Endless Evolution As A Skeleton In A Game-Like World

Although Ark had been pressed throughout his battle with Thalia, something had felt off from the very beginning.

The Dreamer’s Epilogue had drained him of his mana, so he was purposely not using some of his better spells, just so that he could conserve as much mana as he could.

He had never been at full capacity, right from the very beginning, and yet... he had managed to stay alive all this time against a player likely at level forty.

Wasn’t it strange?

Was the battle not meant to be harder?

As Ark struggled to free his staff from Thalia’s grip, he finally realized why.

A burst of mana suddenly poured out of her body. Her scales began to glow softly as a thin layer of dark energy coated them, the energy condensing on the claws of her right hand.

Ark immediately felt a bad premonition. He left his weapon in her hands, desummoning it as he jumped back, already re-summoning the weapon—

Thalia slashed down at the point he had once been, and her blackened claw split through the cave floor as though it were butter.

And then the eerie energy poured out of her claws into the floor, creating a double impact that shook the entire cave.

"I see... so this is what you have been hiding..."

It turns out it was not only Ark who had been fighting sub-optimally. While he had to restrain himself to save mana, Thalia had simply done so for the fun of it.

She smiled pleasantly as she emerged from the dust cloud. "My ability allows me to regenerate at superhuman levels, as well as buff myself~"

"You must have noticed my healing and buff abilities were weak? Well, this was one of the reasons, Mr detective."

Ark gave her a blank stare, then laughed bitterly. "Was there any point in making it look like I had a chance?"

Her tail curled as she placed a finger on her chin, then she smiled, revealing two long fangs.

"It’s fun watching you struggle."

Thalia’s body blurred. And in an instant, she was right in front of Ark.

"But I have grown bored of your antics!"

Swish!

Her black claw streaked through the air, racing straight towards his skull, only to meet Mountain’s indomitable shield a second later.

’Attaboy!’ Ark screamed in his head.

But his moment of joy did not last long. Thalia’s claws carved right through the shield, splitting it apart, before cleaving Mountain in two.

But before he could perish, before the blue light could dim from his eyes, Mountain swung his gigantic sword down with his dying strength.

The blade whistled through the air, coming down like an executioner’s blade, but Thalia caught it as though it were a broomstick.

"Not bad—" She was interrupted by two shadows that appeared at her sides, Sumo at the right and Inquisitor at her left side.

[Your Summon Has Been Destroyed]

Inquisitor’s blade moved with the precision of a knight, tracing a path to her neck, while Sumo’s axe cleaved in a horizontal arc, slicing towards her abdomen—

Swish—Clang!

But all their efforts were futile.

Thalia’s body recoiled, completely evading Sumo’s axe. Then she grabbed both weapons, causing a shockwave to cut through the room on impact.

Blood dripped out of her fingers, but her smile remained, and naturally, the wound healed up in an instant.

Her head immediately snapped towards Inquisitor in an inhuman manner, and in an instant, her body lashed out, wrapping him up in a heartbeat.

Stretch—

Her thick muscles rotated over his body, compressing his form with terrible force and pressure.

His steel armour folded like it was paper, his chest caved in, and then his right hand burst apart.

Before the notification could fully form, before Inquisitor’s body could vanish into obscurity, Ark screamed out in his mind:

’Sumo! Fuck out of the way!’

The cave was immediately illuminated by a bright orange glow. Thalia’s eyes shot towards Ark, only to see him and Jenna charging up a large fireball.

She tried to rush out of the way, but Inquisitor slipped out a dagger from his side, and with his free arm and dying breath, he drove it right into her side, twisting and turning the weapon like a pissed demon.

Thalia hissed out in pain and immediately crushed him, before turning around to see the fire descend.

Their momentary distraction had been all he needed—

VWOOOSH!

The resulting flare was enough to reach the very heights of the ceiling as the fire bubbled and raged.

Ark had combined both their spells and then used spell amplification to intensify and multiply the damage even further!!

He stared at the fire, the air fraught with tension.

"Did we get her?"

He had definitely hit her hard, but Thalia was not dead. The system would have announced it otherwise...

After a few short seconds, maniacal laughter rolled out into the air as Thalia crawled out of the fire, her body wreathed with flames.

It was a horrific sight. Ark watched as her skin burned, while struggling to heal and to catch up with the damage.

Each time her skin would recover, it would burn away, only to recover once more. Every second must have been filled with excruciating pain, and yet, Thalia was laughing.

That was when Ark realized... Thalia was no longer human. The human part in her had died a long time ago.

As his blade reflected the leftovers of the fire, and Thalia’s laughter caused an unsettling feeling to settle within him, Ark asked;

"Why?"

Her laughter stopped. His sentence hung in the air for a few long seconds as the flames smothered.

"Why?" Thalia slowly raised her head to meet his gaze.

"Why did you kill all these people? Why have you been hunting players?"

There were indeed people who went to sleep imagining evil, woke up with the sole purpose of accomplishing it, and only slept well after carrying out their horrors...

Those people indeed existed.

But somehow, deep in his gut, Ark felt Thalia was different. Maybe it was because of the little time they had spent on this expedition, but before he drove his glaive into her heart, before he watched her breathe her last.

He wanted to know why.

Thalia smiled bitterly, and Ark saw a hint of real emotion behind those serpentine slits.

"Have you heard of player killers?"

Ark felt something dark settle inside him. His hands tightened by his sides, and his jaw clenched hard.

"What do they have to do with this?"

"Everything." Thalia said calmly. "They have everything to do with this..."

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