Monsters: Evolving from Titans to Ancient Gods

Rick looked up at Marana's sculpted silhouette against the night sky, the reflection of the stars enveloping her and casting a faint glow.

Beside Rick, the machine race he named Shubi looked up blankly at the divine race, awaiting His answer.

Although Shubi didn't know why Rick asked the question, Rick's affairs were her affairs, and she would seek the same answers that Rick wanted.

Meeting their gazes, Mara lowered his head slightly, revealing his ever-changing face clearly to them.

He did not answer, but his eyes emitted a faint light, which also enveloped Rick and Shubi. When the light faded, the two of them appeared on the star-shrouded mountain peak.

A massive void stretched across the sky, beyond which lay a starry expanse rarely seen by other races. In the distance, dark clouds, like splashes of ink, blanketed the sky, while bright lightning pierced through the overwhelming storm of spirit remains, which swept across the land like a blizzard.

A torrent of data flashed in Shubi's eyes. As an analytical being, she instinctively began to analyze everything that had just happened. Finally, through the spirit fluctuations, she successfully analyzed a spacetime transfer technique, which was similar to a portion of the energy of the dragon spirit species recorded in the records.

Rick was stunned for a moment before quickly coming to his senses. At the edge of the mountain peak, he saw a figure he hadn't seen for over a decade—it was Mara in human form.

Without hesitation, he turned and walked in that direction, came to Mara's side, saw him sitting on the edge of the mountaintop, thought for a moment, and then sat down as well.

Rick turned to look at Mara, whose appearance was exactly the same as the one he had seen when he was young: short black hair and an ordinary face.

Many people say that Mara presents different images in the eyes of different people.

Kron said that Lord Mara was a handsome white-haired man with slightly feminine features and a faint smile on his lips; one look at him and you could tell he was extraordinary and mysterious.

Some people say he was a kind old man, a muscular man with a murderous aura, or someone who looked like a demon, with a gaunt face like a skeleton and eyes that always blazed with hatred.

But Rick always felt that, in his own eyes, Mara's ordinary posture was the real him.

His wheat-colored skin was slightly dark, his short black hair looked as if it had been cut by a sharp weapon, and his arms and face looked somewhat rough. In a way, Mara looked like an ordinary person who had worked hard in primitive times.

Mara's response came only after Rick and Shubi sat down one after the other, letting the breeze carry specks of spirit remains across their bodies.

“You’re very perceptive, Rick.” Mara turned to look at Rick. “I will indeed leave here after helping humanity take revenge, but whether I will return is still unknown.”

Mara's response made Rick's heart sink. Although he had already guessed this possibility from some clues, he was still caught off guard by the definite answer.

Ever since the human population gradually expanded, Kron's father had always hoped that Mara could personally lead the human race and provide them with various kinds of guidance.

But Mara refused; He simply sat on His throne. The only time He interfered with humanity's choices was when Rick became the leader after he turned sixteen.

For more than a decade, He watched as humanity experienced various conflicts due to friction and organizational issues, even nearly resulting in bloodshed, without intervening to stop them.

Rick, who had always followed Mara, was unaware of the underlying ideas. But after Eden crashed to the ground and struggled to get back on track, it continued to grow and prosper even without divine guidance.

Rick gradually understood everything: Mara was teaching humanity to adapt to the ability to continue moving forward without panicking even after losing their gods.

It seems He will not stay with humanity for long and will depart one day; moreover, this day may come without warning.

Gradually, Rick became relieved, and after receiving a positive answer, he felt at ease.

"As expected, I guessed right."

He laughed and said, "From the very beginning, you've been preparing humanity for the possibility of returning to a state without divine assistance at any time, haven't you?"

"It seems you've succeeded."

Beside him, Hughie tilted her head, looking somewhat puzzled.

Mara nodded, giving his approval to the young man he had high hopes for: "Humans have their own path to walk. You may stumble and fall in the future, and you may even suffer a great setback, but in the end, you will have to walk it on your own."

"In that case, why not let humanity unite and begin to explore the world with its own hands and wisdom?"

This was exactly what Mara thought. Although it was the first time He had so openly favored a race, He did not significantly interfere with humanity's progress.

