The Psychopathic Beast Emperor-Chapter 87: Chimera

[Evolution Requirements Met!]

[Starting Evolution in 30 Seconds!]

[Calculating Options...]

[Multiple Evolution Options Identified!]

[- Fox-kin

- Wolf-kin

- Antelope-kin

- Rabbit-kin

- Eagle-kin

- Lion-kin

- Scorpion-kin]

[Special Evolution Option Detected!]

- Chimera

[Due to the host’s current inability to respond, the system will select the best option for the host.]

[Running compatibility requirements...]

[Selecting the most compatible choices...]

[Fox-kin Compatibility - 70%]

[Wolf-kin Compatibility - 40%]

[Chimera - 90%]

[Concept Interference Detected!]

[BEAST Essence Detected!]

[Best choice selected!]

[Chimera]

[Commencing Evolution in three seconds]

[3... 2... 1...]

[Evolution Commenced!]

[Note: There will be pain!!!]

Just when everyone thought the phenomenon had ended, they felt a pressure fall over the whole citadel. It was so heavy and dense that people visibly shook. Even the elders weren’t exempt from it. That wasn’t all...

They saw the bestial outline again, this time a bit clearer, and what was more visible was the crown atop where the outline of its massive head was.

The crown was jagged and bone-white. They could also see its eyes... a deep, red that peered into the soul. Though it wasn’t all that visible or glowing, they could still see it and feel its piercing gaze upon them.

It was like a god looking down on mortals.

Even some weak-hearted people instantly collapsed from fear and the pressure. Exildra, who had just finished a three-hour-long cultivation, couldn’t take her eyes off the faint projection. It felt so familiar yet so unfamiliar. That was when she got her answer...

AARGH! ROAR!

They all heard a guttural scream, followed by a roar from the projection. At this point, whoever thought it was something normal got second thoughts.

Elder Silvia, who had called off the duel, flew quickly towards the source as she could see it clearly. The person experiencing that was her disciple. In less than three seconds, she was there, but got stopped by an invisible barrier.

She hit it with all her might, but it only caused a ripple.

"What!" She exclaimed in shock, clearly not expecting something, possibly conjured by a Tier 1 kid, to block her full-powered strike.

This was the strike of a Tier 3 or higher being!

Looking through the barrier, she could see Bahamut squirming in pain, and blood flowed freely from all his pores. His hair peeled off in harsh strokes, making his head bleed. It was like someone was uprooting his hair from the roots with their hands.

Elder Silvia’s eyes glowed as she couldn’t understand what was going on. The world seemed to peel as her eyesight sharpened, and what she saw chilled her to the bones.

Bahamut was engaged in a fierce life and death battle with a lot of beasts that she didn’t dare count. On the outside, he was screaming in agonizing pain as his body changed physically. But inwardly, he was in a battle for his life, and it was an unfair battle. At least, that’s what it looked like to Elder Silvia.

"Just what kind of evolution is this?" she muttered in confusion as Bahamut’s left hand suddenly exploded into a mist of blood, shocking her backwards. Before she could get back her bearings, his right eye burst, spewing pus and blood as he screamed in pain in a voice so loud that anyone who heard it felt chills.

The place that the eye had been looked like it had been slashed by a claw, and it had really been slashed because whatever he was experiencing currently was an outward projection of what he was experiencing inwardly.

Elder Silvia could only watch as the boy was manhandled and tortured by what she came to deduce as spirits or souls of beasts he had killed.

The scream didn’t fade yet. It became layered, ringing out relentlessly.

His voice became many, overlapping, and distorted. It no longer sounded human.

The barrier around Bahamut pulsed with each cry, expanding and contracting like a living lung.

Bahamut’s body convulsed... The blood that had been seeping from his pores exploded outward, misting the air in arcs. Veins stood out across his torso like black cords, writhing beneath his skin as if trying to escape.

Then his spine arched violently as a wet, tearing sound echoed. Something pushed out from the base of his back.

A tail... Long, thick, and scaled.

It burst through his skin and muscle in a spray of blood and shredded flesh, its vertebrae audibly cracking as they rearranged themselves to accommodate the growth. Dark scales overlapped one another, glossy and brutal, etched with faint crimson lines that pulsed like veins.

For half a second, it looked right. Power surged, while the projection above the citadel roared in approval.

