The Psychopathic Beast Emperor-Chapter 59: Eliminations (3)

Aerith didn’t move when the pressure finally arrived. The air thickened first with palpable intent. His surroundings seemed to recoil and sink from the pressure. All sound vanished, insects disappeared, and even the leaves stopped rustling.

His skin prickled violently, every nerve screaming at once.

"So it’s here..." Aerith exhaled slowly and rolled his shoulders, loosening muscles that had been tense for days. His grip tightened around the barbed feather in his hand, the familiar weight grounding him. The tree beneath him creaked softly as he rose, his boots sinking slightly into decayed bark.

His senses pushed out, sharpened by his Circle of Mind. He didn’t see the beast first, but he felt it.

Something vast moved through the undergrowth without disturbing it. It moved with precision. Every step was placed where roots would not crack, where branches would not snap.

Aerith smiled wider, his stormy eyes glowing with deep light.

"So that’s how it is," he murmured. "You’re careful."

The ground to his left collapsed, folding inward. A massive chitinous limb punched through the earth, tearing roots free as soil cascaded down its armored surface. Aerith was already moving.

He leaped backward as the dead tree was ripped from the ground and crushed like rotten bread.

He landed hard, rolled, and shot up. Behind him, the beast revealed more of itself.

A colossal scorpion shape emerged, its body plated in dark, matte chitin that swallowed light instead of reflecting it. Its segmented tail arched overhead, stinger pulsing faintly with a dull, venomous glow. Multiple eyes locked onto Aerith at once, holding a cold, inhuman gaze.

Tier 2! It was a Dark Phantom Scorpio, aka Eliminator.

Aerith did not slow: he ran straight at it.

The barbed feather flashed in his hand as he hurled it with everything he had. The weapon screamed through the air, driven by refined intent and honed instinct, striking the joint between two chitinous plates near the scorpion’s forward limb.

The feather punched in, not so deep, but enough for a dark, viscous liquid to seep out, hissing faintly as it touched the ground.

The scorpion shrieked.

The sound was not loud, but it was sharp, piercing straight into his mind. Aerith staggered, blood leaking from his nose as the psychic backlash hit him with full force.

But... he laughed.

Blood dripped from his lips as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"There it is. You bleed."

The scorpion reacted instantly. Its tail struck.

Aerith moved on instinct alone, twisting his body just enough for the stinger to graze his shoulder instead of impaling his spine. His flesh tore, venom burning like liquid fire as it spread through his arm. He screamed, but it did not stop moving.

He pulled another feather from his back and slashed upward as he passed beneath the scorpion’s body, carving a shallow line across its underside. More blood spilled, spattering across his face and chest.

Two hits.

That was already more than most could claim from a beast a whole tier above them. The scorpion slammed a limb down. Aerith moved too slowly this time.

The impact crushed him into the earth, his bones shattering as the ground cratered beneath him. He coughed violently, blood spraying across the dirt as his vision blurred and darkened. But his eyes still burned.

His aura exploded, pushing his battered body past its limits. He forced himself upright, trembling, one knee digging into the ground. His arm hung uselessly at his side, the skin blackening where the venom spread.

The scorpion’s cold gaze bore into him as it struck with absolute finality. The tail descended like judgment, piercing straight through Aerith’s chest and pinning him to the earth. His body jerked violently, breath exploding from his lungs in a wet gasp.

Pain swallowed everything. His fingers twitched once, twice, then stilled.

As the scorpion withdrew and retreated into the forest, the blood it left behind soaked into the soil, dark and thick. Proof that even the Eliminator could be hurt.

Aerith’s smile remained frozen on his face as his body slowly faded away, a teleportation circle glowing faintly under him.

His trial had ended, but this final battle had secured him a position among the top. To injure a Tier 2 beast at Tier 1 was a feat that couldn’t only be achieved with talent, but also with determination and willpower. And he had done it.

...

Snow scraped across the frozen plains in endless sheets, flaying exposed skin and grinding against ice like a blade being sharpened by the word itself. The sky was a dead white, sunless and depthless, making time feel unreal. Days blurred together here; nights meant nothing. Only the cold mattered.

Yuka and Yoka had survived longer than they ever should have.

Their shelter squatted against a jagged ridge of ice and stone, reinforced with frozen beast hide, compacted snow, and scavenged bone. It was ugly, crude, but it had kept the wind out... barely.

