Void Beetle Evolution Guide

Wild Hunt believes that these behemoths are deformed products born from the violent reaction between the massive amount of void energy released when the Icathians tore open the void rift and real matter.

Each one of them is a unique individual; no two are alike. Even a Celestial Warrior at his peak might not be a match for them.

Fortunately, the two Darkin were quite self-aware and wisely chose a route that avoided these ancient monsters.

Kasha simply watched them appear and disappear in the distant flashes of lightning, their eyes gleaming eerily in the darkness, and even she didn't really want to provoke them.

The fighting continued almost non-stop, and even the two Darkborn were getting tired of it.

"You said Aatrox chose a bad place, why did he have to make us meet in Icathia?" Nayafili complained. Several of her puppies had already died. Although they could regenerate, each death was a significant drain on her resources.

“Perhaps he needs to vent his anger by fighting the void creatures, or perhaps he’s there to block someone’s path,” Naganekia replied casually.

"...I feel like there's something hidden in your words. Do you know something inside?"

"It's just a guess, we'll find out when the time comes. There seems to be a ruin ahead, let's go take a look."

Naganek's vertical pupils pierced through the smoke and saw the ruins several kilometers away, so she quickened her pace.

Kasha arrived later, scaling the collapsed city walls to enter the unnamed ancient town ruins.

There were no signs of a major battle outside the city walls. Judging from its size, this was not the former main city of Icathia, but a small town on the border of the former mage kingdom. It was mercilessly swallowed up by the void tide that attacked from the direction of the main city after the outbreak of the war.

Kasha saw that the streets and rooftops were covered in ash, and even with the sunlight shining down, the whole town still had an unnatural pale color.

The architecture here is very similar to that of Shurima; she even found a collapsed sun disk symbol above the ruins of a temple.

This is not surprising, as Icathia once existed as a vassal state of the Shurima dynasty, so the appearance of Shurima symbols is not unexpected.

Although the architectural style of ancient Icathia is similar to that of Shurima, there are still some differences upon closer inspection.

The walls of the houses here are not made of a single piece of rammed earth and stone, but are made of stacked earthen bricks. Moreover, the way these earthen bricks are stacked is different from what people usually know – the diagonals of the cube-shaped earthen bricks are all perpendicular to the ground, that is, they are stacked in a diamond shape, and the exposed cut lines are very neat, which makes the whole house look like a large square cake cut by a fishing net.

Along the town's main road, the newly emerged earthen walls have torn open numerous ravines. The exposed bedrock is covered with a tangled mass of grayish-white roots, motionless, having been dormant for thousands of years.

If there is no organic matter or magical nourishment nearby, the growth of the void will slow down until it eventually enters a dormant state.

On

Chapter 370 Ancient Battlefield

The two Darkin disappeared after entering the ruins, and Kai'Sa was worried that they might be hiding and ambushing her, so she was extra careful.

Actually, she was overthinking it; the Darkin didn't realize she was being followed.

They gathered before a cenotaph with several bronze spears stuck in it and golden banners scattered and broken, muttering something about the golden warriors of Shurima, seemingly referring to a human force that had fought alongside them.

After a brief moment of remembrance, the Darkin are on their way again.

They recognized the road to the heart of Icathia, and this time Kai'Sa followed them to the ruins of the fallen capital of Icathia.

The soil on the ground is dry, hard, and cracked. The air here is not as hot and dry as in the desert, but even though the coastline is just tens of kilometers away, it is not as humid as the sea.

The sky remained overcast with dark clouds, and intermittent flashes of lightning illuminated the bluish-green sky, giving it an unnatural glow.

The air was filled with an unusual texture; even a single breath could make your intestines knotted, your lips dry, and your fingertips tingle.

"The air here is nauseating." Kasha leaned against the ruins and dry heaved, her mouth filled with the taste of rancid milk, and her stomach felt like it had been stabbed, but naturally nothing came out.

"Don't take off your helmet," the Wild Hunt warned.

This is where the Void first emerged from the earth, and everything here is tainted by it. There is a word that best captures Wild Hunt's initial impression of this place—"a wasteland filled with radiation"—but that is far from enough. This place is a thousand times more dangerous than the wasteland.

The air was filled with void energy, and the fragile body could not be exposed to the scorching heat. At the same time, the fine scales on the surface of the skin and armor began to undulate, as if breathing in the void energy in the air.

