The entire city had become his hunting ground, its broken streets and collapsing districts no longer resembling anything that once held order.

People were still reeling from the earlier attack by one of the Kings of the Beasts, a single strike that had rewritten the landscape in an instant, flattening entire zones and leaving behind gaps where neighborhoods had been.

After that, everything the Defense Force tried to hold together began to fall apart.

Communication lines failed one after another, units lost contact with command, and whatever authority remained was reduced to scattered voices giving uncertain orders.

Law did not weaken in stages; it simply gave way.

In that collapse, Francis saw something familiar: opportunity.

He stood on top of a crushed vehicle, its frame flattened under his weight.

The city around him burned in pockets, fire crawling through buildings already leaning and breaking apart. Smoke drifted low across the streets, thick enough to blur entire blocks and swallow what remained of the sky.

Francis lifted his head slowly, his gaze settling across the ruins. His thoughts narrowed until everything unnecessary fell away, leaving only his goal.

Hunt. Devour. Evolve.

SWOOOSH!

He moved without hesitation. Without reflection. Feeding became the only continuity left in him.

[Congratulations Host for reaching Category Seven]

[Requirement for Category Eight: 1,000,000 livers]

The message arrived without warning, and the moment it appeared, his body locked as though something inside him had been cut off mid-function.

Pain surged through him.

"Ghh—!"

He dropped to one knee, the impact cracking the ground beneath him, while heat burst out through his skin in heavy waves.

It was not normal steam or fire, but something closer to containment failing, as if his body had been holding more than it was meant to bear.

A crack followed as his arm split along the surface.

For a brief moment, he only stared.

Then the skin peeled back like broken glass, revealing what lay beneath.

White skin surfaced underneath—smooth and clean, not pale or sickly, but almost artificial in its purity.

The change did not remain localized. It spread with steady persistence, first across his arm, then up his neck, then over one side of his face, as though something inside him had begun rebuilding him from the structure outward.

His fingers twitched out of sync with his intent.

Then the transformation shifted again.

SHLK!

Black tendrils pushed out from beneath the new surface of his skin.

Francis watched them without panic. His attention remained steady, almost clinical, as if observing a system that had finally aligned with itself.

And then his body followed that alignment.

His right arm began to change.

Flesh stretched and shifted at once. Bones cracked under the strain, but instead of breaking, they reorganized into something else entirely.

The shape extended, becoming longer, thinner, more flexible, until the arm was no longer an arm at all.

It had become a serpent-like limb of black armor and pale flesh. Its head formed last, opening slowly as rows of sharp teeth aligned within it.

Francis studied it in silence for a moment, then allowed it to retract. The structure folded back into itself, undoing the change.

"...So I can change it like that."

He looked at his hand afterward as if measuring what it could become next.

Behind him, pressure gathered along his back.

He turned slightly.

SHRRRKKK!!!

Two massive forms tore outward at once, breaking through flesh.

Black mass expanded rapidly, shaping itself into wings that unfolded behind him as though they had been waiting folded within him all along.

Large. Far larger than his body.

The moment they opened fully—

BOOOOM!!!

The air exploded outward.

The ground fractured. Nearby vehicles were thrown aside. Flame and smoke were forced back in a widening ring of pressure.

Francis steadied himself as the balance of his body changed.

Then he moved the wings once.

A single motion.

BOOOOOOM!!!

The air collapsed beneath him and detonated outward.

He shot into the sky, breaking the sound barrier in an instant. The sonic boom followed behind him as the city dropped away below.

Wind tore past him, but it no longer resisted. It responded.

Francis looked down at his hands as he hovered above the burning city.

"...So that’s how it is."

His voice remained even, controlled, as understanding settled without resistance.

"Now I can use the body parts of any creature I’ve infected."

Then another ability surfaced within him.

Linking.

Unlike infection, it did not require proximity. It moved through living systems already in place, spreading through networks without his presence.

