Devouring Stars: Master of Evolution

Chapter 231 Chaotic Battle! Endless Carnage

In the dim sky, a crimson vortex slowly rotated, emanating an incredibly alluring aura.

On the battlefield, the blood-red mist grew thicker and thicker, further enraging the already ferocious demons.

Demons within a radius of hundreds of thousands, even millions of miles, sensed the impending arrival of the [Abyssal Crystal].

All the demons were in an uproar, roaring excitedly as they charged toward the vortex.

Large hordes of demons charged forward, uttering meaningless cries as if attending a grand celebration.

Before even stepping onto the battlefield, some demons began to fight.

A centaur-like demon, wielding a spear, charged forward with a whooshing sound, impaling two goat-headed demons on a gourd-like chain, and tearing their corpses apart, splattering blood everywhere.

The centaur demon savored the taste of blood, and its power seemed to grow even stronger with each kill.

It called out in demonic language, and the dozen or so demons passing by looked at the dead goat-headed demon with only bloodthirsty smiles on their hideous faces, showing no surprise whatsoever.

However, the next moment, a giant foot descended from the sky, crushing the dozen or so demons to death.

A mountain-sized fire demon, its body wreathed in flames, wielded a long, flaming whip and walked on, paying no heed to the demons it trampled to death along the way.

They rushed into the battlefield and participated in the feast of blood and death.

"Hahaha--"

The Balrog laughed wildly and swung his flaming whip, cleaving all the demons within a radius of several thousand meters into pieces of flesh.

boom--

A thunderous roar echoed across the battlefield as a meteorite, a full kilometer in diameter, crashed to the ground.

Within a radius of several kilometers, the demons' bodies flew up like rags, then turned into pieces of flesh and blood in mid-air.

A deep, heavy roar came from within the enormous crater.

The meteorite, about a kilometer in diameter, shattered and transformed into a towering giant, a rock giant burning with raging green flames.

With heavy footsteps, the rock demon emerged from the pit and casually smashed hundreds of dazed demons to death.

This is not the end, but the beginning.

Like a meteor shower, thousands of meteorites fell from the sky, leaving the battlefield riddled with craters.

Some of them even crashed directly into the massive mother nest.

"roar--"

In the center of the battlefield, the thunderous roar of the Golden Horned Beast resounded, and its enormous claws, which blotted out the sky, shattered more than a dozen meteorites.

These high-ranking demons (domain lord level) were crushed to pieces by the golden-horned behemoth before they even had a chance to land.

On one side of the battlefield, a vast horde of bat-winged wolf-bodied demons howled as they flew in from afar, tearing apart any demons that blocked their path as they flew.

Driven by the sight of blood, some bat-winged wolf-bodied demons began to fight amongst themselves.

Further away, the earth trembled. A group of demons, hundreds of meters tall, wielding warhammers and giant axes, resembling giant apes with bloodshot eyes, pounded their chests and eagerly joined the battle.

……

Driven by the crimson vortex, endless demons rushed to the battlefield from afar.

Most of the demons joined the battle before the Abyss Crystal even appeared in the crimson vortex. Only a few high-ranking demons, and even great demons, restrained their bloodlust and lurked in the shadows, waiting.

On the battlefield, many demons who had gone mad with killing had long forgotten about the [Abyssal Crystal], and were completely absorbed in the slaughter.

Demons are creatures like that; whether they gain anything or not is secondary. Being able to kill to their heart's content is a win.

Freedom to live, randomness to die—that's the devil!

Naturally chaotic, warlike, and fond of blood, they have no regard for death, whether it is their own or that of other demons.

At the very center of the battlefield, near the Zerg mother hive, hundreds of millions of demons and the Zerg army were locked in a fierce battle.

Minotaur Demon, Giant Ape Demon, Bat-winged Demon...

Almost all demon attacks target the insect swarm as their primary objective.

Demons are not without intelligence; the stronger they are, the more intelligent they tend to be.

Lower-ranking demons are generally no less intelligent than ordinary humans; they are simply naturally chaotic and too lazy to think.

For a demon, instead of spending time thinking, it's better to just chop it down with an axe.

These later demons were almost all at least mid-level demons, with a considerable number being high-level demons and great demons.

Although the abyssal aura grew stronger after the swarm's continuous battles, making them almost indistinguishable from abyssal creatures, the swarm still occupied the very core of the battlefield, at the very bottom of the crimson vortex.