But then... the tail twitched violently.

Bahamut screamed again, this time in pure denial. The scales on the tail blackened, cracked, and began to rot from the base outward. The flesh beneath spasmed uncontrollably as incompatible essence tore through it.

"No...no... NO!" his voice broke.

The tail ruptured all of a sudden. It tore with a sickening sound... His bone snapped with a sickening crunch. His flesh peeled away in strings as the entire appendage was violently rejected, slamming wetly down.

The stump where it had been smoked and hissed, raw and exposed, his blood pumping out in thick spurts. His self-healing tried to activate, but it failed instantly.

The evolution overrode it entirely.

Inside Bahamut, the battle worsened. The beasts’ attacks became more frenzied. Each of them lunged in turn, ripping at his form as he fought back, testing his dominance. The wolves tore at his legs, the wyrm coiled around him and squeezed tightly, crushing him with its weight.

Bahamut roared as his aura exploded, tearing it into pieces. But they were yet to stop attacking. Every time he destroyed one, another took its place.

And at the center of it all, the BEAST watched, not moving to help or interfere as it did with the system. It seemed to be waiting for something.

Outside, Bahamut’s body continued to break.

His ribcage collapsed inward, snapping like dry wood under pressure before forcibly reshaping itself. His chest plit open from the sternum to the navel, revealing muscle, bone, and something darker beneath... Something that pulsed with a slow, terrifying rhythm.

Another roar tore free as fur erupted across his shoulders and arms, coarse and dark... Only to ignite.

The fur burned away instantly, taking skin with it, and leaving charred muscle exposed. He convulsed, foam mixed with blood spilling from his mouth as his jaw dislocated and reset with a violent snap.

His teeth changed. It sharpened, then shattered, and then regrew again, and again, and again, each time becoming sharper and stronger.

Elder Silvia slammed her fists against the barrier, blue sigils flaring around her arms.

"Stop this!" she roared, for the first time in centuries, sounding afraid. "Whoever you are doing this, please stop! He’s dying!"

The barrier didn’t even ripple.

Above them all, the projection’s crown tilted, as if amused. Then it moved.

Something shifted instantly in Bahamut as the endless assault stalled.

The BEAST finally decided to act.

It stepped forward, its presence so heavy that the ground cracked. Its crown burned brighter, bone-white against the darkness.

The heaviness bore down on Elder Silvia, causing her to falter in the air, but she resisted... for a while.

The BEAST looked at the spirits, and its eyes glowed. That was it for Elder Silvia.

She plunged from the sky and hit the ground with a loud boom that shook the earth. The spirits of the beasts all knelt and were crushed by the authority of the conceptual being whose form couldn’t be understood or seen clearly. Their essences were pulled inward, subjugated by the concept brutally into Bahamut. Ironically, they had been defeated and killed twice.

Outside...

Bahamut’s body began to stabilize. The bleeding slowed as the exposed flesh sealed in layers of reinforced skin. His spine straightened while his limbs stopped spasming.

From the ruined stump of the tail, something new began to form. It was not known what it was, as the physical part of it had been healed and sealed... for now.

But the evolution was yet to end.

As Elder Silvia slowly got out of the crater she had created from her fall, she saw Bahamut straighten in the air, all his wounds and injuries healed.

His initially bald head started growing new hair at a rapid pace. In no time, his white hair was back, this time more luscious and longer. It even seemed to glow, and in the middle of his head was black hair instead of white.

That wasn’t all. His eyes, which weren’t hidden by the blindfold, were now glowing a deep red, with black sclerae and deep slits.

He suddenly doubled down in the air as his aura became denser and redder. A crown, reminiscent of that on the projection, materialized on his head as he roared.

ROARRRRRRR!!!

The sound was deep and pushed down on everyone. That was when Elder Silvia and all other elders, including the golden-eyed man who was watching all this from his window, realized that this wasn’t Bahamut... at least not yet. It was his potential, his future, being displayed for all to see.

As for what he had become, all the beast-kin could feel it. Even if it was subtle and not complete, they could still feel it. Especially Elder Silvia, who was closer... She could see now what the projection was or could be...

[Evolution Successful!]

[Commencing System Update!]

[System would be unavailable for three days]

[Congratulations!]

...

A/N: Author here again!

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