Wild Hunt looked around and found that many areas of the surrounding land had been dissolved into a hard, black substance, as if a large mass of void had once crawled across it, leaving behind scorched marks from corrosion.

Many swords are stuck in the ground outside the city walls. After thousands of years of erosion, even the fine steel is covered with rust.

He saw the golden banners of Shurima, the brilliance of the sun disk totem now obscured by dust. The rattan shields of the Icathian army had crumbled, and the Nimcha scimitars were no longer sharp.

The bronze spears, covered in patina, lay scattered beside the soldiers' armor; they were empty shells, not even a single bone remained.

The enormous war machine fell from the sky, its heavy-duty carriages, comparable in size to a three-masted sailing ship, shattering into countless fragments that could never be pieced back together.

In addition, the giant weapons wielded by the Celestial Warriors were scattered throughout the battlefield, still awe-inspiring even after 3,500 years, but no one could find any of their enormous skeletons after searching the surrounding area.

It had clearly been completely decomposed by the void, and from it, unknown and terrifying life forms were born, bringing indiscriminate annihilation to everyone on both sides.

Wild Hunt saw the collapsed city walls and ruins not far away; without a doubt, this was the main battlefield where Shurima and Icathia were fighting.

He looked around carefully again and finally noticed something different.

A dark, hard substance that looks similar to the skin armor on the body, but is shaped like a giant insect cocoon.

They were already cracked and empty inside. Looking at these empty shells, he suddenly thought of the scene of flesh and blood wrapped in a ball of pale substance.

Life was dissolved, giving birth to something else, and that thing... must have been out for a long time.

There are still many cocoons on the battlefield, and a huge abyss flowing with purple blood appears in the distance, still spewing out faint light.

Strange sounds faintly emanated from within, a mixture of screams, hisses, and frantic wails, echoing from the distant underground, as if recording the dramatic events of 3,500 years ago being replayed to the present day.

The earth-shaking gorges burst forth from the ground, spanning the sky above the abyss, like a pillar of lava suddenly solidified in mid-air.

The energy emanating from the abyss gave Kai'Sa reason to believe that this was the source of Icathia's corruption, a source that was beckoning them from thousands of miles away, while she could only watch from afar, not daring to approach.

She feared that something might be conceived and born from her curiosity as she approached.

"Wild Hunt, what... happened here?"

Kaisa was shocked by the broken and bizarre scene of the ancient battlefield. Standing there, she was overwhelmed by the sense of antiquity, and the atmosphere of destruction was suffocating.

"In the year BC, the uproar in Icathia reached its climax. Unable to obtain an Ascension spot, they killed a Celestial Warrior and paraded his corpse through the streets of the newly liberated city."

Shurima dispatched hundreds of thousands of troops to suppress the Icathian rebellion, along with countless war machines, accompanying mages, and nine Celestial Warriors. In contrast, the Icathian side couldn't even muster ten thousand soldiers.

This was originally a war with no suspense; Icathia had no chance against the army led by the Celestial Warriors. But just as the battle outside the city walls was halfway through, Icathia's Enforcement Council, in a desperate gamble, unleashed the power of the void. (The remaining text appears to be unrelated and possibly machine-generated gibberish.)

Then they discovered that the mages of Icathia had no control over this power and were ultimately destroyed by the void they themselves had unleashed. In this war, there were no winners. Or rather, the void itself became the ultimate victor.

Kasha's mind went blank after hearing this, and she was completely stunned.

At this moment, she wasn't thinking about the plight of the humans who had perished so tragically. Instead, she was thinking about how hundreds of thousands of lives had become a breeding ground for the void, and what kind of terrifying monster army would be spawned from it? How many more armies would Shurima have to fill in to completely wipe it out?

She can now understand why Shurima didn't completely seal the Void Rift back then.

On the one hand, they were unfamiliar with the Void that had invaded, and on the other hand, there were just too many and too terrifying monsters. It's no wonder that all the Ascended who participated in the Void Wars eventually lost their minds, either perishing in madness or on their way to destruction.

For example, right now, two Darkborn suddenly clutched their heads in agony as they approached the ancient city. They both heard a continuous buzzing sound, like a swarm of insects trying to crawl into their brains.

