The Puffmech stood far from the main battlefield. It could not even aim accurately without assistance from the Mycelial Network, yet Kyth’s original body could extend all the way here?

Evan realized that [Leviathan] might be far larger than he had imagined.

More troubling still, Kyth had once again demonstrated its bizarre ability to conceal itself. Until the ground began to tremble, Evan had sensed nothing of the flesh pillar hidden beneath the Puffmech.

With the main force gathered at the edge of the ocean trench, the Puffmech had to face the five Dragons under Kyth’s control alone.

Dragon fangs sank into its shell. The carapace, several yards thick, gave a piercing series of cracks as fractures spread outward from the points of impact and pieces slowly broke away.

Mana once again surged toward the Puffmech’s right arm. Firing the Ultimate Resonance Cannon at such close range would damage the Puffmech itself, but there was no longer any room for caution.

The Red Dragon suddenly whipped its head around and clamped its jaws over the cannon’s muzzle.

Dragon breath gathered far faster than the Ultimate Resonance Cannon. Scalding flames poured straight down the barrel.

Fire engulfed the entire right arm, and tongues of flame even burst through the seams in its armor. The half-charged Ultimate Resonance Cannon was forcibly interrupted, sending mana raging out of control within the arm. Mana bursts of every size erupted in a deafening chain of explosions.

The entire right arm was ruined. Only a few surviving hyphae inside kept it attached to the body, and the Puffmech could no longer lift it.

The other dragon heads unleashed their breath as well. Poison fog, acid, lightning, and frost joined the flames, five different calamities crashing down upon the Puffmech at once.

Its shell stopped most of the dragon breath, but some still seeped through the seams where the armor plates met.

The hyphae that filled the Puffmech’s body and secured its Puffcap units were pitifully fragile against such terrifying attacks. Even the small amount that penetrated the shell caused devastating damage.

At a distance, the Puffmech could have activated the enormous Resonance Shield on its left arm. Locked in close combat, however, every one of its weaknesses was exposed.

That did not mean the Puffmech was helpless.

Its left arm shot forward and clamped tightly around the Black Dragon’s head.

Crack!

The middle section of the arm detached itself. High-pressure air erupted from the Puffcaps inside the separated section, driving the Black Dragon’s head backward until it was pinned against the flesh pillar behind it.

[Detonation LV10]

[Resonance LV10]

The violent explosion mangled the Black Dragon’s upper body and extinguished its life.

Even the flesh pillar behind it was torn open, leaving an enormous wound from which purple blood gushed.

But that was not enough to turn the battle around. The remaining four Dragons continued to tear, bite, and breathe upon the Puffmech. Its battered body swayed beneath their assault, on the verge of collapse.

Worse, countless fine threads of flesh emerged from the flesh pillar. The moment they touched a Puffcap, they rapidly merged into its fungal body.

Evan did not immediately lose control of the Puffcaps, but transmitting commands to them became increasingly difficult. It felt as though his signal were being drowned beneath countless bursts of static, or as though someone else had seized the controls and was wrestling him for them.

Was this the flesh assimilation Kyth had used to control the Mermaids and Dragons?

It was even more disturbing than Evan had imagined. Strangely, though, the sensation of being blocked felt familiar. Unfortunately, he had no time to investigate.

Kyth’s offensive was relentless. It intended to finish off the Puffmech before the Mycel Keep army could arrive.

Given the distance, only Mycel Keep’s black lightning could reach the battlefield in time.

Thanks to Evan’s constant feeding, Sable’s progress along the [Ancient Dragon Path] had already reached 32%.

Every one of Sable’s attributes had improved dramatically. Against these flesh-puppet Dragons, which had been devoured too early to advance along the [Ancient Dragon Path], Sable could hold off two at once.

The two Dragons were bound to the flesh pillar, preventing them from separating to attack the Puffmech and pursue Sable at the same time. With Sable darting around them, they could do little but endure her attacks.

Kyth tried ordering them to ignore Sable and attack the Puffmech by force. Every time they opened their mouths, however, Sable slammed a powerful claw into them from the side, leaving them injured without accomplishing anything.

Even so, Sable could only restrain two dragon heads.

Two more remained. Against a Puffmech that had lost both arms and had nearly half its body invaded by flesh, they still held an overwhelming advantage.

If this continued, the Puffmech would either be torn apart or completely devoured and assimilated by Kyth’s flesh, becoming another weapon for the insect just like these Dragons.

Letting Kyth take possession of the Puffmech would be anything but amusing.

An ordinary Puffcap sprouted from the mycelial mat beneath the flesh pillar.

It extended a mycelial tendril and slowly touched Kyth.

[Soul Touch LV7]

Evan had not wanted to resort to this.

Shattering the soul meant that the skills attached to it would also separate from the flesh. If Evan killed Kyth this way, all he would gain was an enormous corpse that could be broken down for vast quantities of mana.

He could forget about acquiring skills like [Leviathan].

But that was still better than simply letting Kyth win.

The mycelial tendril made gentle contact, yet Evan’s soul touched nothing but darkness.

“What?”

The next instant, a vast torrent of chaotic information surged backward along the soul tendril and flooded Evan’s consciousness, enough to kill anyone else instantly.

The information was not enough to overwhelm Evan, but he could not trace the current back through the torrent to find Kyth’s soul.

At last, Evan understood the source of all Kyth’s abnormalities.

“The Abyss? You’ve got to be kidding me!”

Within the flood of information, Evan also detected a thread of Kyth’s will.

“I… I can feel you, mushroom! Come… Come and become one with me. All life… was always meant to be… united!

“United! Let me eat you!”

Crack!

