Global Mutation: The Hunger System-Chapter 68: The Sovereign’s Fall

The sheer, overwhelming atmospheric pressure of the Frost-Blight Sovereign’s Level 38 aura slammed into the plateau like a physical tidal wave.

The colossal, eighty-foot-long serpentine leviathan drifted downward from the two-hundred-foot spire of black ice. Its four hollow, glowing blue eyes locked onto Ren’s massive, trench-coat-clad figure.

The Sovereign hissed gently, its telepathic voice echoing across the polished ice with a cheeky tone, "Must you challenge a continental threat every time you make a move up this mountain?"

"Can’t you tell? I’m just looking for an excuse to harvest your core..." Ren replied calmly, his completely solid violet eyes cutting through the freezing air.

The Sovereign’s absolute zero aura fluttered. "Too bad your Level 25 biology cannot survive this altitude," it responded in a quiet, chilling whisper.

"If you tell me you submit, there might be a miracle," the Sovereign teased, its massive iridescent black ice scales grinding together like shifting tectonic plates. "Do you want to try?"

"Even if there was no miracle, I would still dismantle you," Ren replied seriously, but because he was entirely indifferent to the thirteen-level deficit, he stepped forward, his heavy combat boots violently cracking the flawless mirror of the plateau before the leviathan could give a response.

On the other side of the ice, Chloe gave a muffled gasp as she immediately pressed her fragile human body completely flat against the freezing ground.

The Sovereign had no idea there would be a surprise.

After releasing the suppressed weight of his Aura of the Apex, Ren’s terrifying, localized pressure went straight to the center of the plateau. As his evolution included Abyssal Tyrant traits, even though it was a severe level disadvantage, he still entered the Sovereign’s domain with absolute dominance.

Alongside the leviathan, the towering black ice spire pulsed with raw, unfiltered mana. Every pulse was extremely professional and lethal. Upon seeing Ren standing around with no expression, the Sovereign was suddenly worried whether this tiny human-shaped anomaly would be able to meet dietary expectations. The hunt required the prey to freeze in terror in the spur of the moment and had a high degree of difficulty. Within a second, the prey had to express absolute despair to suit the predator’s ego; this was a real test of a survivor’s acting abilities.

Unfortunately, Ren’s true stats were hidden by the heavy, matte-black military trench coat he was wearing, so the leviathan could not see his positive features. It was not until the aura violently clashed and he stepped out from the shadows that the Sovereign could finally see his perfectly proportioned, tungsten-sheened body. The entire plateau was stunned; whether it was his density or his sheer, unadulterated mass, everything met international apex-predator standards.

With his casual blood-soaked trench coat, paired with a jagged, obsidian-black Chitin Shell, he was completely exuding lethality.

But his expression...

The Sovereign was still worried, so immediately coiled closer to explain, "The absolute zero breath I am using today will have a slightly wild style, like a glacial avalanche out for a stroll at night..."

"I understand," Ren nodded calmly.

The Sovereign didn’t explain any further. Low-level anomalies have always been of this quality, there is no point expecting too much.

"Come, let’s get started..." The Sovereign hissed as it opened its massive, frost-bitten bone jaws without much expectation.

Ren nodded, then...

...while Chloe was gathered around waiting to watch him embarrass himself...in a split second he entered into a different state of mind, surprising all onlookers. They watched as he naturally spread his legs apart, wrapped his left hand around his right hand’s wrist and gently spread apart his pitch-black talons. As the massive, blinding wave of absolute zero energy erupted from the beast’s jaws, directly engulfing him, in an instant, everyone was stunned by the look in his eyes - it was so threatening...compared to the Level 25 persona he had earlier on, it was like he had turned into a completely different monster!

The absolute zero blast hit Ren with the kinetic force of a freight train. The temperature plummeted so violently that the ambient oxygen in the air instantly liquefied and shattered. The heavy ballistic canvas of his trench coat flash-froze into a rigid, impenetrable shell of white ice.

But Ren did not shatter.

What impressed everyone the most, was the dark tungsten skin on his wrist, which appeared to be supplying him with this wild energy - he and the apocalypse went perfectly together, like they had completely fused into one. The freezing wave washed entirely over his Iron Skin, the abyssal-grey alloy easily absorbing the thermal shock without a single micro-fracture.

The Sovereign was speechless...where did the wasteland find this gem? This level of durability is comparable to that of an international super-mountain.

Ren didn’t just stand there. He actively defied the Continental Threat.

[Skill Activated: Dash]

The rigid, frozen shell of his trench coat violently shattered into thousands of white shards as Ren fractured the localized space. He crossed the fifty yards of polished black ice in a terrifying, continuous blur of dark armor and pulsing cobalt veins.

He materialized directly beneath the Sovereign’s massive, hovering jaws.

The leviathan snapped its elongated, frost-bitten skull downward, intending to simply bite Ren perfectly in half. Its teeth were jagged stalactites of hyper-compressed ice, capable of piercing heavy tank armor.

Ren didn’t dodge. He drove both of his massive, heavy combat boots directly into the polished ice, anchoring his two-hundred-and-seventy-pound frame flawlessly. He raised his bare, heavily calloused hands and caught the Sovereign’s descending upper and lower jaws.

