The Evolution Cube's Metamorphosis

With the Lord Grade Mechanical Guardians reinforcing the south wall, the defensive line finally stabilized.

Inside the city, Tracy was busy cutting down the remaining Feral Beasts. At this rate, it wouldn't be long before the interior was clear.

For now, the camp was holding — just barely.

Then a terrifying roar split the sky, followed by a dying shriek.

Every face on the wall changed. Heads snapped upward.

A massive lizard plummeted from the heavens and slammed into the hillside south of the wall, gouging a deep crater into the slope.

Lu Yuan and Si Tingxue both tensed, watching the impact point. Only after confirming that no aura remained did they allow themselves to exhale.

In that same instant, Lu Yuan's expression shifted. A torrent of unknown energy surged into his body — a cool, spreading wave of clarity, as though every cell he possessed had suddenly burst into excited life.

The Evolution Cube was pulsing with deep blue light.

*That's a tremendous amount of unknown energy.*

He was stunned. A King Grade Feral Beast carried far more of it than anything he had absorbed before.

*We're close. The Evolution Cube is right on the edge of transforming.*

Si Tingxue noticed the strange look on his face and frowned slightly.

"What's wrong?"

Lu Yuan came back to himself and shook his head with a smile.

"Nothing."

Si Tingxue gave a small nod, then lifted her ice-blue eyes to the sky.

Lu Yuan followed her gaze.

High above, Ye Zhenghao and the Frost Giant were pressing the last remaining King Grade Pale Blue Rat into a corner. The beast was no weakling — its body still writhed with those eerie black tendrils — but against the two of them combined, it was being driven back step by step regardless.

Blood rained down from the sky.

The rat king bellowed and unleashed a surge of Spirit Power, tendrils firing streams of sickly black-green energy in all directions. None of it made a difference.

A moment later, Ye Zhenghao's axe came down across the Pale Blue Rat's neck — very nearly separating its head from its body entirely. A massive detonation of Spirit Power erased the last of its life force.

Its corpse tumbled from the sky and crashed into the hillside not far from the Venom Demon Giant Lizard, carving out another deep crater.

As it hit the ground, a strange, piercing shriek tore through the air — and then, in an instant, the black tendrils dissolved into dark mist and were gone.

From where he stood, Lu Yuan felt a dense flood of unknown energy pour into him.

**Boom!!**

A thunderclap detonated inside his mind — stars shattering.

The white mist that perpetually drifted through his inner world surged upward in rolling waves. The Evolution Cube, which had been orbiting his Gene Chain in its slow, steady revolution, stopped dead.

Then it blazed.

Radiant deep blue light poured outward, flooding the entire expanse where his Gene Chain resided — penetrating even the white mist itself until every last tendril of it glowed.

A wave of almost euphoric comfort washed through Lu Yuan. Every corner of his body was being rapidly, profoundly reinforced.

Even his Gene Chain seemed to be changing.

It reminded him of breaking a Gene Lock — but whatever this was reached deeper than any Gene Lock break. Far deeper.

He couldn't identify exactly what was happening, but the surge of power flowing through him told him everything he needed to know: *this is a good thing.*

The deep blue light pulsed for a few seconds, then gradually contracted and faded away.

And there — in its familiar place, orbiting his Gene Chain — was the Evolution Cube.

Lu Yuan stared at it. His mind was reeling.

The cube was bigger. Not dramatically so, but unmistakably — as if it had grown.

What shook him even more was the stream of new information pouring out of it.

After its metamorphosis, the Evolution Cube had gained an entirely new capability. Beyond evolving Transcendent Genes, it could now also evolve the Gene Armaments and spiritual items currently bonded to his Gene Chain — anything active within his inner gene space.

Lu Yuan took a moment to process this.

His current Gene Armament was a Second-rank Perfect Lord Grade armament.

If it were evolved... it would become a Second-rank Perfect King Grade armament.

Second-rank King Grade.

Normally, King Grade Gene Armaments only dropped from King Grade Feral Beasts — and among Second-rank beasts, Lord Grade was essentially the ceiling. King Grade simply didn't exist at that tier.

Which meant a Second-rank King Grade Gene Armament had no business existing at all.

If Lu Yuan evolved one into being, he would be creating something the world hadn't previously had.

He wasn't sure exactly how much stronger King Grade was over Lord Grade for Gene Armaments — but it had to be dramatically superior.

*If every Gene Armament I'm running is King Grade... at my current level, could I actually stand toe to toe with a Second-rank King Grade opponent?*

And it wasn't just Gene Armaments. The Evolution Cube could do the same to spiritual items.

Take Black Bear No. 1. If he put that through the process — speed, defense, attack — every parameter would shoot up by a wide margin.

The one genuinely disappointing constraint: the evolution only worked on things bonded to his Gene Chain. Remove something from the chain, and the effect vanished. An evolved Gene Armament, unmoored from him, would gradually revert to its original state.

