CHAPTER 373: CHAPTER 373: DARK SHADOW...

"Ahhhhhhhh!"

"Ahhhhhhhh!!"...

Before he could figure it out he heard screams in the distance.

And so, without thinking about it he charged forward. After all, the screams came from the direction his group was in...

It didn’t take him long to arrive... And his eyes immediately widened to the max upon arrival.

His neutral state was completely breached as his eyes reflected a horrifying scene.

They reflected Chris and the others gathered together in a large circle behind Chris’s barrier while looking outside warily.

Many of them were buttered and bruised. Some were even missing limbs while others were dead. The sight looked quite morbid.

However, that wasn’t the worst or horrifying part. That part came from the scene outside the barrier.

More than two hundred corpses were lying on the ground. And all of them had hopes where their hearts used to be. A horrified look was frozen on each and every one of their faces.

It was this sight which horrified Klaus. After all, he knew that even he wouldn’t have been able to kill all of them so cleanly and so quickly.

It literally didn’t take him even thirty seconds to get there. And yet, they had all been killed off in that time... If it were an area of effect attack which took them out, then he would have understood.

However, it was clear that they were killed one by one.

That’s right, more than two hundred armed Evolvers were killed in less than thirty seconds without even a single one of them being able to retaliate or try to.

There was only one way such a thing was possible... And that was....

"Rank 5..." Klaus spoke slowly and warily...

And to make matters worse, the power-up he had gotten quickly left his body. Which meant that if he had to face the unknown R5... He wouldn’t even be in his peak state.

And that thought brought him despair even though nothing had happened yet.

That’s right, for the first time ever since the whole thing began. Klaus was utterly and completely shaken.

He then waited for the R5 to make an appearance while getting ready to do whatever he could to repel it.... Even if he was more than a hundred percent sure that he wouldn’t be able to do anything to it...

However, nothing happened even after waiting for ten minutes.

I’m these ten minutes, neither he nor anyone from his group made a sound as they prepared to be attacked at any moment.

Even those who were in extreme pain held themselves back from making a sound so as not to disturb the others.

"... Let’s get out of here..." Klaus suddenly spoke after seeing that nothing was happening.

He wasn’t sure what was going on with the R5 but he felt that it was better to leave the scene than wait there to die.

Maybe it had left for the time being and would return for the bodies later.

And if it were to find them there, wouldn’t they be killed off too?

After all, they’d practically be a fresh meal which prepared itself...

"Yes", Chris replied and created a huge flat barrier below everyone and took them away after Klaus climbed on.

None spoke until they were more than a thousand kilometres away...

They went towards the place Chris saw Jade last since they didn’t know which direction the creature which killed the Tactoa members went. So they might as well go in a productive direction...

"What do you think that thing was?" A random person in the group broke the silence as he asked his friend.

He had actually whispered instead of speaking aloud... But he had forgotten that everyone present was a high-level Evolver, so his whisper was no different from talking normally in the situation they were in where everyone was quiet.

"I don’t know and have no idea. All I saw was a pitch black shadow when it slowed down a bit" The friend whispers back.

"I saw a pair of red eyes. It felt like the creature could look into my soul and expose every secret I have with just a mere glance" Another person from the ground shared what he saw without being asked.

He was probably just trying to calm himself down by speaking.

"I saw them too. Those were definitely the eyes of a demon. Though I couldn’t see any emotion in them. It was like the eyes of a predator looking at weak prey. They were nonchalant. Like it everything that was happening was only natural and needed no mention. That scared me more than if it had cruelty in those eyes" Another person shared.

This time it was a lady who began shaking more and more as she spoke.

Klaus’s eyes narrowed a bit but he didn’t say anything. He came to the conclusion that the same creature which snatched the orb from him was the same one which killed all the Tactoa members.

He could tell the others, but he saw no reason to do so. After all, they might panic even more if they knew that their strongest was as easily humbled by the creature as they were.

Sure, they probably understood that he likely wouldn’t be able to do anything to it. But just having the hope that maybe he could have done something was enough.

It was false hope, but it’s what kept them sane and that’s all that mattered...

He began silently thinking as to why the creature did what it did. Like why did it only kill the Tactoa members but spare the rest?. As well as why it took the black core but spared his life when killing him would have been super easy and effortless.

Soon something clicked in his head... And that was something the Tactoa members all probably had in common despite their different backgrounds from before the apocalypse.

And that something was the black energy from the Monarch...

All Tactoa members had it to some extent.

And from how the creature took their hearts which have the most concentration of the energy and dismembered their guns as well... It was clear that it was after that energy.

After all, those guns were rigged to explode after being tampered with... Yet that didn’t happen. Which only meant that the energy which was supposed to explode was taken out.

And the fact that it came after the cure which has the highest concentration proved his conjecture even more...

Anyway, if that was the case. Then he could relax. After all, that meant that the creature had no reason to pursue them.

He was glad that he had taken care of the traces in Chris’s and Scarlett’s bodies without them knowing. If not, his brother and sister-in-law might have been killed too...

With that taken care of, he could think of other things... The first thing on the agenda now was getting stronger.

The situation has been too close for his liking. They were literally only alive because the creature found them worthless. If not, they would have died along the Tactoa group.

And so, he needed his base strength to be R5 at least. And that was without the unreliable trump card of his which only works when there’s Monarch energy close by...

So he quietly decided to first reach R5 before seriously looking for his sister. He heard from Chris that she and her group were really strong. And unlike Chris, he couldn’t stomach the idea of being weaker than her.

Which meant that he had two reasons to get stronger now...

...

Tactoa headquarters....

"What the hell!?. Legion that traitorous bastard! Not only did it completely break off connection with me. Now it’s killing off my men! I wasn’t even a lot to see what was going on through the monster they would have made after death because it had already absorbed them! And I feel like I would have found out something very important too. Yet that’s all fine because of that thing! I should have destroyed it when I had the chance! This is what I get for sending out my prototype into battle. If it hadn’t exposed the connection flaw, its creation would have been a total loss! Now I’m left with nothing!" The Monarch orb exploded out in anger as it floated in its room.

Its anger caused earthquakes in the whole area even though it wasn’t actively doing anything. This showed just how powerful it was. Just its anger could affect the surroundings...

The Tactoa members in the area all shook in fear as they stood still wherever they were. After all, it wasn’t the first time the orn had been mad like that.

And the last time, the guy who tried to calm it down was instantly dissolved into a puddle of black liquid then absorbed by it.

What made that occurrence more terrifying was how the guy was their strongest member and second in command after the orb.

Which meant that no one was safe from its wrath.

So whenever it was angry, they all stood still and held their breath until it was calm again while praying that it wouldn’t look in their way... After all, a few people had died just because they didn’t like how chaotic their energy became when they were afraid...

....

In a random cave somewhere...

A human sized pitch black humanoid figure with nothing but a mouth and a pair of red eyes on its head could be seen sitting in a cave...

There was a vertical crimson line on its abdomen which looked out of place. But those who knew what it hid were terrified of it...

"RE...vE...NgE..." The creature spoke in an unclear and hissy voice...

It looked in a certain direction in hatred...

...

Sneeze!

"The heck?! Is someone cursing me?!" Raya spoke annoyedly and confusedly as she swam in the open lake.

She was confused by the sneeze since she didn’t even know that she could sneeze until then...