Once the Abyssal Crystals appear, there is no doubt that most of them will fall into the swarm.

Why would other demons agree?

Unless Qin Mu is willing to allow the swarm to withdraw from the center of the battlefield, this is inevitable.

But would Qin Mu do that?

of course not!

He couldn't wait for the battle to intensify; he came to the Abyss of Purgatory precisely to make the swarm fight.

In the frenzied battle, tens of thousands of Zerg died every moment, but even more Zerg were hatched.

The Golden Horned Beast and the Hive Tyrant, two top combat forces, have always been at the forefront of the battlefield, and more than ten great demons have died at their hands!

Although they paid a considerable price for it, both the Golden Horned Beast and the Hive Tyrant were injured more than once and had to return to the mother hive for treatment.

But they still held on, and even during the five-day war, the size of the swarm grew larger and larger, exceeding 30 million.

Of these 30 million Zerg, only a very small number were released by Qin Mu from the World Ring.

Most of them hatch from the mother hive. These insectoids, which have been hatched by absorbing the flesh and blood of demons, are filled with the abyssal aura just like the original demons, and they will not be besieged.

"The demons in this abyss are indeed just as the intelligence reports suggested; not to mention their numbers, the variety of them is terrifying."

Qin Mu said with some emotion.

In those five days, he had seen far too many strange and bizarre demons.

The various shapes—humanoid, animaloid, rock-based, fire-based, and even a pile of mud—were randomly pieced together, which truly broadened Qin Mu's horizons.

"So this is how the freedom to be born can be understood."

Qin Mu originally thought that some of the mutated units in the swarm were strange enough, but they were still far inferior to these demons.

"Demons, as expected of chaotic creatures."

Queen Irina, standing to the side, was also greatly impressed.

As the queen of the Zerg, she was incredibly knowledgeable, yet even she was dumbfounded when faced with a creature like a demon.

"My Lord, the genes of the first batch of demonic creatures have been successfully analyzed."

After offering her praise, Irina said.

"Did the parsing succeed?"

Qin Mu's eyes lit up.

"Yes, the results are astonishing. These demons, regardless of their strength, all possess a bloodline inheritance!"

"Like the Zerg, most demons are oviparous."

From their memories, we discovered that many of them were born near a river called the River Styx, where countless demon eggs were constantly hatching.

Irina's expression was one of shock.

"Once these demon eggs hatch, they are called juvenile demons, and these juvenile demons will go on a killing spree near the River Styx."

In the process of mutual slaughter, only the most powerful demons can survive.

After consuming enough flesh and blood, they will naturally awaken the bloodline within their bodies and possess a certain bloodline inheritance.

Although the legacy is incomplete, it is powerful enough.

Irina paused for a moment, then continued.

"When these demons become powerful enough, they will be expelled from the Styx River and randomly appear in a layer of the Abyss of Purgatory."

They possess a complete bloodline evolution path; they can continuously grow stronger by killing and fighting, activating their bloodline and acquiring a wealth of knowledge.

In a sense, all demons can be called special life forms.

Because as long as you kill enough, you can rise from a juvenile demon to a demon king, or even a demon prince.

Of course, the evolution of bloodlines is not always successful; mutations or failures can occur during the evolutionary process.

This is one of the reasons why there are so many kinds of demons.

While listening to Irina, Qin Mu was also reading the newly emerging demonic gene map in the swarm.

These genetic maps are unlike those of strange life forms; they are full of distortions and chaos.

It is precisely because of their disordered genes that demons are born warlike and bloodthirsty.

But within this distortion and chaos, there is a pattern.

Qin Mu even found a complete evolutionary path for the Flame Demon from it. Starting from an ordinary young demon, it can evolve into a powerful Flame Demon with just a few bloodline activations!

Not only that, but while analyzing the demon's genes, the swarm also gained access to its memories.

Although most of these traditions are incomplete, they are still traditions.

However, Qin Mu was more interested in the complete bloodline advancement path within the demon bloodline than in these other things.

With each evolution, the demon's genetic structure becomes more perfect and superior.

For example, one of the paths is to evolve from a juvenile demon into a fire demon, and then from a fire demon into a flame demon.

This process requires approximately ten evolutions. If successful, it can transform a weak, young demon into a powerful fire demon.

The swarm and the demons actually have many similarities.

The evolutionary path of demons can be completely integrated into the evolutionary path of the swarm.

