Void Beetle Evolution Guide

She could clearly feel that Nami's temporary addition made the Wild Hunt's movements much gentler; at least, there was no visible deformation on the surface of his armor.

However, the mere pressure of his hand was enough to make her feel completely at ease, because she knew that Wild Hunt was by her side.

What's rather morbidly funny is that Wild Hunt's movements change depending on her actions.

As she moved forward, she felt as if a pair of hands were pushing her buttocks, their fingers digging deep into her flesh; when she stopped abruptly, her chest was pressed down, making it a very immersive experience.

"By the way, where is the Moonstone?" Kaisa paused and waited a moment for Nami.

“Didn’t you see it on the way here? It’s on a stone pillar covered with murals,” Nami replied. “Actually, that’s a stone pillar modeled after Mount Targon, and the moonstone is placed on top of it. Thanks to it, our village hasn’t fallen into darkness.”

"Stone pillars? I vaguely remember them, but I didn't see any murals on them, nor did I sense any light coming from them."

At this point, Kai'Sa had a very big question.

If the light of the moonstone has the power to suppress abyssal creatures, then why didn't her Void Armor react? Could it be that there really aren't Void creatures below? Or has the moonstone's effect completely disappeared?

If it's the former, then things are alright, but if it's the latter, then it means the merfolk village is in grave danger. The creatures below could surge out at any moment, as soon as they discover that the moonstone has lost its effectiveness.

Kaisa didn't tell Nami her suspicions, lest it cause more panic. As long as they were still here, even in the worst-case scenario, they should be able to suppress the situation for a while.

She is no longer the girl who couldn't save anything.

“The light of the moonstone is rather soft, but it shouldn’t be this faint…” Nami muttered. “The mural is actually the story of the Tidecaller that I told you about. In fact, before the Radiant Wanderer gave the moonstone, many of the Merfolk had already died fighting those monsters. For the Tidecaller, this adventure was a difficult process; he carried the fate of all his people on his shoulders and devoted all his efforts to stopping the creatures in the darkness.”

"Then why don't you send more people down to search? This is a major operation that only happens once every hundred years. Isn't it too lax to send only one person each time?" Kasha asked doubtfully. "Moonstones have a limited lifespan, but deep-sea pearls can last for at least several centuries. Sending more people will bring back more pearls, so we won't have to worry about it for the next few hundred years."

"You may not know this, but in the past, the Merfolk also sent elite forces to the Abyss to collect pearls. However, they found that the more people they sent, the more troublesome the dark creatures became, as if they would adjust their strength according to the strength of their opponents. Strangely, when the entire force was wiped out, the Tidecaller, wielding a legendary wand alone, avoided the dangers of the Abyss and returned safely with the pearls."

"Hmm?" Kasha was confused again.

Void creatures, when faced with living beings, should be like sharks smelling blood, swarming out in droves. Why would their numbers adjust based on the number of people? This raises many questions.

This could only happen if some intelligent entity like Pierre Vess were controlling them, but that would mean things would be much worse.

"Even if that staff has some magical properties, you can't get it." Kai'Sa stated the cold reality: the staff exclusive to the Tidecaller had been taken to the abyss by Rasha and would most likely never return.

That was a bit of a blow, but Nami, young and fearless, mustered her courage and said, "Even without the Tidecaller's Staff, I will bring the pearl back with my own strength!"

After ending the conversation, Kai'Sa continued to lead Nami deeper into the abyss, which seemed to have no end. They had been swimming for a long time without reaching the end.

Even in the deepest waters, there is tenacious life. The lights ahead caught their attention, and upon closer inspection, they discovered they were bioluminescent fish.

These fish are more translucent than jellyfish, even their bones and internal organs are almost transparent, like elves. And unusually, they have cute big eyes, seemingly to distinguish other lights in the abyss.

They illuminated their surroundings, thus seeing the direction they needed to go. Nami's gaze followed the fish closely as she watched one of the goldfish follow the light and dive into the lush seaweed... only to be swallowed whole by the trapper inside.

Nami was startled. She vaguely saw that the owner of the gaping maw was a deep-sea creature she had never seen before. It looked like an anglerfish but had no eyes. Its head was covered with a thick shell, and its two glowing tentacles resembled the eyes of a snail, emitting a dim white light.

Kai'Sa glanced at it and then ignored it. Survival is a cruel game of deceit and treachery; everything must pay the price for its foolishness. On this cruel stage, only the Void is forbidden entry.

