Facing Adrian Vale—drenched head to toe in blood—Raven Shaw fell silent.
Her calm, unreadable eyes didn't waver, but it was impossible to tell what she was thinking.
Adrian, on the other hand…
The moment he sensed Raven's arrival, something strange happened.
Even though he was still in Half-Kakuja—
he froze.
The body that had been chasing fleeing centipedes stopped dead.
That right eye—blank white—
locked onto Raven.
"Crack… crack…"
Adrian exhaled, his breath carrying the faintest trace of red.
Behind him, his Kagune trembled uncontrollably.
That posture…
It looked almost identical to the moment before he tore into the swarm.
Violence. Hunger. Bloodlust.
Yet Raven didn't retreat half a step.
Her posture stayed straight, proud.
Her narrowed eyes held something deep—sharp and wary.
She didn't know why Adrian had become this feral…
but she knew one thing.
Right now, Adrian was dangerous.
Adrian inhaled again—slow, heavy.
His neck bent at an unnatural angle.
Bone grinding against bone.
"Crk… ck…"
In the last shred of his foggy awareness, Adrian felt something off about Raven.
Not her face.
Not her figure.
Those were still perfect.
But—
she felt older.
Not in appearance.
In cell activity.
Through his RC-cell perception, he could sense it clearly—
the vitality in her body was slightly lower than before.
And yet, even with that subtle "aging"…
the scent she carried was more intoxicating than any centipede.
A thought—pure instinct—hammered into his brain:
Tear her apart. Eat her. Leave nothing.
RC cells boiled.
The urge battered him again and again.
His Kagune drifted forward unconsciously, inching toward Raven.
Raven noticed.
Her expression didn't change.
She lowered her stance slightly.
And her long, slender hand settled—almost imperceptibly—on the hilt of her combat saber.
In that instant…
the air tightened.
The kind of tension that dries your throat.
The livestream went numb.
Everyone thought the two "bosses" reuniting meant one thing:
Team up.
Sweep the Divine Domain.
But this…
this didn't look right.
The chat exploded.
"WHAT IS THIS?! Raven shows up and I'm not even done celebrating—what's happening?!"
"Don't tell me they're about to fight…"
"NO—teammates fighting teammates is insane!"
"Bro… Adrian's stare looks familiar…"
"That's the exact look he had before he started eating the centipedes!"
"You can see a stare? His eye is literally WHITE!"
"…I think I finally get what he meant when he said he wanted to 'eat' Raven."
"NO WAY—wait, you mean literally?! I thought that meant—YOU KNOW—"
Inside the God-Nation Alliance HQ, the top brass watching from around the world were practically ecstatic.
"HAHAHAHA!! Fight! Fight!! Best outcome—kill each other! Two birds, one stone!"
A slightly overweight bald man trembled with excitement.
Beside him, another senior figure chuckled coldly.
"At the end of the day… it's just a brainless Divine Domain beast wearing human skin."
Voices piled on.
"Exactly. We've said it forever—Adrian is an infiltrator, but Dragonia keeps denying it!"
"When that 'beauty contestant' gets ripped apart, I can't wait to see Dragonia's faces!"
"She's strong too. If they both get crippled… we might be able to—"
Greedy laughter answered the rest.
They were already planning.
Adrian moves first—just not at Raven
Just as the world held its breath—
Adrian finally moved.
Swish!!
He vanished from where he stood.
A wave of pressure blasted outward—
and he shot toward the direction the centipedes had fled.
He didn't strike Raven.
He chased prey.
Raven watched his back…
and for some reason, felt a flicker of amusement.
The livestream exhaled like a crowd escaping disaster.
"Holy shit… I thought they were going to throw down!"
"Thank god—he still has a sliver of reason left."
"If those two fought for real, it'd be chaos…"
Raven didn't speak.
She scanned the blood-soaked ruins around her.
Even with everything she'd seen in life—
that scene still made her frown.
Finally, she sighed quietly and followed.
The swarm's "escape" leads Adrian to their nest
To say Adrian didn't want to eat Raven would be a lie.
From the moment they entered the Divine Domain, she'd been provoking his instincts nonstop.
In Half-Kakuja, he shouldn't have been able to resist at all.
So why didn't he attack?
Probably because the human part of him still existed.
Deep down—
Adrian Vale was still… good.
With the blood scent guiding him, Half-Kakuja Adrian caught up to the fleeing centipedes quickly.
And then something interesting happened.
Those centipedes—
led him straight to their nest.
Maybe they thought once Adrian entered their home turf, he'd be buried in numbers.
Maybe they believed the colony would tear him into paste.
Either way…
inside that nest, there really were hundreds—thousands—of Thousand-Handed Centipedes.
For Adrian?
That wasn't danger.
That was a gift.
Swish!!
He plunged in.
The nest wasn't deep underground.
The entrance was a cave mouth—wide enough that it looked like it had been dug by the A-rank super-giant.
