Chapter 495 – The Essence of Evolution Miracles, Sophia's Survival Tactics

“Deadbone has made considerable progress too.”

Mu Yuan gazed at the distant sky with contentment, then turned his attention to his right palm.

A cluster of Miracle Power swirled within his hand.

The colorful energy resembled a gathered water droplet, subtly shifting shape as he gently clenched his fingers.

His primary objective in entering the Apocalypse Secret Realm wasn’t to perfect his combat system.

Mu Yuan had a clear understanding of his role: no matter how powerful the forces he commanded, he wasn’t suited for the front lines of the Battlefield.

He was Mu Yuan – the one who wielded the Evolutionary Miracle.

Yet the Evolutionary Miracle was profoundly mysterious. While it was a Golden Finger, even Golden Fingers must operate on fundamental principles.

Power, energy, elements, Domains, concepts…

Based on his current understanding, since evolutionary power could be considered a form of energy, it must possess its own conceptual nature.

Mu Someone had already grasped multiple concepts, yet he remained unable to comprehend the concept of miracle.

He couldn’t even catch a glimpse of its edges.

He had no leads whatsoever.

He had placed his hopes on the Apocalypse Secret Realm.

He had sat alone for a week before the Celestial Pillar, renowned as the ‘Fate’ pillar with the highest comprehension difficulty.

He…

Still couldn’t perceive the miracle concept.

But!

A strange light flickered in Mu Yuan’s eyes. “Either the concept of miracle doesn’t exist in this world, or miracle-related concepts have all been gathered and contained.”

He stared at the colorful sphere in his palm.

This might be one of the fundamental sources.

Representing the miracle of evolution.

“Evolution itself is a miracle – born from extreme desire, sufficient and appropriate accumulation, fortunate timing, once-in-a-lifetime Opportunities… all these factors combining to create the miracle of evolution.”

The Evolutionary Miracle directly fulfilled all these conditions, enabling evolution anytime, anywhere – truly worthy of being called a miracle.

The power of the Evolutionary Miracle acted upon living beings, and originated from them.

Mu Yuan observed the evolutionary light sphere.

「Evolution Points: 2.25M」

This amount of evolution points wasn’t substantial.

At most, it could evolve one or two legendary beings.

If he wanted to provide further evolution for Deadbone, Dolai, and others, the points would be even more insufficient.

Mu Yuan closed his eyes.

His consciousness spread outward, clearly seeing specks of evolutionary light emerging from his troops and gathering together, like stars filling the sky.

Evolution Points had always accumulated this way.

However…

When he grasped the vast Evolutionary Miracle power and resonated with it, entering a mystical state of perception, he could detect numerous dim light particles trapped within living beings throughout the world.

They existed within troops.

Most of what emerged from them flowed into the Lake of Evolution like starlight, while a small portion remained within their bodies.

Over time, these miracle factors that couldn’t flow into the Lake of Evolution gradually accumulated within organisms until reaching a certain limit.

New miracle factors emerged while old ones dissipated.

The total amount maintained a constant level.

Little Skeleton, Skeleton Soldiers, Deadbone Lord, Deadbone…

Individuals of varying strength produced surprisingly similar quantities of miracle factors.Mu Yuan used to be puzzled, but now he understands.

“Any living being can create miracles. These miracles are a mysterious factor—higher than conceptual power, invisible, intangible, and beyond comprehension.”

“Conversely, for miracles, all living beings are equal.”

“Whether ordinary, rare, exceptional, epic, or legendary, everyone is equal before the miracle of evolution.”

Beyond military units, even among the residents not directly recruited by Mu Yuan and without a direct contractual relationship, miracle factors also exist.

However, these miracle factors do not naturally converge into the Lake of Miracles.

“I ‘see’ them, but I cannot yet gather this power.”

“If I could gather these miracle factors, the accumulation of evolutionary power would undoubtedly skyrocket countless times over.”

The number of his own residents is only a few thousand.

But beyond his own, there are military units under other lords, ordinary residents living in towns, and non-human races like elves and giants—as long as they are living beings, ‘miracles’ exist within them.

“But how to gather these miracle factors…”

Mu Yuan fell into deep thought.

This time, the Apocalypse Secret Realm yielded some gains, allowing him to truly grasp the great power of miracles. Yet, to extend this power and gather the miracles of countless living beings, it seems he still lacks a catalyst.

“Catalyst…”

He murmured, a faint conjecture forming in his heart.

Moreover, the miracle of evolution likely shares the same origin as the many miracles of the Eternal World.

…

North of Tianyuan City, in the desolate, uninhabited mountains.

A silver-haired girl crouched atop a massive boulder, her hands clawed into the rock, legs bent in a ready stance, her hips arched upward, and a large, fluffy silver tail raised high like a sword about to be drawn.

“Awooo~!”

Sickle Moon howled at the sky, and the originally bright, clear sky instantly darkened. The next moment, a brilliant silver light burst forth.

A translucent full moon hung high in the heavens, responding to the girl’s howl.

“But such a night environment is even more my domain, caw.”