Lu Yuan suspected it had everything to do with how completely the Evolution Cube was intertwined with his own existence.

Even so, for him personally, the gain was enormous. It still translated to a major boost to his own combat power.

The pity was that he couldn't monetize it. If he could mass-evolve Second-rank Chief Grade genes up to Second-rank Lord Grade and sell them in bulk... the Spirit Crystal income would be staggering. He probably wouldn't have to worry about funding ever again.

Still — there was plenty to look forward to.

*If I keep absorbing this unknown energy, will the Evolution Cube transform again?*

Next time, maybe the constraint would lift. Maybe it could evolve anything — things not bonded to his Gene Chain. Transcendent materials, gene serums, Talismans... perhaps all of it.

*If that ever happens...* His thoughts drifted pleasantly into the future. He could already see the mountain of Spirit Crystals. A single batch of rare items evolved and sent to auction...

*Very comfortable. Very, very comfortable.*

He made himself a promise: keep absorbing this unknown energy. Push the Evolution Cube to transform again.

Beyond the cube's expanded functionality, the metamorphosis had affected Lu Yuan directly. Every aspect of his own strength had risen by roughly double.

Double. The implications for his combat power were almost too large to calculate.

And that was just what he could measure. Beneath that, at the level of life itself, something had changed — some essential quality of his existence had once again ascended to a higher plane.

The gains from this single metamorphosis were simply staggering.

Beside him, Si Tingxue seemed to sense something, throwing him a brief, puzzled glance. Finding nothing out of the ordinary, she turned her eyes away.

With both King Grade Feral Beasts dead, Ye Zhenghao descended and began hunting the remaining Feral Beasts inside the city. The Frost Giant returned to Si Tingxue's side.

"My master, do you have any further orders?"

Si Tingxue glanced at the Frost Giant. About five minutes remained before it dispersed. She thought for a moment.

"Give everything you have. Slaughter as many beasts outside the wall as you can."

"As you command, my master."

The Frost Giant let out a thunderous roar, then streaked forward like a bolt of light and plunged into the beast horde.

Wherever it passed, Feral Beasts flash-froze — and then shattered.

At King Grade power, the Frost Giant was overwhelmingly strong. Given infinite Spirit Power, a King Grade fighter could wipe an entire Beast Tide below their level single-handedly. The problem was that Spirit Power was never truly infinite. Even a King Grade beast could be drained against an endless horde, especially with the threat of other King Grade creatures lurking within, waiting for that moment of exhaustion.

That was why fighters like Ye Zhenghao and Luo Xiu — Battle Kings both — conserved their Spirit Power during a tide, holding back until a King Grade threat emerged and demanded their attention.

The Frost Giant had no such concern. With five minutes left before dispersal, it could pour every last drop of remaining Spirit Power into the carnage without a second thought.

Feral Beasts fell in sweeping waves. Outside the southern wall, a hundred-meter-wide vacuum tore itself open in the depths of the beast horde.

Five minutes passed.

The Frost Giant dissolved into a haze of ice crystals, leaving nothing behind but a field of shattered frozen fragments — the pulverized remains of what had, minutes ago, been a living horde.

Lu Yuan watched with something approaching envy.

In those five minutes, the Frost Giant had killed somewhere in the range of several thousand Feral Beasts.

*That efficiency is in a completely different class from my Mechanical Guardians.*

He paused, then reconsidered. His Lord Grade Mechanical Guardians had numbers. Add them all up and the gap wasn't so vast — and crucially, they could keep going indefinitely. Stamina was their edge.

*For a man, endurance is obviously what matters most.*

With that thought, the envy faded entirely.

With both King Grade beasts eliminated and Ye Zhenghao freed up, he turned to the Fourth-rank Feral Beasts, which in turn freed both deputy commanders. From there, with Lu Yuan's full complement of Lord Grade Mechanical Guardians pressing hard on every front, the kill count climbed rapidly.

Nearly an hour of continued fighting later, the Beast Tide — which had stretched back five kilometers when Lu Yuan first arrived — was completely and utterly gone.

When the last Feral Beast fell, the camp went silent.

Not the wild, joyful roar that had erupted at Camp 257 — this was a different kind of silence. The kind that follows something that cannot be cheered.

Too many people had died.

Lu Yuan swept his gaze across the camp, and everywhere he looked there were bodies. The battle that had raged inside the perimeter had been brutal beyond measure. Thousands of Guard Corps soldiers must have fallen.

No one had the voice for celebration.

Lu Yuan watched the survivors moving quietly through the wreckage, collecting their fallen comrades. Something heavy settled in his chest.

The joy of the Evolution Cube's metamorphosis had been swept completely away.

