At the speed of a D-rank early stage, the distance separating Evan from the base of the stump was closed in a few minutes, and once he arrived he wasted no time and immediately slipped into a crevice that had already been identified by Shadow’s summons.

The stump had several of them, small and large. Some had become dens for small and weak beasts, others had formed naturally over time.

But the majority of them were sealed or kept relatively clear by the city to prevent awakened beast dens or anything similar from forming.

The stump itself was also very sturdy, and it was very unlikely that an ordinary unawakened beast could truly scratch its surface to dig into it or anything of the sort, so security was more or less assured.

That said, already knowing more or less where the underground area containing the cocoon was located, Shadow’s summons immediately got to work opening a passage, and after roughly another ten minutes Evan finally arrived at the underground area.

The ceiling of the underground chamber cracked open at a small point, from which Evan jumped down and landed on the ground, now completely cleared by Shadow.

Evan didn’t concern himself with the scattered corpses of the personnel and focused on the cocoon suspended above their heads.

’That thing... what the hell is it?’ he asked himself as he felt his blood react to it.

He understood it wasn’t his own but the bloodlines of his two clones, something that had already happened before when the cocoon had suddenly released that wave of energy. Back then he hadn’t had time to pay it much attention, but now he did, and he couldn’t help wondering if it had something to do with the divine lineages.

After all, the stump for all he knew could comfortably be the base of the Tree of Life from the past, a well-known legend that surely had to have originated somewhere.

After all, there’s no fire without smoke; something true had to be at the root of the legend.

And that would also explain the sense of attraction his clones seemed to feel toward it. They carried divine lineages within them, and he, having a certain percentage of synchronization with them, also felt a certain pull toward that thing.

’Well, now how do i bring that thing down?’ he thought.

He had already asked Shadow to try to destroy the cocoon once it had finished taking care of the people here, but even after all the attacks landed, the most it managed was superficial damage to the cocoon’s surface. Even the thick roots holding it up there were particularly robust and there was no way to cut through them with their current strength.

’Well, it’s wood at the end of the day, right? Fire should work,’ he thought, and immediately called back Ash who was in a remote area of the city’s southern battlefield.

Soon beside him, a flame formed on the ground, one that rose upward until it reached a height of nearly 2 meters and soon it burst lightly, revealing behind it the figure of his second clone.

Tall and slender, with a bare, sculpted chest, Ash possessed an appearance as regal as it was unsettling. Long red hair fell over his shoulders like living tongues of fire, while two small horns jutted forward from his forehead, giving him an almost demonic appearance.

On his body, strange tattoos ran across skin and muscle like pulsing lines of fire, alive, as if they were incandescent veins breathing with a will of their own. His face, similar to Evan’s but sharper and fiercer in its features, retained something familiar while emanating a different presence.

And then there were his eyes, glowing crimson, as if living flames burned within them.

Ash, much like Shadow, had begun from a primitive form, a very basic manifestation of the concept from which he originated, only gradually taking on a more defined form as he climbed in rank.

He was already at the peak of E-rank, and had yet to advance to the next one, so in terms of strength he was weaker than both Evan and Shadow, but his overall power still surpassed by far any being of his same rank.

He was capable of eliminating E-rank advanced stage beasts without too many problems and with some difficulty also managed to get the better of D-rank early stage ones.

Unlike Shadow, Evan couldn’t reveal this clone openly due to its particularly fierce and strange nature, if he had done so it was likely a manhunt would have started. Or a monster hunt, in this case.

Even Evan was struck by this appearance that had something human to it and yet at the same time didn’t, very cool in his eyes, but he understood the problems it could represent.

But he didn’t concern himself with going into that, and simply giving a mental command to the clone who wasted no time and stepped forward.

He raised his right arm to the side and opened his palm, there a flame ignited that soon lengthened forming itself into a greatsword, slightly smaller than Elena’s but equally magnificent.

Ash tightened his grip on it and soon his red-orange blade lit up quickly forming flames upon it, and without hesitation he pushed off with his legs and shot upward reaching the cocoon which stood at a height of nearly 20 meters from the ground, and delivered a powerful fire slash.

Flames erupted at the collision and immediately the cocoon was covered entirely by them.

Evan and Shadow watched everything with impassive expressions, but even after a minute nothing had changed.

Ash gave a command and the flames died out, leaving behind only the blackened surface of the cocoon, but as far as damaging it? There had been no real damage whatsoever. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

’Fantastic. Not even fire works on this thing. Guess it’s time to use that, if even that fails too then I have no idea what the hell Bruce is thinking having me try to destroy this thing,’ he thought as he stepped forward personally, his sword already in hand.

He infused mana into it and soon the already black blade of the sword became even more so, quickly, as if swallowed by the void itself.

Yes, it was void energy. If there was one thing void energy was particularly good at, it was corrupting or disintegrating things.

He had acquired a certain control over void energy to the point where he could manifest it with little effort, but even so his affinity and control weren’t so high that he could use it however and whenever he wanted. He struggled to maintain it, and if he didn’t keep it under control the sword itself would be corroded by it, so he had to hurry.

With a push of his legs he reached the cocoon, and without wasting time struck it dead center with all the force he managed to pour into the blade.

The black slash carved through it from top to bottom.

For a moment... nothing happened.

As if even that blow, saturated with void energy, had been in vain.

Evan narrowed his gaze just slightly—

crk.

A thin line appeared on the blackened surface of the cocoon.

Then it stretched.

It opened.

The cut tore apart all at once, like a wound being forced from the inside, and the entire cocoon exploded into two halves.

A thick, yellowish liquid burst out, then immediately spilled downward, cascading to the ground and seeping between the roots like corrupted sap. For an instant, the two broken halves of the cocoon remained suspended in the air, still held by the thick roots that clung to them.

But something else was immediately noticed.

As soon as that happened, those roots began to wither at an alarming speed.

As if stripped of all life.

Within seconds they shriveled, went dry, brittle, as if dead for centuries, and no longer capable of bearing the weight of the two broken halves they snapped with dry cracks, sending them crashing to the ground with a heavy thud.

Evan however had no time to pay attention to any of that.

He had already landed.

His heart lurched as his gaze fell near the two severed pieces of the cocoon.

Something.

Something that made him doubt the most composed and cold reality he had built in his mind.

Sounds of heartbeats echoed.

Slow.

Wet.

Alive.

Thump, Thump, Thump.

With movements almost of disbelief he crouched and set his gaze upon what seemed to be—

a human heart.

A heart still beating.

Evan stood completely still for one full second.

The heart was beating on the ground in front of him, bare, exposed, absurdly alive. No body. No visible container. Just that. A human heart, pulsing in the silence of the destroyed laboratory as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

’What the hell is this thing?’ he thought, unable to suppress a chill of fear.

After all, how often did one come across something like this?

Evan had countless questions, but no time.

In fact, seconds later the air suddenly changed, and before Evan could understand what was happening, the entire place began trembling violently.