As soon as Sophia spoke, the sky darkened further, plunging the surroundings into complete night. Not a single star was visible, only the bright moon remained, which she could not dispel.

In the struggle for control over the environment, the two were evenly matched.

However, the night enhanced the power of the full moon to some extent, while the full moon had no effect on Sophia.

A wisp of intangible mental energy descended nearby, coalescing into Mu Yuan’s form.

He looked ahead at the two poised for action and spoke.

Beside him, a blue-haired girl held a half-person-sized Dragon Meat Bun, taking small, slow bites. Above her head, a spinning icon seemed to appear as if the network had lagged, showing she hadn’t understood a thing.

She hesitated, then offered the Dragon Meat Bun to Mu Yuan, “Mmm, want a bite?”

I’m just a mental construct and can’t eat anything.

But that’s not important.

Dolai has her own path to follow—whether it’s scientific or not doesn’t matter, as long as she can walk it.

For Sickle Moon and Sophia to fully unleash their power, they need to harness the forces of nature. The Tianyuan Arena isn’t sufficient for that.

The wilderness is the most suitable place for sparring.

Tianyuan Experts often spar with each other, but when going all out, it’s better to have someone watching over them.While Dolai was in a state of ‘doing nothing (scratched out)’ and ‘adjusting its condition’, it was dragged over by the two.

“I’m starting now~!”

Sickle Moon leaped into the air, her body glowing with a silvery light under the moonlight, as if evolving.

Her delicate figure, bathed in silver moonlight, expanded countless times in an instant. A majestic and noble silver giant wolf burst forth from the silver moonlight in the blink of an eye.

Before her stood a petite black-haired girl in a black dress.

The girl in the black dress spread her arms, and dozens, hundreds, even thousands of black-feathered, red-eyed night crows fluttered out, gathering into a tsunami-like black storm in the next moment.

The black tornado connected the night sky above and ravaged the earth below—a calamity capable of destroying cities and laying waste to the land.

The calamity, in the next moment…

“Swish—”

The silver moonlight tore through the black storm as if ripping apart cloth, scattering the storm into shreds that drifted in the air.

But after the storm, Sophia’s figure had already vanished.

She had merged into the night.

“Over there!”

“Sickle Moon trusts her intuition!”

The giant wolf turned sharply in mid-air without hesitation, its claws carrying the power of moonlight to stir the heavens and earth.

Amid the howling storm, the figure of the girl in the black dress, hidden in the night, gradually became more conspicuous.

“Just relying on intuition? That’s really broken.”

Back when she was still at the Fourth Order, this level of concealment was enough to evade even a Legend right under their nose.

Was there a flaw in her concealment technique? Had some of her Qi leaked out?

Not at all.

If Sickle Moon said it was intuition, then it was intuition—not some tactical feint.

“Such an unreasonable fighting style is just cheating, crow.”

Her figure shattered under the silver giant claw.

Shattered black feathers swayed in the wind.

An identical Sophia appeared over a thousand meters away, still concealed within the night.

Unsurprisingly, the fur on Sickle Moon’s forehead immediately stood on end—her intuition radar had struck again.

“But what if I use this move? How will you deal with it then?”

Sophia’s lips curled into a smile as she spread her arms, as if standing on a black cross in mid-air.

And all around…

Initially, the Nethercrows had gathered to form the Nethercrow Storm, only to be torn apart. But the remaining Black Crows had, unnoticed, dispersed to every corner of the sky and earth.

Some of the Black Crows were even splitting—one into two, two into four, continuously multiplying.

The basic conditions were now met.

Then…

A night crow elongated, taking on Sophia’s form.

Black hair, black dress, impoverished—completely identical.

Hundreds of Sophias appeared across the sky and earth, each maintaining a considerable distance from the others.

But these were merely Incarnations with her form.

Not the true body.

Sickle Moon’s gaze remained locked on Sophia No. 1, who had her arms spread wide.

Intuition lock.

Yet, in the next moment, the fur on her forehead trembled slightly. Sickle Moon’s gaze swiftly shifted, locking onto another Sophia several thousand meters away.

Immediately after, she turned again, her focus this time on a girl in a black dress tens of thousands of meters behind her.

Her gaze kept shifting, faster and faster, her eyeballs darting around as if they were about to break.

Dolai, chewing on a piece of Dragon meat, pondered hard for half a second before giving up and asking, “Wha’s goin’ on?”

It seemed Dolai couldn’t distinguish Sophia’s true body either.

He tapped Dolai on the head and said, “You can swallow your food first.”

“O-okay.””Sickle Moon’s intuition wasn’t mistaken—she had indeed accurately pinpointed Sophia’s true form. However, Sophia was continuously shifting her real body through the innate ability of her Nethercrow Avatar.”

Sickle Moon’s intuition was too precise.

Yet precisely because she could only rely on intuition, she became utterly bewildered by Sophia’s dazzling maneuvers.

Sickle Moon’s eyes nearly spun from dizziness, her brain overloaded. With an “aowu!” cry, she charged forward.

The moon-silver giant wolf flickered incessantly, tearing apart one black-haired, black-dressed body after another.

Black feathers drifted through the air.