Two dragon heads finally bit through the armor across the Puffmech’s chest. Countless threads of flesh lunged wildly into the breach.

Just as Evan prepared to activate the Puffmech’s concealed reserve power, innumerable points of light appeared in the sky.

A heartbeat later, a rain of mana arrows descended, striking the flesh pillar and the backs of the four remaining Dragons.

White cracks spread from every place the magic arrows struck, and chunks of flesh crumbled away. The fleshy tubes connecting the Dragons’ backs to the pillar were also severely damaged. The Dragons roared as their movements slowed.

Then a golden arrow plunged into the Green Dragon’s eye, accompanied by a hurricane that parted the seawater in its path.

With a muffled boom, it exploded inside the Dragon’s skull.

The Green Dragon’s Status Panel vanished.

“That arrow… That female Hero?”

Evan reached his senses in that direction but found no trace of anyone. Whoever had fired the arrow was beyond the limits of his perception.

In the waters off Mermaid Reef, Sophia stood at the bow of a ship, flexing the fingers of her right hand to ease the numb ache left by the shot.

In the distance, Warren had already led the fleet away. Only the large vessel carrying Hero Sophia remained behind.

Bella gazed into the distance, though she still could not see anything.

“Lady Sophia, aren’t the Puffcaps and Kyth fighting each other? Do we really need to get involved?”

Sophia shook her head. “That Kyth somehow acquired [Sin of Gluttony]. The abilities it has displayed are terrifying. Once it devours everything in the sea, it will come ashore. There’s no telling how many innocent people will die when that happens. I have to try to destroy it here.”

The Hero paused before turning to the members of her party.

“I’m sorry for bringing all of you into such danger, but I truly need your help.”

Bella smiled and drew the sword at her waist.

“Lady Sophia, what are you talking about? Helping the Hero is our job!”

The next moment, the entire sea began to quake.

Flesh pillars erupted from the depths one after another. Some had humans, Demonkind, or enormous sea monsters fused into them. Others still bore empty spaces, waiting to be filled.

At the center of the forest of flesh pillars, an immense, pulsating sphere of meat was slowly lifted into view. It had barely emerged from the trench, yet its bulk already blotted out the daylight above Sophia’s ship.

Bella stared at the monster that eclipsed the sky, then down at the longsword in her hand, which was not even large enough to serve as a toothpick for Kyth.

The smile vanished from her face.

“That’s insane! It grew this big in two years?!”

The flesh pillars had already been enormous. Evan had assumed Kyth had transformed itself into some elongated monstrosity, only to discover that they were merely tentacles.

Even Puff Four, a colossal Puffcap of staggering size, would have looked tiny beside the central sphere of flesh.

Simply rising from the sea sent out waves powerful enough to throw the Mycel Keep army’s formation into chaos once again.

Beneath the sphere’s skin lurked something enormous that radiated black light.

The Sword Saint recognized it at once. “An Abyss Core?”

“That thing inside Kyth is an Abyss Core?!”

Evan could hardly be blamed for failing to recognize it. He had heard of Abyss Cores, but this was the first time he had seen one in operation.

Now he had a good idea why Kyth had become connected to the Abyss.

Elsewhere, the flesh pillars could not twist and strike with the flexibility of true tentacles, but the creatures fused into them launched attacks at Kyth’s command.

At the same time, numerous valves opened across the surface of Kyth’s central mass. Kyth Evil Eyes, Kyth Mawtentacles, and swarms of other insects poured out.

Kyth was committing everything it had.

Part of the swarm descended upon the Mycel Keep army, while the rest rushed toward the female Hero’s ship.

Following the direction of Kyth’s assault, a scout Puffcap flew for quite some distance before finally locating the vessel.

Evan’s gaze passed over Bella and settled on the blond woman’s Status Panel.

[Level: LV71]

[Virtue of Mercy: Reduces the aggression of nearby creatures and heals allies within a wide area, both physically and mentally]

[Star’s Eye]

[Hero: Ignores the Species Level Cap and may randomly draw one Special Title or skill (Used)]

She really was a Hero.

Aside from her Virtue and ungraded skill, her Skill List contained several archer skills Evan had never seen before. They were clearly rare skills acquired through the Hero’s ability to select skills upon leveling up.

Judging by the Kyth charging madly toward her, however, [Mercy] did not seem capable of suppressing their aggression.

Unlike a certain slothful individual, Sophia possessed strength worthy of the title of Hero. She was far more powerful than an ordinary lord.

The silver longbow in her hands barely paused. Though she fired alone, her barrage carried the force of an entire archer company’s volley, and each arrow was every bit as deadly.

Even her ordinary magic arrows were formidable. A Kyth Evil Eye’s Mana Shield could barely stop the first, only for a second arrow to kill it before it could restore its barrier.

The enormous Kyth Mawtentacles were turned into pincushions beneath the rain of arrows. The smaller Kyth fared even worse, with nearly every arrow claiming one.

Her weakness, however, was equally obvious.

The mana displayed on Sophia’s Status Panel was plummeting at a visible rate. Even after she drank a top-tier mana potion, the speed at which her body absorbed and replenished that mana could not keep pace with such intense consumption.

At this rate, she could not eliminate all the insects before her.

Sophia knew this as well, so she had no choice but to allow some of the Kyth to approach the ship.

The priests, escort guards, Bella, and the others had prepared for exactly that. They moved to exterminate the insects that made it through.

Kyth was not so easily dealt with, however. A flesh pillar embedded with numerous Demonkind casters slowly drew near, and the controlled flesh puppets unleashed an array of magic.

Without staffs, and with the flesh puppets far more sluggish than living casters, their spells had lost much of their power. Their overwhelming numbers and sheer variety more than compensated for that deficiency.