"The aura of the abyss is truly unbearable; it hasn't shown any signs of abating even after all this time." Nayafili gagged, spitting out a few loose teeth.

Naganek's eyes began to tear up, and when she wiped them with the back of her hand, she didn't expect to leave a few drops of blood on her hand.

She recalled with a hint of contemplation, "Throughout my thousands of years of life, I have never witnessed a scene more terrifying than the one I saw that day. To repel the Void, Shurima dispatched the vast majority of its Celestial Warriors. Even someone like me, who is not good at fighting, was dragged into the battlefield. We fought for ten days and ten nights straight, until we reached the limit of our endurance, and finally drove those monsters back to the abyss..."

"However, we also paid a huge price. Every time I close my eyes, those bloody days float into my mind. I still remember the figure of Horlock leaping into the abyss. I will never find anyone as brave as him again."

"At that time, he had already been corrupted by the void energy, and a monster was gestating within him. He had nowhere to retreat, so he chose to fight to the death, hoping to take as many people down with him before he died." Naganekia added some details that Naafili was unaware of.

Upon hearing this, the latter sighed deeply, "If the Empire still existed, at least their heroic deeds would be remembered and passed down, instead of having their last bit of faith consumed by us 'fallen' Darkborn, and then being completely forgotten by the world."

Naganekia glanced at her, seemingly sensing the provocation in her words. "You can save those words for the others. I'm in the majority; if you can convince the majority of Darkin to join you, I'll naturally join as well."

The sounds of battle echoed through the city. Two Darkin figures traversed the ruins and moved toward the center of the ancient site. Wild Hunt manipulated his armor to irritate Kai'Sa's flesh, signaling her to stay away from the terrifying, massive abyss.

"They've already headed into the city, let's follow them."

Chapter 371 Aatrox and Stellato

On

Kasha stealthily crept into the ancient city ruins. The main road was piled high with the rubble of collapsed houses, yet its vastness was still evident. (The last two lines appear to be random characters and do not translate directly.)

Wild Hunt told her that Icathia was once a kingdom of mages with considerable strength and heritage. If it hadn't encountered the Sun Dynasty of Shurima, perhaps its reputation in history wouldn't be so infamous.

The dusty jewels lay scattered in the cracks between the bricks, and for thousands of years no one dared to come and scavenge them.

Kasha picked up a necklace, wiped the dust off with her fingers, and saw an opal encircling the center of the gold spiral. She wondered which girl it belonged to.

She looked around and saw chaos in just a few glances.

The statue of the sun disc was smashed off the roof, the statues of the deceased emperors were desecrated, and the huge murals were vandalized with filth.

These don't seem to be the work of Void creatures; they seem more like the result of a rebellion or a celebration.

Tens of thousands of men, women, and children gathered on the wide main road. Dressed in their brightest clothes and adorned with their finest jewelry, they cheered and paid their highest respects to the advancing resistance forces.

On that bloody day, the bodies of the celestial warriors were dismembered and paraded through the streets in a grand manner, to prove to the people that the celestial warriors of Shurima were also made of flesh and blood.

Screams echoed through the city as people shouted to hunt down every Shurima official and merchant, hanging the Sun Emperor's henchmen at the city gates, and mistaking the smell of smoke and flames for the scent of freedom...

Kasha shook her head and tossed the necklace aside, finding it difficult to recreate the scene with her limited imagination.

She followed two Darkin to a massive, stepped granite building. The base of the building was hollow, and the cracked earth was riddled with holes, like a honeycomb.

Just as Kai'Sa was wondering what the purpose of the structure was, Naga Neka said that these holes were originally wooden stakes with the corpses of Shurima and the torsos of Celestial Warriors stuck in them.

It was here that the mages of Icathia summoned the void, opening a rift between the armies of Shurima and unleashing an endless stream of monsters.

Both the Shurima and the Icathians were swallowed up. The Icathians retaliated fiercely against the Shurima, but in doing so, they were forever erased from history.

The monster's howl echoed, and Kasha noticed a figure flash across the distant sky.

It was a Darkin warrior with wings on his back, clad in armor and wielding weapons, with a majestic figure. He was the closest to a humanoid Darkin that Kai'Sa had ever seen.

He wielded a greatsword and fought a void monster with a powerful and domineering fighting style. He charged through the air, transferring all the impact of his dives onto his greatsword before slamming it heavily into the monster. Each strike was powerful and heavy, the dull thuds echoing throughout every corner of the ancient city.