To cover up her embarrassment, Nami foolishly changed the subject, saying, "Entrapment is such an efficient killing method. It reminds me of the Dragon Queen. Even such a powerful being has glowing tentacles."

“She’s too big. If she actively hunts small fish and shrimp, the energy she replenishes is less than the energy she expends. So waiting for prey to come to her is the most reasonable approach,” Kai’Sa explained. Perhaps it was because she was imprisoned in this enormous cage of flesh and blood that Sephiroth was so eager to travel through Runeterra.

"Hehe, is that so?"

"Light in the darkness is not just a signpost, it's also bait. If you're not strong enough, don't stand in the light." What just happened was nothing short of an ominous sign, and Kaisa, worried that Nami would panic, warned her in her own way.

"OK……"

Just as Nami finished speaking, something seemed to disturb the current in the darkness and swim towards them. (The rest of the text appears to be nonsensical and unrelated to the initial statement.)

Chapter 571 The Void Reappears

The ocean has countless emotions, and if you can read the signs, you can predict a storm before the current even sweeps over your tail fin.

The trap Nami just witnessed was a harbinger, and Kai'Sa also warned her.

The disturbed water flow foreshadowed the danger, so she quickly extinguished the light at the tip of her staff, grabbed Kasha's hand, and began to flee, disappearing into the darkness.

She clearly regarded Kaisa as a weakling like herself. Kaisa had the right to stand in the light, but Nami was unaware of her true strength.

The latter, with her eyes peering through the void, saw that the thing in the darkness was a giant eel, not the void monster she was meant to fight, so she let Nami pull her along.

In this pitch-black abyss, all signs and omnipresence are lost to consciousness. The surging heat rises and falls, stirring up a furious torrent; a moment's inattention can lead to disorientation.

Nami struggled left and right in the narrow abyss, trying to escape, but was swept around by the current and couldn't tell up from down or left from right.

In the darkness, Kasha yanked her hand away and shoved her forcefully. In that instant, her terror reached its peak, for she discovered a gaping, eerie maw looming behind her!

How could this happen? Was she too trusting? I never imagined Kasha would kill someone to cover it up.

Just when Nami thought she was going to die, she discovered that she was not suffering the pain of being cut by sharp teeth.

She lit her staff again and found herself inside a giant fish carcass. A huge moray eel was staring at her from the outside with its pale eyes, but it couldn't squeeze in because of the protection of its ribs.

Nami quickly extinguished the staff, feeling genuinely grateful to Kaisa. It turned out that Kaisa had done that to save her, not to harm her.

But if Kaisa pushes her so hard, she'll definitely be pushed a long way by the reaction force, wouldn't that be sacrificing herself to save her?

Thinking of this, she began to worry again. Once the giant moray eel had left and the nearby waters had calmed down, Nami hurried out to look for Kaisa.

But on the vast seabed, there was no sign of Kasha. The sea seemed to possess a cruel humor; the seabed was littered with limbs, all those who had fallen into her trap.

"Can you still find me now?" Just as Nami was feeling lost, Kaisa suddenly reappeared behind her. Water and air are both fluids, so as long as you hide downstream, it's hard to be discovered.

The merman girl was startled, then became excited again, "Mount Targon! I thought you were already—"

"Already eaten? Ha, I don't even consider that a threat." Kasha earnestly reiterated, "Don't panic in any situation, just take care of yourself."

"Yes..." Nami realized that she had just dragged Kaisa down and responded somewhat guiltily.

Kaisa continued her deep dive without saying a word, with Nami following closely behind.

The deeper she went, the greater the pressure of the seawater became, pressing down on her heart and making it difficult to breathe. The chill of the abyss seeped into Nami's blood, and she felt fear and panic rising with each breath.

It was at this moment that they encountered the "monster" in the abyss. (The rest of the text appears to be nonsensical and unrelated to the initial question.)

They approached silently like seaweed, showing no hostility. It wasn't until those ribbon-like things wrapped around her body and brought an unusual sensation that Nami realized with horror that she had fallen into a trap.

The staff glowed with a soft light again, but this time it didn't create harmless seaweed, and besides, seaweed couldn't grow at such a deep seabed. Instead, it created many spiral tentacles that were a deep purple-black.

