The Glorious Evolution

"..."

Gamemaster Biscuits and the viewers were left staring dumbfoundedly at the sight of the Leviathan slithering rapidly in the direction of the Rifters... no complaint, no struggle.

It looked smoother than Sandwitch's orders... and she shared its f*cking bloodline!

Everyone switched reflexively to Levi's face... desiring to see some emotion, anything.

Alas...

The only thing reflected was three orbiting celestial stars in a silent void.

For the first time... everyone hated the mask, wanting badly to see who was behind this insanity before them.

Then... it happened.

A soft murmur turned into a bellowing cascade of ardent screams and cheers, breaking the silence at once.

Whoooaaah!!

-What the actual f*ck am I watching!!!-

Celestial! Celestial!! Celestial!! Celestial!!

-Show me your face, and you can have my virginity!!-

The crowd went absolutely bonkers; their combined thunderous voices were loud enough that the desert underneath seemed to shake!

Shadebite, Glassfang, and Red Gale lifted their heads simultaneously, halting their skirmish... their faces covered in confusion.

'What are they cheering for so hard?'

'What the... are our skirmishes that entertaining?'

'Did something happen in the back?'

The Rifters heard only the collective noise in the skies, not the reason for its emergence... In the games, the Gamemasters' and viewers' voices were heard only by the Rifters near the occurring scene, and they had their senses connected to it.

In this manner, the Rifters could listen to the Gamemasters' commentary and the crowd's cheers without giving them any serious advantage. If they were far, everything was merged into a cheering static noise.

This meant... The nearby surviving Rifters to Levi from before were left listening with widened mouths at Gamemaster Biscuits' passionate commentary.

"By Sir Nocturn's Blessings!! He's done it... The Celestial has bent the Sandscale Leviathan itself to his will!"

Gamemaster Biscuits' voice shook with incredulity, nearly cracking under the roar of the crowd. As the most omnipotent being in this map... she could analyze any scene, providing her with all the details needed to support her commentary.

When she did this to Levi's, she understood everything in less than a second!

"That staff... look at it! Still lodged inside the beast's mouth, resonating like a tuning fork... he's not leaving it there for no reason, he's rewritten the very music of its nervous system through it!"

She slammed her fluffy palm on the mic, eyes wide. "This isn't control by chains or brute force... this is symphonic domination! Every signal, every twitch, every heartbeat... all routed through that blade of sound akin to a radio antenna!"

Although Gamemaster Biscuits was screaming passionately, she was cursing inwardly at the birth of another freak, who was capable of controlling her beast!

She wasn't even given a second to celebrate Sandwitch's resignation before Levi showed his true goal of why he fought her.

As for whether he could keep this control for long? She knew that it was temporary... The Beast might not possess intellect, but it shouldn't have been this easy to control its nervous system if it wasn't already messed up because of them.

That's right... its nervous system was under the game system's control, which responded based on the programming of its rules.

Levi didn't fight off the Leviathan's mind to control it, but the system that was implanted to make it listen to its orders.

In simpler terms... Levi's frequency hijack would last a couple of minutes at most... his control would be snatched back the moment two new preys were marked under the system's orders!

But... by then? There might not be a game in the first place.

"The Leviathan doesn't move on instinct anymore... it moves because The Celestial lets it!"

Woooooooooaahhh!!!!

The instant she finished, the skies exploded into a thunderous unified cheer... most of them, their minds failing to capture the commentary's essence even when the answer was laid before them.

In their eyes, they didn't give a shit about how Levi pulled it off... just that he did.

And now... he had the King of the Desert under his command, swiftly crossing the track like he was riding on an express train!

In no time... the surviving Rifters were passed by Levi, leaving behind powerful underground vibrations as a souvenir.

As they listened to the viewers' cheers merging into one voice... they knew Levi had left them to eat their dust. Yet, none seemed unhappy about it.

Gamemaster Biscuits' words resounded in their hearts, mixed with the vibrations they felt earlier.

Such a combination left them with two emotions: Bitter shock and relief.

'The Celestial... where did this rising anomaly come from?'

All of them questioned Levi's origins as they chased behind him at the slowest possible speed of their gliders... appearing like they were cruising along.

None wanted to give up completely on the race, but at the same time, they weren't foolish to chase behind a beast-wielding Rifter.

Meanwhile, Levi couldn't care less about them... his goal was to reach the finish line before the duration ended.

Fortunately... Sandscale Leviathan's full-on speed was simply unprecedented... once it was ordered to go all out, it went all out!

Vrooom!!

It traveled tens of kilometers in seconds... a speed that wasn't going to be used against the Rifters as it was simply impossible to escape it.

But Levi and Sandwitch tampered with its settings... letting it go wild in this game.

And wild it did!

The viewers kept cheering thunderously as they watched the Sandscale Leviathan covering what the frontrunners had traveled in a tenth of their time, arriving underneath them, akin to a thunderclap!

