Chapter 240 240: Vesper

The dust settled.

And Evan…

Was on the ground.

Broken.

His body was no longer regenerating.

The damage—too severe.

His right leg was gone.

His left arm was charred beyond repair.

His torso—mangled.

He struggled, clawing at the ground, but his body wasn't responding.

His healing factor—had failed.

The battlefield was silent.

All eyes turned to Max.

He pointed his sword at Evan again.

His voice was calm.

"You lost."

Evan didn't speak.

He couldn't.

His mangled body twitched on the ground, his remaining limb clawing at the dirt, his once-overwhelming aura flickering—weak, unstable.

Max exhaled, lowering his sword slightly.

He turned toward Cain, about to speak—

Then.

It hit him.

A feeling of absolute dread.

Like an invisible blade pressed against his throat.

Like the hand of Death itself had reached out to claim him.

Max's entire body tensed.

His breath hitched.

His instincts screamed.

DANGER!

MOVE!

He didn't hesitate.

He dashed back—

One step.

Two.

Three.

Away from Evan's mutilated body.

And then—

It began.

Evan's broken limbs twitched.

Then—they began to mend.

The black goo covering his form boiled, seethed, crawled.

His missing leg regrew—piece by piece, reconstructing as if time itself was reversing.

His severed arm reattached, stretching unnaturally before snapping into place.

The cracks in his torso sealed themselves.

And then—he stood.

Once again.

Untouched. Reborn.

But—

Max frowned.

Something was different.

Something was wrong.

Because this time, Evan's transformation didn't stop.

A small, fleshy bud formed on the left side of his forehead.

At first, it was nothing.

Then—

It elongated.

Slowly.

Stretching outward, shifting sharper, hardening—

Until—

A horn.

Max's stomach dropped.

His body reacted before his mind could process.

His fingers tightened around his sword.

His breath grew shallow.

His instincts—his very being—warned him.

That horn—

That tiny, single horn—

It was not normal.

It was dangerous.

No—far beyond dangerous.

The sheer pressure radiating from Evan's newly transformed body was on a different level.

And the feeling—

That same suffocating aura from before?

It was still there.

No.

It was growing stronger.

The thick scent of death pressed down on Max.

For the first time since the battle began—

He felt a true, overwhelming threat.

A threat that his instincts recognized.

And his instincts never lied.

Max wasn't the only one who noticed.

The leaders watching the battle—the strongest warriors of the East Region—

All felt it.

And they were horrified.

"That horn—"

Kate's voice wavered.

Her usual sharp confidence was gone.

Her gaze trembled.

"No… it can't be—"

Aurelia's face darkened, her hands curling into fists.

"Could that be…?."

"That's…"

Envoy Lucas narrowed his eyes.

His expression turned serious.

"A Vesper."

The battlefield fell into silence.

The very word sent shivers down the spines of even the most hardened warriors.

Envoy Lucas exhaled, his expression unusually grim.

"I thought Vespers could only be pure Nulls."

His words hung heavy in the tense air.

Every leader present turned their eyes to Evan, or rather—what Evan had become.

A Vesper.

A true monster.

Lucas continued, his tone growing darker.

"No matter if humans could transform into Nulls or not, they would only get the basic humanoid form of a Null. They would never—never—reach the evolved form. The form of a Vesper."

His fingers curled into a tight fist.

"And yet… here we are."

Kate clenched her jaw, her usual calm demeanor shaken.

"This shouldn't be possible."

Aurelia's eyes darkened, her arms folding as she muttered, "Yet it is."

Lucas's gaze never left Evan as he continued.

"Apart from the war ten thousand years ago, there have been… incidents."

Everyone's attention snapped to him.

Incidents?

Lucas nodded, voice low, tense.

"Reports. From time to time, a Vesper has appeared in different parts of the Lower Domain."

His next words sent shivers down spines.

"But wherever the reports came from… only a crater was left behind."

Silence.

A heavy, suffocating silence.

"No civilization."

"No humans."

"Nothing was spared."

His eyes hardened.

"All eradicated into nothingness."

Kate's fingers twitched as she clenched her sword.

"A single Vesper was enough to wipe out an entire civilization…?"

Norton Blade wiped his sweat.

"No wonder we never had records on them."

Aurelia's face remained unreadable, but her fingers dug into her arms.

"It makes sense now."

She turned to Lucas.

"The reason we don't know about them… is because no one ever survived to tell the tale."

Lucas nodded.

"Precisely."

"Vespers don't just kill. They erase. They devour. They consume everything down to the last trace of existence."

The battlefield grew colder.

And all eyes turned to Max.

Max's fingers tightened around his sword, his grip ironclad, yet his palms were damp with sweat.

His breathing was steady, but his body wasn't calm.

Every muscle in his frame was coiled, tense, on the edge of an explosion.

His instincts screamed at him.

A deep, primal warning.

An overwhelming, suffocating sense of death.

It wasn't a threat.

It wasn't a possibility.

It was a certainty.

'If I move closer… I will die.'

It wasn't a question.

It was a truth that his entire being accepted.

His Three-Dimensional Body, his heightened awareness, his very soul—everything inside him told him to retreat.

To back away.

To wait.

But—

He saw it.

The moment.

Evan—or the thing that had become Evan—was still.

Not because it was calculating.

Not because it was waiting.

But because it was lost.

Like something was rearranging inside it.

Like the transformation had triggered something deeper.

A lapse. A delay.

Even if just for a second.

And Max knew.

'This is my chance.'

But his fear clashed with his reason.

One part of him—the survivor, the warrior, the rational mind—said no.

Said to wait, to observe, to retreat.

But the other part of him—the predator, the instinctual fighter, the part that never hesitated—screamed at him.

'GO. STRIKE. NOW.'

A single moment. A single decision.

If he hesitated—he would lose.

If he attacked—he might die.

The choice wasn't fair.

But in battle, fairness didn't exist.

So Max decided.

He moved.

Lightning erupted.

His sword flashed forward.

And he struck.