Chapter 45: Evolution
The golden chain hit the monster’s skull with a sound like a cannon firing, the impact exploding outward in a shockwave that flattened the tall grass and blew the bark off the surrounding trees.
Hajin felt the recoil travel straight up his arms, his muscles burning as the massive wolf buckled under the strike. Its front knees smashed into the ground, cracking the earth beneath it, but it didn’t go down.
The four shards flared violently around its neck. It roared, twisting its head and swinging a massive claw upward to swat him out of the air.
He didn’t try to dodge, he couldn’t. Instead, he pulled the chain tight with both hands, using the anchor point on its skull to yank himself forward, slipping right under the sweeping claw by inches.
He landed squarely on the monster’s broad back.
’It’s too tough,’ he thought, feeling the thick, reinforced muscle shifting under his boots. ’A blunt strike isn’t going to break through unless I hit it a hundred times, and I don’t have that kind of time.’
The ring on his wrist spun faster, throwing off bright sparks of golden mana that wrapped around his arms like a second skin. He didn’t think about his next move, he just let the fragment’s instincts take over.
He whipped the chain out, wrapping it completely around the wolf’s thick neck, crossing the links over its throat before pulling hard.
The wolf thrashed violently, throwing its weight sideways to crush him against the wall.
He jumped off its back right before impact, planting his feet on the vertical face and pushing off with everything he had while keeping his grip on the chain. The opposing forces- the wolf pulling away and Hajin launching backward- snapped the golden links tight around its throat.
The monster gagged, its roar cutting off into a wet, choking sound as the chain bit deep into its fur and muscle.
"Juna," he yelled, his boots sliding back against the ground as he hauled on the chain like a tug-of-war. "The eyes!"
She instantly followed his words on auto.
Despite her ruined hand, she launched herself off a boulder, using her momentum to close the distance in a single leap. She ignored the flailing claws and drove the undamaged claws of her left gauntlet directly into the wolf’s left eye.
The monster shrieked, a deafening sound that vibrated through their bones, thrashing violently and tearing its head away with such force that Juna was thrown backward.
Hajin had to let go of the chain, both of them scrambling to put distance between themselves and the massive beast.
The wolf shook its head with black blood streaming from its ruined eye, glaring at them before suddenly opening its mouth.
There was no build-up and no glowing mana, just a concentrated roar that slammed into them like a solid wall of force before they could even react.
The shockwave sent them both flying, Hajin crashing hard into a thick tree trunk with his body bouncing off the wood before he hit the ground, his vision exploding into white static.
He pushed himself up, his head spinning with intense dizziness as he wiped his face and looked at his hand, seeing it smeared with blood while his nose, ears, and even his eyes bled from the sheer pressure of the roar.
’This... this is the true power of a four-shard,’ he thought, his chest heaving as he stared at the shadow of the monster through the dust, ’we haven’t seen anything yet, can we really defeat this thing?’
A spike of fear hit him, not for himself but for Juna. He forced his head to turn, his eyes searching through the debris, "Juna..." what he saw made him freeze.
She was kneeling on the ground a few yards away, her single Wing- the manifestation of her summon rank- was shining brighter than it ever had and pouring a brilliant, pure light over her body.
He watched in completely stunned silence as the light began to change her, the blonde hair on her head and the matching fur on her tail bleaching out into a stark, glowing white.
Even the jagged, bleeding wounds on her ruined hand were rapidly knitting themselves shut, fresh skin and bone reforming perfectly in seconds.
"What the fuck," he breathed out, a massive blue panel suddenly forcing itself open in front of his face.
[ System Override: Summon Evolution Triggered ]
[ Condition Met: Lethal pressure applied to an Unyielding Bond ]
[ Summon ’Juna’ has Awakened. ]
[ Race Transition: Wolf Beastkin ➔ Lunar Vanguard (Unique) ]
He stared at the panel as the Wing behind her suddenly expanded, doubling in size and shifting to a metallic silver.