Beside him, Si Tingxue stood in silence, watching the soldiers working. After a moment, she closed her eyes. Then she turned to face the wall, her gaze drifting toward the distant Endless Mountain Range. Her expression was blank — but her white-knuckled fist told a different story.

Lu Yuan glanced at her, and a flicker of surprise moved across his face.

*So the ice block actually has a heart after all.*

He thought for a moment, then said quietly:

"You did everything you could."

Si Tingxue was pale, her breathing shallow — the unmistakable signs of Spirit Power pushed past its limit, compounded by hours of relentless fighting. She had been at this for a very long time.

She gave a small shake of her head, still looking toward the mountains.

"Doing everything you can doesn't save people," she said, her voice flat and even. "If you hadn't come to reinforce us, more would have died."

A pause.

"I was too weak."

Lu Yuan opened his mouth. Then he said:

"Then get stronger. By the time I reach Battle Emperor, I plan to raze the Endless Mountain Range entirely. I'll bring you along when that day comes."

Si Tingxue turned and looked at him, her expression unchanged.

"More like I'll be bringing you along."

Lu Yuan said nothing.

*She's got a seriously competitive streak, this ice block.*

He gave a helpless smile. "Then we'll see who reaches Battle Emperor first."

"It'll be me," Si Tingxue said, without a trace of doubt.

"...Fine. Then when the time comes, I'm counting on you to take me with you."

Si Tingxue gave a satisfied nod. "Understood. I will."

Lu Yuan exhaled.

Just then, a streak of red light flashed, and Tracy, Ye Zhenghao, and the two deputy commanders appeared beside them.

"Lu Yuan — it's over."

Tracy's gaze moved to Si Tingxue. Something flickered briefly in her eyes.

"Who is this?"

"Si Tingxue," Lu Yuan said. "Also a Talent Camp student. A classmate of mine."

"Si Tingxue..." Tracy paused — then immediately straightened and dipped into a formal noble bow.

"Your Highness, the Ninth Princess."

Si Tingxue gave a small nod. "Mm."

Beside her, Ye Zhenghao turned to Lu Yuan with a respectful nod.

"Commander Lu — Tracy has explained everything. I owe you both a debt of thanks. Without your support, the losses here at Camp 306 would have been far, far worse."

Lu Yuan shook his head. "It was the right thing to do."

He let his gaze rest briefly on the rows of black body bags nearby, and something passed through his expression.

"I only wish we could have saved more."

Ye Zhenghao and both deputy commanders fell quiet.

Then Ye Zhenghao smiled — tired, a little pained.

"Dying on the battlefield is a Guard Corps soldier's honor. The Beast Tide has been crushed. The empire's rear is secure. Our brothers will find peace knowing that."

Lu Yuan nodded in silence.

Tracy spoke. "Lu Yuan, the Beast Tide here is finished. We should head back."

Lu Yuan was quiet for a moment.

"Deputy Commander Tracy — I'm not ready to go back yet."

"What?"

Tracy blinked, clearly caught off guard.

Lu Yuan met her gaze steadily. "Besides Camp 306, there are probably other camps still calling for reinforcements. My Lord Grade Mechanical Guardians don't tire. I can keep going."

A beat of stunned silence fell over the group.

Tracy, Ye Zhenghao, and both deputy commanders stared at him.

Ye Zhenghao and his deputies exchanged a glance, then turned to Lu Yuan and raised their fists in a formal military salute.

"Commander Lu — accept our deepest respect. Your conduct today is a model for every soldier in the Guard Corps."

Lu Yuan froze.

*I just... thought that if I have strength to spare, I should use it.*

And honestly, it wasn't entirely selfless. More Beast Tide suppression meant more military contributions logged — and more unknown energy from Aberrant Feral Beasts to feed the Evolution Cube. Both outcomes were worth pursuing.

He hadn't expected that kind of reaction from Ye Zhenghao. Even Si Tingxue had gone still, watching him with an expression he couldn't quite read.

He felt a little embarrassed.

"Commander Ye, this is just what should be done. Could you let me know which nearby defensive camps have sent distress signals?"

At that moment, Si Tingxue spoke.

"I'm coming too."

Lu Yuan startled. His first instinct was to refuse — she was exhausted, her Spirit Power nearly depleted.

But he turned and caught the look in her eyes.

The refusal died before it reached his mouth.

He held her gaze. "Your Spirit Power is almost gone, isn't it. You've been fighting for hours straight. You're running on empty. Are you sure you can hold up?"

Without a word, Si Tingxue produced a small vial of what appeared to be a high-grade Spirit Power elixir and drank it. Her Spirit Power began recovering at a visible, almost alarming rate.

She looked him in the eye.

"I can hold up."

Lu Yuan stared.

*What in the world is in that vial? What kind of Spirit Power elixir recovers that fast??*

*Disgustingly rich.*

Faced with that unwavering look, he had no grounds left to refuse.

"If you want to come, then come."