SSS-Rank Evolving Monster: From Pest to Cosmic Devourer

Using the blood essence of the red giant Gorath, Darius's injuries began to knit together with unnatural speed.

The torn edges of his flesh sealed seamlessly, leaving behind no scars. Splintered crystalline bones—once ground nearly to powder—reformed and hardened, regaining their former strength. Muscles thickened, vitality surged, and before long, the battered warrior stood tall once more, his skin gleaming as though it had never known a wound.

If Ricky hadn't seen the savage beating with his own eyes, he might have doubted it had ever happened at all. The transformation was that absolute, that impossible.

And Ricky wasn't the only one staring in disbelief.

Darius's own astonishment was a mirror to Ricky's, but layered with something more dangerous. The way he now looked at the twenty-foot-tall giant had shifted—there was a glimmer in his eyes that was not born of gratitude. It was sharp, hungry… a strange thread of greed woven into the righteous light that usually defined him.

Darius had always been the sort of man whose moral compass did not sway easily. Wealth, power, rare treasures—none of it could tempt him under normal circumstances.

But now…

Now he understood.

He understood why some people would kill for what another possessed.

Why a man might risk damnation for a single taste of something beyond his reach.

Gorath's blood essence had not merely healed him—it had strengthened him. The surge in his spiritual power was undeniable, the kind of advancement that should have taken him years of relentless training to achieve. Instead, it had been gifted to him in mere minutes, unearned yet intoxicating.

The whispers in his mind were quiet at first—faint, like a devil testing its voice—yet they quickly swelled, curling around his thoughts in a suffocating spiral.

Take it. Take all of it.

If he just acted now—if he tore the giant apart, drank every last drop of that miraculous essence—he could rise beyond his current limits in a single leap.

It took every shred of willpower he possessed to force those thoughts back into the shadows.

But Darius did not bother to hide that greedy flicker in his gaze.

And Gorath saw it.

The giant's crimson eyes narrowed, reading Darius's face as easily as one might read a crude inscription carved into stone. A shadow crossed his expression—first disgust, sharp and cutting, then the slow burn of anger, deep and simmering.

The air between them thickened.

Ever since his birth, Gorath had known only reverence. From the moment he first opened his eyes, people had bowed their heads in awe, their gazes filled with blind devotion. He had been an object of worship—untouchable, unchallenged, exalted.

And now…

A mere human dared to look at him with such naked malice.

The insult burrowed into his pride like a rusted blade.

I am going to kill you.

The thought wasn't shouted—it was cold, absolute, and final.

Before it could even fade, Gorath moved. His massive form shifted with a speed that defied his size, and in an instant, a colossal shadow swallowed Darius whole. The sheer weight of it pressed down on him like a mountain preparing to fall.

Darius did not flinch. There was no guilt in his eyes, no shame in his stance. The giant's sacrifice meant nothing to him—not when it came from a foreign race.

Healing or not, they were not kin. They were not allies. And he owed Gorath nothing.

Without hesitation, Darius drew his fist back. Though his body was dwarfed by the flaming titan before him, he moved with the absolute confidence of a man who knew his strength.

Darius was no ordinary warrior—he was one of the strongest body practitioners in the Eldors Kingdom. Few could match him in raw physical power. And now, with his ancestral bloodline awakened, those few might no longer even be worth mentioning.

Sizzle!

The air ignited as though someone had hurled oil onto a roaring fire. Scorching heat burst outward in every direction, a wave of molten fury thousands of degrees hotter than any natural flame.

With the two of them as the epicenter, a ring of devastation erupted outward. Trees that had stubbornly survived the earlier battle between Ricky and the monstrous spirit of resentment now withered and crumbled in an instant, erased from the face of the earth.

Ash and cinders whirled upward into the blistering wind, carried far beyond the battlefield.

Neither combatant yielded an inch. Their auras flared—feral, unrestrained, and growing sharper by the second—each determined to crush the other without compromise.