Sophia’s Hero party could hold out, but their ship could not.

Its defensive runes were shattered by force, and water began pouring through the damaged hull.

Of course, Sophia and the others did not need to worry about the ship sinking. It would be torn completely apart long before that happened.

Sophia had also tried attacking the sphere at Kyth’s center directly. Kyth made no attempt to defend itself, yet even one of Sophia’s tremendously powerful shots merely blasted away a small amount of flesh.

She would need at least another dozen attacks of similar power to reach the Abyss Core inside.

Their ship clearly would not last that long.

After cutting down another Kyth Sixclaw, Bella suddenly turned and dashed into the captain’s cabin.

When she emerged, she was holding a decayed wooden shaft.

Evan had been wondering whether he should find a way to rescue Bella alone. The item’s Status Panel immediately caught his attention.

[Ocean Scepter (Incomplete)]

“The other half of my scepter!”

Bella raised the wooden shaft high, and the seawater instantly began to churn.

Spiraling columns of water rose from the sea, sweeping countless insects into their currents. The columns then coiled around Kyth’s flesh pillars and bound them tightly in place.

But that was the limit of what an incomplete Divine Artifact could accomplish.

Kyth lifted a Mermaid connected to a flesh tube beside the ship’s railing.

“You are… truly remarkable! You… deserve to become one with me!”

Another flesh pillar emerged from the water. Embedded within it was a former ruler of the deep sea, an enormous Island Crab.

Sophia and the others looked grim. Their immediate predicament was bad enough, but the fact that Kyth could speak was even more terrifying. It meant the creature was far more intelligent than they had imagined.

As Sophia raised her bow to meet the descending crab claw, a Puffcap came striding across the moonlight.

A web of sword strikes crisscrossed everywhere the Puffcap passed. Fragments of shell and flesh sprayed through the air, and the enormous claw was severed at its base before plunging into the sea.

Bella’s spirits soared at the sight.

“Good! Let’s work together and finish off this insect…”

Before she could finish, the moonlight swept past her.

Her hand suddenly felt empty.

The Ocean Scepter was gone.

It had all happened too quickly. With Moonstep, the Sword Saint Puffcap was second only to Sable in speed among all of Mycel Keep. He had also just killed the Island Crab Kyth had sent to attack them, and the Kingdom of Concord was currently on friendly terms with the Puffcaps. Even Bella, who disliked Puffcaps, had instinctively taken him for an ally.

And just like that, the incomplete Divine Artifact changed hands.

“Give that back!”

Furious and desperate, Bella even hurled her sword after him, but it failed to touch so much as the afterimage he left behind.

Sophia was the only person present who had managed to react.

Yet as the Sword Saint Puffcap approached with Moonstep, Hero Sophia instinctively opened his Status Panel even as she drew her bow.

What she saw there was so absurd that she froze for a moment, missing her best chance to stop him.

The Sword Saint never slowed. After seizing the Divine Artifact, he evaded the attacks of countless insects and returned to the float-Puffcap mycelial mat as quickly as possible.

Mana gathered on the mycelial mat beside him. Light flashed, and the other half of the Divine Artifact dropped beside his short feet.

The Sword Saint raised both pieces, aligned their broken ends, and thrust them together.

[Divine Artifact: Ocean Scepter]

The next instant, the entire ocean began to boil around the Sword Saint Puffcap.

Within the Tidal Sanctuary, the cracks in the sealing circle slowly widened now that the Divine Artifact sustaining it was gone.

Several Puffcaps waited beside it.

With the Divine Artifact stolen, the waterspouts Sophia and her companions had maintained naturally collapsed. The liberated Kyth creatures immediately surged toward them again.

“Watch out! The insects are coming back!”

“Damn Puffcaps! I knew they were no good!”

Before the words had even left Bella’s mouth, the sea surged once more. This time, the disturbance was far greater than before, and the waves sent the damaged ship pitching violently.

By the time Bella finally regained her footing, the insects that had been rushing toward them were gone. In their place stood an immense wall of water that towered into the clouds, separating the ship from Kyth.

“What in the world…”

The sea was trembling.

This was the Sword Saint’s first time using a Divine Artifact. With no experience to guide him, he could only try to control it through sheer will.

As he raised the scepter high, every drop of seawater seemed to receive a will of its own. The surface of the sea rose, forming eight massive walls of water around Kyth.

These were not static barriers. Powerful currents churned within them. Whenever Kyth attempted to force its way through, the currents washed its strength aside and redirected it, making the walls nearly impossible to breach.

Some of the insects took flight and tried to attack the Sword Saint atop the wall of water.

He swept the scepter toward them, and the seawater transformed into countless interweaving blades.

Thousands of insects were shredded by the water blades. The cracking of carapaces rang out without pause as purple blood churned through the water and severed limbs floated across the surface. The sea became carpeted with insect corpses, which spun in the whirlpools before slowly sinking.

Thanks to the enormous body granted by [Leviathan], the Kyth Heart suffered only superficial wounds. Its swarm, however, sustained devastating losses beneath the vast area attack.

The Sword Saint Puffcap could not resist weighing the scepter in his tendrils. He finally understood why Mortis had enjoyed using a Divine Artifact so much.

“Why… Why?!”

Countless voices erupted from the flesh of Leviathan Kyth at once. Some carried the shrill tones of Mermaids, others the fury of Dragons, while still more were twisted howls that could not be identified.

The voices overlapped into a deafening wave of sound that reverberated between the walls of water.

“I gained power! I worked so hard to devour everything! I am the final destination of all things!”

Thump. Thump.

