Void Beetle Evolution Guide

"This is troublesome." Upon hearing this, Portil's first thought was that the monster had secretly built a nest somewhere in the main fortress. Given the Void creatures' reproduction rate, their numbers were probably countless by now. (The last part is a nonsensical string of characters and doesn't translate directly.)

If their nests aren't found in a few more days, their numbers will likely explode. Lissandra is letting her subordinates handle such a serious situation; I really don't know how she became a tribal chief.

The priest was even more terrified upon hearing this, but he still screamed at the top of his lungs, "I beg Lord Dragon Guard to kill those fleeing monsters. They must not be allowed to disturb the chieftain's peaceful slumber."

Portyl resented Lissandra, but she hated the Void even more. In the end, she reluctantly agreed with a dark face, "Give us the monster, but you must burn the corpses to ashes."

The priest's face immediately showed a troubled expression. Galakrond had already been sealed in an ice coffin, and cremation was against the rules of Freljord and was taboo.

"Don't take any chances. Only in this way can the void be completely purified." Portil reiterated sternly, his voice carrying a hint of dragon's might, which made the priest nod vigorously in fear.

"I didn't expect you to be so imposing, huh?" Sephiroth said sarcastically, looking at Portil's bossy manner.

After that, Portil relayed the information to the Wild Hunt. Given the urgency of the situation, the latter suggested that the group split up to eliminate these lurking threats as quickly as possible.

Without her armor, LeBlanc lacked the ability to track the test subjects, so Katarina continued to watch over her to prevent her from tampering with anything in the main castle, and the two acted together.

Wild Hunt was supposed to go to Lissandra's place to check on things, but seeing that she hadn't fallen asleep yet, he went with the two of them first.

Wild Hunt sensed the lingering aura around him and traced the escape route of the Void Monster in his mind, leading the two of them into pursuit.

He followed the monster to a corridor and saw a ventilation duct entrance that had been violently broken open in the corner.

Frostguard Fortress, a colossal structure buried deep within a glacier, boasts a vast network of ventilation ducts, significantly increasing the difficulty for the Wild Hunt to track it. Fortunately, the creature remained within the Wild Hunt's perception range, allowing them to catch up simply by taking a detour.

They quickly moved to the next location, which was still a corridor. The only difference was that this corridor had a floor-to-ceiling window, which wasn't fully closed.

The wind and snow outside were howling in through the cracks, carrying a faint, mournful wail, like the cry of a legendary ice demon.

Chapter 789 Ambush

Wild Hunt walked to the snow piled up by the window and slowly pushed open the iron bars.

The howling wind suddenly grew much louder, and the cold wind, carrying the succubus's lament, whipped against my ears.

Outside the window were bottomless cliffs, and the location seemed to be on one side of a howling abyss.

The Howling Abyss gets its name from the howling wind, where thousands of Iceborn have perished. People believe that the wind carries their dying cries.

Normally, no one would think that a monster is hiding on a cliff. But the Wild Hunt didn't think so, and he stuck his head out of the window to look.

There was no sign of any monster to the left or right, nor below. Then he looked up and saw several clusters of purple eyes staring at him without blinking. A sharp tail gradually unfurled behind him, shaped like a spine covered in needles, its tip gleaming with poison and poised to strike.

Wild Hunt stared at the monster for several seconds, the latter hesitating not to attack, unable to tell whether it was one of its own kind or a human.

A murderous intent wafted in the wind. The Wild Hunt felt a tangible gaze upon him, like a thorn in his back. LeBlanc seemed to be thinking about something behind him, but her murderous intent was unmistakable. Perhaps she was even contemplating whether pushing the Wild Hunt off the cliff would kill him.

Wild Hunt pretended not to notice and retreated, then walked away without looking back. LeBlanc had indeed fallen for the trap. She wondered what Wild Hunt had been looking up at from the window earlier, and thinking that since someone had already tested the waters, there shouldn't be any danger, she stuck her head out to take a look as well.

As a result, before she could even get a clear look at the monster, a huge, drooling maw lunged at her, its size rapidly increasing in her shrunken pupils.

A dagger struck in an instant, its sharp, cold light stinging LeBlanc's eyes. When she opened them, she saw that the dagger had pierced the monster's chitinous carapace. The powerful force not only stopped the monster but also pinned it firmly to the wall, where it screamed and struggled incessantly.