He has always fulfilled the role of a safety net.

As for the others…

Mara expressed his belief in human wisdom.

Now He "plays" the role of human vengeance in this world, not a lover king like the old sorcerer, because there is no such lover code within His essence.

If Mara had not existed, but a truly new god had been chosen instead, then the God of Revenge would most likely have been born only after the final human deaths and complete extinction of humanity.

A lover? They don't exist.

If, after we leave, humanity still suffers major setbacks in the environment we leave behind, it may even face extinction.

They might regret it, but ultimately it was their own decision and the path they chose; they can't blame anyone else.

Rick remained silent for a moment before asking again, "Where will you go after you leave?"

He pointed to the sky, to the twinkling stars, and asked, "Where are we heading?"

"I learned from some ancient ruins that there is a race called the Moon-Singing Race that lives on the moon."

"Will you go there or to another star?"

"No," Mara shook his head and said, "You should have learned about the spells for summoning items from other worlds from the forest elves. There are other worlds in the void."

"I come from outside this universe; strictly speaking, I am an Outer God in the eyes of this world."

Thanks to his own immense power, Mara felt that there was nothing to hide about the fact that he came from another world, and he never did.

First, I install the local mod every time I warp. Second, it is very powerful; if you want to study it, you have to defeat it beforehand.

Rick pondered, "Another world?"

Some forest elf relics do indeed record such spells and have summoned otherworldly items and creatures; King Kong seems to be one of them.

Upon hearing this, Shubi tugged at Laric's sleeve, "The Machine Race also has records of spells for summoning items from another world, and they have undergone seven improvements and upgrades."

Upon hearing this, Mara also turned her attention to Hughie. Although she had been in Eden for over a year, many people had accepted her presence.

But this was the first time Mara had observed her closely. She was no longer the cold person she had been when she first followed Rick. Her eyes revealed a fluctuation that even she herself did not realize.

Mara gazed at her meaningfully and said, "You want to understand emotions through Rick?"

Rick felt a bad feeling when he saw Mara shift the topic to Hugh.

Sure enough, under his gaze, Shubi once again uttered those outrageous words: "That's right, Shubi wants to understand emotions in order to reconnect with the Machine Race."

"To this end, Shubi tried to make skin-to-skin contact with Rick, in a **** way..."

Before she could finish speaking, Rick covered her mouth, sweating profusely, his face filled with helplessness.

This is something you can't talk about!

Gradually, Hughie realized that it was not appropriate to say this, so she shut her mouth. The internal computing power went into chaos, and the heat dissipation device on her head was emitting steam.

"I see, you've found it." Mara withdrew his gaze, staring into the distance, and murmured.

Rick asked incredulously, "What?"

Hughie stopped acting "broken," looking equally confused, clearly still puzzled by Mara's words.

But Mara did not provide an answer. He simply stood up calmly and vanished like a bubble under the watchful eyes of the man and the machine, the separated energy returning to the throne.

At the summit, Rick and Shubi looked at each other, the words Mara had left behind deeply resonating in their hearts.

...

Several days later, Rick and Schwi appeared in the center of the battlefield where the fleets were about to meet, carefully observing and replenishing the number of passage control devices.

If the passage control system malfunctions, it could very well lead to the devastation of war tearing the entire planet apart.

This plan can only be accomplished by concentrating this power in the underground Elf Corridor.

Just beyond the horizon, the fleets of forest elves and goblins spread with elven energy, and massive warships loomed beneath the dark clouds.

The warships of the Forest Elves are the culmination of tens of thousands of years of accumulated magical techniques, representing the pinnacle of their fusion of aesthetics and magic. Shaped like sailboats, they are inscribed with numerous magical runes and levitate using anti-gravity magic.

Wooden warships lay scattered about, and the current leader of the Forest Elf race was Crimson Nilbaren.

After that incident, she single-handedly defeated the chaotic upper echelons of the nobility and saved the forest elves from the brink of disintegration.

Thanks to her efforts, the forest elves avoided the fate that the orcs had faced: the death of their gods, the disintegration of their race overnight, and their already weak power plummeting to rock bottom.

