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[ 𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐑𝐂𝐇'𝐒 𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐒𝐀𝐆𝐄 ]

𝕋𝕙𝕚𝕤 𝕔𝕙𝕒𝕡𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝕚𝕤 𝕤𝕝𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥𝕝𝕪 𝕘𝕣𝕦𝕖𝕤𝕠𝕞𝕖, 𝕤𝕠 𝕗𝕠𝕣 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕧𝕚𝕖𝕨𝕖𝕣𝕤 𝕠𝕗 𝕗𝕒𝕚𝕟𝕥 𝕙𝕖𝕒𝕣𝕥𝕤; 𝕓𝕖𝕨𝕒𝕣𝕖.

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A Celestial Beast. A Beast that had met specific and yet ambiguous requirements in order to unlock the evolution.

A Celestial Beast didn’t obtain a human form nor the ability to absorb essence freely from the air. However, they obtained the most tyrannical and divine bodies possible that allowed them to be multiple times stronger than other Beasts of the same level.

In fact, some of the more talented Celestial Beasts would be able to fight other Beasts that were a whole realm above them (e.g Realm 4 Stage 5 Celestial Beast fighting against a Realm 5 Stage 5 Regular Beast). It got even more stupendous when such Celestial Beasts were Laws Beasts at the same time.

But that was for another time.

Right now, Eridel had much more pressing issues. Somewhat unexpected but at the same time it was to be expected.

HUMANITY WAS FAILING!

In a regular World, there shouldn’t be a situation where an Enlightened Race was at the bottom of the food chain but here it was!

Ants and rats were casually bullying humans, lower-mid level life forms like wolves were enforcing humans as servants and higher level life forms like the Dragons and Snakes were straight up enslaving them or using them as cattle! A DISGRACE!

As an ex-human and current elite Planetary Engineer, Eridel could not let such an imbalance persist!

Eridel zoomed his attention to the North Continent and a group of Human teenagers that were running frantically through a forest.

The picture of desperation and despair could be found on each of their faces, clearly something was chasing them. And alas, the sound of a rustling bush was heard and an indistinguishable shadow appeared with a shocking speed that the children were unprepared for.

The shadow latched onto one of the younger children that was lagging behind and promptly bit down on his nape as the child screamed with terror.

“NOOOOO!” screamed one of the girls that was running in the front. She faltered in her running as she watched as her 12 year old brother was devoured.

Unfortunately for her, she was already lacking in energy and screaming out loud and splitting her attention like that wasn’t really conducive to escaping.

The girl tripped and didn’t have the energy to right herself and she wasn’t even sure if she was willing. That was her brother right there, the one she promised to protect till her death so was there even a point in escaping anymore? She briefly caught the image of the despair in her brother's eyes as more of those strange creatures appeared and surrounded him. Dismay gripped her heart before the disorientation of falling scattered the image.

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The girl collapsed to the ground, but she didn’t even have the time to blink before her arm was grabbed and she was dragged in the same direction that she had been running again.

A boy had actually grabbed the girl and continued running. He had seen the situation and had seen the little boy die but there was nothing he could do about that, he could however save the boy’s sister so that was what he would do.

Though, now they were both in danger and he didn’t know how they could possibly survive.

He forcefully dragged the girl in front of him before straightening her posture and pushing her forward, all in one movement.

It was such a beautiful manoeuvre that one would think that he had experience in pushing reluctant runners.

The girl took one more glance at her brother before cringing in horror and turning back to run. A ferocious expression began to grow on her face and her running started to look more like stomping as if she wanted to punish the ground for whatever sight she had just seen.

The boy felt like sighing but he was already huffing and puffing. At this point he was already familiar with this scenario and he had seen many of his people die. But this time it was worse.

Some strange system had arrived and they were able to somehow communicate with each other using the strange sounds that the system itself had used. Words… that’s what it was, sometimes he forgot.

But ever since then they had achieved a much closer relationship, everyone including him had felt much more like family since they were able to share their experiences and it was so fun.

Alas, they had forgotten the reality of their situation and the cannibals had found them and made them pay savagely in price.

…That little boy wasn’t even the 3rd death today.

He shook his head from such depressing thoughts and continued running. He was good at that, if you wanted to live in this World you need to know how to run. His father had always taught him how to run even before the appearance of the cannibals, too bad he was dead now.

Besides the girl who was running a couple metres in front of him there were 3 other people much further ahead, they were 2 boys and 1 girl and part of the new family they were forming.

His heart warmed when the 3 in the front turned around and started making gestures for them to run faster.

He took a quick glance back and was pleased with the distance they had made, the cannibals always took time to eat before resuming chase.

They should be able to ma-

CSSSSSHH!

Huh?

Neither the boy or girl could comprehend the image of their 3 companions suddenly becoming headless as their heads soared into the sky in a trail of blood.

What was even more jarring was the fact the bodies still kept running for a few more seconds as blood was ejected in copious amounts.

Soon, humanoid figures started appearing over the bodies with some getting straight to business and some of them eyeing the boy and his last living friend.

These humanoids actually looked exactly like humans but neither of them was actually whole. They either had a large amount of flesh missing from their bodies or were complete skeletons. Some were more complete than others but some you would NEVER confuse for a living being.

They were cannibals.

But Eridel would prefer to call them lesser undead.

The girl dropped to her knees with a look of horror as her companions were devoured whilst the boy completely stopped running. He didn’t even bother to look at the scene and merely gazed at the ground with soulless eyes as his body passively tried to regather oxygen.

The picture of defeat.

“Um… would you guys like some help?”