SSS Awakening: All My Clones Have Divine Bloodlines!

Chapter 157: Lirien’s Shock

"Wha—"

Those were the last words it managed to get out before the space around it collapsed in on itself completely.

It was as if some invisible force closed in from every direction at once, compressing it from all sides into a single, crushing pressure, its body twisting, contracting, unable to withstand that invisible weight.

For a moment it just hung there, suspended in that impossible grip.

Then, without warning, the body gave out entirely, exploding into a thousand fragments as if it could no longer contain that pressure within itself.

The scene was so sudden and bizarre that it left Lirien staring in horror.

She’d seen and experienced a lot of strange things in the short time she’d been here, but if she had to rank them from the merely unsettling to the outright grotesque, this beat everything by a wide margin.

The nausea she’d felt earlier, when Adrian first began twisting into that horrific creature, finally overwhelmed her, and she doubled over, retching onto the ground.

’Ha... what just happened,’ she thought, staring at the gruesome scene in front of her before turning to look at the being beside her, who’d witnessed the whole thing without so much as flinching.

Just as she was about to ask if he knew anything about it, the sound of footsteps started up nearby, and a moment later a figure appeared to her right.

"Well... looks like I put a little too much power into that." the voice said. Young, calm, as if what had just happened was nothing at all.

[Ding! You have slain an A-Rank (Early-stage) Sentinel!]

[Ding! You have gained +70,000,000 ESS]

[Ding! Your affinity with the Law of Void has increased by 1%]

’Oh? Now this is a surprise,’ Evan murmured to himself as he arrived at the scene and took in the aftermath of his own work.

Thanks to Shadow, he’d managed to track down the location, and just as he’d nearly arrived, that man had launched his attack.

Evan had let Shadow handle it, figuring that even though he was strong, he was still just a B-rank at his peak. But who could’ve predicted that halfway through the fight, the guy would undergo that bizarre transformation and jump straight to A-rank?

Without Shadow’s army, he would most likely have had to face the creature directly, and he wasn’t certain he could deal with it on his own. That was why he decided to intervene, but before he could do so, the other party used Shadow’s attack to escape, leaving him slightly puzzled.

He had no intention of chasing it down, but he wasn’t about to just let it get away either. So he decided to use his Law of Space.

His affinity with it had already climbed quite a bit, and he’d had the chance to practice his control over it as well.

He had merely wanted to use it as a long-range attack, but who would’ve thought it’d end up finishing the guy off in an instant?

"Guess I still need to get a better handle on this," he muttered to himself as he walked over to stand beside Lirien.

The moment she noticed the newcomer, she instinctively raised her guard, her weapon already in hand.

Evan saw her, the alertness in her eyes, the weapon in her hand, and smiled.

"Now, that’s not exactly how you thank someone who just saved your life, is it?" he said, the words leaving Lirien even more confused.

The situation had spiraled fast, from Adrian attacking, to his transformation, to this. It was hard to stay composed in a place already crawling with strange, monstrous things ready to claim your life at any moment.

Even harder when the person standing in front of you was a total stranger.

From what she could tell, he looked about her age, maybe a little younger, but taller than average, and his composed expression, even in a situation like this, gave him an air far more mature than someone his age should have.

In other words, it was hard to believe someone that young could pull off something like what she’d just witnessed, unless he was some kind of monster himself, born of this cursed place.

Just as she was about to ask who he was, her silent companion, the one who’d saved her twice now, took a step forward, completely ignoring her presence.

’Hm? Don’t tell me he’s about to attack him... I knew it. This guy must’ve been trying to lower our guard.’

With that thought, she immediately prepared to support him from a distance with her arrows. But she had to reconsider almost immediately, because in the next second, several more creatures began to appear.

From the ground, from the trunks of nearby trees, from seemingly everywhere at once. These weren’t Shadow’s subordinates. These were Forsaken, drawn by the mana being thrown around in the area.

There were quite a few of them, ranging across several ranks, and in no time at all the three of them found themselves surrounded.

Lirien, already tense because of the newcomer, found herself in an awkward spot, unsure where to even point her arrow. Evan, on the other hand, didn’t seem the least bit concerned.

Instead, he looked toward Shadow, who wasted no time summoning his army, immediately sending it to attack the Forsaken that had appeared.

He didn’t activate Death’s Grasp, since his domain was still on cooldown, but it didn’t matter. The Forsaken here all hovered around C and B-rank, well within what he could handle without needing either of those two abilities.

While his subordinates threw themselves at the C-rank Forsaken, Shadow himself, along with the strongest members of his army, moved against the B-ranks.

Lirien wanted to help, but quickly realized there was no point. The fight, which had barely started a minute ago, was already winding down, and just a little while longer, it was over entirely.

Watching how effortlessly Shadow tore through the Forsaken, Evan couldn’t help but nod to himself.

’Seems like he’s finally getting the hang of his new strenght,’ he thought, watching the seamless coordination between Shadow and the rest of his army.

Having wiped out the last of the Forsaken, Shadow called back his creatures, then turned around.

Seeing this, Lirien wondered how they were supposed to proceed from here, especially since the newcomer was still standing right there, having done nothing this whole time except watch.

But then she saw that powerful figure, the one who’d been by her side this whole time, start walking toward the boy. And just as she was wondering, the same way she had before, whether he was about to attack, Shadow dissolved into a strange shadow that reformed at the boy’s feet and vanished into him.

Evan, watching the shocked look on her face, kept his smile in place, already turning over in his head how he wanted to handle this.

The girl had been useful, at least until she’d led him to that plant. But now that he was practically there, did he really need to keep dragging her along?

The answer, obviously, was no.

It wasn’t that he wanted to get rid of her or anything like that. He just needed to part ways with her cleanly, because If she continued following him, the battles ahead would only turn her into a burden rather than an ally.

"Someone’s a little heartless today. Is this how you treat a lady?" The beautiful goddess’s voice rang out beside him, her tone dripping with mischief.

It was obvious Seraphine had decided to use this chance to mess with him a little.