Chapter 147: I Killed It First

The rush of wind screamed in Evren’s ears as all three of them fell toward the canyon basin.

Below them, over five hundred Crystalline Void Crawlers scrambled over one another in a frenzy, snapping razor-sharp mandibles and raising venomous stingers toward the descending hunters.

Mid-air, Zephyra moved first.

With a swift flick of her wrists, she slid her twin curved daggers back into the magnetic sheaths along her forearm gauntlets.

In the same fluid motion, her right hand reached down to her hip, unclamping the matte-black hilt of the Shadow Whip-Blade Master Tridon had forged for her.

In all her previous battles, her mana channels had still been crippled by the two-year shadow rot, forcing her to rely purely on mechanical springs and physical tension wires. But now, with her mana channel restored, pure power flowed freely through her veins.

Zephyra channeled a flood of dark violet umbral mana into the hilt.

CLACK-CLACK-SHRRR!

The thirty-two segments separated along the internal braided cable. Twenty feet of sharp astral steel cut through the air, wrapped in crackling dark lightning like a striking viper.

Zephyra snapped her wrist, and the shadowy whip-blade whipped through the air with a supersonic boom.

The twenty-foot shadowy blade lashed out with a supersonic boom. It tore across a tight cluster of descending crawlers, cleanly bisecting four of them mid-air.

Zephyra touched down lightly on the basalt floor, ducked beneath a lunging stinger, and snapped the whip in a low circular sweep. The razor wire took the legs out from four more beasts, and with a reverse flick of her wrist, she silenced them.

"Eight!" Zephyra called out, flicking black ichor from the blade.

"Don’t get cocky!" Amber laughed from above.

Soaring on her radiant wings, Amber glided ten feet above the swarm. Her twin dragon-bone sabers blazed with roaring golden flames.

She dove into a dense pack of monsters, spinning in a circle.

A crescent wave of Dawn Light erupted from her sabers, incinerating eight crawlers in a burst of heat before she spun and cleaved three more.

"Eleven!" Amber called out, shooting back into the air with a playful wink toward Zephyra. "Catch up, little shadow!"

Zephyra’s violet eyes flashed with competitive fire. She dissolved into black mist, reappearing in the middle of another cluster.

Her whip-blade danced around her in lethal arcs, expanding and contracting with every pulse of her umbral mana. With every whip and snap, she reaped three or four monsters at a time, leaving shattered carapaces in her wake.

Evren hit the ground with the force of a falling meteor.

THUD!

His boots struck the stone, and the sheer kinetic impact of his Titan Body Density generated a massive shockwave that pulverized a dozen crawlers on the spot.

Evren swung the Frost-Bane Cleaver in wide sweeps. The heavy, freezing blade cut through their tough carapaces, freezing monsters solid and shattering them into ice crystals with every hit.

The cavern erupted into a whirlwind of golden fire, shadow arcs, and frost.

Over the next few minutes of relentless combat, the kill tallies steadily climbed.

"Ninety-four!" Amber shouted, cleaving two crawlers in mid-air.

"Ninety-eight!" Zephyra called back, snapping her whip-blade to crush three more against a rock.

Suddenly, a huge Level 60 Alpha Crawler burst out from a hidden gap in the rock. It was as big as an armored truck, its shell reinforced with thick crimson spatial crystals.

The Alpha lunged straight for the center of the arena, roaring with deafening fury.

Both women locked eyes on the prize at the exact same second.

Amber dove from the sky, bringing her blazing dragon-bone sabers down in a crushing overhead strike. At the exact same split-second, Zephyra flickered through the shadows, whipping her electrified blade around the beast’s neck in a vicious coil.

BOOM... CRACK!

Amber’s golden flames blasted the Alpha’s skull in two, while Zephyra’s whip snapped with brutal force, cleanly severing its torso from its lower legs. The massive beast collapsed into the dirt, dead in an instant.

As if on cue, both of them shouted, "I killed it first!"

Amber landed on the dirt, her chest heaving as she pointed a glowing saber at the carcass. "That was mine! My fire vaporized its brain first!"

Zephyra recoiled her whip, her silver hair drifting over her shoulders. "My whip severed its core and heart into four pieces before your flames even touched its shell. Evren, tell her!"

