SSS-Rank Evolving Monster: From Pest to Cosmic Devourer-Chapter 137: Home turf

Ricky stared at her, his compound eyes cold and steady. There was no ripple in his aura, no twitch in his mandibles. Even with his instincts screaming and the battlefield pressing down like a mountain of bones, he did his very best to maintain the appearance of calm.

He couldn’t afford a single mistake.

The undead princess shifted her gaze lazily across the desolate battlefield, her expression unreadable—until her bright, amethyst eyes finally landed on him.

A delicate brow rose slightly. Her tone, when she spoke, was both casual and condescending.

"You’re still here? Quite bold of you."

Her words weren’t sharp like blades, but more like silk—soft, amused, and insulting all the same.

Ricky’s mind paused. He hadn’t expected such a comment. Why wouldn’t I be here? he thought instinctively, his confusion flickering just beneath the surface. Where else would I go?

As if reading his thoughts, the princess’s lips curled into the faintest smirk. Her gaze shimmered with mocking amusement—the kind reserved for small, curious animals who didn’t know their place.

"Look at this ignorant pest. And you were worried about him?" she said, her voice carrying the elegant cruelty of royalty.

"Sisters, you disappoint me."

Her tone was laced with naked disdain, a kind of dismissiveness that wasn’t even meant to provoke—it was just the truth as she saw it.

Ricky’s thoughts froze.

He hadn’t been expecting warmth, but even he was momentarily surprised by how casually she insulted her own kind. Still, the tone said it all—the backhanded venom, the superiority, the belittlement.

This wasn’t just scorn for him.

It was for everyone—including the other undead princesses.

So even among themselves... they’re fractured.

Ricky didn’t know about the deep-rooted rivalries between the undead royalty. But even if he did, it wouldn’t have mattered.

To him, they were all enemies.

Enemies to be defeated—or better yet, killed.

The instant that thought crystallized in his mind, a shift occurred.

The air thickened.

His spiritual pressure descended from above like the wrath of a demon god emerging from the depths of hell. The sky, already dim with ash and war, trembled under the sheer hostility released by Ricky’s spiritual field.

A low hum vibrated through the battlefield—like the breathing of an ancient monster.

This was no longer a conversation.

This was a challenge.

Dust lifted. The charred bones of the fallen trembled on the ground. Trees, still clinging to life despite the inferno, groaned under the weight of his aura.

The undead princess tilted her head, the amusement still lingering in her gaze, though a subtle glint of interest now shimmered beneath it.

Like someone who had underestimated the sting of a bee, only to feel the burn of its venom moments later.

And Ricky? He said nothing.

He didn’t need to.

His intent to kill was absolute.

The air screamed and the earth trembled.

With Ricky at the epicenter, a massive crater ruptured into existence beneath him, the soil fracturing outward like a spiderweb of destruction. His spiritual field surged like a living entity, sending seismic ripples through the atmosphere. Trees cracked, shattered, and fell. Stones were crushed into dust.

Though Ricky was only Stage 2, Rank Three, the raw weight of his spiritual force had long since surpassed that of many low-rank Stage Three cultivators—even Darius, whose mysterious bloodline hinted at an ancient power, paled slightly in comparison.

His Blood Infusion and Superior Iron Frame skills had long since been activated, his body reinforced beyond anything a mortal creature should possess. Yet despite all this, the moment he inched closer to the undead princess, an invisible wall of suffocating pressure slammed down on him.

It was like walking into the depths of the ocean—his limbs strained, his movements slowed, and his frame creaked under the weight of thousands of tons of force.

Ricky’s mandibles curled in response, a grimace etched across his inhuman face.

I’m not weaker than her, he thought coldly. It’s the skills holding me back.

A brutal truth settled in his chest like cold iron.

The enemies he now faced were evolving at a terrifying pace. But his foundation—the very skills that had once given him an edge—remained rooted in the frailty of his early days, when he was still just a puny mosquito.

Though enhanced and refined, their origins hadn’t changed.

I’ve grown beyond them—but my techniques haven’t kept up.

The realization was frustrating. Yet even as it clawed at his focus, the undead princess moved.

Boom!

The air trembled again, but this time, it was not from him.

A cloud of dense, unnatural smoke erupted from her body—so dark it made the night itself look pale in comparison. The smoke didn’t drift or swirl—it surged, pouring from her like a bottomless void. It spread with terrifying speed, swallowing light and sound alike.

In mere seconds, it had expanded to cover tens of kilometers, blotting out the world like a curtain falling across the heavens.

Even more horrifying, the undead creatures in the vicinity—dozens, then hundreds—melted into the smoke, becoming part of it, sacrificing their forms to feed the black tide.

