Chapter 158: Mount

Marianne and Denise landed gracefully on their feet, staring at the lifeless body of the giant centipede in absolute disbelief, then moved their gazes frantically around the dark clearing, searching for Asher’s hidden presence.

​"Over ten million physical attack damage?! My highest damage with all buffs combined is only seven million." Marianne muttered in sheer disbelief, her voice trembling slightly under the weight of those numbers.

​"Mine is only five million... I still don’t believe we are all SSS-RANK," Denise added, wiping a bead of cold sweat from his forehead as he stared at the shattered earth.

​"No, he isn’t SSS-RANK, but Ex-Rank," Marianne revealed, her eyes narrowing as she analyzed the absurd mathematical discrepancy.

​"What?!! But his aura is clearly only that of an SSS-RANK Awakened."

​"I suspect he is hiding it, right?" She yelled out into the shadowed forest, moving her gaze around the ancient, colossal trees.

​"Stop talking, and get off the ground..." Asher instructed coldly as he revealed himself, stepping out from the shadows and floating midair above them.

​"Also, remember, don’t touch the trees; there are more of them down there." He added, storing back his Devouring sword in his system.

​"....?!"

​The two instantly activated their spirit energy, surging into the air like twin rockets and hovering right beside Asher, staring down at the writhing, shadow-draped forest floor with newfound dread.

​"What about the evolution stones? That monster should have dropped an SS-RANK stone." Denise noted, glancing back down at the mountain of dead insect flesh.

​"It doesn’t have any." Asher cut Denise off with a flat, entirely unbothered expression on his face.

​"Huh??"

​"How are you so sure?" Marianne asked, staring at him in complete confusion.

​Asher simply shrugged, his dark coat fluttering in the ambient draft: "Believe me or not, I don’t care."

​Marianne was silent for a moment, her mind refusing to let go of established Awakened rule. Unable to hold back her curiosity, she flew down, landing directly on the broad head of the dead centipede. She raised her glowing red sword and plunged it right into its armored skull.

​She pulled out her sword, creating a gap, and plunged her armored arm deep into the gray matter, searching through the creature’s neural cavity.

​’Strange, why can’t I locate it?’

​After three minutes of utter, agonizing silence, Marianne pulled out her blood-stained gauntlet and sat heavily on the centipede’s carapace:

​"Impossible, a monster can’t survive without an evolution stone." She looked up at Asher, her voice filled with certainty:

​"When a creature is born, especially monsters, a liquid resides in their brain. The stronger they get, the more it solidifies! Once they reach D-Rank, the liquid will completely solidify; this liquid is what we call evolution stones... This is also why F-Rank monsters don’t drop these stones," She explained, staring up at Asher’s distant silhouette:

​"But this thing is SS-RANK, there is no way... Another valid point: you can only remove it from the exact point I struck."

​"Where are you?" Asher asked, staring down at her from the air with a slight frown.

​This exact tedious debate was why he had originally wanted to come alone; who gave a fuck about all these theories?

​"An SSS-RANK Dungeon." Marianne answered in mild confusion, tilting her head.

​"Do you think you can understand everything that happens inside an SSS-RANK Dungeon?" He asked again, his voice echoing off the broad leaves.

​".....?"

​Marianne fell dead silent. The fundamental assumption that monsters couldn’t exist without evolution stones was a human rule derived from lower-tier raids. There were surely monsters and ancient creatures out in the unmapped abysses that broke all established logic.

​She gave a small, humbled nod: "I understand."

​"Now get up here; we will try to fly out of this forest... I don’t know if the evolution stones were removed, or if they simply don’t have one. What I do know is that we must leave this place immediately," Asher stated, his gaze sweeping across the endless green canopy.

​’I can teleport to any location 500 meters away, but if I don’t know the exact location, or if it’s completely blocked from my view, I won’t be able to teleport there; so Flash is ineffective here,’ Asher thought, assessing his tactical parameters.

​With Flash, he could instantly teleport to any coordinate within five hundred meters, but after continuous use, he had discovered a fundamental limitation with the skill. If Asher stood in a straight line, staring directly at a tree located five hundred meters away, he could instantly teleport to that tree. But if the dense foliage blocked his view of that tree, completely hiding the fact that a tree was even there, he wouldn’t be able to execute the shift even if it fell within the skill’s absolute range.

​’Flash is effective if I am flying, because everything will be in my direct line of sight... Wait, flying!!’

​Asher’s eyes widened in slight surprise:

​’System!! My Mount—can I summon it here?’

​{Yes. Master just needs to think about the mount and summon it.}

​Asher nodded inwardly and closed his eyes, channeling his mental authority. He raised his right hand and snapped his fingers into the quiet gloom of the forest.

​BOOOOM!!!

​".....?!"

​Marianne and Denise, who were hovering nervously behind him, froze in absolute shock as a colossal pillar of blinding golden light shot straight down from the sky of the world, blasting a massive hole through the thick broad leaves and striking the forest floor hard.

​They stared wide-eyed at the ground as the light slowly dimmed until it vanished completely, revealing the majestic figure of a gigantic avian beast.

​SCREECH!!!!!

​The 60-foot-long white and gold Harpy Eagle let out a deafening, terrifying shriek that echoed all over the vast forest, spreading out its magnificent 180-foot wingspan and sending a massive hurricane of dust and torn leaves flying in all directions.

​"What the hell?!!"

​"My Goodness!!"

​Marianne and Denise exclaimed in sheer shock and disbelief, their eyes wide open as they stared at the beast now bowing its massive head before Asher.