Inside, the twins sat back to back. Their bodies had changed.

Yuka’s skin had taken on a faint bluish tint, veins etched dark beneath the surface like frostbitten roots. Fine, downy fur had crept along his arms and spine, trapping heat instinctively. Her breath steamed thickly, even inside the shelter.

Yoka’s mutation was harsher. His fingers had elongated slightly, nails hardened into pale claws better suited for gripping ice. His pupils reflected light strangely now, catching even the faintest shimmer in the snowstorm beyond.

Adaptation.

Not evolution. Not growth.

Desperation.

They were alive, but their spirits were hollowed out.

"I’m... tired," Yuka whispered. His voice cracked, thin as glass.

Yoka didn’t answer at first. His jaw was clenched so tightly it trembled. He could feel it too. The gnawing weight inside his chest. Not hunger. Not pain.

Exhaustion of the spirit.

The kind that no mutation could fix.

Then the cold changed.

It wasn’t stronger. It was quieter.

The wind thinned. The snow settled unnaturally fast, as if pressed down by something unseen. The twins felt it at the same time, their bodies stiffening in unison.

Yoka slowly stood, claws scraping against ice. "Yuka... don’t move."

He already knew.

Something was coming.

The Eliminator did not announce itself.

The shelter wall imploded.

Ice, bone, and frozen hide exploded inward as a massive shape passed straight through, not striking, not charging, simply moving. The pressure alone hurled Yuka across the shelter like a rag doll. He hit the far wall with a sickening crack and slid down, unmoving.

"YUKA!" Yoka roared.

He lunged forward, Circle of Body and Mind flaring weakly, claws raised in a futile snarl.

The thing turned.

That was all.

A blur of motion. A presence so overwhelming it crushed thought itself. Yoka felt his mutation recoil, his instincts screaming at him to kneel, to flee, to cease existing.

He never saw the strike.

Only felt a sudden, total emptiness rip through his chest.

His feet left the ground.

The world spun once, twice, then froze.

Yoka landed beside his brother, blood blooming dark against the white snow beneath him. His claws scraped weakly at the ice as his strength poured out in a rush he could not stop.

His vision dimmed.

Yuka stirred.

Just barely.

His eyes fluttered open, unfocused, glazed with pain and cold. He saw Yoka lying beside him. Saw his chest no longer moving. Saw the snow around them stained red.

He tried to reach for him.

His fingers didn’t respond.

The Eliminator had already moved on.

The storm returned, swallowing everything in white noise and drifting snow. Within moments, the shelter was half-buried again, as if nothing had happened.

Two figures lay still beneath the snow.

They had adapted.

They had endured.

But exhaustion had won before evolution ever could.

The twins’ trial ended there.

...

Lily had slowly regained her senses, but she was still far from being in her right mind. She had become a predator in her region, but what had made her scarier was her evolution.

There was one thing that made the fox beastkin part of the top species in the beastmen hierarchy. Their evolutions didn’t differentiate levels or ranks.

It could happen anytime once the requirements were met.

The current Lily hadn’t changed much at first glance, but that was the lie of distance.

Up close, the difference was unmistakable.

Her red fur had deepened into a richer, darker shade, like blood soaked into velvet. It caught the light strangely, swallowing it rather than reflecting it. On her forehead, etched clean and sharp, was a silver fox-face sigil, elegant, ancient, and wrong in a way that made the air around it tense. It wasn’t glowing. It didn’t need to. Its presence alone warped perception.

She stood still in the forest clearing, barefoot claws pressed into the soil, tail swaying lazily behind her.

Circle of Mind! She had advanced in levels, too. Her aura was anything but subtle. It was feral, coiled, and predatory.

A pressure that didn’t crush, but promised.

Far away, nearly a kilometer out, the Eliminator halted.

For the first time since entering the trial, it paused.

Not from fear.

From recognition.

The forest went quiet.

Then...

The world tore.

No warning. No buildup. No sound before impact.

The Eliminator moved.

One moment, it was nowhere near her.

The next space folded inward with a violent snap, and something massive and bladed descended from above, aimed directly at Lily’s head. The ground beneath her shattered under the pressure alone, spiderweb cracks racing outward.

Too fast. Too sudden. Too lethal.

Any other participant would have died before realizing they were under attack.

Lily raised her arm.

That was all.

Her forearm snapped up at an angle that looked lazy, almost bored, and met the descending strike head-on.

CLANG!