Within the blink of an eye, everything around them was devoured—sight, sound, sensation. The world was reduced to a suffocating sea of living shadow.

And then her voice echoed from within the void.

Low. Cold. Regal.

"How dare you, pest... think about fighting me?"

The darkness trembled as if responding to her fury.

"What gave you the courage?"

Then a voice rang out—not screamed, not shouted, but declared—like the wrath of a divine goddess, and the world trembled.

It was like thunder forged from celestial judgment, reverberating through the very bones of the earth. The air itself began to vibrate, distorting like heat waves in a desert, until even Ricky’s vision blurred as if a spiritual hammer had struck his skull.

He staggered for a brief moment, his thoughts racing.

"Is this some kind of sonic attack?"

His compound eyes narrowed, trying to track the undead princess through the suffocating veil of black smoke. In this battlefield where one misstep meant death, Ricky couldn’t afford even the slightest distraction.

Then—

Flash!

Above his head, the air shimmered like glass catching the first morning sun. A crown materialized—not of gold or jewels, but a gleaming construct of crystalline energy, floating just inches from his brow.

The Aegis Crown.

Born from a rare spiritual inheritance and upgraded through countless near-death battles, it was a defensive artifact tied directly to his spiritual field. As it activated, it let out a resonant hum, forming invisible ripples that pushed back against the hostile aura pressing down on him.

For the first time in the battle, the undead princess faltered.

Her expression shifted—not in rage or amusement, but in genuine surprise.

"A spiritual defense skill...?"

Her voice was low, sharp, like frost cutting through fire.

"How can a pest like you learn such a skill?" she demanded, voice laced with disbelief—until realization flickered behind her gaze. "Don’t tell me... you stole it. From whom did you steal it?"

Ricky snorted. The disdain in her voice was thicker than swamp fog. Even now, she looked at him as if he were beneath her—a stain on her honor.

"This bitch is too much," Ricky thought, his mandibles twitching in irritation.

Then—in the blink of an eye—he vanished.

One moment he stood beneath the glowing Aegis Crown. The next, his body dissolved into a wisp of smoke, swallowed by the swirling blackness, like a ghost dispersing into night.

But he hadn’t escaped. He hadn’t run.

He was hunting.

For anyone else, this battlefield would have been a nightmare—pitch-black, saturated with spiritual pressure, filled with the howls of dying creatures and the remnants of corrupted magic. But for Ricky?

This was home turf.

He was a master of darkness—a sovereign predator born of poison and silence. Within the shroud of night, he didn’t just vanish. He commanded it.

And now, the battlefield fell deathly still.

The undead princess stood where Ricky had been moments ago, her arms slightly raised, her posture still as marble. Her eyes scanned the void, once confident, now sharp with tension.

Seconds passed.

Then her eyes widened.

The realization dawned like an executioner’s axe.

She couldn’t feel him.

Not his movement.

Not his presence.

Not even the faintest whisper of spiritual energy.

"He was just here..."

The silence deepened, like a breath being held before a scream.

For the first time since she arrived on the battlefield, the undead princess felt something she hadn’t felt in centuries:

Fear.

Just then, the air shimmered.

The space around the undead princess vibrated, pulsing like the surface of disturbed water. Without warning, a figure stepped out from the distortion—a woman dressed in a flowing pink gown, delicate as moonlight, with a rabbit-shaped mask covering her face.

She appeared like a dream slipping into reality—graceful, surreal, and eerily silent.

Then a voice followed.

Soft, almost whispering, yet carrying an unshakable weight. It flowed through the battlefield like mist over a graveyard, curling around the bones and broken trees.

"Get back..."

A command, not a plea.

But it was already too late.

Before the masked woman could act—

Shluck!

A jagged hand, darker than night and sharper than any blade, erupted from the shadows behind the undead princess. It tore through her back with a sickening crunch, piercing straight through her chest, the claws glinting with sinister darkness mana.

The world froze.

The undead princess’s crimson eyes widened in disbelief. A sharp gasp tore from her throat as blood pooled at the corner of her lips, its vibrant red a striking contrast against her ash-pale skin.

Her head turned ever so slightly, as if trying to glimpse the impossible.

"How..." she whispered, voice cracking like brittle ice, her words laced with horror and confusion.

Behind her, emerging slowly like a phantom from the shadows, was Ricky—his compound eyes glowing with quiet fury, his proboscis flickering with restrained power, and his spiritual field like a coiled abyss.

The predator had struck.

And the princess, once draped in arrogance and contempt, now dangled on the edge of death—caught like prey in the dark.

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