Assisted by the Abyss Core, the Kyth Heart began to beat violently.

Thump. Thump.

A second beat came, then a third.

The heartbeat grew faster and more frequent, like a war drum being struck with frenzied force.

The black light radiating from the Abyss Core intensified, gradually changing from gray-black to absolute darkness.

It shone through Kyth’s wrinkled skin, bursting from its fissures, wounds, and every thin membrane covering its body.

“I…”

This time, the voice did not come from a flesh puppet. It came from Kyth itself, from deep within its flesh, from the heart pounding in a frenzy, and from the darkest center of the Abyss Core.

“I AM NOT A DISCARDED CONCEPT!”

Kyth’s flesh began to swell. Its already twisted mass inflated like a balloon, surging outward from within as it tore itself apart and reassembled.

Countless monsters never before seen in this world crawled from its body.

Some possessed dozens of pairs of jointed limbs, each pointing in a different direction. Others had no heads, only enormous mouths that split their entire bodies from one end to the other. Still others were covered in eyes, every one of them moving.

The moment they emerged, they began using bizarre abilities to tear at the surrounding walls of seawater. Yet they were soon dragged back by some unseen force and melted into the churning mass of flesh. New monsters immediately squeezed out to replace them.

Kyth’s flesh had become a boiling furnace, and those monsters were merely the defective creations it cast one after another.

Perhaps not even Kyth knew what its final creation would be.

High above, Sophia’s [Star’s Eye] observed every detail of Kyth’s transformation.

In her vision, Kyth’s Status Panel readout changed continuously. Countless skills and statuses bearing the suffix (Discarded Concept) appeared on its Status Panel, only to vanish moments later.

Sophia had never encountered anything like this. The term “Discarded Concept” even made her briefly question whether this world was real.

Those were concerns for another time. The situation had already spiraled far beyond anything she, even as a Hero, could control.

Elsewhere, the Sword Saint’s fungal body was stretched taut.

He was exerting all his strength in an attempt to crush Kyth with the sea. Yet once Kyth entered its current convulsing state of transformation, even the Sword Saint found the pressure mounting despite the Divine Artifact in his possession.

If this continued, he might fail to crush Kyth. Once its mutation was complete, it might genuinely break through the walls of water and even kill him in return.

With the situation turning critical, the Sword Saint shouted through the Mycelial Network, “Louisa! Boss! Do you have anything else? Use it now! I don’t think this wooden stick can hold out much longer!”

“I’m working on it! Hold on a little longer!” Evan’s furious thoughts came through the Mycelial Network. “How did this piece-of-shit insect become the Abyss’s chosen champion?!”

Evan occasionally used the independent half-space he had acquired to retrieve things from the Abyss. He might not have recognized every unknown creature Kyth produced, but many of them were quite familiar. They were all discarded concepts from the Abyss.

In its current state, Kyth looked as though it were summoning some enormous boss monster from the Abyss. Evan could not allow it to finish.

That forced him to bring forward a plan he had still been hesitant to use.

Deep within the Mycelial Garden, beneath the radiance of the Sunstone, Evan stuffed the Demon King’s captured soul into the body of a cannon-fodder Puffcap.

The Demon King Puffcap emerged from its cocoon and stared blankly at its round body and four twisted mycelial tendrils.

Feeling the sunlight fall upon it, the Demon King Puffcap raised its cap.

“The Sunstone? What are you…”

Before it could finish, a squad of knight Puffcaps swung their tendril blades and chopped the Demon King Puffcap into tiny pieces. Its remains fell onto the mycelial mat below.

[Greed]

At the same time, within Duskfall Keep, the Demon King was explaining precautions for constructing a large apparatus to several mages when he abruptly dismissed everyone.

Only after they had all left did he curl into a trembling ball of slime upon his throne.

At that moment, the Demon King was enduring the agony of having [Sin of Envy] forcibly torn from his soul.

[Acquired: Sin of Envy]

Once [Sin of Envy] had been stripped away, the Demon King’s soul vanished irretrievably from the Mycelial Garden.

That tiny, blank fragment of soul would probably regenerate on the Demon King’s side eventually. Unfortunately, this was necessary to deal with Kyth now that it had joined forces with the Abyss.

Evan had obtained [Sin of Envy]. Only one final problem remained.

Merely possessing a Sin did not mean it could be used. Its owner had to possess the appropriate trait to activate it.

According to Evan’s theory, he would now have to suppress his boundless generosity and magnanimity, then draw out that tiny trace of envy buried deep within him…

[Sin of Envy] appeared on Evan’s Status Panel.

[Sin of Envy] shone with dazzling light, every letter seemingly outlined in gold.

Clearly, Evan’s previous theory had been wrong. [Sin of Envy] was probably like [Greed], an ability that could be used immediately upon acquisition without any need for activation.

The Sword Saint struggled desperately to maintain the walls he had raised from the entire sea. But as Kyth’s mutation intensified, anomalies began spreading from its body.

Rifts of the Abyss tore through Kyth’s flesh and extended in every direction.

They were not cracks in the earth or tears in space. Wherever they spread, the rules governing that place began to collapse.

When they touched the sky, its color drained away, turning the clear blue a lifeless gray-white.

When they touched the earth, gravity descended into chaos. Stones floated upward, seawater surged into the sky, and all sense of direction disappeared.

When one reached the walls of water, a massive barrier imbued with the Ocean Scepter’s power suddenly flickered. Then, to the Sword Saint’s astonishment, it vanished completely.

It had not been torn apart. It had simply ceased to exist, as if the wall had never been there at all.

The Sword Saint had no time to process what had happened. Junk information leaking from the Abyss flooded his consciousness.

