Infinite Evolution Hunter - Chapter 253

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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253
I spread poison and drove my roots through the gaps it created, reaching all the way to its core. The way it thrashed about more violently told me I’d found its weak point.
The problem was that this shell was harder than anywhere else. I’d barely cracked through it, but it had taken far too long. To make matters worse, there wasn’t just one layer.
“Damn it! How many layers does this thing have?!”
I abandoned the idea of breaking through and instead created thread-thin roots to probe through the gaps between the overlapping shells.
I forced the hair-like roots into the smallest crevices and expanded them, widening the gaps.
“Just… just a little more!”
As I burrowed toward the core, my poison weakened, and sensing the danger, it became more desperate, snapping its jaws to obliterate my body.
Its teeth came perilously close to Bae Na-young’s side as it thrashed about wildly.
“Aaah! Hey! Do something!”
“I’m trying!”
The roots that had entered through the gaps thickened, and I repeated the process of inserting thread-thin roots again and again until finally the gap split wide open.
“Got it! This is….”
Through the opened gap, I could see inside the core. It was brimming with life force. And souls.
“What is this? Is that the life force I shot into it?”
What I’d thought was Cargron’s heart was actually its stomach, and everything it had swallowed floated about inside.
At that moment, it created a new head, and the life force and souls began to dissolve and scatter. It was digesting what it had stored whenever it needed to.
“Is this what a pirate feels like when they find treasure?”
“What nonsense are you spouting?!”
“Now it’s over. Just wait a little longer.”
I absorbed some of the life force leaking through the gaps, and the amount was staggering. With the surplus life force, I extended more roots. I created two massive hands from my roots inside Cargron and wrapped them completely around the core.
The outside was withered tissue devoid of life force, but the juice inside was sweet beyond measure.
Once I completely enveloped the core, the life force and souls within became a feast prepared solely for me.
If the life force I received from Earth was a waterfall, what lay inside here was an ocean.
Like one possessed, I absorbed the life force and expanded my body on the outside. With surplus energy inside as well, countless branches and roots tore through its body.
Though the Abyss was a silent space, Cargron’s writhing form and screams echoed through my mind.
Unable to eliminate me burrowing inside, it made countless heads and tore at my body with them in a final desperate struggle.
Even if I did nothing, Cargron’s fall was already decided, but there was no need to drag out the time.
I created another pair of arms from my back and tore off its heads one by one, while the World Tree’s branches crushed them into pieces and absorbed them.
“So… that was edible.”
I couldn’t consume Cargron’s carapace, but it seemed to be nutrition for the World Tree.
From the World Tree’s branches that had absorbed the nutrients, leaves sprouted, and my body, which had looked like a brown wooden golem, was now clothed in green foliage.
“You’re generating life force on your own?!”
Bae Na-young’s eyes widened as she stared at the newly formed leaves. Just as she said, the fresh leaves were radiating life force, illuminating this pitch-black space in crimson.
“That’s right. The World Tree absorbs Cargron as nutrition and spreads life force into the world.”
That said, the World Tree didn’t have absolute superiority in this fight, nor did Cargron. The weak are consumed. That was all there was to it.
“This time, I was attached to the World Tree, so you were devoured. Farewell, Cargron.”
I absorbed the life force generated from the leaves of the World Tree along with the life force I’d drawn from the core, and an absurdly massive amount of life force accumulated in my body compared to what I had on Earth.
With the overflowing life force, I expanded my body and cradled the enormous Kagrun in my embrace, extending branches and roots from my back, arms, legs, and entire body to envelop Cargron.
The cocoon that Cargron had barely broken free from was created once more.
Within the cocoon I had created, I formed a domain of vitality and incinerated everything inside Cargron’s body except for its exoskeleton.
Grrrrr….
The death cry of the colossal Cargron echoed through my body, and the Abyss fell silent once more.
As I released the cocoon form, everything else had burned away, leaving only the hardened shells drifting aimlessly through the Abyss.
This held profound significance—even as a larva, I could kill a Destruction God.
Since my body had grown to planetary proportions, making conversation with Bae Na-young impossible, I manifested a smaller version near her.
“What on earth is your body made of?”
“Well… it seems I’ve completely merged with the World Tree now.”
“You could always absorb other beings like this?”
“No. This is the first time. This… probably won’t be shared with my body on Earth.”
“Your body on Earth?”
Bae Na-young’s expression turned questioning.
“Oh, didn’t I mention? I have multiple bodies.”
“…Monster….”
“You’re alive because of that monster. And put Cargron’s corpse in your pocket. It’ll be useful.”
“There’s no space….”
“Wouldn’t it be better to discard something useless and take that instead?”
“If I throw out a few projectiles….”
“Bae Na-young. No.”
Tch….
Bae Na-young deliberated for a while, rummaging through her small infinite pouch.
Soon she sorted through the miscellaneous items she had stored, discarded them into the Abyss, and stuffed several fragments of Cargron inside.
“Ugh… what a waste….”
Bae Na-young watched her belongings disappear into the Abyss.
“Let’s head back now.”
I flew my body along the thread of vitality once more.
“What will you do when you get to Earth?”
“I don’t know… I’ve been away so long, I’ve forgotten why I even wanted to return.”
“You can think about it slowly. We have plenty of time, right? I’ll introduce you to my friends too….”
