The Lord Who Levels Up by Devouring - Chapter 313

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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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Chapter 313. Ultimate Evolution (1)
Whitewolf County Quarantine Zone.
Sarpedon had been assigned to oversee the Werebeast Forces.
It was then.
Someone called out to Sarpedon cautiously.
“Brother.”
“What.”
“What’s happened?”
“What do you mean.”
“About Nekomimi-chan.”
“This furry bastard… sigh, never mind.”
Sarpedon exhaled a long, weary breath.
No amount of beating would get through to that one.
His absurd tastes showed no signs of ever changing.
Instead, only Sarpedon’s fists were being honed day by day.
At this point, what could you even call it.
It wasn’t discipline anymore.
It was closer to physical conditioning.
In other words, it was utterly pointless.
“What did Lord Adrian say?”
The Furry Sergeant asked cautiously.
“Did he decide to keep the Werebeast Forces after all…?”
“That’s not it.”
Sarpedon shook his head.
At that, the Furry Sergeant cried out.
“Then could it be! That you’ve decided to dispose of Nekomimi-chan?!!”
His eyes bulged wide, his expression desperate.
It was the reaction of someone hearing that their beloved had died.
“What if I did?”
“Ugh…!!”
The Furry Sergeant clenched his teeth and balled his fists.
His gleaming eyes held something—
The fierce resolve of someone desperately protecting their beloved.
“You little bastard, you’re about to throw a punch?”
“….”
“Huh? Not answering?”
“I… I absolutely cannot let them go.”
“What.”
“Nekomimi-chan.”
“So you’re rebelling right now?”
“…I will protect her.”
“Protect? What the hell are you protecting, you damn fool.”
“No matter how much of an older brother you are, if you harm Nekomimi-chan, I won’t stand idle.”
“You damn fool. Your eyes have completely lost their mind.”
Sarpedon clenched his fists.
But seeing the Furry Sergeant’s sincere expression, Sarpedon loosened his grip.
“Hey.”
“…Yes.”
“Do you really like that cat that much?”
“Yes, I do.”
The Furry Sergeant swallowed hard before speaking.
“And it’s not a cat.”
“Then what?”
“It’s Nekomimi-chan.”
“…You’re insane.”
What am I supposed to do with this furry bastard?
Sarpedon pressed his forehead.
“For now, he said we’d hold off.”
“…What?”
The Furry Sergeant’s eyes widened instantly.
Sarpedon shook his head and spoke.
“It’s suspended for now. That was Adrian’s decision.”
“Then, then there’s still…!”
“Yeah, there’s still time. So wipe that crazy look off your face.”
The Furry Sergeant let out a heavy sigh of relief.
That deep sense of relief was evident.
Sarpedon let out a hollow laugh.
Then the Furry Sergeant carefully asked.
“Brother… so, how long will the observation be suspended?”
“Who knows. I didn’t hear a specific timeframe.”
“What exactly did Adrian say?”
Sarpedon paused to recall his memory.
-Report immediately if any abnormal behavior or danger signs appear in the Werebeast Forces.
“That’s what he said.”
“Then what happens if abnormal behavior or danger signs appear?”
“Then he’ll dispose of them.”
The Furry Sergeant’s face hardened.
At that moment.
No, it was right then.
“Squeak!”
“Kiiieeeek…!”
The Werebeast Forces clawed frantically at the ground.
Their backs hunched, tails curled tight.
Unable to breathe properly, they clung to the floor like insects pinned beneath glass.
“What’s wrong with them?”
Suddenly, one of the Werebeast Forces bolted toward Sarpedon in a frenzy.
An unprovoked, sudden attack.
Sarpedon couldn’t react in time.
“Whoa!”
“B-Brother!”
The Werebeast closed the distance in an instant.
But it didn’t strike.
Instead, it suddenly collapsed flat at Sarpedon’s feet—
“Kiiing… Kiiiing…!”
Its body trembled violently.
* * *
Whitewolf County 3.
The site where the new Feractrum was being rebuilt in full force.
In the midst of the thunderous hammer strikes, Broombar suddenly dropped his tools.
Clang—!
As the sound reverberated through the ground, Broombar’s muscles tensed subtly.
“…Wait.”
Broombar drew in a breath.
But the air wouldn’t come properly.
It felt less like breathing and more like swallowing pressure itself.
“What is this oppression?”
Broombar pressed his palm against the ground.
In that instant, a deep rumble erupted—!
The vibration resonated from deep within the earth.
The other Dwarves felt it too and stopped their hammering.
“Did the ground just move?”
“An earthquake?”
“No.”
Broombar shook his head with certainty.
Earthquakes didn’t manifest this way.
