Chapter 498 - 499: Scarlett!
After saying goodbye to everyone, Aster Grant didn’t hesitate in the slightest and headed straight for the Snow Domain.
Here lay a Void Passage linking The Swarm and the Alternate Space.
Traveling through the Void Passage to Chyterra was currently the fastest method.
A return to an old battlefield.
The sight of a world sealed in ice remained the same; the icy wind swept up broken snow and howled past, scraping across his face with a familiar chill.
Aster Grant paused for a moment, gazing at this familiar snowfield, a tangle of emotions rising in his heart that was hard to put into words.
In this place, he had once been forced to face a Swarm King head-on; that had also been his first true clash with a Pseudo-God Level existence.
The outcome of that battle had been his forced, battered retreat and his long journey to the Angel World.
But now...
Aster Grant’s lips slowly curled into a cruel arc.
If he didn’t beat it out into the open, he’d count that as him showing mercy!
At this moment, in the dark corners of the surrounding snowfield and between the cracks in the ice, countless figures of The Swarm lurked in shadowy shapes.
Their scarlet compound eyes locked firmly onto Aster Grant and his companions; their mouthparts opened and closed, producing a creepy rustling sound.
However, a fear born from the instinct of Life clamped down tight on the consciousness of these lower Swarm creatures.
Even with their low intelligence, they understood at this moment...
Any slightest intent to attack would bring down utter, instantaneous Destruction.
They shrank back, not daring to advance.
Only, though they were unwilling to make a move, Aster Grant had no intention of letting this group of The Swarm go.
In the past, he hadn’t dealt with these vast numbers of The Swarm because his Power had been limited.
But now...
Elara Crimson had already seized a Divine Position in the Alternate Space.
Within the Alternate Space, the strength she could unleash was the real deal—Divine Level.
Without needing Aster Grant’s instructions, Elara Crimson had already stepped forward with graceful steps.
She lifted her slender hand, fingers slightly spread, her palm facing this icy kingdom defiled by The Swarm.
Invisible Power of Laws spread out with her will, shrouding the entire Snow Domain.
In an instant, no matter how deep beneath the ice layers they hid, no matter what twisted Void fissure they concealed themselves in, every Swarm creature...
Was forcibly torn out and bound by an irresistible Power.
As if seized by an invisible hand, they swarmed together in front of her in midair, densely packed, forming a writhing, nauseating living tide of insects.
There was not the slightest ripple in Elara Crimson’s eyes, as though she were merely cleaning away insignificant dust.
She slowly closed her fingers.
"Puff—puff, puff, puff—!"
As each of her fingers curled in, that massive Swarm cluster in the air was crushed as though by a titanic invisible palm; insect bodies exploded one after another.
Dark green, foul-smelling blood and broken limbs poured down like a torrential rain, only to be bound by some force before they could touch the snow and ice.
Lilith had long since been waiting to the side.
A trace of grim resolve flashed through her eyes.
Seeing that all of Aster Grant’s Beastbond partners had already received recognition from Divine Positions, while she alone had yet to take that final step...
A powerful sense of crisis drove her to seize every possible chance to grow stronger.
Even if she couldn’t fuse with a Divine Position, she would push her strength up to the Pseudo-God Realm; she absolutely refused to become a burden at Aster Grant’s side.
Without hesitation, she spread her Power, drawing in, devouring, and refining every drop of that exploding Swarm blood in the sky.
Pure Blood Power surged into her body, and she drank it in ravenously.
She focused all her attention on boosting her Power and failed to notice...
As that Swarm blood was absorbed, that silent Divine Position within her body, the one that had always resisted fusion...
Its surface quietly sprouted faint blood-colored patterns that spread out bit by bit, producing the faintest sign of merging with her origin.
Yet when the last trace of Swarm blood was drained dry, that frail connection vanished like a cut kite’s string, slipping away without a sound.
The Divine Position sank back into silence, as if that earlier tremor had been nothing but an illusion.
Aster Grant did nothing to stop Lilith’s actions.
Only after Lilith had fully absorbed the blood did he fix his gaze on the sky.
There, a wavering fissure in The Void, radiating chaotic and greedy aura, yawned open silently.
That was the passage to Chyterra.
Next, they would plunge into Chyterra, find Scarlett, and obtain the final Divine Position.
And then...
They would aim straight for the Demon Abyss and end that karma stretching across countless eras!
At this thought, Aster Grant’s eyes suddenly turned razor-sharp.
He hesitated no further; his figure turned into a streak of flowing light as he was the first to plunge into that dark, unfathomable Void Passage.
Behind him, all his Beastbond companions transformed into multicolored arcs of light, following close on his heels and disappearing into the entrance of that Void Passage.
...
Chyterra.
Viscous dark Energy surged like a tide, saturating this region.
Seven mountainous, colossal, and monstrously shaped figures...
Formed a ring, encircling a slender silhouette trapped at the center.
That figure was Scarlett.
At this moment, a faint aura of Divinity flowed around Scarlett.
It was as if she had become one with the entirety of Chyterra.
She had successfully seized Chyterra’s Divine Position and become this world’s heir.
Precisely because of this, although her own Power was inferior to that of these seven ancient Swarm Kings before her—who knew how many planes they had devoured and how many millennia of Power they had accrued...
They still found it almost impossible to keep her here.
"You brainless gluttons who only know how to devour think you can catch me?"
"Keep dreaming! Bleh, bleh, bleh..."
Her words clearly enraged these apex beings at the top of The Swarm.
A vast, vicious killing intent erupted with a boom, almost solidifying and grinding this section of The Void to dust.
Yet just as their attacks were about to land, Scarlett’s figure suddenly blurred and stretched like a mirage, then vanished completely.
After taking control of a Divine Position, her Void Ability had been greatly amplified.
Although her offensive Power was still weaker than that of a typical Divine Level being, when it came to keeping herself alive...
Within Chyterra, unless the entire world was destroyed, there was not the slightest danger to her.
"She slipped away again!"
A violent Spiritual intent exploded among the seven Swarm Kings.
"No matter."
"Though she has already seized the Divine Position, she is not without flaws."
"Have you noticed, in these last few chases and ambushes, the places where she disappears and reappears..."
"They’re getting closer and closer to the edge!"
"In that region, there is a Void Passage leading to the Alternate Space! The spatial structure there is exceptionally chaotic, and that place does not fully belong to Chyterra."
"Her Divine Position authority will be greatly weakened there; she won’t be able to slip away as freely as she does now."
"As long as we drive her there, our chance will come."
The seven terrifying wills quickly reached a consensus.
They did not pursue in the direction where Scarlett had vanished; instead, they began subtly, imperceptibly adjusting their encirclement.
Like an invisible net, they started tightening toward Chyterra’s edge, in the direction of that Void Passage.
Scarlett, at this moment, still had no idea that a hunt targeting her had already begun!
She did, however, faintly sense...
That in her recent transfers, there always seemed to be an unseen pressure nudging her toward some fixed direction.
But constrained by her own strength, she didn’t pay it much mind.
After all, she was the one who wielded the Divine Position, the god of all Chyterra.
How could a bunch of bugs ever outplay her?
...
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