SSS Awakening: All My Clones Have Divine Bloodlines!-Chapter 38: Escalation

The battle was nearing its end, far quicker than anyone might have expected. Less than ten minutes had passed, and yet it had already reached a point where the winning side and the losing one were painfully clear.

Shadow, with his lethal precision and complete lack of compassion for the guards, had eliminated seventy percent of them.

Some of the Unawakened were still alive, but mutilated. Others, awakened, were barely clinging to life. Most of the F-Ranks were dead, and the sole mid-stage E-Rank also remained alive, though in such a state that he was no different from a corpse.

Evan had no intention of going easy on them, nor did his clone. Even so, he gave the command to spare those who were no longer capable of fighting back or harming him in any way.

He would not show mercy to his enemies, no matter who they were, but the part of him that was still human preferred to avoid unnecessary slaughter, especially in a situation like this, where they were already defeated.

He didn’t know if that part of him would cost him dearly in the future, but for now, he wouldn’t ignore it.

If nothing else, at least for the sake of his own conscience.

That was how he handled things.

Luna, however, was different.

That girl had become a war machine, ready to slaughter anyone who stood in her way, and this moment was no exception.

She too had already killed most of them, and at this point only two E-Ranks were still alive. One was no longer capable of fighting, and the other could barely even hold a sword, every nerve in his body screaming at him to stop moving.

Darius’ condition had also worsened. In just a few seconds, he had lost an arm, along with multiple smaller wounds that piled onto the previous ones, creating a storm of pain throughout his body, one he was beginning to lose the ability to endure.

Luna was already standing before him, her sword raised, ready to put an end to his suffering.

But at that exact moment, something in the air changed.

It wasn’t sudden, more subtle. As if it hadn’t been there before... and now it was.

Both Shadow and Luna found themselves frozen in place as an overwhelming pressure descended upon them.

For the first time since all of this began, Luna showed a hint of emotion, shock flickering across her face as her instincts screamed in alarm. Whoever had just appeared was not someone she could face with her current strength.

The same applied to Shadow. Though he didn’t feel emotions like a human, he could still perceive the danger emanating from that presence.

That sensation was instantly transmitted to Evan, who stood atop the city walls near the Langton manor.

They were the closest exit point, perfect for escaping without running into unnecessary trouble.

Leaving the manor amidst all the chaos had been easy, and now that he was here, he could finally see the outside world without having to follow Percival around in constant fear of dying at any moment.

"Shit... it’s really an Elite," he muttered, as in the distance he could see the Greystone Forest growing restless, low-rank beasts fleeing from it.

"Haa... I wanted to avoid resorting to this, but oh well, desperate times call for desperate measures," he murmured to himself, his expression turning colder as he looked back toward the manor, just over a hundred meters away.

"Consider this my parting gift."

Mana surged violently through his body, a cold and oppressive aura wrapping around him.

He raised his hand as black particles began to converge violently, colliding and merging again and again until a small black sphere began to form in his palm.

It grew from something barely visible into a sphere roughly two centimeters wide, small, yet more than enough for its intended purpose.

The air around it twisted unnaturally, while particles of other elements seemed to recoil, as if afraid of being contaminated by it.

Evan stared at it with a mix of fear and fascination before lifting his hand slightly. The sphere rose gently into the air.

He brought his middle finger against his thumb, and the moment the sphere began to fall, he flicked it forward.

A simple gesture.

Yet the impact was anything but.

The air cracked as the sphere shot forward like a projectile toward the manor.

Evan didn’t stay to watch. He turned immediately and, without hesitation, jumped from the city walls, ready to sprint toward the forest.

"Shit, shit, shit... I actually did it. Let’s just hope this doesn’t come back to bite me," he muttered, pushing off the wall mid-fall and propelling himself forward, landing roughly but never stopping. He didn’t look back, not even for a second.

The consequences of that decision became clear in the very next moment.

A suffocating pressure descended upon the entire city, followed by a thunderous roar coming from the direction of the manor.

There, the bell tower, the highest point of the manor, had been struck directly.

Something small, yet devastating, had hit it. But instead of simply destroying it, it exploded on contact, releasing a strange black substance that began to spread outward, spiraling again and again until a vortex, roughly the size of a person, formed in its place.

The moment it appeared, an immense pressure engulfed not only the manor, but the entire city.

Ordinary people collapsed instantly, fainting as blood poured from their eyes, ears, and noses.

The awakened fell to the ground, trembling and convulsing, desperately wishing for their minds to shut down and free them from the overwhelming pain and terror flooding their senses.

Then, from within the vortex, long, thick arms emerged, ending in terrifying claws. They gripped the edges of the black vortex and forced it wider, expanding it further and further until it reached a diameter of three meters.

And then...

The rest of the thing on the other side began to crawl out.

As it did, a piercing, inhuman scream tore through the air, echoing across the entire city and beyond.

SCREEEECH!