?*BOOM*


    Ss''s body turned into a blur as he catapulted himself through the dozens of broken houses and immediately appeared before themander, his arm cocked back as he got ready tond a devastating blow onto themander''s face.


    The man smiled as he caught Ss'' fist in his hand beforending a lightning-quick punch right into Ss'' nose.


    He was on another level. On a beast scale, he would have been considered a pristine amethyst-level beast if not a dull-sapphire level. And from what Ss could tell, he had only been using the first and second stages of toki so far.


    The onlyforting notion Ss had was that he wouldn''t kill him or Syra since he needed them.


    However-


    "Maybe I should kill one of your parents in front of her? Then she''s bound to break her limits, right?" Themander''s voice echoed in Ss'' head like a dreadful rm.


    Ss shot back again, but he quickly controlled his momentum and slid to a stop.


    "Or maybe I can burn one of your family members right in front of her. I wonder how she''ll react knowing that her weakness was the cause of their deaths." Themander continued walking with a disgusting grin on his face.


    The man was ill... No, he was beyond ill.


    Ss sprinted toward him, yet he has mmed into the ground again.


    "Maybe I can torture her to bring out the battle-hungry version of her, fueled by the thoughts of revenge."


    Themander grabbed Ss'' arm and cracked it with one twist.


    The bloody spine-chilling crack of his bones echoed in his ears and made him let out a short yet blood-curdling roar of pain.


    Yet he still stood up again, and pointed his working palm at themander.


    "Ooo. Maybe I can torture you in front of her. Maybe that''s the key!"


    He was downright inhuman.


    Themander didn''t even look back. His toki red and cracked at least 7 bones in less than a second.


    Ss fell to the ground, incapable of moving and barely able to breathe.


    However, despite the agonizing pain going through his body, Ss channeled life fusion through his body, taking advantage of the fact that themander walked so slowly.


    "Maybe I''ll ughter every in this town except you, your sister and that pink haired kid."


    He was a monster.


    "SHUT UP!" Ss roared with pure desperation in his voice.


    He got up with his half-injured body and shot into the air.


    Blood streamed down his face as he jumped into the air with an earth axe in his hands.


    Adrenaline pumped through his veins, and fire fusion brought out his full strength,


    Yet, in front of a monster like themander before him, it was futile.


    Everything was futile.


    "UGHHH!" Ss dropped to his knees while holding his abdomen and vomiting out a mouthful of blood.


    His shattered axey beside him, stained with his blood and no one else''s.


    "Oh... Is that your father? Maybe I can kill him too and show his corpse off to your sister. I can''t wait to see the grief and desperation in her eyes as she watched her father dangling by his hair from my hands." He grinned from ear to ear while ncing back at Ss for the first time.


    He was unstable.


    ''...''


    His father was standing there, barely holding Death back as he looked at Ss with an expression of horror.


    Horror that his son was about to die, and he couldn''t do anything about it.


    So, Ss stood up onest time...


    He just needed onest push.


    Onest stand...<novelsnext></novelsnext>


    He had to be stopped.


    ''Ah... I get it now. I get why I wasn''t able to break through.'' Ss shook intensely as he stood up, his muscles spasming and screaming at Ss to rest.


    Ss had enjoyed his family''spany. He enjoyed every minute of it even though he didn''t really know how to show it.


    He loved them enough that he might just die for them. Wasn''t his battle with themander proof enough? he was more than willing to die for them, especially his sister, and now even his brother.


    He had never loved anyone the way he loved them, but maybe that was his curse?


    Maybe that was why he wasn''t about to break into the topaz core?


    Sure, his grandmother told him that it was normal to have a bottleneck, but Ss had only had one bottleneck in his lives, two if you count his incapability of using the sword.


    "You''ve all been holding me back." He muttered under his breath. Mana surged from all corners of the town, and moved toward Ss, who was looking at all of them with zing emerald eyes.


    His family was hisfort zone. The problem with being a child is that you''re always in thefort zone.


    Maybe in the back of his mind, he knows that things will never be the same the moment he breaks into the topaz core?


    They would continue caring for him as long as he stayed in the ga core.


    They would continue to look at him the same way they look at Syra or Lex.


    A helpless child.


    And maybe he wanted that.


    But, at a certain point, one must understand that life moves on. People age, and people die. Some young, and others old.


    And while being a lone wolf in his past life might have been considered a w, this world valued the strong.


    Clinging to his family would only make him weak.


    If he hadn''t clung to his family for so long, maybe he wouldn''t have been thrown into this situation.


    Maybe so many people wouldn''t have died because of him.


    If he had just broken through, maybe he could have ensured no one was hurt.


    It was all his fault.


    He did this.


    Everyone who died that day was his fault.


    No one else''s


    ''I killed them...'' Ss'' pupils shrunk before illuminating with a bright golden light.


    He clutched his abdomen with dear life, but it wasn''t because of pain.


    He was clutching his sr plexus.


    "You gave me too muchfort... I felt too safe..." Ss raised his head and took in a deep breath.


    His mana core shone through his abdomen and clothes, shining with a bright orange that was slowly bing yellow.


    ''Because I clung to you for too long, you might get hurt.'' A burning sensation radiated from his abdomen, but instead of falling to his knees again, Ss activated the cultivation technique that he named "Metamorphosis."


    ''No more...'' A topaz-yellow mana surged all around him, spinning around his figure and creating a vortex of mana that shred the buildings next to him into dust.


    ''It''s kill or be killed...''


    ''And I''d rather push an entire to extinction than let you take another step.''


    [You are Evolving]


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