The collision was deafening. A massive, concussive shockwave of pulverized ice and localized gravity exploded outward, physically shoving Chloe backward across the plateau.

Ren’s Chitin Shell groaned under the impossible, multi-ton pressure of a Level 38 bite force. His boots carved deep, shrieking trenches into the black mirror beneath him. But his heavy, hyper-calcified muscle fibers completely locked. He held the massive jaws wide open, his glowing violet eyes staring directly down the beast’s freezing, cavernous throat.

The Sovereign thrashed violently, its eighty-foot-long serpentine body whipping across the plateau. It utilized its massive length to coil entirely around Ren, wrapping its thick, iridescent black ice scales around his chest and legs like a colossal constrictor.

The beast squeezed.

The pressure was astronomical. The heavy, matte-black canvas of Ren’s coat ripped completely to shreds. The massive, jagged obsidian plates on his back ground furiously against the diamond-hard scales of the leviathan. Sparks showered the ice in a blinding, continuous cascade.

"Your scale density is impressive," Ren stated, his deep, vibrating voice entirely unbothered by the crushing coils slowly attempting to liquefy his internal organs. "But your biological reliance on constriction leaves your central nervous system entirely exposed."

[Skill Activated: Corrosive Saliva]

Ren spat a highly concentrated, pressurized stream of glowing green acid directly point-blank into the roof of the Sovereign’s open mouth, targeting the soft, unprotected tissue directly beneath its brainpan.

The highly volatile enzymes of the Abyssal Glutton hit the freezing flesh with an explosive, deafening hiss. The acid instantly bored through the absolute zero tissue, melting the biological matter into a toxic, boiling slurry.

The Sovereign shrieked—a high-pitched, agonizing wail that shattered the black ice plateau in a massive, spider-webbing radius.

The beast’s crushing coils instantly went slack as its central nervous system experienced catastrophic, localized trauma. The eighty-foot leviathan unwound from Ren’s body, thrashing wildly against the ice, its four hollow blue eyes flickering chaotically.

Ren didn’t give the Continental Threat a single microsecond to recover.

[Skill Activated: Rending Claws]

The ten-inch, pitch-black talons erupted violently from his knuckles. He lunged forward, grabbing the thick, iridescent scales covering the beast’s massive chest cavity.

The scales were harder than Old World diamonds, but against the localized, Level 25 kinetic torque of Ren’s shoulders, they were completely irrelevant. Ren drove his dark talons deep beneath the overlapping armor, his thick sapphire veins flaring into a blinding cobalt light, and physically ripped a massive, ten-foot section of the beast’s chest plating completely off.

Black, freezing blood geysered into the air like a ruptured oil well.

Ren plunged both of his bare, tungsten-sheened arms entirely into the massive, open wound. He dug past the shattered ribs, his hands burying themselves deep into the freezing, hyper-condensed muscle fiber of the beast’s chest.

He found the core.

It wasn’t a crystal. It was a massive, perfectly formed geometric octahedron of pure, pulsing black ice, easily the size of a small car engine. It radiated an aura of pure, continental death.

Ren gripped the massive core. He planted his heavy boots against the Sovereign’s bleeding chest and pulled backward with absolute, undeniable physical supremacy.

He ripped the beast’s heart completely out of its body.

The Frost-Blight Sovereign let out one final, wet, pathetic gasp before its massive, eighty-foot-long body collapsed heavily against the shattered plateau, its biological functions permanently ceasing.

[Target Dead: Frost-Blight Sovereign (Lvl 38)] [Experience Gained: 185,000] [Continental Threat Eliminated.]

Ren stood completely soaked in freezing black blood, holding the massive, heavy core in his bare hands. The ambient mana in the air was completely chaotic, swirling violently around the dark monolith standing victorious in the center of the ruins.

He didn’t hesitate. He raised the massive, heavy geometric shape to his jaws and completely crushed the diamond-hard exterior between his heavy molars.

[Gluttony Activated.] [Consumed: Frost-Blight Sovereign Core (Lvl 38)] [Strength +8] [Vitality +6] [Agility +5] [Intelligence +4] [Perception +4]

The massive, completely unadulterated rush of Level 38 stats hit Ren’s vascular system like a localized nuclear detonation.

[Level Up!] [You are now Level 26.] [Level Up!] [You are now Level 27.] [Level Up!] [You are now Level 28.]

The immense influx of power caused the thick, jagged obsidian plates on his shoulders and forearms to violently expand, taking on a faint, iridescent sheen exactly like the Sovereign’s scales. His tungsten skin deepened in color, becoming a pitch-black, light-absorbing void.

He stood up straight, his completely solid violet eyes burning with absolute, uncontested dominance.

Chloe finally pushed herself up from the shattered black ice, her P90 trembling in her hands. She stared at the eighty-foot carcass of the dead god, and then at the massive, Level 28 Abyssal Tyrant standing over it. She was speechless. This level of execution was comparable to that of an international super-calamity.

Ren wiped the freezing blood from his dark jaw, his deep, resonant voice cutting through the settling silence of the mountain peak.

"The plateau is clear," Ren stated, his violet eyes locking onto the towering, two-hundred-foot spire of black ice that the Sovereign had been guarding. "Now, we harvest the anchor."