"Hmph, you blind fool." Katarina stepped forward, pulled out her dagger, and shoved LeBlanc, who was standing there dumbfounded, muttering something under her breath. It was unclear whether she was talking about the monster that had ambushed her or cursing LeBlanc for her failed attempt to steal a chicken and losing her own life.

LeBlanc gasped for breath, defeated and forced to admit her mistake. Only a few seconds had passed; Wild Hunt couldn't possibly have missed it. He had deliberately pretended not to see it to punish her, working in cahoots with Katarina, while he himself had merely entertained a wicked thought.

"Don't kill it." Katarina had just gripped her dagger when Wild Hunt stopped her. "If we let it escape, we can find its lair by following the trail."

Katarina hesitated for a moment. "What if it doesn't escape back to its nest?"

"Don't worry, I have a way to make it guide me."

With the Wild Hunt's assurance, Katarina drew her dagger immediately. The monster crashed onto the windowsill, then tumbled and fell dozens of meters down the cliff, splashing out large amounts of strange bodily fluids.

Just when Katarina thought it was going to keep falling into the abyss, she saw the thing suddenly turn over, its claws gripping the ice wall as it twisted and writhed wildly, leaping dozens of meters away in the blink of an eye and disappearing from sight in a few moments.

"It did get away." Katarina was about to remind Wild Hunt when she saw him close his eyes as if in meditation.

Wild Hunt didn't witness this; he was mentally tracing the monster's escape route. It was nothing more than a newborn abomination; he had already transformed it into his puppet the instant their eyes met, and sending it back to its lair would only require a thought.

A few minutes later, seeing Wild Hunt suddenly open his eyes, Katarina cautiously asked, "Did you find it?"

“Found it. These things are a bit cunning, building their nest on the ruins of a bridge pier on the edge of a cliff. No one can get to that place, so naturally no one will find it.” Wild Hunt pressed his index and middle fingers to his temples, communicating telepathically: “Portilo, I’ve found the nest. But the location is tricky, so I need you to fly over and clear it out.”

“I’ve encountered them here too, and I can’t get away. You should ask Syndra.”

"Row."

The sound of the Wild Hunt floated lightly into my mind, and my thoughts ceased.

Portil sighed, and two Frostguards collapsed in front of her, one of them already riddled with holes in his chest and turned into a corpse.

Beside the corpse lay a newborn monster, its exoskeleton protecting its heart still wet with the slime on its body, before Zhenbing's axe cleaved it open.

In order to kill the premature baby, the other surviving Frostguard paid a terrible price. His left arm was pierced by sharp limbs through his protective gear, and his wounded arm hung limply beside him, already useless.

Portil arrived too late; this was the scene before her, with only a wounded man gasping for breath remaining. She rushed over, asking about the situation while cutting open the Frost Guard's sleeve.

His skin was deathly pale, and the flesh around the wound had turned black and was emitting poisonous gas. Darkness had begun to creep into his blood vessels, and if this darkness was allowed to continue to spread, one could not imagine what would happen next.

“I’m going to cut off your arm so you’ll have a chance to live, or you’ll end up like him,” Portil said solemnly to the Frostguard, picking up the small ice axe from the ground and letting the icy chill emanating from its handle envelop her hand.

The latter, recalling the horrific scene of his companion being burst from the monster's body, nodded with a sorrowful look in his eyes, "Don't hold back."

Portil pressed the axe against the Frostguard's arm, the icy blade scraping horizontally down his arm, but failing to freeze it.

The blood of the Iceborn never freezes. To make it easier to act and stop the bleeding later, Portil used his breath to freeze the Frostguard's entire arm, instead of relying on the True Ice.

With a swift stroke of the axe, the man's arm was severed clean at the root. Then, Portil picked up the blackened arm, threw it onto the corpse, and burned it all.

“Where did that thing go?” Portil asked.

A monster wouldn't grow out of Frostguard's chest for no reason; it must have been attacked by another monster that left its offspring inside him while it went off to find another target. What Portil needs to do is eliminate it before it succeeds.

The guard was too weak to speak; the power of Zhenbing had frozen his wounds, preventing him from losing too much blood. He looked away from the flames, raised his only remaining arm, and pointed in a direction for Portil.

“Good, stay here and don’t move. I’ll go deal with that thing. If I meet anyone else on the way, I’ll have them help you.” With that, Portil immediately ran in the direction the guard had pointed. (The last sentence appears to be unrelated and possibly machine-generated gibberish.)

She couldn't afford to waste any more time on this man, or more tragedies would occur in the fortress.

