Beast-Tamer: Limitless Evolution
Chapter 65: Third Evolution

Chapter 65: Third Evolution

Third Evolution

The water jet pierced through the head of the ant with limited resistance, the exit point of the attack being followed by greenish blood and bits of brain matter.

At the same time, Fredrick shifted his weight to his left foot and pivoted his body. At the same time, an earth spike emerged from the ground and shot out, aiming to impale him.

It missed as a result of his pivot, but not completely as it grazed his side, spilling some of his blood. But he didn’t care about it that much. His armor negated most of the impact and the wound was too shallow to make a dent in his natural vitality. That was to say, it wasn’t gonna hurt him much.

Which was perfect considering what he was about to do.

Despite its head being pierced, the ant still wasn’t dead, and that spike that had been sent was an instinctual reaction from it.

Ants already had a significant amount of vitality before the descent of Mana. Besides their abnormal strength, they could endure more things than your average insect. After the appearance of Mana, this vitality had only grown as they could endure some serious punishment before going down, with fire being the go-to method of killing them since almost every other method was far too stressful to pull off. Such as this one.

Fredrick felt like his world slowed down a bit as his thoughts spun. He could feel foreign Mana in the ground again which caused it to start stirring. The other ants were close, but not close enough to attack him physically, so they intended to rely on their magic.

As for the injured ant, Fredrick could tell that it was about to go berserk, its eyes which were already filled with madness began to indicate that the thing was about to absolutely lose it. Most likely, it would start moving purely based on instinct to destroy what injured it so badly, and as a result, would attack everything in the vicinity with all its might.

’I have about half a second.’ He thought as he ran over the scenario in his mind before making his move.

From an outsider’s perspective, a ball of condensed water suddenly appeared in his hand, courtesy of Hydro, and he jumped up toward the ant just as two spikes nearly impaled his legs.

He ant was beginning to let out an enraged shriek when Fredrick plunged his fist with the condensed ball of water into the hole left behind by Hydro’s attack.

’Explode!’ He yelled inwardly as the ball of water dug deeper into the hole before bursting with extreme force. But that wasn’t all, as the water took the shape of spikes moving outwards which destroyed the soft brain tissue of the ant.

The creature stopped its shrieking as its body froze, green blood suddenly poured out of its eyes, mouth, and both holes in its head. It twitched slightly before collapsing in a heap, blood pooling below it.

As for Fredrick, he removed his hand just after the detonation and quickly created some distance between himself and the two remaining ants, Hydro reappearing by his side.

’Ah, that hurts.’ The thought with a wince as he glanced at his hand. Needless to say, the flesh on it was mangled and several of his fingers were broken quite severely.

’Guess I’m not using that for a while.’ He thought and used Mana to cut off all feeling in that hand to stop the pain from distracting him.

He turned his attention to the two remaining ants which were glaring at him hatefully, the intent in their gazes far too obvious to not notice.

He’d killed one at the cost of an out-of-commissioned hand. Most wouldn’t be tense in such a scenario, and yet, Fredrick smiled.

’Hm, I’m probably gonna get rotated out of here as soon as all the ants are killed, so...’ He smiled behind his helmet as his Mana surged, while Hydro’s Aura was unleashed fully.

’Why don’t we let loose a little?’

___

Osho watched intently as Gale slowly fell asleep. The bird sat in a small tub, his body covered in a light blue paste that visibly pulsed with each passing second. Moreover, there was a blue feather about the length of a hand resting on his forehead.

As soon as Osho had gotten the things he asked for, he wasted no time in evolving Gale, free from prying eyes of course.

If he was being honest, he wholly expected his request to be turned down. When he was given the tablet to peruse the things he could ask for and he used his unique ability, he was startled by the worth of some of the items needed to evolve Gale again. Especially that Aether-Forged Plume. Apparently, the thing was gotten when a Master ranked Avian beast passed over the land a while ago before the Citadel was built, and it acted as a natural treasure that some powerful creature used to evolve itself by absorbing its energy.

The said creature was later killed after the Citadel was created. It was one of the beasts that had laid siege to it upon its construction, and when it died, the humans stole its stuff, feather included.

Anyway, the feather was rich in many things, and sky Mana was the most obvious thing. Moreover, when he got it, the person handing it to him said that elites of the Citadel who had Avian-type beasts usually trained near it and benefited greatly from doing so.

In short, it was very important, which made Osho question why they even gave it to him in the first place.

He understood that being an ’asset’ caused his value to shoot up dramatically, but the fact that they were willing to give him such a valuable item to use and not even monitor him using it made him question their intentions strongly. However, he also suspected that they knew he couldn’t particularly affect it much.

He’d have felt bad about consuming such an item just to evolve Gale, but he instinctively knew that he wouldn’t be able to truly do so if he tried. Heck, he probably couldn’t break it if he used everything he had and then some.

The feather was just too damn durable, and it amazed him that it could still hold so much remnant energy despite being detached from its source for so long.

Anyway, this process was just to help Gale absorb some energy from the feather. Well, that’s what Osho assumed it did anyway.

To be frank, he never truly had a grasp on the process going on behind the scenes whenever he used his ability. He just followed its instructions and hoped for the best, which in hindsight, probably wasn’t the best idea, but he also knew that the ability would never do anything to screw him over. At least not intentionally. As for how he knew? Well, he just did.

Not long after Gale started absorbing the energy, Osho was surprised when the markings born from his bloodline appeared and began to glow.

He noticed the absorption got faster, moreover, the room which was an isolated environment that prevented all outside noise and interference from coming in was suddenly filled with a fresh smell.

It reminded him of one of the times he’d evolved Gale, where a fresh, airy smell filled the room. But this time, it was fresher, if that made sense, but more than that, Osho was surprised to find out that the surroundings were suddenly saturated with Sky Mana.

To be clear, since Gale had the Sky Affinity, that meant Osho also had it, but since he discovered it, Osho couldn’t use it to save his life. It was just that much more complicated than ordinary wind magic.

Not that magic was easy to begin with, but whenever he tried to use Sky magic, he simply couldn’t visualize how to do so, because he had no idea on how to manipulate the sky itself.

Did he have to fly upwards? Or was there something else he was missing?

’I should probably watch a tutorial or something. It’s not like Sky magic is an undiscovered affinity, I’m sure I can find something.’ He thought vaguely before his attention was snapped back to the scene going on in front of him once more, and his eyes widened at what he saw.

Above Gale’s unconscious form, a figure had manifested, only this time, it was far more solid, and Osho could actually tell what he was staring at.

The Bird had six wings instead of four, and while Gale was white with blue markings on his body, this one was already blue with even deeper blue markings on its body that strongly resembled the ones Gale had, but we’re also far more complex, to the point that trying to concentrate on them made Osho’s head hurt.

But the thing that caught his attention the most was its presence. The manifestation was only about as big as he was tall, so he could completely capture it within his line of vision.

Yet it was as though he was staring at the sky, large and vast, too big for him to fully comprehend just by looking at it.

’Incredible.’ He thought as the phenomenon slowly came to an end and the manifestation vanished.

What remained was Gale who slept peacefully in the tub, but all its contents had been absorbed.

What’s more, is that on his wings, specifically the back edges, as well as several of his feathers, an obvious blue tint had become prevalent.

Osho went forward and scooped up the bird and smiled to himself.

"You seem to have a pretty vast future ahead of you." He mumbled, finding his pun funny.