Fragments of text, noise, distorted perceptions, and incomprehensible symbols all blended together.

He had come into contact with only a tiny fraction of it, yet his thoughts became heavy as lead. Every idea required tremendous effort to drag free of the mire, until he could no longer control his own body.

The Ocean Scepter slipped limply from his mycelial tendrils.

Without its support, the walls of water collapsed with a roar, transforming into towering waves that crashed down upon everything below.

Sophia and the others farther away fared no better. They clutched their heads, struggling to preserve the last remnants of coherent thought. Faced with the oncoming waves, they could do nothing but leave their fate to chance and pray that the wreck beneath them survived the impact.

“Merge… Unite… Become part of me!”

Kyth’s laughter emerged from the constantly twisting mass of flesh.

“Mushroom, I should thank you! Your pursuit finally made me perfect!”

Its voice climbed higher and sharper.

Its body continued to twist, merging with the discarded concepts and replacing order with chaos.

Then Evan’s gaze descended through the scattered mycelial mats that still clung tenuously together across the sea.

The laughter stopped.

“Why aren’t you laughing?” A ragged sack drifted upon the waves. “Keep thanking me. Go on, say thank you!”

But Kyth’s entire Skill List had turned gray. It could no longer even speak.

[Sin of Envy: Seals one individual’s abilities]

Through the shared vision of the Mycelial Network, Evan could apply the effect directly to an individual. The abilities Kyth had acquired from the Abyss were still skills, which meant they were included in the seal.

Kyth Eyebeasts fell from the sky or sank through the water, dropping helplessly toward the seabed.

That was only the beginning.

A terrified scream rang out from one of Kyth’s flesh pillars.

“Where am I? What… What happened to me? Aaaah!”

A Vampire whose lower body had already fused into the flesh pillar thrashed his remaining upper body desperately, his face filled with terror and confusion.

More voices soon rose from the other flesh pillars.

The controlled flesh puppets had briefly regained their sense of self.

Some wept. Some cried for help. Others screamed themselves hoarse, begging to be killed.

Elsewhere, the Dragons and sea monsters fused into the flesh pillars also regained control of themselves.

“How dare you… How dare you reduce a mighty Dragon to this!”

The three remaining dragon heads roared and attacked the flesh pillar. Dragon breath and fangs tore into it together until their combined assault ripped the thick pillar apart.

The flesh pillar collapsed with a thunderous crash, dragging the three Dragons down with it. The fall did not kill them immediately, but their remaining lives could now be counted in moments.

The Red Dragon turned its eyes toward the sky and noticed the figure bearing a pair of black dragon wings.

“Svirgis…”

Its fading golden pupils suddenly brightened.

“You… have also set foot upon the Ancient Dragon Path. Why are you still flying up there? Come… Fight!”

It struggled to raise its head and breathed a weakened stream of dragon breath toward Sable.

The other two Dragons also lifted their heads with all the strength they had left and roared a challenge at Sable.

Sable tilted her head. Then she became a blurred black streak, shot into the sky, and vanished among the clouds as they regained their color.

A trace of fear appeared in the three Dragons’ eyes.

The Red Dragon roared in furious defiance, “Come back! If you still call yourself… a Dragon, come back and fight! Carry my power… into the Ancient Dragon Path…”

Its roar was futile. In its weakened state, it could no longer sustain even its anger, much less make its voice reach the clouds.

Then, a black meteor descended from the sky.

Delight flashed through the Dragons’ eyes. Mustering the last of their strength, all three raised their heads and lunged toward the falling meteor with open jaws.

Boom!

Fragments of flesh flew in every direction. The Dragons’ bodies and the flesh pillar fused to them exploded completely.

[Ancient Dragon Path: 40%]

The Island Crab used its remaining claw to sever the flesh pillar beneath it one strike at a time. The fused mages forced their remaining mana into motion, blasting both themselves and their pillar full of holes. Every explosion scattered more blood and flesh.

Even the half-formed Abyssal monsters on Kyth’s body began attacking without restraint. Most of their attacks struck Kyth itself.

Evan had done nothing beyond sealing Kyth’s skills, yet the creature was already racing toward self-destruction.

It could not even scream or roar. All it could do was allow the puppets it had once assimilated to tear its enormous body apart during their brief return to consciousness.

Evan was considering using a Telepathy spell to hear Kyth’s final wails when the flesh of the Kyth Heart suddenly contorted.

Countless wounds tore open at once.

Purple blood sprayed outward as the wounds rubbed together with a series of wet, sputtering sounds.

Strangely, those supposedly meaningless noises eventually combined into words Evan could understand.

“Mush… room…”

The voice was muffled and distorted. Purple blood squeezed from the fissures with every syllable.

But Kyth had managed to speak. It was not using a skill or magic, merely the sound of flesh grinding against flesh.

“Not bad,” Evan admitted.

“You… won again… You always… win…” Every syllable forced more purple blood from Kyth’s body, but it did not seem to care. “In the end… I still… couldn’t replace you…”

“Replace me?”

“You… are true… unity…” With death drawing near, Kyth’s movements grew slower as it forced out each sound. “I…

“Really… wanted… to win… once…

“So… hungry…”

The final word faded like a sigh, or perhaps a sob.

The sea had been dyed purple. All life drained from Kyth’s flesh, and its Status Panel disappeared from Evan’s vision.

The Status Panels of its flesh puppets vanished with it. At last, their long-delayed deaths came.

The enormous mass of flesh at the center sloughed away, revealing the Abyss Core within. It had condensed into a black cube.

“An Abyssal data cube?”