"Aatrox..."

The Wild Hunt's voice rang in her ears, and Kasha realized that this was the Destroyer who had summoned the other Darkin. He commanded a large following and seemed to hold a very high position among the Darkin, unlike Naafili, who boasted of his strength.

Aatrox's power was evident to the naked eye. He seemed to handle monsters dozens of times his size with ease. His turning acceleration was accompanied by sonic booms. He was so fast that he was just a blur. His bloody greatsword peeled away the latter's shell step by step. He was in no hurry to destroy the exposed core. He even deliberately avoided the weak points, as if he was venting his inner rage through the battle.

"So strong..."

Kaisa sighed softly. Her opponent looked like a heavily armored warrior, yet gave her the illusion that he could catch up with her. Possessing both strength and speed, he was indeed a formidable opponent.

Just then, another Darkin floated down from the sky.

This was the strangest Darkin Kai'Sa had ever seen. Her body was a raging inferno, containing seven wide-open eyes that darted around, scanning the surroundings. Even though Kai'Sa knew she was invisible, she instinctively hid behind the ruins when she met those glaring eyes.

The fiery spirit had no outline, only a few symmetrical armor plates that floated on either side like magnets, reminding Wild Hunt of a sorcerer spirit that stole the power of ascension and caused the downfall of the Shurima dynasty. Two more fleshy arms grew from the sides of this darkin, embracing a massive harp.

The harp's edge was covered in blood-red serrations, clearly indicating that it was the Darkin's true form.

"Nayafili, Naganeka, you've arrived." The fire spirit floated to a stop in front of the two darkborn, its flames trembling as it emitted a shrill, feminine sound. However, judging from its appearance, it was impossible to tell that this darkborn had previously been female.

“Stilatu, why are you up so early?” Naganekia asked.

“I set out from Zaun,” Stratholme replied. Apart from Ixtal, who had remained secluded since the beginning of the Void Wars, Zaun was the closest city-state to Icathia.

To prevent the Darkin from awakening en masse, the Protoss distributed them to mortals at the foot of Mount Targon, instructing them to seal them away across the world, with some always assigned to locations closer to the center.

"How long is Aatrox going to fight?" Naafili looked up at the battle in the sky. The void creatures were oblivious to pain and never rested. As long as Aatrox didn't finish off that monster, they could fight for days and nights without stopping.

“The general is warming up. You all wait quietly. He will tell us what happened once everyone is here,” Stellatu replied.

“He’s so arrogant. He made us come all this way and then just left us hanging.” Nayafili grinned. “I should have come later.”

"If you're not satisfied, you can also take the place of that monster and warm up the general."

“He’s in a bad mood right now, and I don’t want to provoke him. I’ll find a spot to hold off first.”

Nayafili turned and walked eastward, to find a piece of land in the eastern part of the city, which was farther away from the Great Rift.

Since Aatrox had made this arrangement, she decided to talk to the Darkin present before the meeting, to get them to agree with her theory, or at least to understand their own position.

The Darkin are like tigers; their power and mutual suspicion make it difficult for them to coexist harmoniously. Naganeka and Styratul exchanged a few pleasantries and then found their own territory to roam.

Seeing this situation, Wild Hunt said to Kasha with some helplessness, "Kasha, it seems we'll have to lie low in the city for a while."

"Yes, there will only be more and more Darkborn in this city later on."

"Although it's safer to stay still, I still suggest that we scout out the surrounding terrain before all the Darkin arrive. That way, if we encounter any unexpected events, it will be easier for us to hide and escape."

Chapter 372 A Horror Survival Game Based on Wild Hunt

Purple lightning flashed across the murky blue sky from time to time, and the whole of Icathia seemed to be wrapped in a huge bandage, which could bleed at any moment.

Lissandra once called the Howling Abyss the most hidden wound in the world, then Icathia is undoubtedly the most hideous and terrifying wound in the world.

The calamities brought by the void were laid bare before our eyes without reservation or concealment, revealing the naked truth of this world that had been eroded and riddled with holes.

The way it devours the world is like forcibly drilling a small hole in a fingernail, then going straight in to suck the marrow from the bone; just thinking about it makes me feel pain.

Without training, how many people can steadfastly stare at their own thoroughly festering wound without looking away?