After she rectified the tribe, she quickly mobilized the chaotic army to the edge of the forest and stopped the goblins who were taking advantage of the situation.

Even now, she still stands at the forefront, leading the army under her command across thousands of kilometers to confront her arch-enemy, the goblin race.

"That damn human..."

At this moment, Shinku belatedly realized that the human had deliberately stirred up conflict between the forest elves and the goblins, indirectly making the whole world full of tension.

While cursing the human, Crimson stared intently at the goblin fleet thousands of kilometers away in the spell-based light screen, analyzing their weapons.

Goblins and forest elves have been enemies for tens of thousands of years, because goblins like to kill forest elves and take the "soul stone" from their foreheads, a valuable material.

The forest elves, of course, would not surrender easily. Relying on their powerful magical abilities, they fought the goblins for over ten thousand years, resulting in countless deaths on both sides.

Goblin warships differ from forest elf warships; they are standard steel behemoths, painted in the natural silver-gray of steel, with an overall style that is exceptionally rough.

The two fleets faced off at a great distance, their various highly offensive techniques and weapons poised to be unleashed. Both sides were waiting for the distance to close so that the fleets would be within their attack range.

Tens of thousands of years of war experience made both sides very clear about each other's tactics and thinking. At the beginning, both sides used a variety of new tactics.

But as the war spanned tens of thousands of years, their battles gradually became more straightforward, and tactics were no longer as effective as setting up a battle formation and directly exchanging fire to win.

Both sides were staring at each other, everyone on edge, but the sudden arrival of the other party forced them to shift their attention to a third party.

Similar intelligence was presented to the high-ranking members of both the forest elves and the goblins almost simultaneously.

[The fantasy species Avantheim has appeared on this continent and is moving towards the battlefield.]

The moment they received the intelligence, the already tense atmosphere between the leaders of both sides became even heavier. The arrival of that fantasy species meant the arrival of the Skywing species.

If the lower races were no different from natural disasters to humans in the past, then the Skywing races were the same for most of the lower races.

Individuals from some of the world's strongest races—the God Race, the Fantasy Race, the Dragon Spirit Race, and the Giant Race—have been successfully killed by the hyena-like Skywing Race.

Among them are cases of solo kills.

Before the Machine Race killed a Dragon King, they were the only God-Slaying Weapons in the world.

As time passed, a colossal creature, seemingly composed of countless crystals, slowly drifted from the distant continent, carrying the skull of a dragon spirit, and moved straight towards the area between the goblin and forest spirit species.

It is obvious that the beautiful killing machines under the God of War did not care about the origin of the war or what it could bring; they came attracted by the smell of gunpowder.

In other words, they only want to kill the forest elves and the goblins, or be killed by both of them.

However, judging from the vast difference in strength, the first outcome is far more likely than the second.

Everyone became increasingly cautious, but they did not back down. They also had their own trump cards and firmly believed that the power these trump cards could unleash was absolutely enough to rival the God of War's strike.

Inside the Skywing's lair, Azriel, with her emerald green hair, was idly fiddling with a battle map, completely disregarding both sides.

Given enough time, she could annihilate both fleets single-handedly.

Beside her, the blue-haired Raphael was unusually cautious, carefully observing the movements of the two fleets.

With the three parties approaching, war is imminent.

On the battlefield, a deadly encounter was quietly unfolding.

A goddess-like monster descended gracefully onto the scorched earth, her rainbow-colored hair swaying gently in the wind, while the small wings on her lower back and the intricate geometric patterns on her head confirmed her identity.

Jibril, the weakest of the Skywing race in terms of stats but one of the strongest, observed the strange combination before her, lightly tossing the access control device in her hand. Her eyes gleamed, and an elegant smile curved her lips.

"Gui'an, are you out for a walk today too?"

"Scrap metal, and Mr. Human."

Her laughter was extremely melodious, and she was beautiful and graceful, but the aura she exuded made Rick and Shubi feel as if they had fallen into an ice cave, and they instinctively trembled.

It was as if what stood before them was not a beautiful young woman, but a man-eating beast, an invincible natural disaster.