Infinite Evolution: My Idle Evolution System

*Ding!*

[Trolled 'Rank 3 Nightmares' for 3500 AP!]

A small smirk formed on Cassius's still-recovering face. 'Time to begin the grind cycle.'

With that, he shot forward, his attacks becoming ever more lethal. As time passed, the restrictions placed on everything that wasn't pure physical strength gradually weakened, bringing out more of his potential.

— Ten minutes later —

SHING! SHING!

The ridiculously-sized heads of two freakish behemoths were lobbed off in glorious, bloody fashion. The rest of the bodies of those two behemoths were also shredded until their singular selves turned into tens of thousands of meat chunks.

*Whisp—!*

Two rather large and overpowering streams of black Nightmare Essence flew out of the corpses of the Rank 3 Nightmares. They entered Cassius's grim figure, adding to his already massive storage of Nightmare Essence.

Looking around, Cassius saw thousands upon thousands of dead Rank 2 Nightmares, as well as more than three dozen Rank 3 Nightmares. In less than a fourth of an hour, he had managed to slaughter enough Nightmares to qualify him for the position of Battalion Commander. Such a position would warrant him control over 10 Platoons, making him a far more influential figure than he currently was. Far, far more influential.

The only unfortunate thing was that he would never see that Battalion Commander position, for no one was there to vouch for his feats.

It all felt like a bit of a waste…

But it was what it was.

"I think that's the last of them in this part of the Gorge," said Cassius, his cruel eyes scrutinizing the surroundings for any stragglers. "I've already descended to roughly 5,000 meters, with around… how many…? How many times did I die…?"

He clutched the sides of his head in pain, yet merely squinted as what felt like billions of fire ants crawled around inside his brain.

The mere thought of his countless, agonizing deaths etched phantom echoes into his memory. Each recollection of his demise sent waves of indescribable pain cascading through his very being, a torment that defied explanation.

"654 times," Cassius muttered through clenched teeth. "I lost my life in battle 654 f*cking times…"

His temper uncharacteristically flared as his stifling killing intent suffocated the air around him. His pupils dilated and briefly turned a deathly crimson red. The aura emanating from him followed suit, turning a dark, bloody red. Moreover, his SSS-Rank Demon King Bloodline showed itself, further amplifying his already terrifying presence.

"Kaskeeeetch—!!!"

Yet, with the banshee-like shrieks of more Nightmares, Cassius's oppressive aura subsided. The air around him returned to tranquility, but it was not the peaceful kind; it was deadly. Silent but deadly.

"The killing must continue," he uttered coldly, his legs already blurring the rest of him forward. "I must become stronger and stronger. No matter how many times I have to die, I will keep on."

Thousands more Nightmares emerged from the deeper parts of the Gorge, with nearly a hundred of them being at the Early-stage of Rank 3.

The endless battle between man and the creatures lurking in the darkness went on… ceaseless and torturous…

— ??? Hours later —

Cassius—having died thousands of times—no longer looked or felt the same as he once had. His eyes seemed far more worn down, his gaze grimly serious, and his presence overbearing. He was sitting on the corpse of what was once an extremely powerful Middle-stage Rank 3 Nightmare. The corpse was badly mutilated, showing clear signs of it having greatly struggled before its death.

He should've been happy; after all, this was his first time killing something so powerful. But for some reason, he looked the same as always, his expression bereft of emotion. His listless stare gazed above, his thoughts unknown.

"No more howls." His voice—both raspy and gravelly—traveled throughout the dimly lit, endlessly deep Gorge. "It seems… it seems I've reached a point in this place where no more Nightmares shall appear. Good…"

Cassius had amassed a ludicrous amount of Nightmare Essence since he first began his killing spree. And with his Slayer Rank still capped at the 7th Stage of the Apprentice Slayer Rank, a breakthrough was far overdue.

WASHING—!

A crisp sword slice resounded as Cassius and Lilith dug out a perfectly shaped cave-like hole in the side of a wall. He walked into the cave, threw out some fireballs to act as permanent torches, then covered the cave's entrance with a Diamond-ranked Illusion Skill—which equated to the SS-Rank and was the rank after the Ruby Rank.

He had only just recently started receiving Skill Boxes beyond the Ruby Rank, with this Illusion-related one being one of a handful of Diamond-ranked Skills in his arsenal.

After everything was set up and his security ensured, Cassius sat down in a lotus position and began circulating the vast sea of Nightmare Essence stored inside him. He called upon a minuscule amount of it—the amount that accounted for his current Slayer Rank—then molded it into the shape that felt the most synonymous with his existential aspects.
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This would soon be his Slayer Weapon.

OOOM!!

Violent energies swirled within the dug-out cave as the small piece of Cassius's vast Nightmare Essence storage took on the form of a… scythe.

The scythe started off as dark gray—symbolizing the purest version of Nightmare Essence—but ultimately extracted the qualities of its owner. Cassius—because of the influence of his nigh-limitless killing intent—caused the scythe to turn black, then red, then a mixture of both black and red. The red transformed into a bloody effect and lined the edges of the ten-foot-long scythe blade. The black, on the other hand, morphed into an obsidian glossy shade of twilight, making up the majority of the scythe's surface.

This was all happening inside Cassius's body, with the slow formation of the immaculate scythe making big waves within the massive Nightmare Essence sea it resided over. The whole place felt the immensity of his Slayer Weapon's formation.

And finally, after just over twenty minutes of meticulously guiding the formation process—an act that felt almost instinctive to him—the blood-black scythe took its final, complete form.

WAAA!!