Beast Evolution Forge

Chapter 159 Rift 4

Before the researcher could answer, Vell vanished again. The ground cracked beneath his feet as he launched forward, his sword trailing red light.

The researcher raised his remaining hand. Corruption swirled into his palm, forming a spiral of dark energy that expanded outward.

The two forces clashed. Vell's sword cut through the spiral, but the corruption wrapped around the blade like living smoke, trying to crawl toward his hand.

"Clever," he said, jumping back. He spun his sword in a circle, flinging off the corruption. "But come on, that's so lame, try harder."

The man smiled despite his missing arm. "You think this is my full power?" He drove his hand into the ground. "Fracture Domain: Corruption Well!"

The earth beneath them rumbled. Cracks spread outward from the researcher's hand, glowing with sickly purple light. Corrupted mana began to pour from these cracks like water from a broken dam.

"The fracture isn't just a place," he explained as the corruption rose around him. "It's a wound in reality, and I've learned to make it bleed."

Vell's eyes narrowed as he felt the air grow heavy with power. The corrupted mana wasn't just filling the area – it was changing the rules of the space itself.

"Two can play that game." He raised his sword and blue light pulsed from his body, creating a dome that pushed back against the corruption. Where the two energies met, reality itself seemed to shudder.

From where they fought their own battles, the girls could feel the ground shaking. The sky above the two combatants rippled like water, distortions spreading outward.

"What's happening?" Ruby asked, her daggers dripping with monster blood.

"They're tearing the fracture apart," Wren answered, her voice tight with concern. "This place isn't stable to begin with. If they keep this up..."

Back at the center of the battle, the two circled each other. The researcher's body now floated several inches above the ground, carried by currents of corruption.

"You're strong," the researcher admitted. "But I've been studying corruption for decades. Let me show you what I've learned."

He clenched his fist, and the corruption around him condensed into geometric shapes – perfect cubes, spheres, and pyramids that orbited his body. His eyes gleamed with dark purpose.

The shapes shot toward Vell, each one warping the space it passed through. They weren't just projectiles – they were changing how reality worked around them.

Vell didn't try to dodge. Instead, he pointed his sword at the ground, focusing his energy.

The air pulsed. Suddenly, the corrupted shapes were pulled downward, their trajectories bending toward the point where his sword touched the earth.

"What?" The researcher's eyes widened.@@@@

"You're not the only one who can change how things work," he said with a smile. "I just control a different force."

The sphere of corruption shot downward, aimed directly at Vell. It moved like something alive, hungering for his destruction.

Vell closed his eyes for a moment.

[Are you sure about this?]

'Time to show off a little.'

His eyes snapped open, glowing with inner light. He raised his sword high, and it began to change – growing, shifting, until it was twice its original size and blazing with energy.

He brought the sword down in a perfect vertical slash. The air screamed as it was cut apart. The ground beneath him cracked to the bedrock. And the sphere of corruption...

Split perfectly in half, the two pieces flying harmlessly to either side of Vell.

The shock wave from the collision raced outward in all directions. Trees uprooted. Rocks shattered. The very fabric of the fracture groaned under the strain.

Where the sphere had been cleaved, a line of pure, clean light remained – as if Vell's sword had cut through the corruption of the fracture itself, revealing something purer beneath.

The researcher stared in disbelief. "Impossible..."

Vell didn't waste the opening. He dashed forward, moving so fast he seemed to teleport, appearing directly in front of the researcher.

"Game over," he said simply, and thrust his sword forward.

The blade pierced the researcher's chest, right where a heart should be. But instead of blood, a crystal emerged from his back – black, pulsing with corruption, but with a core of something else...

"So that's what was keeping you going," he said, twisting the sword.

The researcher gasped, his body beginning to crumble at the edges. "You don't understand... the fractures... they're just the beginning..."

The crystal at the end of his sword cracked, then shattered. A wave of energy burst outward as it broke, washing over the entire area.

The researcher's body dissolved into motes of darkness that quickly faded away. The corruption that filled the air began to thin, reality slowly stabilizing around them.

Vell lowered his sword, which shrank back to its normal size. The ground beneath his feet was scorched clean of corruption in a perfect circle.

He looked up at the sky, which was gradually returning to normal. The warping patterns were fading, the painful geometries dissolving.

"Well," he said to himself, "that was actually a decent workout."