Beneath the shadows casted by the light of great phosphorescent trees, innumerable ghastly forms lurked and shambled onward.

One particular individual, much larger than the rest, sniffed at the air. With a low hum, the red crystal on its back glowed bloody crimson. The creature, having found what it was looking for, signaled for the others to follow the scent it had detected.

The trail was old, but even the faintest of presence cannot elude its huger for life. Its target ran with the aid of at least three beasts; that much it could tell from its prey.

It seemed that its quarry had been generously using its powers; leaving a brilliant trail to follow. Its abilities have been honed to specialize in hunting the enemy of their kind, so finding so much verdant mana in its path is like discovering a lighthouse shining within a sunless sea.

Its little green prey may have avoided death despite having jumped of the cliff’s edge, but now that it was hot on its trail, it will make sure to thoroughly tear into it until there was nothing left.

Its master had confirmed; the little green one it had let escape was of great significance to their enemies. Hence, its master cannot suffer it to live.

Having wrested control of a number of their hunters, the beast lead on, chittering in excitement over the thrill of the hunt to come.

***

With both arms raised before its head while one foot went forward than the other in what appeared to be a stance, the changeling couldn’t help but think the Tyrant was copying it. Currently, the changeling was unconsciously positioned in a stance as well since it relied on the passive knowledge it possessed, but only when it saw the Tyrant’s bearing did it notice its own positioning was similar.

The question now is whether the beast can actually pull off the same level of techniques. To confirm this, the changeling initiated the fight and went closer. The Tyrant threw several punches, but they appeared awkward and were easily countered. Several more exchanges happened with the changeling not holding back in its attacks, but it noticed something concerning as the fight dragged on.

Even though it seemed like the Tyrant was only trying to cluelessly mimic the changeling’s moves, it noticed that it was getting harder to land proper blows onto the Tyrant. Not only that, as they kept exchanging punches, the Tyrant’s blows gradually became sharper, faster, and more difficult to avoid. In fact, a few punches managed to get through and with each successive punch, the damage further increased.

The changeling couldn’t believe it, but it seems that the beast was actually learning and improving, and dangerously fast at that. The changeling may be dominating now, but it won’t be long until the Tyrant manages to catch up and possibly even surpass it.

This talent for combat was beyond anything it had understood about the nature of beasts, and it couldn’t help but think that this creature may hold a fundamental clue to the evolution of civilization. Though in this case, it may be more of an evolution of combat.

While it is impressed with this creature’s innate ability to learn and adapt, it also understood that its circumstances are now more dire.

As the Tyrant continued at its pace, the changeling will eventually no longer possess any advantage against it. What’s worse is that the damage it received from its fists couldn’t be ignored. The few blows it received felt like they would soon be able to tear a hole through its body. It didn’t know why the Tyrant’s fists shone in a red metallic luster, but somehow in that state its fists became hard like metal, and even simply parrying the blows were almost enough to crush its arms.

It could try to forcibly absorb or consume the beast, but it was too risky as not only will it become more vulnerable due to it destabilizing its cells, the Tyrant itself seemed to possess an otherworldly vitality that the changeling believed would allow it to resist deconstruction unless it was severely weakened.

Not only that, the entire troupe might also react violently if they were to see one of their own being forcefully consumed. If a fight with all the primati were to happen in that situation, the changeling would be left in a vulnerable state leaving it unable to fight back while being attacked from outside and within.

Left with little to no answer on how it could overturn the fight, the changeling continued to fight while it felt itself getting pushed further and further until eventually there was no longer a gap in their techniques.

Now, at this point, the changeling was the only one continually receiving damage. There were no longer any openings it could exploit and could only parry or defend against the black Tyrant’s onslaught.

It didn’t give up and continued to fight back, but it knew that it would only be a matter of time before its defenses are worn down. And yet, despite surmounting pressure, it continued to look for a way to win.

However, little did the changeling know that its body was currently undergoing an extreme change. All its conscious mental capabilities were so focused on looking for a trait, knowledge, or any biological composition it could possibly exploit in order to win that it failed to notice the “tempering” that its body was undergoing.

Yes, “tempering,” since the blows it had been constantly receiving had caused an explosive growth within each and every cell within its body.

Evolution normally takes place in a span of millions of years in order for a living creature to adapt to its environment and external conditions. It may even be possible for it to occur within a shorter span of time for the creatures of this world due to the influence of the mysterious force known as magic, but the point remains that the changeling wasn’t a creature bound to the natural laws.

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In its fervor facing the black Tyrant, the changeling had forgotten the fact that its body had been engineered to respond to extreme and volatile conditions regardless of it being conscious of it or not.

A situation similar to when it had transformed into an unstable chimeric state when it had attacked the goblin tribe was occurring once more. Again, it was being forced to adapt and evolve.

While it had been capable of total control of all its cells and functions, it still wasn’t proficient at manipulating most of its autonomous systems. Neither was it aware of all the systems involved. Hence, why it wasn’t aware of the changes currently happening to its body.

Lastly, while the changeling possessed an individual sense of self, the genetic engineering its body underwent coupled with the consumption of the mysterious black entity had literally given every cell within its body a unified “will”. A will to adapt, grow, and evolve.

This “will” had given birth to an unparalleled vitality and adaptability.

Normally, this method of growth was unreliable and reckless since it involved putting the body through extreme conditions within an unknown amount of time. The risks involved simply weren’t worth the vague attributes it would come to possess, especially in situations where a single mistake could be costly.

