SSS-Rank Evolving Monster: From Pest to Cosmic Devourer-Chapter 122: terror

[Use 100,000 years of lifespan to create the Third Spiritual Space?]

Ricky’s eyes lingered on the system prompt, glowing faintly before him like a divine decree written in starlight.

He didn’t hesitate.

"Yes."

The moment he confirmed, a massive surge of energy rippled through his being. One hundred thousand years—a tenth of his accumulated lifespan—vanished in an instant, dissolving like a fragile frost under the glare of a noonday sun.

The effect was immediate.

A pulse echoed from deep within his core as the Infinite Origin Constellation Root stirred from its dormancy. Ancient, unfathomable, and vast beyond comprehension, the root structure began to tremble—and with it, the entire inheritance space quaked.

Like a slumbering god had turned in its sleep.

All around him, the spiritual atmosphere shifted. Rivers of Amma and pure mana twisted violently from their natural flow, pulled toward him with irresistible force.

He didn’t move.

Ricky stood like a monolith, like a primeval obelisk, unmoving in body—but inside, he had become a bottomless abyss. Devouring. Consuming. Absorbing.

The inheritance space around him darkened as light itself seemed drawn into his frame. The once-serene chamber turned into a vortex of storming essence, a tempest of spiritual force converging upon a single lifeform.

Time passed.

Seconds turned to minutes. Minutes became hours. Then even time lost meaning altogether.

Ricky’s consciousness began to blur.

His senses dimmed.

The ancient hall that surrounded him, once alive with runes and inscriptions, faded into the background. The very notion of space crumbled away as Ricky descended inward—deep into the swirling core of his soul.

Even the Guardian Spirit, bound to the inheritance realm, found herself sealed away from this event. Her voice, her thoughts, her very will—cut off.

She could only watch from the outside.

The silence of true isolation.

This kind of separation was dangerous, but necessary. Without interference, Ricky had the opportunity to forge something miraculous. A task impossible to most—yet to him, merely the next step.

The system made it so.

And in return, he paid the price.

A hundred thousand years of life.

But Ricky didn’t resist. He embraced it.

Then came the dream.

---

It began subtly—like a ripple across still water.

A vision took root in his soul: ethereal and vivid. He stood in an endless void, where galaxies spun like fireflies and nebulas bloomed like lotuses made of starlight.

Within this dark cosmos, his first spiritual space floated like a glowing seed of life.

Then another emerged.

And another.

And then more.

Dozens. Hundreds. Thousands.

Each one different. Some cold and vast, others warm and radiant—pulsing with color and breath. Worlds within worlds. Universes that bore no name yet felt intimately familiar.

"From seed... to realm... to universe."

His consciousness drifted across the expanding cosmos like a sovereign god. The sight should have been overwhelming—but to Ricky, it felt right. Natural. A destiny he had always been meant to embrace.

Then the vision shifted.

He was no longer looking inward.

He was elsewhere.

He heard laughter.

Soft. Playful. Familiar.

A man’s voice—rich and amused.

A woman’s chuckle—light and teasing.

Ricky’s compound eyes twitched slightly even in his trance, his spirit reacting to the sudden warmth that flooded the void. He tried to follow the sounds, but the light in the dream grew blinding—

And then silence returned.

---

Somewhere deep within, far beyond reach, something pulsed.

A spark.

Not a mere spiritual space, but the birth of a new domain.

The third spiritual seed took root.

Beneath the storm of energy, the chaos of collapsing dimensions, and the echoing fragments of forgotten dreams—Ricky’s will remained unshaken.

A new realm had begun.

And with it, the world would once again remember the terror and brilliance of the Venom Fang Overlord.

When Ricky was finally able to focus again, he realized something was very, very wrong.

He was no longer in the inheritance space.

His compound eyes twitched ever so slightly, blinking as his spiritual perception tried—and failed—to pierce the unfamiliar surroundings.

Humans?

The thought drifted through his mind like a ripple in still water.

Right in front of him stood three figures.

A man.

A woman.

And... a baby—no older than a year.

The man and woman stood close together, their shoulders occasionally brushing, and their eyes—tired yet gentle—never strayed far from the child between them.

A family.

Ricky quickly pieced things together. Their body language, their emotional resonance, the subtle gestures of protectiveness... there was no doubt.

They were a family.

But that wasn’t what unnerved him.

What truly sent warning signals through every inch of his mind was the place itself.