The moon-silver giant wolf leaped high into the sky, its form merging with the full moon.

Infused with immense power, she tore through space, annihilated elements, and the boundless moonlight slashed the entire world into fragments.

After a while,

“Aow, I can’t do it anymore, aowu.”

The wolf girl, restored to human form, lay on the shattered ground, both hands raised high in surrender.

She had lost.

She didn’t have a drop left.

Mu Yuan was somewhat surprised.

“So Sophia won, and…”

It could be called a flawless victory without a scratch.

In terms of raw combat power, Sickle Moon undoubtedly surpassed Sophia.

However, Sophia was more tactical, fully utilizing her advantages to exhaust Sickle Moon completely.

“If Sickle Moon had retreated tactically, Sophia wouldn’t have been able to stop her.”

“This battle reveals some of Sickle Moon’s weaknesses—she might struggle against ‘evasive’ opponents.”

That wasn’t entirely accurate either.

Sophia’s survival abilities ranked among the top three in all of Tianyuan, contending for second and aspiring for first. Her only vulnerability was being instantly killed by a powerful enemy before she could transfer her consciousness the moment her true form was discovered.

She was an assassin-type powerhouse.

But what she feared most were also assassin-type adversaries.

Sickle Moon possessed strong burst power and speed—she might very well seize the opportunity.

Her weakness lay less in ability and more in heart-nature and strategy.

“However, both Sophia and Sickle Moon’s weaknesses only exist in one-on-one situations.”

Sophia often operated alone when scouting deep behind enemy lines.

This was a problem.

But when Sickle Moon went out to battle, she usually wasn’t alone.

To compensate for their shortcomings, pairing two Tianyuan General-level powerists was sufficient.

“Wu aow… next time… I… I will definitely win back.”

Sickle Moon panted out the words.

Sophia helped her up, “Though we’ve known each other for a long time, I won’t go easy on you during sparring.”

“Aowu~ aow!” (No problem, that’s how it should be!)

“Truly worthy of Sickle Moon Crow.”

She led Sickle Moon away but suddenly stopped to straighten her slightly disheveled hair and dress. “The Lord is here too.”

“How could I miss such an exciting battle?”

Mu Yuan waved the Shadow Recording Crystal in his hand.

You might ask how a spiritual manifestation had a crystal? Dolai’s dimensional pocket had everything; many items were stored there by him. Dolai might not know what was in the dimensional pocket, but Mu Someone knew very well.

Sickle Moon’s eyes widened.

Though single-minded, she vaguely felt that she might, perhaps, possibly have left behind some embarrassing history?

“Aowu!”

Sophia said, “Can I make a copy?”

Sickle Moon: “?”

After completing the post-battle analysis, the group returned to Tianyuan City.

Sickle Moon went to the hospital to find Laney for some physical examinations.

Mu Yuan directly dispersed his spiritual incarnation, his consciousness returning to his main body.He pondered, “Sophia’s survival skills aren’t bad, but they come with an absolutely non-negotiable precondition.”

If stretched over time—maintaining a state of high alert for days or even weeks—it would be incredibly difficult to never slip up.

Moreover,

even setting aside conceptual powers, the strong among monsters have accumulated countless skills over their long years.

These skills may not be particularly powerful individually, but with such a vast arsenal, monster elites can handle a wide range of situations.

Sickle Moon focuses on just a few Epic Skills and Advanced Skills, making her combat methods relatively one-dimensional. She couldn’t break through Sophia’s ‘Shadow Substitute’ tactics.

But that doesn’t mean monster elites couldn’t.

A lethal move targeting consciousness alone would be enough to counter Sophia’s Night Crow Substitute technique.

Her survival capabilities still aren’t sufficient.

“The Evolution Miracle holds infinite possibilities. With my current mastery of evolutionary power, it’s not impossible for me to intervene and guide the Awakening of skills in the direction I desire.”

He was confident.

He was just considering whether he should intervene.

After all, Sophia is a living person, constantly refining her own combat style and striving to improve herself. She’s a girl with her own thoughts and opinions.

Even though Mu Yuan knew that if he asked, Sophia wouldn’t refuse.

He didn’t pose the question that way.

After finding Sophia, he asked, “Do you have any plans or arrangements for your future ability system? For example, thoughts about what comes after Legendary?”

“Legendary?”

“Right now, I can only make certain improvements based on existing Epic Skills or develop new tactical frameworks from this foundation, but the ceiling hasn’t actually been raised much.”

“If I could Awaken a Legendary ability, I’d definitely want one that continues to enhance survival skills and expands my network of eyes and ears. But…”

“Our ability Awakening is based on our own Bloodline and class, right?”

This power comes from the Lord.

But scientifically speaking, it’s the Lord who stimulates and elevates their potential. What skills they Awaken still depends on their own Bloodline.

She looked at her Lord.

Mu Yuan also gazed at her, realizing he had been too indecisive.

“Indeed, it’s based on Bloodline. However, as long as our thoughts and desires are strong enough, a miracle is bound to happen.”

The wind blew into the City Lord’s Mansion.

Night gradually fell.

This night, black was also the color of miracle.

(End of Chapter)