But once inside…
it opened up.
Vast.
Wide.
Even something as enormous as the A-rank could move freely here.
Bones littered the ground.
Many of the skeletons were carved with deep, jagged scratches.
Whatever died here…
didn't die kindly.
Adrian didn't care.
"Crk…"
He pushed deeper, following the scent.
Soon, a scalp-crawling sound rolled out from the darkness:
crack… crack… crack…
Adrian's greed flared.
He launched forward.
Then—
a cliff.
And below it…
a black abyss.
The cracking sound came from down there.
Adrian didn't hesitate.
His Kagune spread.
He jumped.
He dropped—
fast, like a meteor falling into hell.
The livestream lost its mind.
"That sound is disgusting… this is their nest, isn't it?!"
"The bones—I'm getting chills."
"RETREAT if you have to—wait—HE JUMPED?!"
"THERE ARE OBVIOUSLY A TON DOWN THERE—HE STILL JUMPED?!"
To anyone else, it would be a nightmare.
To Adrian?
It was medicine.
It was Acting Sync.
It was evolution.
The deeper he fell, the clearer it became—
the bottom was packed.
Then the cave walls began to glow faintly.
Not bright.
A sick, yellowish luminescence.
And as that glow revealed the floor—
every trypophobia victim watching wanted to die.
The ground was covered.
Thousands upon thousands of baby centipedes.
A writhing carpet layered on itself.
No place to step.
And the worst part?
They were moving.
Squirming.
A living sea.
The chat exploded in trauma.
"WHY WOULD YOU SHOW ME THIS?!"
"Rage-quit the stream."
"I'm going to throw up."
"Adrian… please don't eat the small ones. That's unhygienic!!"
"My breakfast from last year just came back."
"I need Adrian to kiss me awake from this nightmare—"
But the nest wasn't only babies.
Plenty of C-rank, C+, and B-rank bodies lived down here too.
Those were Adrian's real targets.
BOOM!!
He hit the bottom.
His Kagune replaced his legs, holding him above the crawling mass.
Instantly, the ranked centipedes noticed the intruder.
They attacked.
Adrian laughed—cold and dismissive.
Without the A-rank leader…
everything here was food.
Swish! Swish! Swish!!
Kagune cut through the darkness like blades—
and the killing began.
Raven follows—curious, cautious… and annoyed
Adrian moved incredibly fast, clearly trying to widen the gap between them.
But Raven wasn't normal.
Even staying at a distance, she could keep up.
If needed, she could track him by aura alone.
Still—
she understood what he wanted.
Distance.
So she didn't close in recklessly.
When she reached the cave mouth, she paused.
She could sense what was inside.
And as she sensed what was inside—her brow twitched.
"…Why did the little guy come to a place like this?"
She hesitated.
Then stepped in.
The livestream screamed at her.
"RAVEN STOP! That place will ruin your eyes!"
"Girl—ahead is literally hell!"
"She's not reading chat—we're doomed!"
They were right.
Raven didn't have chat open.
Even if she did…
she probably wouldn't stop.
Curiosity was already pulling her in.
Adrian's secrets—and the state he'd just shown—
had hooked her completely.
Adrian clears the nest, then goes back to eating
Inside the cave, it was already an underworld.
Blood coated the ground.
Broken bodies stacked everywhere.
Kagune flashed.
Every swing brought another spray.
Screams echoed.
Will of Blue Star announcements didn't stop either.
Dragonia's points were skyrocketing again.
Adrian didn't care.
Finally, after killing the last ranked centipede—
he looked almost… bored.
He'd enjoyed it.
But he was hungry again.
Even though he'd eaten earlier.
Now, food was everywhere.
His breath slowly steadied.
The Half-Kakuja haze began to lift.
The Centipede Mask retracted into his face like it had never existed.
His two centipede Kagune shrank back as well, leaving only his four tentacle-like Rinkaku active.
He exhaled, relieved.
Half-Kakuja was powerful—
but the fog was unpleasant.
Like being drunk without passing out.
A state you'd never choose willingly.
Adrian decided it clearly:
Unless it was necessary, he'd avoid that form.
Then he turned back to what mattered.
Dinner.
He pulled a thick, clean-looking chunk of meat with his Kagune.
Surprisingly—
no slime.
No "crawler goo."
Just solid flesh.
Adrian bit down.
"Gnh."
Then again.
And again.
The chat laughed through their trauma.
"He eats like it's a Michelin meal… bro it's CENTIPEDE."
"At least he didn't eat the babies."
"Why is he kind of cute when he eats—"
"You are NOT okay."
Adrian ate like a storm.
Then paused, like he remembered something—
and decided not to think about it.
Right on cue, a cool voice echoed through the cave.
"Little guy."
Adrian finally remembered Raven.
"…Old woman?"
Clack.
Raven landed behind him.
The baby centipedes had already been wiped out in the chaos, so she didn't see the worst of it.