The situation was far more serious than she had imagined. If they hadn't intervened this time and the source hadn't been contained in time, the entire Frostguard Fortress could very well have fallen and become a void nest.

Chapter 790 Falling off a cliff

Portil was tracking the monster when, around a corner, she bumped into Sephie, who was also chasing it. However, Sephie was carrying a flask; in this frigid land, only strong liquor wouldn't freeze solid.

“Sefie, don’t you feel that this time is a little different?”

"What do you mean 'same' or 'different'?" Sephiroth's first reaction upon seeing Portil was to hide the wine jug behind her back, as if afraid that she would come and divide it.

Portil ignored these subtle actions and shared his thoughts: "These monsters are more cunning than ordinary void creatures. They always kill and run away, then immediately look for the next target, never stopping to devour the corpses of their prey. They don't seem to care so much about killing and devouring; reproduction is their main purpose."

Sephie only half-listened: "So the monsters that crawl out of the priest's body are smarter, right?"

"All I know is that the monsters that emerge from the Iceborn are not afraid of the True Ice. I don't know what they want to do once they gain power."

"Why think so much? Just nip them in the bud and don't let them get out of hand."

The two of them continued their investigation along the way. They didn't know much about the void and mistook its behavior for some kind of reproduction method.

But this is not reproduction. Even the slightest touch of the power of the void will cause ever-expanding erosion. Any contaminated flesh and blood will be transformed into void creatures, whose sole purpose is to devour all life without ceasing.

In cases like this, where monsters emerge from the body, the transformation occurs faster than the erosion. Before the flesh is completely eroded, the very beginnings have already transformed into void creatures. The void is never satisfied; the remaining corpse will continue to be eroded, and new monsters will grow from it. Therefore, destroying the body and eliminating all traces is essential.

At the end of the road, there was light. At the boundary between light and darkness, the grotesque, segmented outline of the monster could be clearly seen. It seemed to know it couldn't escape, remaining in place with its limbs outstretched, as if many sharp blades were growing from its protruding back.

It let out a strange screech at the two of them, its upper and lower jaws clenching together so hard it sounded like steel scraping against steel. Its head was covered with many pinhole-like eyes, making it look like a sharp showerhead.

Portil reached out to the monster, and the wall emanated a chill that sealed it inside an ice sculpture. Unexpectedly, the monster struggled and broke free, then cast a malevolent glare at her.

That gaze seemed to possess wisdom, as if it had found a better target, one that could better satisfy its violent destructive urges.

Suddenly, everything became very quiet, as if all sounds had stopped, and then a huge crackling sound rang out.

The monster's malevolent gaze grew brighter and brighter, fire seemed to burst from its eyes, and then a torrent of evil flames erupted from them.

The insect, which was only the size of a lynx, posed a considerable threat to the two of them.

They dodged to the left and right, and a burst of burning rays swept across, splitting the entire passage in two and causing it to begin to collapse.

Gravel rained down on him, and Portil raised his hand to protect his head. Sephiroth punched a barrel-sized rock, his voice urgent, a far cry from his previous nonchalance. "Goodness, is it really that bad? I thought it was just killing a few small fry!"

"Hurry up and get started. I don't want things to escalate. It's just dealing with a little beast. If we ruin so much stuff, it'll be embarrassing to talk about."

Portile scurried along the wall, dodging the annihilation rays. The monster noticed her, and the annihilation rays swept towards her. The stone wall crumbled instantly upon being struck by the light.

The falling rocks blocked Portil's path, and Sephiroth took the opportunity to smash through the rocks, leaping over her head to overtake her, and then grabbed a boulder and hurled it at her.

"Die!"

A pool of foul-smelling boulder splattered from the boulder, corroding the surrounding walls. Then, the boulder split in two, and a ghastly purple light burst forth from the crack.

Portil knew exactly what was coming; she raised an ice crystal shield to block the incoming rays. Sephie, not wanting to be outdone, grabbed a boulder and charged forward, only to be separated by the collapsing rocks.

When Portil smashed through the obstacle in front of him, he found that Sephiroth and the monster had both disappeared.

She continued running forward with doubt in her heart, but just as she was about to step into the light, she abruptly stopped!

A cold wind blew in, and the white light reflected off the ice sheet was painful to the eyes.

Beneath her feet lay a rugged cliff, leading to a bottomless abyss of ice. The mountain wind howled, carrying shards of ice that stung her eyes.