“Stop talking and don’t look at the Abyss! It’s terrifying! Why again?!”
“…..You’ll have to go to Earth alone.”
“Why?! Why would you say that?!”
“I can’t stop that even now.”
The newly emerged entity was far smaller than Cargron. Yet my heightened senses, perceiving its presence, issued a warning—this could not be stopped.
“Take this.”
I extracted a seed from my palm and placed it in Bae Na-young’s hand.
“What is this?! What is that?!”
“Destruction God.”
“What?”
“No, they’re Destruction Gods.”
Not just one—there were multiple. They were smaller than the Blue Dragon, yet their sheer danger made my entire body tingle with dread.
“It must be because I transformed into the World Tree. They caught the scent of life force and followed it.”
Had this planet still been vibrant with life, they would never have come.
Like hyenas singling out a deer separated from the herd, they hunted for weakened or diminished life forces.
“How am I supposed to escape from something like that? It’s following me, isn’t it?!”
“Don’t worry about that. It was good to see you.”
I formed a sphere from my branches and wrapped Bae Na-young inside it.
“No! Don’t leave me behind!”
I completely enveloped the screaming Bae Na-young in my branches and filled the interior with life force.
All I could do was pray she would reach Earth safely.
Behind me, the Destruction Gods burst from the Abyss and bit their own tails, forming rings.
“Devour me!”
I burned through every last bit of life force I possessed, and brilliant light illuminated the Abyss.
One Destruction God’s ring pulled in its surroundings like a black hole, and my massive lower body was instantly sucked in.
If there had been a planet, if there had been spacetime, if there had been dimensions—it would have consumed them all.
“I’m here! Try to erase my very existence!”
I raged and burned my remaining life force to emit light. My primary goal was to divert its attention from Bae Na-young, but if I could escape, I wanted to.
However, its absorption power was beyond what I could resist with my current strength. One by one, the black holes multiplied around me, decomposing and absorbing my body from all directions.
Now the once-massive World Tree’s body had vanished, leaving only a naked human suspended in the Abyss.
“Have I done what I could? I leave the rest to you.”
Looking toward the direction Bae Na-young had gone, I left a brief farewell to myself on Earth, and then I was completely absorbed into the Destruction God’s ring.
In that instant, the world turned white, then turned to nothing.
* * *
“Sob… sob…”
Bae Na-young clutched the World Tree’s seed tightly in both hands, weeping.
The cocoon Ji-seok had created was warm. This warm space protected Bae Na-young from the Abyss.
She had always been betrayed and used. All the people she cherished had died.
After two hundred years of enduring among the worms in Cagron, she had met Ji-seok.
At first, Bae Na-young had intended to use Ji-seok and discard him. After all, that was how she had been treated.
But when he gave her a gift and she couldn’t even exploit it—his stupidity infuriated her so much she considered just killing him instead.
Even when she was angry, that foolish man didn’t realize she was trying to use him. Instead, he helped her escape and never betrayed her.
“If someone like that had been by my side from the beginning, I wouldn’t have ended up like this…”
The soul she had forcibly attached when she was a Lich was still unstable, and because of it, her hands appeared doubled.
“I just want to rest now…”
Bae Na-young hypnotized herself and fell into a deep sleep from which she could not awaken.
* * *
“Big brother, are you still sending life force?”
As I gazed quietly at the sky, Bae Na-young asked.
“Huh? Yeah. Still alive.”
The body that went to fight Vito had its connection completely severed once, but for some reason it reconnected, though I couldn’t receive information from it.
Even so, it was clear that something was happening on the other end, so I continued sending substantial amounts of life force afterward.
“You don’t have any information at all, do you?”
“That’s true, but given my nature, wouldn’t I be trying to survive by any means necessary?”
“I’m just worried it might be hard on you.”
“I’m fine—I’m receiving a lot of strength from Earth. And when that body returns, it will bring back plenty of information. Right?”
“Why?”
“I just have a feeling… like something’s pulling me to do it.”
I couldn’t say for certain, but that sensation compelled me to grasp the thread of life force I’d been sending with both hands and pull.
“Where is it coming from?”
Even after pulling for a long time, the thread continued to be drawn toward me.
“I don’t know.”
The life force I was sending appeared to be severed from the sky, yet it was connected to another dimension. It seemed to pierce through multiple dimensions beyond this point and extend to some unknowable place.
When I pulled harder at the point where resistance increased, the thread snapped back like breaking through a blocked passage. With that, I felt something hanging at the end rapidly drawing closer.
“…Is it dead?”
“What?”
“Yes. It’s not receiving any more life force. But there’s something at the end.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to cut it off?”
“This feeling isn’t hostile. If anything, it feels familiar. It seems like it’s almost here now.”
After pulling for a while longer, I gave one final, forceful tug on the thread with all my strength.
Boom!
A hole tore open in the sky, and a round cocoon made of branches fell to the ground.
“Bae Na-young, step back.”
I cautiously approached the cocoon and grasped it with both hands, then cracked it open.
“Huh…? Bae Na-young?”
I looked inside, then turned around again in confusion.
“What is it, brother?”
Bae Na-young, who had been standing behind me, came forward thinking I had called her.
Inside the cocoon, sleeping peacefully, was also Bae Na-young.

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