Chapter 1298: The Seeping Dusk
An urgent roar pulled Zac out of Antuka's lingering obsession. The vivid dreams of an ancient sky were replaced by blood and shadows. Unable to fully extract himself, Zac moved purely on instinct. His axe dug leftward in a sharp horizontal swing, drawing a bloody gash across the amorphous Beast King just as it was about to reach Ogras's cocoon.
It looked like a living patch of smog, with dozens of eyes covered in unnerving cracks. Its elusive form and nimble movements made it a natural enemy of infighters. It had already bent its body at an impossible angle to avoid Zac's follow-up swing as sinister energy gathered in its eyes. Zac continued his swing with a vacant expression, displaying neither surprise nor elation when [Verun's Bite] seemingly overturned time and space to dig into the shadow beast's energy nexus.
The crackling power in the Beast King's eyes turned into confusion as its body shriveled into a goopy jelly the size of a bathtub. Zac ignored the unusual carcass, his gaze trained at his axe as waves of comfort filled his heart. That second swing had contained the spark of hunger that drove Life toward greater heights, the ferocity that allowed the determined to ignore reason and shed one's mortal coil.
Creation was finally a part of his Evolutionary Stance—the creation of his Earthly Dao of Reborn Life, not the unchecked desire for reinvention of the Shards of Creation.
The Evolutionary Stance was a continuous cycle of self-improvement, where each swing embodied Life's triumph and ultimate failure. Chained together, the attacks became the endless cycle of self-improvement, where the strong triumphed and the weak became fertilizer. The conception that had accompanied him since his time in the Orom World had never felt so vibrant before.
Creation was rocket fuel that accelerated Evolution's pace, where the following attacks were further-removed from its predecessor. It added explosiveness and unpredictability to Zac's fighting style, making it difficult for even seasoned warriors to adapt. The trajectory the shadow beast anticipated belonged to an already dead attack, while the real thing came from the opposite direction.
The surrounding chaos didn't allow Zac to savor the moment. Battles raged as far as the eye could see in every direction. It was mainly a struggle between shadows and the five elements, and the countless elementals and golems held a distinct advantage. Zac wasn't the only one to suffer from the ancient crocodile's roar, and the desert's locals had decided to capitalize on the situation.
The piles of torn-apart carcasses in the immediate vicinity told a different story. The glittering stones had been painted black by the blood of countless shadow creatures, yet they kept coming. Zac and the still-unconscious elf were collateral targets. Their goal was the shadow cocoon rippling with profound Dao and boundless energy. It had to look like a divine elixir to the wounded beasts trapped in a hostile environment.
Joy and exhaustion came through the link of [Verun Bite], and Zac smiled at the hulking hyena who'd kept them safe for the twenty minutes he'd been unconscious. Verun was still fighting. It snatched up an Early Beast King, whose intangible form proved completely helpless before the Tool Spirit. A few furious tugs reduced the beast to a soulless mist that faded under the harsh sunlight.