Evren stepped over the shattered remains of five crawlers, resting his Frost-Bane Cleaver on his shoulder as he laughed out loud.

"Both of your strikes hit at the exact same microsecond," Evren said, thoroughly amused. "I’m awarding half a point to each of you."

"Half a point?" Amber pouted, though a bright smile tugged at the corner of her lips.

"Unacceptable," Zephyra deadpanned, though her eyes danced with quiet amusement. "Then I will take the remaining fifty myself."

With a shared laugh, both heroines launched back into the fray.

Evren followed closely, clearing out the outer flanks. The battle was a complete rout; in less than fifteen minutes, the terrifying swarm of five hundred void beasts had been reduced to scattered rubble.

As the dust settled, the vast amphitheater was silent save for the hum of the spatial rift.

Hundreds of glowing monster cores, ranging from Level 55 to 60, lay scattered across the canyon floor, with dozens more floating weightlessly in the chaotic gravity corridors.

Gathering five hundred cores by hand across a half-mile basin would have taken hours of tedious labor.

Just as Evren looked across the glittering field, a sharp golden chime rang in his mind:

[COMBAT MILESTONE ACHIEVED: 300+ MUTATED ENTITIES PURGED IN GRAVITY ZONE!]

[NEW PASSIVE UNLOCKED: S-RANK PASSIVE — CORE SIPHON]

[EFFECT: AUTOMATICALLY HARVESTS AND TRANSFERS ALL UNCLAIMED MONSTER CORES WITHIN 100M DIRECTLY INTO SPATIAL INVENTORY AT ZERO RECOVERY LOSS.]

Evren’s lips curved into a satisfied grin. "Now that is convenient."

With a thought, Evren activated the new passive skill.

A faint gravitational ripple extended from Evren’s spatial storage ring. In an instant, an incredible phenomenon occurred across the amphitheater.

Hundreds of glowing violet, blue, and crimson cores tore free from the ground and mid-air. Like thousands of shooting stars caught in a cosmic whirlpool, the cores streamed toward Evren in brilliant glowing arcs, funneling smoothly into his ring without missing a single one.

Amber and Zephyra walked over, watching the dazzling river of cores disappear into his ring with wide eyes.

"That saves us a lot of carrying," Amber said, wiping a bead of sweat from her brow with a soft laugh.

"A very practical skill, Master," Zephyra nodded, her whip-blade retracting smoothly into its compact thigh sheath.

"So," Evren looked between them with an amused expression. "What’s the final count?"

"Two hundred and fourteen," Amber declared proudly, crossing her arms.

"Two hundred and fourteen," Zephyra stated calmly, tilting her chin up.

Evren chuckled, shaking his head. "A tie. That means both of you are cooking dinner and taking turns giving me shoulder rubs back at Meridian Tower tonight."

Amber blushed, looking away with a soft giggle, while Zephyra lowered her gaze, a faint pink hue warming her cheeks. "I accept the penalty, Master."

Before the lighthearted moment could continue, a terrifying tremor shook the entire mountain basin.

RUUUUUUMBLE!

The bedrock beneath the center of the amphitheater groaned and caved in. Massive slabs of basalt fell away into a bottomless black trench that hadn’t been there moments ago.

The chaotic gravity in the air suddenly snapped like glass, pulling downward with crushing force and flattening even loose boulders into dust against the floor.

A bone-chilling roar echoed from the deep trench, vibrating straight through their bones.

From deep within the subterranean darkness, two colossal horns plated with pulsing violet spatial crystals rose into view. Soon after, the massive true master of the rift emerged: the Level 70 Mutated Abyssal Behemoth!

The air around the monster distorted with raw, crushing gravity pressure that threatened to flatten the entire cavern.

Evren’s eyes flared with intense focus. The banter was over; the main target holding Calista’s cure had arrived.

Stepping past Amber and Zephyra, Evren reached into his spatial ring and pulled out a pulsing, fist-sized violet sphere... the Level 65 S-Rank Void Devourer Boss Core.

Holding the core high into the air, Evren channeled his mana and spoke the command: [Beastlord Core Manifestation]!