Early the next morning.

The stone hill at the center of the Beast Palace’s inner courtyard.

Mama was basking in the first light atop the hill when Gun Hye-rin and I approached; she swiftly glided down toward us.

-Vwooom.

Unfurling her great wings, Mama alighted lightly in front of us.

The dew clinging to Mama’s body glittered and scattered like rain.

“Mama, I’m here to pay my respects—we’ll be away for a few days.”

“I will be off, Mama.”

Even though she’d shaken herself mid-glide, Mama was still damp from the dawn dew.

As I wiped the beaded droplets from her body with my sleeve, Mama gave my cheek a lick and spoke in a voice full of affection.

[So you’re departing now. Very well—go and return safely.]

“Yes, Mama.”

“Are you going to the Beast Palace Lord next?”

“No. We paid our respects there last night. The meetings have been running late these days, so they said the Lord would be sleeping at this hour. Next, let’s go see Cho. I’m curious how far the molt has progressed.”

“Understood.”

After taking our leave of Mama, we decided next to visit Cho, who was molting in one corner.

As we neared the place where Cho was shedding, Bini spotted me from afar and scampered over, rubbing her cheek against mine and laying on the charm.

-Tssss. “Dad, are you leaving now? Bini wants to go too.”

Bini pressed her head against my side, showing her reluctance.

Honestly, I could only feel sorry toward Bini.

Hyang is small and carries the armor, so she’s essential for dangerous missions.

On top of that, Cho has flight, so we can’t leave her out, but our youngest, Bini, is huge and can’t fly, so we always have to leave her behind.

I hugged Bini tight.

“Dad wants to tuck our Bini into his pocket and carry you around all the time, too.”

-Tss. “What’s that supposed to mean? Hehe.”

“Anyway—has our Bini been guarding your big sister well?”

-Tss. “Mm-hmm. Bini’s been guarding Sis just fine.”

Seeming pleased by my words, Bini tipped up her chin in a don’t-you-worry pose.

Bini had been standing guard over her older sister Cho since yesterday.

Of course, she wasn’t guarding alone.

Most of the children were taking turns here together.

Everyone knows molting must be handled with the utmost care, so we all look after one another.

Because it’s the most vulnerable moment.

“But Master, do we have to guard like this? Is that normal?”

“Ah, an insect’s molt is similar to a martial artist’s realm elevation. It’s a moment of vulnerability, so we have to keep watch in shifts.”

“Is that truly so?”

“Of course.”

When Gun Hye-rin asked whether everyone really needed to get involved in guarding just because a bug was shedding its skin, I explained why—and she tilted her head.

It must have been hard to accept that an insect’s molt is anything like a martial artist’s breakthrough.

But I can say flatly: it’s practically the same thing.

During a realm breakthrough, if someone interferes, a martial artist can suffer severe internal injuries or fall into qi deviation, can’t they?

It’s the same for an insect’s molt.

If something interferes mid-molt, it can be crippled for life or die.

Among the causes of death for insects, molting is overwhelmingly high on the list.

After answering Gun Hye-rin, I stroked Bini’s head again—and felt dew, just as with Mama.

I shook off Bini’s dew and moved closer toward Cho; nearby, Yo-hwa—who had been dozing—rubbed her eyes, got up, and came over to me.

-Kiii-ssh. “Brother.”

“Hey, Yo-hwa. Sleep well?”

-Kii-ssh-ssh. “Yes. Did Brother sleep well too?”

At our voices, Cheongwol and the other children who had been sleeping around us also rose and stretched.

-Grrrr. “So-ryong. Are you departing?”

“Did you sleep well, Cheongwol? Yeah—we’re about to head out.”

-Chiii. “Ryong, you’re leaving now? Should Sister come along? I’m worried.”

“Aww, it’s fine. We’re just visiting Hye-rin’s family home.”

After exchanging greetings, we arrived before Cho—and saw that she’d grown even more translucent.

“Do we still need to wait a bit longer?”

Cho hadn’t slipped free of the old shell yet.

It didn’t look like I’d get to see her emerge before departure—but then it happened.

-Crack.

With a splitting sound, the area around Cho’s mouth parted left and right, and her head popped out from the old shell.

From the head, to the antennae, and then the body—

Like jelly squeezed out of a mold, Cho’s body slid out of the old shell in an instant and revealed itself.

Her body hadn’t dried yet, so I couldn’t be certain—but it was dyed an even deeper blue.

“Her antennae?”

Even her antennae had grown tremendously long.

Centipedes generally have long antennae, but Cho’s post-molt antennae felt unusually long. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

Nearly a third the length of her body, by feel.

At the same time, fluids spread through Cho’s body as she emerged, inflating her surface area.

“This—this is why it’s like a realm breakthrough!”

Watching a molt for the first time, Gun Hye-rin nodded with a startled look as Cho’s size increased in real time.

It seemed my earlier words were only now sounding right to her.

Cho was growing by almost half again her previous size.

And she wasn’t even done molting yet.

But a question followed—and I shook my head at it.

“But does one normally grow this much?”

“No. This is my first time seeing growth like this, too. I didn’t expect her to get this big.”

How could this be “normal”?

I’d never seen a molt with growth like this either.

While we were gaping, the heartbeat pumped the fluids to the tips of her legs, deepening Cho’s color.

In step with that rhythm, her body volume kept increasing.