The moment he understood it, the city stopped being something he was inside of and became something he could extend through.

Spiders beneath rubble became extensions of his senses. Stray dogs became moving points of awareness.

Frogs in broken drainage systems became watchers in darkness. Birds cutting through smoke became vision across distance.

One by one, they stopped being separate lives.

They became continuity.

And the city stopped being environment.

It became structure.

Francis turned toward the remaining Defense Force facilities.

Most had already collapsed or been abandoned after Rynik’s attack.

Some had been converted into emergency shelters. A few remained sealed, hiding captured beasts inside reinforced containment.

That was what he needed.

BOOOOOM!!!

He struck the outer wall of one facility without slowing, breaking through reinforced structure as alarms erupted through the interior.

"INTRUDER!"

"HOSTILE BEAST DETECTED!"

Soldiers rushed through corridors, weapons raised, voices overlapping in confusion and urgency.

Francis did not wait for them to coordinate. He had neither the time nor the patience for it.

Black strands unfolded from his back, six spider-like extensions moving with precise speed as threads shot through the corridor in an instant.

One soldier tried to shout.

The thread reached him first, sealing his airway.

Another raised his weapon.

Francis was already in front of him.

The distance no longer registered as movement.

A hand closed around the soldier’s throat.

Crack.

"Fall back!"

"Retreat!"

But there was no space left to retreat into. Threads filled every opening, tightening the corrido. Some soldiers were pinned to walls. Others lost their voices before they could use them.

Francis moved through them without urgency.

A soldier charged, blade crackling with electricity.

Francis did not step aside.

His arm shifted mid-motion.

SHRRRK!

It became a serpent head, snapping forward and breaking through the attack.

He let the body fall and continued deeper, attention already beyond the hallway.

Behind reinforced doors, he sensed life—beasts held in sedation and steel, waiting without understanding what approached them.

He stopped before the chamber.

Inside stood a gorilla-like beast, massive even while restrained, metallic fur covering its body, arms built for destruction rather than movement.

The moment it saw him, it roared.

BOOOOM!!!

The sound shook the room.

Francis did not react.

Tendrils moved slowly across his skin in recognition.

The beast hesitated, sensing danger.

But it was already weakened, its body sagging under sedation long before he arrived.

Then it collapsed.

Francis stepped forward.

And the infection began.

After he finished with that base, he did not stop. He kept moving through the ruined city, searching every area where people were still hiding or trying to survive.

Time passed.

Facility after facility followed.

By the time light returned to the sky, death no longer registered.

Only accumulation.

[Congratulations Host for reaching Category Eight]

Francis clenched his hand.

The air around it fractured slightly.

He was closer now.

To bringing them back. The daughters he had lost.

His gaze moved across the ruined horizon as the sun rose through smoke that refused to clear. Even the light felt distant, weakened by what remained below.

[Requirement for Category Nine]

[Devour 10,000,000 Livers]

Ten million.

A number that would normally feel impossible, something far beyond reach.

But it no longer felt that way to him.

He did not fully understand how powerful he become after reaching Category Eight.

What he could sense, however, was the gap between that version of himself and the one from only a few hours ago—it felt distant, almost like another being entirely.

Rynik’s attack ended up becoming a blessing for him. It left the city in chaos, and that chaos gave him the space to grow at a far faster pace than before.

This would not have been possible under normal circumstances.

’I heard from the general that this isn’t the only city that was attacked. Even though there are still survivors here, I should leave right away.’

Before he began his killing spree, he decided to review the rewards he had obtained.

There were too many innate talents he had absorbed, most of them evolving his existing abilities, and he could barely make sense of all of them at once.

One example was his Reinforced Spring Joints, which had now evolved into Mega Spring Drive.

Even his Advanced Trajectory Reading had evolved into Advance Prediction.

It was fortunate that he could use them instinctively; otherwise, the overload of information would have tear his mind apart.