A Puffcap hopped across the chunks of flesh and extended a mycelial tendril toward the cube.

[Project Name: Unified Convergence (Abandoned)]

[Time: 0.0.225]

[Place every soul within a single body to maximize the Ark’s processing capacity for converting aether…]

[Simulation failed. A shared body cannot unify the wills of different souls…]

[Time: 1.214.73]

[Shared Dream Project succeeded. This project is terminated.]

The towering waves gradually subsided. Purple blood spread with the currents, staining the entire stretch of ocean a murky violet-black.

Mycel Keep soldiers moved through the water, pulling their fallen companions from the churning wreckage and gently pushing their remains toward the mycelial mats floating on the surface.

Hyphae slowly spread across the bodies, granting those loyal souls new vessels.

Kyth’s corpse lay across the edge of the ocean trench like a massive island. Its once-ferocious flesh pillars had become heaps of dead meat.

Clusters of luminescent mushrooms sprouted from the corpse. Their blue-green glow dotted the darkness like tiny lamps.

Unified Convergence.

The abandoned project appeared to be the source of Kyth’s ability to fuse with other creatures, while [Sin of Gluttony] had supplied enough energy to sustain so many flesh puppets.

Kyth’s connection to the Abyss had originated from the Abyss Core. Yet an ordinary Abyss Core should have been nothing more than a device that supplied energy to an Abyssal Beast.

There was no telling what Kyth had experienced to produce such a mutation.

Evan turned his attention westward. At the farthest limits of his perception lay an endless expanse of white fog.

Had the Mist caused it?

And what exactly was aether?

This was the second time Evan had encountered the term in information retrieved from the Abyss. One of the Ark’s functions appeared to involve converting aether, which suggested it was some kind of energy source.

If only he had more information.

As Kyth’s flesh was gradually broken down, Evan received an enormous amount of XP even before he began plundering its skills.

[Level Up: LV73 → LV77]

Evan had always required an unusually large amount of XP to level up, and the requirement had only grown more demanding at higher levels.

Yet Kyth’s corpse had raised his level by four in one go. No other creature could have accomplished that.

Whatever else could be said about [Sin of Gluttony], it had certainly accumulated an incredible amount of energy.

Speaking of which, [Sin of Gluttony] had transferred to Evan’s Status Panel after Kyth’s death.

He had expected the Sin to suit him rather well, but it was gray on his Status Panel.

Were his table manners simply too refined?

As the decomposition continued, large numbers of skills and vast amounts of skill proficiency finally returned to Evan.

[Sin of Greed triggered.]

[Skill Plundered: Mental Expansion LV2]

[Skill Plundered: Cognitive Coordination LV9 → LV10]

[Skill Plundered: Underwater Adaptation LV8 → LV9]

[Mental Expansion] was a new skill acquired from Kyth. Its specific function had allowed Kyth to use a Kyth Eyebeast controlled through [Thrall Command] to command a group of lesser insects.

For Evan, that meant he could use only one [Thrall Command] slot to control an entire Puffcap squad operating away from a mycelial mat.

The drawback was obvious. If the Puffcap directly controlled through [Thrall Command] died, all the other Puffcaps in the squad would also fall out of his control.

[Cognitive Coordination], meanwhile, was a skill that developed the potential of the soul. Unfortunately, even after reaching LV10, it only allowed Evan to command 30,000 Puffcaps directly.

That number was insignificant compared with the vast forces now under his control. Still, he could use those directly controlled Puffcaps to create more war units like the Puffmech.

Then there was [Leviathan], the skill Evan wanted most.

Like [Sword’s Zenith], an ungraded skill was considerably more difficult to digest. The other end of [Leviathan] was even connected to Kyth’s soul.

The insect’s soul was the largest Evan had ever encountered apart from his own, roughly equal in size to several hundred ordinary human souls combined.

Evan had no intention of stuffing it into a Puffcap as he had done with the Sword Saint.

Unlike [Sword’s Zenith], which required the user’s combat awareness to function, [Leviathan] did nothing more complicated than make its user enormous. Rather than bind it to a mentally unstable insect, Evan would find it far more convenient to store the skill in his own skill library and retrieve it whenever necessary.

Alongside all these welcome gains, however, Evan discovered something far less pleasing.

[Launch LV8]

Evan had acquired this skill from one of the dungeon’s frogs early on.

It was nothing exceptional, but it had its uses.

Although he did not use it often, he had acquired it so early that it had reached max level long ago.

Evan distinctly remembered it being LV10.

So this was Envy’s price?

Why did using the ability require payment?!

Just look at [Greed], which had accompanied him all this way. Had it ever demanded anything from him?

Why had [Sin of Envy] turned out to be a paid service?!

It had to be because his affinity with [Sin of Envy] was so poor.

Losing a few skill levels was not a problem in itself. Evan now possessed more than 95% of all skills in the world, and he rarely used the vast majority of them. It would not matter even if those skills fell all the way back to LV1.

The problem was that [Sin of Envy] did not open a Status Panel and allow Evan to select which skill to sacrifice.

It chose at random.

That was considerably less appealing.

If one of his frequently used skills lost levels, there was no telling how long it would take to train back up.

And if a core skill such as [Cognitive Coordination] or [Mycelial Network] lost levels, Evan would be in serious trouble.

What a shame.

He had been planning to seal Norris’s Skill List the next time Karen chased him, but that joke now seemed rather expensive.

Beyond the skills on his Status Panel, Evan had secured another important prize. His Ocean Scepter was finally complete.

The scepter had originally belonged to the Fishfolk, and the Fishfolk now served under Evan. Naturally, that meant the Ocean Scepter belonged to him as well.