Besides, that vibration wasn’t the earth trembling at all.
It was like the depths of Feractrum.
Like when the dragon Fafnir had awakened—
Boom… Booooom…!!
No—this pulse of life was far greater and deeper than that.
* * *
Whitewolf Territory 2.
Now officially renamed to Sylvandir Forest.
Rielin’s footsteps came to an abrupt halt.
“The spirits…?”
Something felt wrong.
The wind spirits that had been circling the area suddenly vanished in unison.
The earth spirits beneath Rielin’s feet fled downward as if escaping to the depths.
“The spirits are fleeing?”
Rielin’s eyes trembled.
Spirits were not living beings.
They were nature itself.
Therefore, they were entities incapable of feeling fear.
Yet these spirits were hiding, trembling, and fleeing?
“What… is happening?”
Rielin sensed the currents of energy around her.
But there was nothing.
No birdsong, no wind, not even the presence of Yggdrasil—all had completely vanished.
It felt as though all life within Sylvandir Forest was being crushed beneath something immense.
Rielin understood instinctively.
“The spirits didn’t flee.”
They had been ‘overwhelmed’ by something.
Their will to exist had been broken.
But what could it possibly be?
With trembling eyes, Rielin gazed toward the direction where all the spirits had turned their heads.
* * *
County Training Grounds.
Kai was devoted to training to perfect a new swordsmanship technique.
A style of combat that defied human nature.
Angles that human joints could never achieve.
Trajectories that human strength could never sustain.
And techniques impossible for human vitality to execute.
Kai was training with an intensity as if reconstructing his entire body from the ground up.
But in that moment.
A sudden halt.
Kai stopped the sword mid-swing.
It was not of his own will.
His arm had gone rigid as if frozen, refusing to move.
He immediately drew upon his aura to move his arm.
But it would not budge.
No, I couldn’t move.
As if I hadn’t been granted permission to move.
And then it happened.
Boom—!
Something began pressing down on Kai.
In an instant, my entire body froze and instinct screamed within me.
“Ugh!”
Kai clenched my teeth.
Otherwise, my consciousness felt like it would shatter.
A metallic taste of blood spread across my tongue.
And then boom—!!
My chest sank with a heavy thud.
Yet there was no physical force actually pressing down on Kai.
Because of that.
This wasn’t force at all.
Merely the weight that naturally crashed down from the mere existence of something.
As the saying goes, you perceive only what you understand.
Because Kai’s realm had ascended, only I could distinctly feel this presence.
“This is….”
Kai couldn’t finish speaking, quietly staring in the direction from which the presence was bearing down.
* * *
Before Adrian’s chamber in Count’s Castle.
Seraphia stood before the door, her heart brimming with anticipation.
Adrian’s special tutoring session.
The promised day had finally arrived.
Seraphia knocked gently on the door, her expression a mixture of nervousness and excitement.
Knock, knock.
“Brother, it’s Seraphia.”
Then she felt movement from beyond the door.
And Seraphia’s heart began to race wildly.
Her heart felt as though it might burst from the thrill of spending time alone with Adrian.
Seraphia waited with her hands clasped together.
Then came a loud crash—!
A thunderous sound erupted from inside the room.
“…Brother?”
Seraphia’s voice trembled.
That crash just now—what was it?
It sounded like the heavy, lifeless thud of something collapsing to the floor.
“Brother!!”
Seraphia urgently grabbed the door handle—.
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh?!?!!”
I jolted upright from where I lay, my body launching into the air as if possessed.
* * *
The entire wall was coated in viscous slime.
A living, gelatinous membrane clung to every surface.
The ceiling was grotesque.
Bone-like branches curved downward, ensnaring the entire chamber in their grasp.
Between those skeletal strands, blood vessels writhed like living conduits, densely interwoven.
The floor was horrifying.
Soft flesh and viscous bodily fluids.
Unidentifiable substances erupted from the ground like bleeding wounds.
And at the chamber’s center.
There lay an enormous cocoon.
Thump-thump!
Its violent pulsing resembled a colossal heart.
The cocoon’s interior remained completely obscured.
Translucent mucus and membranes layered upon one another, obscuring any clear view.
Yet something was undeniably present within.
Deep inside the cocoon.
A silhouette resembling a human skeleton flickered in and out of sight.
“Oh, Brother… is that you…?”
In that instant.
The cocoon swelled dramatically.
Something—whether claw or bone—scraped across its surface, writhing violently.
“Inside there, right now—”
Seraphia’s words never finished.
A piercing, agonized scream erupted from within the cocoon.
The wail echoed through the chamber with unbearable intensity.
Seraphia instinctively stumbled backward, her voice trembling.
