. It was Pascal.
Ridi, Paren, and everyone who had come from the surface stood before Pascal.
“Your sacrifice allowed many Metalim to survive. Once everything is over, I’ll make sure everyone knows of your sacrifice.”
As Ridi spoke her final words to Pascal, Jae-in approached the magic circle.
“What are you doing, hyung?”
“The destroyed magic circle has cut off external communications, which is good, but I’d prefer something more certain. I’ll reverse-engineer it.”
Jae-in put on her monocle and examined the Sanctuary’s magic circle.
“Thank you. We survived because of you. But that person….?”
Ridi greeted the four people and trailed off.
“That person? Ji-seok? He’s busy right now.”
“We came instead~”
“I see…. This is a shameless request, but please, save His Majesty Adamant.”
Ridi knelt down.
“Adamant? That young king?”
“Elchai is controlling Metallanet by holding his life hostage.”
“So that’s why you’ve been complying all this time?”
Ridi nodded.
“So Elchai’s the bad guy~?”
Amy stretched her arms and loosened up her body.
“Hunter Jung Min-gi, I’ve finished modifying the magic circle. Now no Metalim, including the Imperial Noble, can escape within a twenty-kilometer radius.”
Jae-in reported to Jung Min-gi.
“The ancient magic of the Metalim, and so quickly?”
Ridi and Paren were astonished, and Jae-in shrugged.
Jae-in’s knowledge accumulated with each passing day.
Once she absorbed all the information brought from the Tower of Knowledge, which she hadn’t yet fully deciphered, she would undoubtedly advance several stages further.
“Now we just need to deal with Elchai and some of the Imperial Nobles, and we’re done. Sang-heon stays here with Jae-in watching over him. Amy, shall we go?”
“Yeah~ Let’s go~”
“Elchai is strong. I will help.”
Ridi followed the two of them.
“We’ll fight too!”
The Metalim rushed after the group.
“Wait a moment. Before that, anyone who wants to be strengthened, come to me one at a time.”
A line formed as Jae-in analyzed each Metalim’s composition with her monocle and reinforced them with alloys.
The difference before and after was so stark that it looked like summoning or upgrading troops in a game.
“Unless your own life is in danger, you shouldn’t take a life first~”
As Jae-in reinforced them, she told each Metalim this one by one, but even she didn’t know how much they would listen, consumed as they were by rage. And beyond that, she had no intention of interfering.
The Metalim, the moment they were enhanced, scattered in all directions and hunted down the Imperial Nobles hiding throughout Metallanet.
* * *
“We should head to the palace. First, we need to confirm that His Majesty is safe.”
Following Ridi, Jung Min-gi and Amy hurried toward the palace.
“Ridi~~!!!”
Bourbon, clad in gleaming golden armor in human form, came thundering across the ground.
“…Leave this to me, and get to His Majesty as quickly as possible…”
“Will you be alright~?”
“Thanks to your enhancement, I can easily subdue one fool like that.”
Jung Min-gi nodded to Ridi, then launched himself toward the palace with Amy.
“Where are you going?!”
Bourbon’s blade, gripped in his hand, extended and thrust toward Jung Min-gi.
Clang!
Ridi enhanced her feet and struck the flat of the extended Adamant blade away.
It was a treasure of the Royal Family forged from Adamant, which even absorbed impact, but the carelessly extended Adamant blade was riddled with openings, and for the alloy-enhanced Ridi to exploit those gaps was a simple matter.
“A commoner blocked Adamant?!”
“Casting pearls before swine. The Adamant weeps.”
“How dare you! To a noble like me! A commoner like you!”
Ridi deftly evaded Bourbon’s frenzied downward strike, then struck the hand gripping his blade with an enhanced fist.
“Aaaaagh!”
Ridi’s attack, combining a body transformed into tungsten alloy with techniques honed through service to the Royal Family, was devastating.
Bourbon, his fingers cracked, screamed in pain and shoved his left shield forcefully toward Ridi.