Since the half stolen by the female Hero had been returned to its rightful owner in time, Evan decided not to hold the matter against her.

His only regret concerned the Demon King’s magic seal at the bottom of the Tidal Sanctuary.

The seal had shattered completely, and the remains of several knight Puffcaps floated nearby.

In the end, the magic seal had failed to last until Evan defeated Kyth and returned the scepter. While the main naval force was away fighting Kyth, the fragment comprising one-sixth of the Demon King had escaped.

Evan had not let it escape unscathed.

The instant the magic seal broke, the three knight Puffcaps charged the fragment. One of them secretly carried Evan’s [Soul Touch] and successfully shattered half of the Slime’s soul.

The impact had even caused [Sin of Lust] to disappear temporarily from its Status Panel.

Combined with the portion Evan had decomposed earlier, the damage to the Demon King’s soul would probably take a long time to heal.

Evan would have to find a way to kill the weakened Slime before then.

Sophia’s ship had sunk.

Fortunately, the rest of the fleet had not traveled far. After receiving the distress signal, they returned and transferred everyone to other ships.

“Damn it! Those Puffcaps really have no intention of returning the Divine Artifact!” Bella remained deeply frustrated. “I’m sorry, Lady Sophia. This was all my fault…”

Sophia did not blame her.

“Looking back, completing the scepter was probably the only way to contain Kyth. You don’t need to dwell on it.”

Samuel looked equally puzzled by the incident. “That force included members of many different species, which does match what we know of Mycel Keep. But why would Mycel Keep, far to the north, appear in these waters?”

Unfortunately, no one aboard the ship knew the answer.

“By the way.” Sophia turned toward Samuel. “The Sword Saint who died in the previous war between humanity and Demonkind was named Alwyn, wasn’t he? What was his full name?”

* * *

“Why do you ask, Lady Sophia?” Samuel looked confused, but quickly answered. “Slayne. The Mighty Sword Saint’s full name was Alwyn Slayne.”

Sophia nodded and glanced around before pulling Samuel away from the crowd.

Seeing the serious expression on the Hero’s face, Samuel realized that she had an important reason for asking.

Once they reached a secluded place, the priest raised a hand and created a soundproofing barrier without waiting to be asked.

Sophia smiled, then said, “Priest Samuel, I’d like you to tell me everything you know about the resurrection and rebirth you mentioned before…”

Puffcap Hearth.

No one knew where the owner, Dylan, had gone to restock those wildly popular Elf potions. Bianca was the only one tending the establishment, and the girl was so busy her feet barely touched the floor.

Business at Puffcap Hearth had been booming ever since summer began.

It was not even evening yet, and the sun still blazed overhead, but the place was already packed with drinkers.

The reason was simple. At Puffcap Hearth, even an order of the most ordinary mushroom wine came with a glass filled to the brim with free ice.

Cold beer in summer had always been a luxury reserved for the wealthy.

Any establishment capable of providing it either employed a water mage or possessed some valuable magic item purchased by the owner. Given the cooldowns on such items, even then the supply of ice might be limited to certain times and quantities.

The reason Puffcap Hearth could offer free ice was no secret.

Dylan had somehow gotten absurdly lucky and drawn a rare ice-aligned Puffcap from the dungeon. He kept it in the kitchen to make ice.

As a result, Puffcap Hearth drew more daytime customers during the hottest hours than many dedicated taverns. Only after nightfall did the crowd begin dispersing to those other establishments.

A slightly drunk patron raised his empty glass and shouted toward the kitchen, “Miss Bianca! Two more cups of Delectable mushroom wine! Fill them with ice!”

“Coming!”

The girl’s reply rang out clear and bright.

A moment later, a Puffcap in a maid outfit came scurrying along the Puffcap-only walkway above the customers. It extended a mycelial tendril and delivered two cups of mushroom wine to the table.

No one present found the sight unusual.

Some Puffcap handlers could direct their Puffcaps through simple tasks without sharing their vision, provided the Puffcaps remained within an area the handler knew well.

After taking a long, satisfying drink of cold mushroom wine, the patron lowered his glass and looked across the table at his companion.

“Sam, what brought you to Mushroom Metropolis all of a sudden? Did you cause trouble and get thrown off the ship by your captain?”

“No… Well, close enough.” Sam shrugged and pulled a helpless smile. “The Kingdom of Concord requisitioned the captain’s ship. They have their own sailors, so they don’t need me. What about you? Drinking in broad daylight instead of working?”

“Me? I’m not one of those poor bastards chained to a workbench all day.” Garvin grinned. “Work for a few days, drink for a few days. That’s only fair.”

The two laughed without the slightest anxiety over their lack of employment.

After all, how bad could life get in the Kingdom of Concord these days?

At worst, they could live in a free mushroom house outside the city and eat free mushroom porridge. They were hardly going to starve or freeze to death.

After several rounds of drinks, Sam suddenly lowered his voice and leaned closer.

“Actually… I came to Mushroom Metropolis because I was planning to undergo hyphal symbiosis.” His gaze passed over the uneven hyphal markings on Garvin’s face. “A lot of jobs back home only hire Puffcap handlers now. But…”

He paused, dropping his voice even further.

“Yesterday, I heard someone in the square say the hyphae can control people’s thoughts. The news came from the Dwarven Mountains, so it has to be true.” He looked at his old friend. “Garvin, you underwent symbiosis early. Be honest with me. Is it true?”

“Control your thoughts?” Garvin stared at him as if he could not believe anyone would take such a claim seriously.

Before Garvin could continue, the young server with butterfly-shaped hyphae on her face passed their table and pulled a face at Sam.