It's not about replacing them, but about giving the swarm more options for evolution.

The genes of swarm units are unstable, and evolutionary mutations can occur at any time during intense battles and harsh environments.

However, such evolutionary mutations are uncontrollable, which is a good thing, as this kind of evolution gives the swarm endless possibilities.

There are actually many weak units in the swarm. In the past, Qin Mu's choice was to recycle them, convert them into energy, and then hatch them into more powerful units.

There are two hatching methods for the Zerg: one is normal hatching.

Another method is to create countless weak Zerg and let them fight, with the strong devouring the weak, eventually leading to the possession of a king Zerg.

After being devoured countless times, it is only stronger than its own kind.

However, if the swarm could also have this kind of advanced bloodline, it is entirely possible that a weak Blazing Insect could hatch and, after evolution, mutate into a Blazing Behemoth.

Then, from ordinary star behemoths like the Blazing Behemoth, it evolves again into a second-tier star behemoth with the [Li] attribute of fire.

Ultimately, it may become a giant fire star beast, or an even stronger special life form, or even a beast god-level existence.

Although the chances of such evolution are very small, there is always some hope if the numbers increase.

In this way, any weak Zerg unit, after countless battles, has the potential to rise to become a top-tier unit.

"A very good evolution mechanism."

Various ways the Zerg could enhance their abilities came to mind in Qin Mu's mind.

Numerous bloodline secrets, such as "The Primitive Insect Codex" and "Bloodline Evolution," swirled in my mind, as if I had grasped something.

Unlike the demonic ladder-like evolutionary process, the Zerg swarm's evolutionary process tends to be more one-time, with the probability of the same Zerg unit mutating multiple times being very small.

"We'll study this carefully later, but now is not the time to think about that. Let's end this war first."

Qin Mu steadied himself. In his eyes, the power of the crimson vortex had reached its peak, and what was inside was about to descend.

The swarms of insects and demons in the midst of the chaos sensed this, and they became increasingly excited!

Many demons who were originally waiting quietly for the [Abyssal Crystal] to descend were tempted and directly joined the battlefield.

"Understood! Currently, the number of surviving demons on the entire battlefield is close to 800 million, most of whom are mid-level demons, and the number of high-level demons has also exceeded 10 million."

The number of Great Demons has reached 86!

Qin Mu nodded to indicate that he understood.

Eight hundred million demons, and they survived five days of intense melee!

As for those who have died in recent days, even more have.

Unlike the original demons, most of these surviving demons are led by powerful archdemons, and their strength should not be underestimated.

However, Qin Mu remained confident because he had continuously released a batch of powerful Zerg units over the past five days.

This includes the three giant icebergs.

These three icy behemoths transformed into enormous demons, wreaking havoc on the battlefield.

Rumble...

The crimson vortex in the sky suddenly stopped, and hundreds of crimson crystals carrying flames flew out from the vortex within the clouds.

After five full days of preparation, the [Abyss Crystal] has finally arrived!

Countless demons flying in mid-air immediately rushed out to try and snatch it.

But how could the other demons on the battlefield let them plunder?

Countless attacks from afar surged into the sky, with flames, lightning, wind blades, and spears and lances flying everywhere.

The first wave of demons that charged forward were almost instantly torn apart, and even the body of a bat-winged demon of the Great Demon level exploded.

Under an attack of this level, not even a Great Demon, let alone a Golden Horned Beast, could withstand it.

Especially since the Golden Horned Beast's massive body would definitely be the target of concentrated fire if it charged out, Qin Mu did not attempt to seize it immediately.

Moreover, the first wave of demons that rushed over were already fighting each other.

Therefore, almost all of this batch of demons perished, with only a handful successfully obtaining the [Abyssal Crystal].

Most of them drifted away in mid-air and scattered across the entire battlefield.

Because the Zerg swarm occupied the most central position on the battlefield from the very beginning, almost half of the enemy fell into the Zerg swarm's territory.

"Collect the [Abyssal Crystal] and slaughter all the demons!"

Qin Mu's cold gaze swept over the chaotic battlefield.

A chilling murderous intent flashed across Queen Elena's beautiful face.

"It is the ruler!"

The next moment, the swarm that had been passively defending the mother hive erupted, with thirty million Zerg roaring in unison.

One by one, nodes in the swarm's soul network lit up.

All Abyssal Crystals belong to the Swarm, and all demons must die!

(End of this chapter)