Its current situation, however, was a rare opportunity. The black Tyrant, while strong, wasn’t intent on ending the fight instantaneously. In its desire for battle, it chose to whittle away at the changeling in order to incorporate as much of its techniques as it can.

While it continued to temper its techniques, the changeling’s body in turn was being tempered by its blows. While its techniques continued to grow sharper and proficient, the changeling’s body was further adapting to the Tyrant’s strength.

With the gradual destruction and reconstruction of the changeling’s muscles, each strand became denser, more resilient, and more refined into smaller braided strands.

Eventually, the fight climaxed into an unexpected result – a clash of fists exploding into an earth-shattering clang of metal.

Both the Tyrant and the changeling were pushed back when their fists connected. Slightly dazed by the sudden impact of their clash, both were startled to see how furrowed the ground had become from their countless exchanges. The middle of the clearing appeared as though a meteor had struck the center.

With a break in their clash, the onlookers grew noisy seeing as both combatants still didn’t have a clear winner. The black Tyrant only snorted when it saw Oneris’ concerned eyes, but it slightly twitched when it suddenly felt a stinging pain in its left hand. Its eyes narrowed when it noticed cracks forming across its hand that it used in the clash. Using its mana to enhance its body, it possessed the ability to harden its arms like metal from the strengthening, but this was the first time it had seen cracks in its skin.

The changeling on the other hand was shocked when it scanned its body. Its cells were currently exuding so much vigor that similar to the Tyrant, a white vapor was being emitted from its body. Never would it have expected that their fight would trigger such a change to its biological framework.

It never bothered to further engineer its cell structures due to their shifting nature and instead relied mostly on adopting stronger or more efficient genetic strains of each type, but it knew this was a shallow method of growth that was adopted prior to attaining its gene anchor.

Despite having successfully attained an anchor, it never took the opportunity to fully study the capabilities of its current body. Foolishly, it maintained its previous method of growth through assimilation and replacement. It simply thought that despite the difference of its new state, it believed that its powers would simply become an extension of its previous abilities.

It failed to actually recognize that it had attained a true body. One which possessed all the capabilities of its previous state and more beyond its current comprehension. Simply put, its current body could now properly adapt and grow with increased proficiency since it was no longer burdened by cell instability. New genetic information instead became blueprints that allowed the changeling to seamlessly mesh different abilities actively and, in this case, autonomously.

Having weathered the Tyrant’s blows, its flesh while having absorbed all the data of the beasts in its “mental library,” had simply found the opportunity to have the old cellular structures be destroyed and gradually replaced by the newer and stronger framework.

The skin hardened like steel yet retained their elasticity. The muscles split into numerous fibers that braided into itself and refined into an extremely dense and flexible inner armor. And finally, the bones shattered to rearrange themselves into a vast number of polygonal structures that reinforced its frame to the absolute maximum.

The process was painful but the resulting success was extreme. Every time the changeling tried to move its limbs, it felt like it was trying to move an incredibly weighty and complex machine. At first, the movements felt sluggish, but as soon as its senses had fully adapted, its movement felt much smoother and unrestrained than ever before.

Just by clenching its fist, the pressure the action exerted was strong enough to send shocks that reverberated into the air. This was not left unnoticed.

Seeing the changeling’s newfound state, the black Tyrant sneered and remained undaunted as it issued a new challenging cry to its opponent’s new and awakened strength.

The beast charged and lunged into the air to deliver an overhead punch that seemed to carry the weight of the world. The changeling, still in awe of its change but not ignorant to the oncoming threat, silently clenched its fist. In a stance opposite to the Tyrant’s strike from above, the changeling readied a fist from below.

The changeling was now confident. It had yet to see how far its strength had gotten, but the power it could feel contained in its fist was beyond anything it had felt before. Hence, it was confident.

Seeing the changeling’s silent and calm demeanor, the Tyrant became more furious and threw its punch that contained all its power. A punch whose sharpness rent the very air.

Lacking fear, the changeling maintained its stance as the Tyrant’s fist arrived before its bone-encased muzzle. An explosive thud rang out as the changeling’s face appeared to have been torn asunder. Instead of glee, however, the Tyrant’s expression was one of shock.

At the last moment, just as the fist had touched the tip of the changeling’s muzzle, it had moved its head. The pressure from the strike still caused enough damage to shred the side of its head, but not nearly enough to stop its next action.

Now that the Tyrant was helpless in the air having left itself wide open, the changeling unleashed its uppercut. The next moment happened in a flash.

With an extremely loud boom, the changeling’s fist had struck true into the Tyrant’s abdomen. In an instant, the Tyrant simply disappeared, blown away by the punch with its last expression that of extreme agony.

What was left was the changeling standing there alone surrounded by a ring of dust with its fist raised and the earth beneath it cracked and caved even further.

The changeling was victorious. However, it couldn’t fully enjoy its triumph as another predicament suddenly arose.

Contrary to how powerful its strike was and that it was able to send an opponent almost twice its size flying, the Tyrant didn’t actually fly too far. Not only that, despite the intensity of the blow, the changeling could feel that it still wasn’t enough to kill the Tyrant. It simply had that much vitality.

Not that it intended to kill the Tyrant due to the possible repercussions, the problem was that the unconscious form of the Tyrant flew into the lagoon, causing the troupe to suddenly start going into a frenzy.

The reason for that was what awaited in the lagoon. Gultrave, the Gazing Maw, was eager to have its next meal.

***