Adrian didn't even turn around.
He kept eating.
Raven stared at his back, speechless.
Yet seeing him "normal" again made her quietly breathe out.
She realized it—
and found it strange.
Why did she feel relieved?
Adrian's chewing interrupted her thoughts.
Raven's vision in the dark was absurdly good.
She could see the whole cave: blood, corpses, torn armor.
No need to guess.
Her little guy…
was eating beasts again.
She pinched the bridge of her nose.
"…Your taste really is—"
Adrian cut her off mid-chew.
"Mmph… want some?"
Raven went silent.
In the studio, the guests reacted too.
Sienna Blake sighed. "Such a clean-cut handsome boy… shame he has a mouth."
Captain Ryan Cole chuckled. "Men eating don't care about appearance. Dr. Hart, I bet you eat like a beast too."
Dr. Elias Hart coughed awkwardly, then changed the topic.
"But I'm curious—how can he eat so much and not look like any of it goes anywhere?"
Of course they couldn't know.
For Adrian, the true value was the RC cells.
The rest became fuel.
Acting Sync hits 50% — a new evolution begins
As Adrian kept eating, he noticed something:
the Acting Sync gains were dropping.
The System prompts came less and less—
like his body was developing resistance.
He didn't understand it.
But right as he neared the end—
the sound he'd been waiting for finally rang out.
[Detected host Acting Sync has reached 50%.]
[Commencing sublimation…]
It's here.
Even Adrian felt excited.
He'd evolved at 40% not long ago.
And now he'd hit another threshold already.
He focused inward—on the warmth rising through him.
This sublimation felt different.
Earlier evolutions felt like sudden enlightenment.
This one felt like a stream—
warm, gentle, continuous—
washing through him without end.
And as it flowed…
Adrian's appearance changed.
White hair turned black from the crown downward.
His face matured.
If he looked nineteen before—now he looked in his early twenties.
Calmer.
More stable.
The livestream went crazy.
"HUH?! His hair is turning black?!"
"People go white overnight—Adrian goes BLACK overnight!"
"He doesn't look younger—he looks more mature!"
"What is this? He's evolving in real time?!"
"Even like this he's still handsome…"
Raven, standing there in the flesh, was hit even harder.
Seeing him go quiet, eyes narrowed in thought…
paired with that lethal face and newly black hair—
even someone as cold as Raven felt an unwanted flicker in her chest.
The contrast was unfair.
Before, Adrian felt like a sword drawn from its sheath.
Now he felt like a closed book.
Quiet.
Dangerous.
And hard to read.
Across the world, hidden powerhouses reacted too.
The old man in the broken temple narrowed his eyes.
"…Incredible."
He could feel it.
Adrian was more dangerous now.
Before, you only felt it when he fought.
Now—
even standing still, he radiated threat.
In Miracle Nation, a masked man in a black-and-red uniform sighed.
"Ah… I liked the old you better. What a shame."
In Dragonia's Longhu Mountain, an elder chuckled inside the Celestial Master's hall.
"Kids these days… aren't simple anymore."
Meanwhile, the God-Nation Alliance members grew even more excited.
"SEE?! He's not human!"
"Humans don't change like that after eating!"
"Instant black hair—he's definitely a monster!"
They declared him humanity's enemy.
Someone to be purged.
Adrian didn't know any of it.
He only felt his mentality shift slightly—
then the System cut off his thoughts again.
[Congratulations, host! Form unlocked — Semi-Complete Kakuja!]
Adrian blinked.
Semi-Complete Kakuja?
Kakuja was the strongest state of all ghouls.
Below that was Half-Kakuja—powerful, but foggy.
A true Complete Kakuja shouldn't have that drawback.
It would also bring stronger Kagune, more complete armor forms—perhaps even multiple kakuhou manifestations.
Semi-Complete was the bridge.
Still some turbulence—
but its raw combat power was far closer to Complete.
Adrian exhaled internally.
So Complete Kakuja still required the next threshold.
Then—
Will of Blue Star boomed.
[Congratulations! Dragonia contestant Adrian Vale has replaced the Thousand-Handed Centipede colony as the A-rank Resource: Forbidden Forest Lord!]
[Resources will manifest at 100x scale within Dragonia's national territory!]
[Points awarded: 27,000!]
[Double points applied! Total points gained: 54,000!]
[Leaderboard change detected!]
[Rank 1: Dragonia — 361,400]
[Rank 2: Miracle Nation — 11,000]
[Rank 3: Northern Bear Nation — 9,200]
[Rank 4: Ocean Pouch Nation — 5,200]
[Rank 5: Eastern Isles — 2,300]
[Others omitted.]
Three hundred sixty-one thousand?!
The world went blank.
And before anyone recovered—
Will of Blue Star struck again like thunder:
[Congratulations! Dragonia contestants Adrian Vale and Raven Shaw are now A-rank Resource Lords!]
[A-rank chest reward granted!!!]
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