From the Wild Hunt's perspective, these tentacles resemble double-helix genetic chains, with hollow interiors filled with parallel fibrous supports corresponding to the bases within them. They look densely packed, like Venetian blinds wrung out like towels, or like gluten wrapped around cut and stretched.

In short, these tentacles looked very strange. They appeared weak and tattered without any muscle tissue, but their explosive power was no less than that of a deep-sea octopus. Nami, who was wrapped around the waist, could not break free at all. She could feel countless synapses piercing her skin like needles, trying to absorb her blood.

At the same time, the monster revealed its true form. A dull light emerged from ahead, and at the base of several intertwined tentacles, within a hollow structure resembling a woven cage, a ball of purple light was constantly expanding and contracting. It pulsated like a heart, casting a staring light through countless fibrous supports, enveloping Nami's entire body.

Nami sensed an age-old, undying pain within it, a terrifying hunger that threatened to annihilate all life. Under the threat of death, she summoned a powerful courage, raising her staff and pointing it at the object that resembled both a heart and an eye.

"Don't block my way!" She waved her staff repeatedly, and the gentle stream of water instantly turned into sharp water blades that shot out, slicing the monster's tentacles to pieces.

Nami broke free of her restraints, but the tentacles reattached in an instant, tightening like a drill and transforming into sharp, hard spears that pierced towards her!

Just before her body was about to be pierced, a purple beam of light instantly pierced the monster's "heart"! Seawater bubbled up due to evaporation, and the scorching white waves washed over Nami, making it impossible for her to open her eyes.

The bubbles that had been obscuring the view quickly rose to the surface, and the heat was replaced by the cold seawater. Nami watched as the monster sank helplessly, a large, charred hole suddenly appearing in its heart. The purple light inside gradually faded, turning into a broken energy sphere that retained only a minimal amount of fluorescence.

Kaisa swam over, stepped on the monster's corpse, then plunged her hand into the monster's body, grabbed the energy ball, and held it up to her eyes.

Even though there was no blood, Nami felt the scene was unusually bloody and terrifying, fearing that Kaisa's carelessness might lead to an accident, such as the seemingly dead monster suddenly coming back to life.

Fortunately, nothing happened. Kasha held the energy ball up to her eyes to observe it. Liquid energy that was insoluble in seawater overflowed from her palm and slowly dripped down, like purple magma, which looked very strange.

"Damn it. It really is the void!"

"Void?"

Kaisa's gritting and cursing made Nami feel a sense of crisis. It seemed that the things in the deep sea were indeed the same monsters that destroyed Kaisa's hometown.

Kaisa, who had a headache, didn't explain immediately, but simply warned Nami: "Next time you encounter these things, just aim for their hearts. That's the only way to kill them."

Upon hearing this, Nami carefully examined the sphere in Kaisa's palm, and then a crazy idea popped into her mind.

"Kasha, do you think this thing... could it be the deep-sea pearl I've been looking for?"

Chapter 572 "Deep Sea Pearl"

You're saying this is a deep-sea pearl?

“They said the pearl shimmered with a light that seemed to come from outer space,” Nami said.

Kasha squinted at the "heart" in her hand, and for a moment thought it did look somewhat like a large, glowing pearl, but she quickly dismissed this absurd idea.

"This is no deep-sea pearl; this evil thing is the core of a void creature, and it can only be!"

"Don't get excited, I was just saying it offhand, and... it's already damaged." Nami shrank her neck and explained, she was just too eager to complete the mission, and everything looked like a pearl to her.

"You lack reverence for the Void creatures, who live for only one purpose: to destroy all living beings."

In front of Nami, Kaisa crushed the core with hatred, then let the crack in her palm devour the liquid energy.

The horrific sight made Nami instinctively cover her eyes, using the webbed fingers to block her vision.

She suddenly realized how similar the living carapace on Kasha's body was to the slain monster, both radiating a ghastly purple light, and even their auras were so similar.

Kaisa's connection with these monsters is definitely not as simple as she claims, and her intense hatred is undeniable.

All of this makes the already mysterious Kaisa even more unpredictable, arousing both Nami's awe and curiosity, making her want to learn about her story.

On the other side, Kai'Sa gradually calmed down as she looked at the gruesome corpse. The feeling of killing a void creature gave her a long-lost chill, as if she had returned to the underground cavern.

This was undoubtedly bad news. The Howling Abyss and the Pale Purple Sea had already given her a lot of trouble, and now she had discovered another deep abyss where void creatures roamed!