As Cho swelled, even the children around us—and we ourselves—had to take a few steps back; after about thirty minutes like that, what stood revealed was Cho at a size reminiscent of the mother Cheon Pan O-Gong.

No—perhaps a little larger.

Up till now, Cho had to coil us in her body to carry us, but at this size we could practically climb onto her back and ride her like a horse.

I sat down on the spot and spoke to Gun Hye-rin.

“Give me a moment, Gun Hye-rin. I’m going to step into the inner world.”

“Understood.”

With her like this, I couldn’t not check.

It didn’t seem like only her size had changed.

I immediately sat cross-legged and slipped straight into the inner world.

If I placed my hand on the stone tablet, I figured I could see how Cho had grown.

Closing my eyes and focusing, my vision blurred.

The next moment, I opened them inside that familiar stone chamber.

“Just as I thought!”

The chamber glimmered with radiant light, and Cho’s tablet, etched with her form, shone brightly from her growth.

The Five Gates, however, remained unopened.

Perhaps she needed more experience?

In any case, the gates weren’t what mattered right now. Stepping quickly closer, I saw that the image carved into Cho’s tablet had changed—no longer the cute look I was used to, but the solemn, majestic figure of a centipede in flight.

Clouds were etched here and there, and between them, Cho soared, her long antennae streaming behind her in grand fashion.

Looking at this stone carving, I finally understood why Hwa-eun and Grandfather Mandok Shingun had said centipedes could become dragons.

With her massive new size and her antennae resembling horns, if someone saw Cho flying, they might really mistake her for a dragon.

“Wow, she really does look like a dragon.”

Like a true dragon, I reached out and touched the tablet, entranced.

At once, knowledge of Cho’s transformation surged into my mind.

One large character rose vividly in my head:

Thunder.

It seemed Cho had absorbed the immense lightning strikes and undergone an elemental evolution.

The next thought followed—that with those long antennae, Cho could unleash lightning bolts.

An involuntary shout burst from me.

“Gyahhh!”

Lightning attribute evolution! It seemed our Cho had achieved just that.

“Then her partial evolutions must have changed too?”

Since she’d gone through an elemental evolution first, her partial evolutions had to have shifted as well.

I ran my hands over Cho’s body in my mindscape, checking what evolutions had opened.

With an elemental evolution achieved, it was worth choosing a partial one right away if possible.

First, her legs.

Touching them, I sensed heightened agility.

‘So Cho doesn’t so much fly as crawl through the air?’

It was an enhancement for swifter movements in midair. Not bad.

Next, the body. As expected—shell reinforcement.

I could feel the option to harden her exoskeleton, boosting durability.

‘This doesn’t really suit her...’

I passed on it. Not that it was bad, but even reinforced, Cho wouldn’t match Cheongwol or Hyang’s toughness. Better to specialize rather than spread everything thin.

Otherwise, she’d turn into a trash-tier character in no time.

The fangs were next—venom enhancement, of course. But Cho’s venom was already so lethal that I had no reason to pick it.

Even now, her poison could melt a man alive; if it reached the level of the World-Destroying Golden Toad, a single cough could massacre a crowd.

‘Not that poison really spurts out just from coughing.’

Touching the antennae, I felt thunder qi intensifying. A specialization toward her new element.

“That’s option number one.”

I flagged the antennae as the strongest candidate and then tried her eyes. This one would sacrifice her vision entirely, in exchange for sensing every presence around her more keenly than ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) sight.

“Ah, that won’t do. I can’t make my daughter blind.”

Cho’s natural eyes were already close to vestigial, but she was still a spirit beast—she had vision.

Taking that away was unacceptable.

Next, the head offered five-sense enhancement, while the belly granted Neidan reinforcement. Neither appealed much to me.

“Then it has to be the antennae?”

I was about to finalize the antennae choice when something caught my attention—her tail.

Normally, a centipede’s last pair of elongated legs weren’t tails at all, just extended hind legs.

But here it might work differently. Touching them, a new evolution surfaced.

“Huuuh?!”

And at its form, I was entranced—I couldn’t help but choose it.

“Cho, forgive me. But this was something Dad just couldn’t resist.”

***

Opening my eyes, I saw Cho drying her body.

“Cho!”

-Tss. “Dad.”

When I called, Cho had already regained her senses.

Her body now gleamed a lustrous blue, and her jade-hued antennae were long and beautiful.

“Our Cho has become so pretty.”

I quickly moved to her tail.

Time to check if the partial evolution had applied.

But when I looked—nothing had changed.

Her tail looked exactly the same.

“What the...?”

“What’s wrong, Master?”

“No, it’s just...”

For a moment, I wondered if partial evolutions could fail. But then—

The last pair of legs I was watching spread wide, like a fan.

“What’s this?”

Gun Hye-rin’s eyes went wide in surprise at the sight.

Looking at Cho’s last pair of legs, she remarked with wonder.

“They look like feathers.”

Indeed. Cho’s hind legs had transformed into something featherlike.

Alipes grandidieri.

The so-called feather centipede.

A species from Africa, known for its final pair of legs that look like feathers. Now, Cho’s legs had taken on the same appearance.

Breeders call it the feather tail.

An evolution granting explosive increases in flight speed and optimizing the body for high-velocity flight.

Once I saw her tail change into feather fans, there was no way I could have chosen anything else.