[ Updating Stats... ]
[ Base Multiplier increased: 1.5x ➔ 3.0x ]
[ New Trait Acquired: Moonlight Regeneration ]
[ Wing Stage: 1 ➔ 2 ]
The intense mana radiating from her evolution didn’t just stay with her, it surged through their bond and hit his chest while his golden ring started spinning rapidly on its own, drinking in the overflow.
[ The Fragment responds to the Awakening. ]
[ Overflow energy absorbed: +225,000 EXP ]
[ Ring Progression: +45% ]
Juna’s eyes snapped open, her irises now glowing a cold silver that matched the new color of the wolf ears on top of her head.
She stood up smoothly with her new silver wing flaring wide behind her back, completely unfazed by the massive wolf lumbering toward them.
"Let’s try that again," she said, her voice carrying an echoing resonance that hadn’t been there before as she vanished without waiting for his order.
The ground where she had been standing cracked open from the sheer force of her launch, her speed completely unrecognizable from a few seconds ago while she appeared directly above the monster’s head.
She drove her newly healed hand down, her claws sinking effortlessly into the wolf’s skull before the devastating impact cratered the monster’s head into the ground, shattering the ground in a ten-foot radius.
Hajin didn’t waste the opening, summoning the chain back to his hands while the golden links burned hotter than before as his ring channeled the massive surge of progression power.
He vaulted off a boulder and came down with the chain wrapped around his fists like a sledgehammer, driving it directly into the back of the monster’s neck.
The combined force of the Lunar Vanguard and the Goddess Fragment was too much, the wolf’s spine snapping with a loud crack as the four shards around its neck flickered out while the massive body finally went limp.
Silence crashed back into the clearing.
Hajin stood there breathing hard, the chain unwrapping from his hands while the golden ring slowed its spinning. He looked at the dead four-shard before turning to Juna who was casually wiping black blood off her glowing silver claws.
[ ashley (Mod) has enabled chat for all viewers. ]
[ CringeSlayer91: Holy shit, what did I just witness? ]
[ ShadowMage44: Wow, so that’s an evolved summon, so fucking cool man ]
[ NewViewer_02: the stats... look at her stats! ]
[ DarkBlade: that was the craziest thing I have ever seen ]
He dropped to one knee, ignoring the chat as a massive wave of golden EXP tore out of the monster’s chest, splitting in the air and washing over both of them.
The system panel exploded with notifications.
[ Boss Defeated: 4-Shard Corrupted Apex ]
[ EXP Gained: 120,000 ]
[ Rank Progress: 403,500 / 500,000 ]
[ Ring 1 ➔ Ring 2: 80.7% ]
[ Summon Juna gained: 120,000 EXP ]
[ Wing Progress: 420,000 / 1,500,000 ]
[ Loot dropped: Heart of the Apex (Epic) ]
[ Passive Trait Triggered: Fragment’s Blessing ]
[ Rarity Upgrade: Epic ➔ Legendary ]
[ Obtained: Apex Core of the Blood Moon (Legendary) ]
"We did it," he muttered, wiping sweat off his forehead.
Juna walked over with her tail giving a slow flick, the silver wing behind her fading back into her body while the stark white hair and ears remained, the fierce grin on her face completely intact.
"We did," she said, looking down at her perfectly healed hand, "I think I hit it a little too hard though."
"You hit it just fine," he said, pushing himself up to his feet before walking over to the crater and picking up the glowing red core.
The legendary tag hovering over it made his eyes widen slightly, ’a legendary core from a four-shard anomaly,’ he thought, tossing it into his inventory, ’this gate was definitely not a normal two-shard zone, something mutated that wolf.’
"Let’s get out of here," he said, turning toward the faint blue light filtering through the trees at the end of the sinkhole, "I need to find a healer before my head actually splits open."
She nodded right away, falling into step beside him as they started the long walk toward the exit.