Who knows how many infected and festering "wounds" are still hidden in this world? Right now, we can only pray that the infection doesn't get too serious and doesn't add any more burden to her.

"The void creatures here seem to be more intelligent. They know how to compress their hollow bodies and hide in the crevices of rocks to blend into the environment. They then launch a silent attack from behind when we swim past."

Kaisa explained to the timid Nami that this was how she missed the monster, but fortunately, the reinforcements arrived in time, preventing a tragedy.

The two continued to dive deeper, and after winding their way to a depth of perhaps several hundred meters, the terrain underwent a dramatic change.

The surrounding environment transformed into a complex cavern, with hernias emerging from the earth resembling stiff tentacles coiled all around. They burrowed from the seabed like giant fangs, their surfaces covered with dense, network-like structures that looked like bulging fascia forming veins.

At the center of this enclosure, surrounded by these cratered structures, stood a pool emitting a purple glow. Immersed in the center of the pool was the skeleton of a large fish, with a deep-sea pearl inside its belly.

The pearl was completely different from what Nami had imagined. It didn't radiate a bright, moon-like light, nor was it perfectly round. Instead, it emitted a dull, understated glow like a black pearl, and its shape was utterly deformed, like a gourd! [The rest of the text appears to be nonsensical and unrelated to the pearl description.]

But for some reason, the moment Nami saw it, she felt her ancient memories from her clan were touched. The dark purple light was more in line with the definition of the outer world. The deep-sea pearl she was looking for was something that should not exist in nature!

"Wow, no one could have imagined this... I've never seen anything so beautiful."

Nami gazed intently at the pool, her deep red eyes now tinged purple by the light emanating from it, the faint reflection of the Bone Pearl in the center of her pupils.

In her eyes, the black pearl's radiance illuminated the entire pool, making it resemble a piece of purple amber, breathtakingly beautiful.

"No, this is death." Seeing Nami reach out and swim into the pool as if bewitched, Kai'Sa grabbed her wrist, the force bringing her back to her senses.

“I remember now…” The fear etched deep in her blood jolted Nami awake. She belatedly withdrew her hand and murmured, “This is not death, but a nightmare more terrifying than death.”

She ripped a seashell from her bracelet and threw it into the pool. The moment the seashell touched the water, a dazzling arc of electricity erupted at the point of contact, and then the seashell vanished into thin air.

“Regeneration Pool.” Kai’Sa murmured the somewhat unfamiliar name. The pool in front of her was the portal connecting to the endless void, an armory for void creatures!

Kaisa had seen many regeneration pools while in the underground caverns, but she had never seen one so strange.

A thin layer of liquid energy acts like a transparent portal, completely separating the deep-sea pearl hidden inside the fish skeleton from reality.

Although Pearl and Nami are still in the same time and space, as long as they cannot break through this thin portal, they will never be able to obtain the pearl behind it!

"This trap is what killed Rasha." Nami noticed a staff lying by the pool, the very same Tidecaller's Staff that Rasha had taken with him. If he were alright, he would never have abandoned such a precious treasure of the Merfolk in a place like this.

"Please accept my condolences," Kaisa said, offering a word of comfort as she looked at Nami's dazed expression.

Nami snapped out of her daze and shook her head: "It's been a month already, I've long since given up hope."

"Then let's take the staff and go back."

"What about the deep-sea pearl?" This thing seems to have a fatal attraction for the merfolk. Even though she knows it's impossible to get it out, Nami still can't get her mind about it.

"I can conjure up as many of these things as you want."

"Huh?" Nami thought she had misheard, but when she saw Kaisa casually produce the same item, her mind went blank.

Yes, so-called deep-sea pearls are nothing more than hardened biomass formed by mixing a little void energy with bone meal.

To put it bluntly, this kind of thing might be hard to find outside, but it's easier to find here in the Wild Hunt than picking a booger.

It's unbelievable that what others cherish so dearly is discarded like trash by them, utterly worthless.

Of course, if the regeneration pool could be shut down, Kaisa wouldn't mind taking out the pearls inside and giving them to Nami.

Unfortunately, she didn't know how to shut down the regeneration pool. Although it was only a thin layer, it connected to the entire void.

It's unrealistic to try to close the portal by absorbing light energy; she had tried it long ago and almost got assimilated by the immense otherworldly energy.

"Alright then, wait for me a moment." With that, Nami swam towards the Staff of the Tidecaller.