Rumble!!

The three felt it at once... their bodies freezing in dread instantly, stopping their skirmish for the second time.

They glanced at each other in silence... their minds connected with a single thought.

'What is the Leviathan doing here when no one has been marked yet?'

They received their answer in the most spectacular way.

Rummmble!

The Sandscale Leviathan suddenly emerged onto the surface, its gigantic head piercing the skies before descending into the ground.

Then, it continued its journey... leaving the Rifters to gaze at its back with a stunned expression.

"I swear... I saw someone on top of its head."

Red Gale had the best vision of the three... swearing on his life that his eyes saw something that shouldn't be there.

Just as his rivals were about to denounce his insane statement... the viewers' noise transformed from a mixed noise into an understood repeated chant.

Go, Celestial! Go, Celestial! Go, Celestial!...

The three turned to each other... speechlessness covered their faces. But soon, they swiftly gave chase at their top speed, having no plans to remain frozen forever.

Although they couldn't keep up with Sandscale Leviathan... its back was left visible over the horizon.

They wanted to know what exactly happened... they needed to understand, as the pill of being defeated like this was too much to swallow.

Meanwhile, as the finish line was getting closer and closer over the horizon... Levi ordered the Leviathan to slow its speed while he brought his glider near his feet and strapped it tightly.

His body was affixed to the serpent's head due to its scales... they were big enough, they had somewhat like ridges between each one, allowing Levi to have some support to not get thrown by the momentum.

Then, he waited until a mere two hundred meters separated the Leviathan from the finish line... traced as black and white across a long line.

Once he was satisfied with the distance, he turned on the glider while simultaneously giving out a single order.

"End yourself."

Levi whispered, severing the final chord as he jumped from on top of the serpent's head, landing on a tall, steep dune... his speed nearing its limit in no time!

Meanwhile, he had inverted the rhythm, forcing the beast's signals to eat themselves alive!

He saw it happening on the back of his auditory vision... crimson frequencies crashed against gold, violet shattered into silent static... nerve against nerve, order against order.

The orchestra he had bent now tore itself apart!

Roaaaar....

The Sandscale Leviathan started convulsing violently while slithering at a decent speed... making it lose control and start to roll over the tallest dune in the entire game... reaching up to five hundred meters!

As the beast's own nerves overloaded and burned from within... its colossal frame screamed as every signal misfired, every command contradicted, every organ betrayed!

Levi merely summoned back his staff... manifesting from shadowy flowers.

He turned it into a rifle and used Sonic Recoil to accelerate his speed even more... making his cloak snap in the desert wind, and sand spill around him as he pierced down with controlled precision!

Whoosh!!

As he rushed through the finish line... the Leviathan's roar turned to a low, shuddering groan as its titanic body writhed and then fell still behind him.

Levi applied the brakes while turning his glider to the side, shooting a giant wave of sand before he came to a stop.

Then, he broke free from the glider and landed on the ground... his soles touching the sand for the first time since the start of the game.

The desert was as quiet as a graveyard; the only sound was the fading groan of the fallen Leviathan. Its body twitched once, then went quiet, lying like a dead continent across the sands.

Above Levi's head, golden script burst into being... burning letters that gleamed across the broadcast for all to see.

[Title Earned: Leviathan Slayer]

The announcement froze the world.

The crowd, moments ago a storm of voices, fell utterly silent. Millions watched with wide eyes and breath held... as though afraid a single sound would break the gravity of what had just been witnessed.

Levi stood behind the finish line, staff planted in the sand, cloak fluttering like a banner of war.

He didn't look at the corpse behind him. He didn't need to... he could hear its silent heartbeat.

Instead, noticing the peculiar silence, he combined his echolocation with the Harmonic Spine to gaze at the skies above him.

Hundreds of millions of eyes colored the sky, akin to a canvas drawn by a twisted child...

And then, he spoke.

"Are you not entertained?"

The words rang out like a thunderclap, carried by the resonance still humming from his staff.

They ripped through the silence, stealing every ear, every heart.

It wasn't a boast... none felt it.

It was defiance, a challenge thrown at the platform itself.

For a heartbeat longer, silence reigned. And then the dam broke one last time.

Whoaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!! CELESTIAL! CELESTIAL! CELESTIAL! CELESTIAL!

The audience erupted in hysteria, in cheers, in disbelief. The title above his head flashed brighter, sealing Leviathan Slayer into legend... one of its kind!

Levi allowed a thin smile to touch his lips, and then he walked into a newly emerging dimensional door... one arm holding a staff on his shoulder, and the other dragging a glider on the sand.

Behind him... the Sandscale Leviathan lay still... its size big enough that it cast a shadow over Levi.

Yet, the audience saw it from the skies differently... a man walking back home after a long day of work.

Only this kind of work... was done solely by Leviathan Slayers!