The shield obscured Bourbon’s vision, and Ridi crouched low and retreated into his blind spot. Then, bracing herself with her hands on the ground, she kicked the edge of the shield with her feet, and Bourbon’s arm bent helplessly.
Since he was gripping the shield directly with his hand instead of wearing it on his wrist, it provided no support whatsoever—merely a cumbersome weight that blocked his vision.
Bourbon swung his blade in frustration, but Ridi evaded his pain-stricken attacks with fluid movements, continuing to strike the hand holding his sword.
After more than ten strikes, Bourbon’s index and middle fingers snapped clean off.
“This can’t be! I underwent alloy enhancement myself—how can you, with merely titanium, destroy my hand?!”
“Did you think only you could undergo alloy enhancement?”
Ridi’s teeth clenched with fury at the nobility for concealing this fact until now.
“You…. You did too?! But that’s a noble secret technique!”
“Enhancement is merely the beginning. I am a member of the Royal Knight Order, trained until my body collapsed hundreds of times. I will not lose to someone like you, who has grown soft living in comfort.”
“Damn it! You still can’t match the Royal Family’s weapons!”
Bourbon forcefully swung his blade, gripping it with three fingers.
“To think we’ve been ruled by such a fool all this time….”
Ridi kicked the flat of the blade. The force of striking Adamant with such power sent considerable shock through her foot, but she gritted her teeth and pressed forward.
“Aaaaagh!”
Bourbon, now with only three fingers, received several times the impact that Ridi had absorbed, and his ring and pinky fingers shattered as the Adamant blade flew skyward.
“I’ll take the shield and armor as well.”
Ridi caught the blade and swung it through the air with sharp, decisive motions.
“…Uuuaaahhh!!!”
Bourbon’s face twisted in anguish as he raised his shield to cover himself and charged at Ridi.
* * *
“We desired peace. Yet humans crave war.”
Elchai sat upon the throne at the far end of the Royal Palace’s grand hall. Beside him, Ban in human form reclined against the armrest, his eyes so clouded and lifeless he appeared unable to move properly.
This stood in stark contrast to how Ban and the kings of previous generations had sat upon the ground in pursuit of equality with all people. Guards composed of nobility lined both sides of the grand hall in perfect formation.
These guards had absorbed an excess of metal, allowing them to forge weapons in their hands. With their training, their combat prowess far exceeded that of ordinary Metalim.
“Why did you have to wreck the ground like that~?”
“If you hadn’t looked down upon us, none of this would have happened.”
“Us?”
Jung Min-gi exchanged a bewildered glance with Amy.
“That’s right! You mere commoners merely lost a game! I shall demonstrate the true power of Metalim.”
The excessively large golden crown atop Elchai’s head gleamed as it drew the guards surrounding him inward.
“Ah…. Ahhh! Your Majesty!?!”
The guards struggled to resist, but they were helplessly pulled in and stuck to Elchai’s body.
Because different metals had adhered together, the form was discordant—like a crude sculpture made by sticking together clay of different colors.
“How dare mere humans think they can defeat Metalim!?”
Elchai’s body swelled until his head touched the ceiling of the grand hall, and his voice, deep and resonant with his increased size, filled the entire chamber.
“If you hate humans so much, why do you still wear a human form~?”
“Woman, curse your mouth and perish.”
“Amy does have a rather crude way of speaking.”
“I do not!”
Hundreds of spines burst forth from Elchai’s massive body, piercing the entire grand hall of the king.
“A crude attack. The guards from moments ago were stronger.”
Jung Min-gi deflected the attacks with ease as he advanced toward Elchai.
Amy wrapped electricity around her body and, moving with feline swiftness, slipped between the countless spines, approaching Elchai faster than Jung Min-gi and unleashing a lightning strike.
“Electricity means nothing to a true Metalim!”
The lightning that struck Elchai flowed through the ground and dissipated into the floor, never touching Elchai’s core body.
The spines spreading in all directions concentrated and surged toward Amy.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————