“What is happening…?”
“It’s accepting life.”
Rielin’s response cut through the chaos.
Her emerald eyes remained fixed upon the cocoon.
“Accepting life? What do you mean by that?”
Broombar’s question hung in the air.
In that moment, a violent thud!
The cocoon convulsed once more with brutal force.
Its membrane rippled as if about to rupture, and the blood vessels etched into the walls trembled in response.
Rielin slowly opened her mouth.
“From the moment nature granted life, billions of years of evolutionary currents are converging into one.”
“Hmm.”
“Simply put, think of it as containing the primordial force that gave rise to the phenomenon of life itself within his body.”
Seraphia blinked.
It was anything but simple.
She couldn’t comprehend a single word of it.
But one thing was clear.
Something monumentally extraordinary was unfolding within that cocoon.
Which meant—
“So my brother is becoming tremendously stronger in there?”
Rielin shook her head lightly.
“Simply becoming stronger doesn’t capture it.”
“I… see?”
“He’s transcending every limitation that presupposes existence itself.”
“Hmm.”
“Or perhaps it’s an evolution that shatters the very framework of life and surpasses it.”
“Mm.”
“I’m not even sure how to express it myself.”
Rielin fell silent for a moment before speaking again.
“He’s transcending all the rules, flows, balance, instincts, laws, and limitations by which all life is created.”
“….”
“From nature’s perspective, he’s becoming a non-standard existence that it would prefer never to have existed.”
Boom—!!
“That’s what’s happening inside that cocoon right now.”
Seraphia gazed at the cocoon.
To be honest?
‘I don’t understand a word of this!’
But one thing was certain.
Adrian was becoming phenomenally stronger within that cocoon.
Which raised a question.
Screeeeeeeeeech—!!
“Then what about that scream?”
Rielin answered Seraphia’s question immediately.
“He’s being crushed by the evolution.”
“What does that mean?”
This time it was Kai who asked.
Rielin paused to consider before answering.
“Biological evolution doesn’t occur abruptly.”
At minimum, tens of thousands of years.
Time is needed to adapt to the evolution.
Only then can the next evolution be built upon that adaptation.
“Therefore, even as competition between lifeforms accelerates, no single organism can evolve into a being that completely dominates all others.”
If one lifeform becomes excessively powerful, the ecosystem is annihilated.
The food chain fractures.
Balance collapses.
Eventually, that powerful creature starves—no prey remains to sustain it.
This is why evolution is always relative.
Absolute supremacy does not exist.
Any temporary gap is swiftly closed, and equilibrium is restored.
This is nature’s law.
The fundamental principle that governs all life.
But now.
“That principle is being completely disregarded.”
“What do you mean by that…?”
“The raw power of life is surging faster than adaptation can occur. Before organisms have time to adjust, the next evolution is forcibly imposed upon them.”
A strength that nature itself refuses to permit.
Broombar fell silent in thought before speaking.
“Then that isn’t evolution—”
“It’s collapse.”
Screeeeeeeech—!!
Another cry—nearly a shriek—erupted from the cocoon.
“That, that means—!”
Seraphia asked, her face drained of color.
“Does it mean my brother might not survive? That he could… die?”
Rielin did not answer.
Boom—!
The cocoon convulsed once more.
Then came a cry from within.
Screeeeeeeech—!!
It was no longer even possible to call it a scream.
* * *
My entire body burned.
And simultaneously froze.
Contradictory sensations assailed me—my flesh and bone ignited while being encased in ice.
I could not breathe.
The liquid surrounding me was suffocating.
My lungs could not draw breath from it.
Then, near my throat, I felt something strange—
‘…Gills?’
Had gills formed?
Truly?
The moment I inhaled the liquid, absorption occurred rather than suffocation.
My lungs didn’t function.
But oxygen flowed in through the fissured gap at the nape of my neck.
‘Oh.’
It was fascinating.
Extraordinarily so.
The liquid was even warm, giving me the sensation of sinking into a bathhouse.
‘Why didn’t whales create something this wonderful.’
To be precise, they ‘couldn’t’ create it.
In any case, it was a remarkable gill.
Gills had low oxygen absorption rates and whatnot.
All that was just theory.
Breathing directly through gills felt nothing like suffocation.
In fact, it was far more comfortable.
Like becoming a fish.
That’s when it happened.
A peculiar sensation arose from below my body.
Tingling and numbness surged simultaneously.
‘What is this?’
The moment I lowered my head to check.
‘…Two?’
There were two.
That is to say, genitalia.
One was mammalian.
My original one.
And the other one was—
‘Aquatic?’
Kyaaaaaaaaaagh—!!
I let out an involuntary scream of shock.

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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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