Thirty feet below her feet, Sephie dangled one arm from a protruding icicle. The fragile icicle, unable to support her weight, had already begun to crack. Around her, there were no footholds to climb, only fragile ice crystals that would shatter easily upon impact; even if she wanted to throw herself onto solid snow-covered rock, she couldn't.

She could only remain motionless, trying to hold on as long as possible, waiting for Portil's help.

Meanwhile, the monster whose body had been smashed flat was still alive, lying in a crevice between the rocks. The hateful beast twisted its limbs, trying to stand firm, but it swayed like a drunkard, and the purple light in its heart began to flicker.

"What happened?!" Portil exclaimed in surprise.

"I accidentally went too far..." Sephie called out awkwardly as she saw Portil emerge from above. But this shout only put more pressure on the icicle, causing the crack to widen again.

Portil quickly took action to rescue them, releasing his magic to form protruding ice blocks on the cliff face. There was a square ice protrusion about an arm's length apart, just enough for Sephiroth to grab onto and climb up.

Then she set her sights on the monster that was trying to escape along the cliff face, leaped into the form of an ice dragon, and attacked its target.

Whether by coincidence or design, the monster led them to a window at the end of the passage, only to find that the window was directly connected to a cliff with no buffer whatsoever.

Sephiroth rushed too fast. Although he severely injured the monster, he couldn't stop himself due to inertia and fell off the cliff with the monster, which is why Portil saw what happened earlier.

Portil flapped its wings and swooped down, the gusts of wind whipping up the cliff face, sending shards of ice and rocks tumbling down into the thick, frigid fog below. The monster fell too, but Portil was faster, its claws slashing down from the sky.

After a while, Portil returned to the cliff, and Sephiroth hurriedly asked how it went.

She made a clenched fist gesture: "I crushed him to death, and the corpse was absorbed by the skin armor. That should be enough."

"Oh, then let's go to the next place and get some more wine while we're at it." (The rest of the text appears to be gibberish and unrelated to the previous sentences.)

"Be serious, stop thinking about slacking off."

"Hey, it's just that we can't get anywhere. There are only a couple of small fry, not worth our time."

Don't mistake me for yourself.

The two bickered and walked away to continue their search for other derivative experimental subjects.

Chapter 791 Clearing the Nest

Syndra, at the Wild Hunt's signal, dived into the Howling Abyss. Light could not penetrate the thick fog here, and even with the Wild Hunt's location tracking, it would not be easy for her to find the lair in the vast fog.

She flew close to the cliff face, her gaze fixed on the ice wall rushing past her. The ice itself seemed to emit a dim, ethereal light, reflecting off the thick fog, but not so dark that it was pitch black.

Before long, a stone bridge suddenly appeared in the fog. Its appearance was like a ghost in the fog; one moment there was nothing below, and the next moment it appeared.

This is not a complete bridge; it has been completely destroyed, with only the skeletons of the piers protruding from both sides of the ice wall, marking the location where the bridge once stood.

The bridge arch has been sealed by the avalanche, and the abandoned stones are frozen deep in the ice, eternally frozen in the instant they collapsed and fell.

"Is this the place you want me to find?" Syndra asked, and the Wild Hunt's voice immediately came to mind.

"No, there are many ruins like this in the Howling Abyss. There are no traces of void creatures on this bridge pier, so it's not."

“What’s with all this abandoned equipment?” Syndra noticed a Frostguard’s horned helmet half-buried in the snow, with climbing tools, a rope, two ice axes crossed, and a pair of snow boots with spikes lying around it.

“Every year, Lissandra sends three warriors down to the bottom of the abyss to check if the Watchers’ seal has melted. It is an extremely dangerous mission. There is a stone tablet near the Guardians’ meeting place with thousands of names engraved on it, belonging to those who sacrificed themselves in this mission.”

"They can't fly, so they climbed down using these things? No wonder so many people died."

"Yes, if an accident occurs along the way, the remaining people will have to carry the body all the way up. Otherwise, even a drop of blood could bring the creature that dwells below back to life."

A scene of despair immediately flashed into her mind.

A team of three Frost Guardians is on a mission, clinging to the ice wall and climbing down day and night. Only one person descends at a time, while the other two act as anchor points to the ice wall to prevent them from falling, taking turns descending.

When they get tired or hungry, they rest and eat on the bridge, but not everyone has enough perseverance and stamina to make it to the next bridge.

One of them, exhausted, had just dug out an ice axe when he lost his grip and fell. (The remaining text appears to be unrelated and possibly machine-generated gibberish.)