He slowly turned his gaze away from the people and took in his surroundings.

A wide, well-lit room.

Soft satin silk curtains drifted lazily in the wind, hanging over towering, rectangular glass windows. Everything was pristine—minimalist décor with a touch of opulence.

It reminded him of somewhere.

A penthouse.

A luxury suite.

Earth.

For a fleeting second, he felt like he was back in New York—skyscrapers, steel, glass, and indulgence.

But something was off.

Very off.

He inhaled instinctively, letting his body register what his eyes could not.

Mana.

The air shimmered with it—soft tendrils of spiritual essence danced around him, gliding through the space like invisible rivers.

Ricky’s mandibles twitched.

Not Earth.

Not even close.

So where was this?

What is this place?

Why am I here?

Questions spun through his mind like whirlwinds—but before he could make sense of anything, his entire being froze.

It started slow.

A faint tremor in the void.

Then—

A pulse.

Cosmic. Ancient. Wrong.

Something brushed against his soul—a feeling too large, too incomprehensible, like a mountain breathing down your neck in absolute silence.

His body—instinctive and primal—reacted first. The carapace along his back stiffened. His spiritual field constricted in defense.

His heart skipped a beat.

And then—he turned.

Slowly.

Like something inside him already knew what he would see.

And when he did, a chill unlike anything he had ever known surged up his spine.

The baby was looking at him.

Not at the room.

Not at the parents.

At him.

His two compound eyes locked with those small, unblinking, inhumanly calm eyes of the infant.

Ricky’s soul nearly jumped out of his shell.

"What the hell—"

There was no emotion in that gaze.

No warmth. No curiosity. No innocence.

Only stillness.

A terrifying stillness.

The kind of gaze that did not belong to a child—but something else. Something... older. Deeper. Watching him not with interest, but awareness.

Predatory awareness.

Ricky wanted to take a step back, to retreat, to wake up—but his spiritual field had gone numb. It refused to move, as if gripped by unseen threads.

The baby blinked once—slowly.

And Ricky understood, deep within his core—

He was not the observer here.

He was the observed.

Just as Ricky’s mind was on the edge of full-blown panic, a voice—divine and ethereal—resounded directly in his soul.

"Don’t worry, my child. I won’t hurt you."

Far from comforting him, the words nearly broke him.

Terror.

Pure and formless—seeping into every corner of his consciousness.

Ricky’s spiritual field trembled. His soul, forged through countless trials and drenched in the blood of monsters, now quivered like a candle in the void.

This was fear.

But not just any fear.

This was the kind of fear that even the Abyss couldn’t invoke in him. Not when he’d felt the presence of that devouring darkness. Not when he’d faced death a dozen times.

This was something else.

Something... older.

Still barely holding himself together, Ricky forced out a single word.

"Who?"

His voice didn’t echo aloud. It was a whisper, trembling deep in the folds of his being.

And in that moment, something impossible happened.

The baby in front of him—who shouldn’t even be capable of understanding speech—smiled.

A slow, curling smile. Subtle. Controlled. Timeless.

Then came the answer. Not with a sound, but as a thought—delivered with the weight of entire civilizations behind it.

"It is I. The One True Eternal Above."

Ricky froze.

The baby was speaking.

There was no doubt about it.

Not just speaking—communicating directly into his essence.

He didn’t know how. He didn’t know why.

But he knew.

That smile.

That voice.

That thing wrapped in infant flesh—it was no child.

What is this? What are you? Ricky wanted to shout, but his mandibles refused to move.

As if reading his thoughts—and it very likely was—the baby let out a soft, bubbling giggle.

A laugh.

A baby’s laugh.

And just like that, the illusion of normalcy returned.

The woman—previously lost in her own world—turned her attention toward the child. A faint blush rose to her cheeks as she bashfully stepped out of the man’s embrace.

"Look, honey, you’re embarrassing me in front of our son," she said with a playful, chiding tone, her eyes cast downward.

The man only chuckled in response, his voice warm and teasing as he gently patted her head.

"He’s just a kid. What are you worried about?" he laughed. "He probably won’t even remember his parents kissing."

Their laughter danced lightly through the air, vibrant and affectionate.

But Ricky was still frozen in place, his soul screaming in silence.

Because he knew.

That smile wasn’t the smile of a child.

And that laugh wasn’t the laugh of someone who forgot.

That infant had seen him.

Updated from fr𝒆ewebnov𝒆l.(c)om