“My thoughts have been controlled. That’s why I spend every day serving you drinks and washing your cups. How terrifying.”

The surrounding patrons burst into laughter.

Sam flushed beneath their amusement, while Garvin laughed and patted him on the shoulder.

“Some people say the hyphae control your thoughts. Others say that people who worship the Mycelial Sovereign through the Cult of the Sacred Puffcap turn into Puffcaps after they die.” Garvin took another drink. “Brother, don’t believe everything you hear. Hyphae are tools for connecting to and controlling Puffcaps. Nothing more.”

Garvin’s understanding was shared by the vast majority of Puffcap handlers.

Bianca swiftly collected the empty glasses and returned to the kitchen. The Puffcap in the maid outfit followed along the walkway above her, its steps tapping lightly against the floor.

No one noticed that beneath the nearby counter, one of the “two Puffcaps Dylan had left behind” extended a mycelial tendril toward Bianca without anyone controlling it.

The other Puffcap quickly stopped it.

Within the Mycelial Network, a voice demanded, “Ewan, what are you doing? Didn’t I tell you that you could only look at her from a distance? You can’t draw any attention.”

“S… Sorry.” The Puffcap that had extended its tendril lowered its cap. “It’s just… Bianca has grown so much…”

Seeing Ewan’s cap droop, the other Puffcap could understand how he felt.

“I know how difficult it is for Reborn Puffcaps whose families live outside Mycel Keep. If I were separated from my family, I might be even more desperate than you. But even if you don’t care about causing trouble for me after I brought you here, you should consider the Mycelial Sovereign. Being granted a new life was His gift. We shouldn’t betray His trust and create more trouble for Him, should we?”

“I’m sorry. I just couldn’t help myself… It won’t happen again… Please, let me stay until the end of the day. Don’t take me back yet,” Ewan pleaded.

The other Reborn Puffcap softened and agreed.

That night, in the Mycelial Garden, a Reborn Puffcap waved a mycelial tendril at Ewan as he approached.

“Ewan, where were you all day? You really missed out by skipping today’s Puffcap hot-spring gathering. After everyone finished their massages, we pooled the Contribution Points we earned from killing insects and bought a Supreme Flavor mushroom. It was incredible…”

He was speaking with great enthusiasm, but Ewan merely shuffled past him with his cap hanging limp, utterly dispirited.

“Uh… What happened to him?” the Reborn Puffcap asked the companion who had returned with Ewan.

The companion shook his cap with a helpless sigh.

“His wife thought he’d died in battle and remarried. Now even his daughter belongs to someone else. He just watched an older man take his place while the three of them happily ate dinner together. That’s why.”

“Oh… I…”

The Reborn Puffcap was left speechless.

Ewan’s situation was hardly unique among the Reborn Puffcaps.

Most such cases involved former slaves rescued from the clutches of the Veiled Empire.

In truth, Ewan was among the fortunate ones.

The families of some former slaves had long since disappeared for any number of reasons.

The two Puffcaps remained silent for a moment. By mutual agreement, they left the painful subject behind and began discussing the flavor of the Supreme Flavor mushroom instead.

Meanwhile, on the Kingdom’s western coast, Hero Sophia finally set foot on the territory of the Kingdom of Concord after an arduous journey.

She brought the Kingdom’s leaders several shocking pieces of news.

“The northern army destroyed Kyth at sea?” Grand Duke Lorenzo could hardly believe the news Sophia had brought him. “Why would Mycel Keep send troops so far away to eliminate insects that posed no immediate threat to them? Could it have been the Veiled Empire’s… No, that can’t be right…”

Before he could finish, Lorenzo rejected the possibility himself.

The Kingdom of Concord’s intelligence on the Veiled Empire might have been outdated, but they were not completely ignorant of current events.

Lorenzo knew that the Veiled Empire was conducting a large-scale purge of mycelial mats throughout its territory. Under those circumstances, it could hardly have raised a Puffcap handler army.

But he still could not understand why the Mycel Keep army had appeared there.

Standing behind the Hero, Samuel said, “We suspect they emerged through a spatial rift in the dungeon. If they started from the Tidal Sanctuary, the battlefield would not have been particularly far away. It’s just…”

“It’s difficult to imagine any faction using such an unstable passage to transport an army,” Lorenzo finished for him.

As a duke, he was naturally familiar with the spatial rifts unique to dungeons. Such rifts could not remain stable, and only a handful of adventurers who did not care whether they could return would risk passing through them. No rational commander would ever treat one as an army route.

As far as Lorenzo knew, no method existed to keep a spatial rift stable.

Even after a lengthy discussion, they could only conclude that Mycel Keep must have wanted something from Kyth badly enough to gamble its entire force on a one-way expedition.

Sophia also explained that the Mist had begun advancing more quickly. Priest Samuel stated outright that the area ultimately swallowed by the Mist this time might extend even farther than it had during the war between humanity and Demonkind.

Lorenzo nodded gravely and promised to make preparations.

A servant-controlled Puffcap carried a platter of fruit to the table. Sophia’s gaze remained fixed on it until it left the room.

“Puffcaps… really are everywhere in the Kingdom now,” Sophia observed.

Lorenzo smiled. “Puffcaps are simply too useful in every respect. To be honest, when I learned that the Veiled Empire had voluntarily abandoned the use of Puffcaps, I felt tremendously relieved. With their help, the Kingdom can recover from the war far more quickly and may even emerge stronger than before. With you here as well, Lady Sophia, reclaiming the heartland of the continent may not be impossible.”

“Are they useful enough… to resurrect the dead?”

“What?”

Lorenzo’s expression immediately turned serious.

They did possess a plan to resurrect a certain individual as a last