Just as the tension reached its breaking point—two wills poised to erupt into unrestrained violence—a voice cut through the heat like a blade of ice.

"Stop."

It was only a single word. But it carried the kind of authority that made the world itself listen.

Both Darius and Gorath froze mid-motion, their killing intent halting as if seized by invisible chains. In the next breath, their bodies sagged, collapsing to the ground like wet parchment left out in the rain—drained, subdued, their battle halted not by choice, but by command.

Ricky's gaze swept over them, but there was no satisfaction in his eyes—only cool disinterest.

"Gentlemen," he said, his tone flat, almost bored. "We don't have time for your little games."

The words were not loud, yet they carried a weight that pressed into the air.

His eyes shifted to Darius, sharp and expectant. "I need an answer—why was such a strong creature inside my territory?"

Darius didn't hesitate. He straightened, voice crisp and measured, as if reading from an invisible report:

"Replying to Venom Fang Overlord, the creature was born from the intense resentment created when innocents were killed as collateral in the battle against the Undead Princess."

No wasted breath. No unnecessary detail. Just the facts.

Ricky's expression didn't change, but in his mind, the pieces were already aligning.

"Is there any more of these creatures hiding in here?" he asked.

Even as the question left his lips, his thoughts were already moving ahead of the answer.

Without waiting, his spiritual field flared outward, invisible yet immense, stretching in every direction like a net of pure will. In less than a heartbeat, it spanned the Emerald Green Kingdom in its entirety, brushing against every leaf, stone, and shadow.

The air grew still, as if the forest itself knew it was being watched.

Droplets of crimson blood drifted weightlessly in the air, catching the dim light like suspended rubies. In the midst of this quiet carnage, a young couple stood together, whispering in hushed tones—yet nothing escaped Ricky's notice.

He had searched far and wide, his spiritual field combing through every inch of the forest. But after finding no trace of any other resentment-born monsters capable of disturbing the Emerald Green Kingdom's fragile peace, Ricky finally withdrew his search. His focus shifted back to the two fools standing before him.

While Ricky had been busy scouring the land, they had both managed to recover somewhat. Their eyes now rested on him, each gaze laced with emotions too tangled to name.

Darius's reaction was subdued, his face betraying only a guarded unease. Gorath, on the other hand, looked utterly shattered—like a man who had just watched the love of his life die before his very eyes. The devastation in the giant's expression was raw, unmasked, and impossible to ignore.

Darius noticed. And though he didn't understand why, something inside him shifted. The heavy despair gnawing at his heart lessened—just a little. He recalled an old saying from the Great Saint: To see another suffer the same fate as oneself is to have one's burden lightened.

Ricky, however, was indifferent to their inner turmoil. Without breaking stride, he continued walking. It had been one month since he had entered the inheritance space, and now that he was back, he intended to see for himself just how much had changed in that short span of time.

"…What do you mean the aura vanished?"

Felicia was still struggling to catch her breath when Forty-Two's calm observation reached her ears. At once, a storm of possibilities flashed through her mind, each more troubling than the last.

Rosary's reaction mirrored Felicia's almost perfectly. After all, she too had witnessed with her own eyes just how ferocious a Stage Three Resentment could be. Against such a monster, she doubted she could last even a single heartbeat. In that regard, she was in the same sinking boat as Felicia.

Meanwhile, the expressions of the others grew solemn. They knew that although Forty-Two could be mischievous at times, in a situation like this the little princess would never joke.

Feeling the weight of every gaze fixed upon her, Forty-Two immediately elaborated on her discovery.

"The monster that forced Big Sister, Felicia, and Rosary to flee… it was indeed here. But just a moment ago, its aura suddenly vanished—as if it had suddenly…"

Her words trailed off. For a heartbeat, her eyes flickered with a strange, almost unnatural light. Then, with grave finality, she spoke the last word.

"…Killed!"skjdbf