The wind died. The ambient hum of atmospheric displacement, the heavy detonation of artillery fire from the distant frontline, and the rhythmic clashing of steel all seemed to recede into a heavy, suffocating silence.
The Beastress took two paces away from the collapsed, unmoving form of the 2nd Division Captain. The hunt was concluded. She had tasted the peak of human resilience, broken it, and harvested the prize.
But as her boot left a fresh imprint in the dust, the silence of the clearing didn't fracture—it deepened.
Behind her, the pool of dark, arterial blood pooling on the metal deck of the transport ship stopped expanding. The liquid began to vibrate, tiny droplets defying the local gravitational pull of the moving planet as they levitated an inch off the iron plating.
The Beastress stopped. Her cat-like ears violently twitched, pinning themselves flat against her skull as every predatory instinct in her nervous system screamed a singular, terrifying warning: Danger.
She whirled around.
Liora was standing up.
Her bones began to heal and the hole in chest slowly healing itself, but liora was still seriously bleeding, she was holding on to life by a thread.
"Round 2," Liora whispered.
To understand the impossibility of the scene unfolding on the ruined transport deck, one had to look past the physical flesh and deep into the fundamental architecture of the cosmos. One had to understand the true nature of an Evolith.
An Evolith is not a genetic mutation, nor is it a simple magic system. It is the absolute synthesis of two primordial components: Evo + Will.
Evo is the raw, foundational energy inherent within all living things across the universe—the quiet biological spark that keeps cells dividing and organisms breathing.
Will is the conscious or subconscious intent of the soul. It is the psychological driver that shapes, commands, and activates that raw energy, turning it into a specialized weapon of supernatural authority.
Across all civilized galaxies, every human or alien who awakens this power is strictly categorized into one of four distinct foundational branches, known as the Four Roots:
Morphic roots : based on physical biology of living creatures
Elemental roots : based on the power of nature
Universal root : based on the laws of the universe
Singularity root : power beyond reality.
Liora, the 2nd Division Captain, belonged purely to the Morphic Roots.
Users of the Morphic branch naturally possess a significantly higher baseline of physical strength, structural durability, and raw sensory perception than any other root classification, even when their Evoliths are completely inactive. Their muscle density and bone composition are inherently reinforced to handle heavy combat.
However, when a being possesses an absolute, unbreakable Will that refuses to accept the concept of death or defeat, a rare cosmic phenomenon occurs. It is an event that happens once in a blue moon, accessible only to an elite handful of warriors who can look into the abyss of their own demise and demand more power. This event unlocks the true, unadulterated potential of one's evoliths.
It is called THE ZONE.
No one in history has ever truly mastered or sustained the Zone; it is a temporary state of absolute perfection where the mind and body operate at 100% efficiency, bypassing the safety protocols of the brain, the brain stop thinking, it's operates on pure instincts and will alone.
Liora's Evolith was already a terrifying concept: the ability of every living creature on Earth built into a single, unified human body. Because of this terrifying versatility, her troops and enemies alike didn't just call her a captain. They called her the BEAST MONARCH.
And right now, Liora had entered the Zone.
Her body was no longer cycling through traits one by one. She wasn't shifting from a cobra to a bear, or a shrimp to a beetle. Her internal network was rewriting itself at the speed of light, activating the biological properties, survival mechanisms, and offensive capabilities of all living creatures on Earth all at once.
. For exactly two minutes, Liora had become the strongest, captain on this battle field right now.
The Beastress didn't waste time. With a guttural, primal screech that split the air, she vanished, her unleashed Beast Mode accelerating her form into a violent streak of silver claws aimed straight for Liora's head.
She didn't connect.
Liora didn't even move her arms to block. Utilizing the hyper-frequency auditory perception of a greater wax moth alongside the multi-directional visual processing of a dragonfly, the Beastress's light-speed trajectory appeared as a slow, predictable crawl within Liora's mind. At the exact same time, Liora's skin registered the air pressure using the sensory micro-hairs of a tarantula.
Before the Beastress's claws could touch her skin, Liora executed a counter-strike. She didn't just punch; she channeled the fluid, snapping expansion of a chameleon's tongue combined with the raw, hydraulic pressure of a pistol shrimp.
SHATTER!
Her fist collided with the Beastress's incoming shoulder. The sheer kinetic acceleration didn't just create a sonic boom—it created a localized vacuum wave that instantly vaporized the dust clouds within twenty meters. The Beastress's collarbone and upper arm structure instantly shattered into fragments, the elite being thrown backward across the deck like a broken doll.
[Time Remaining: 1 Minute, 40 Seconds]
"Impossible!" the Beastress roared, her broken bones violently knitting back together through her own forced regeneration as she planted her claws and tore back across the deck. She became an erratic phantom, bouncing off the transport ship's smoke stacks, her claws extending to their absolute limit as she executed a thousand slashes in a single second.
Liora's skin took on the dense, unbreakable, iron-morphic plating of a scaly-foot gastropod, allowing the Beastress's razor-sharp claws to scrape against her flesh with nothing but the loud, screeching sound of grinding metal and flying sparks. At the exact same time, Liora unleashed a relentless barrage of short-range strikes. Every blow carried the crushing mass of a blue whale's tail, delivered with the rapid-fire frequency of a woodpecker's skull.
BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!
The Beastress was systematically out-powered. She raised her arms in a desperate guard, but Liora's fists were breaking through her physical supremacy with terrifying ease. A left hook tore through the elite's defensive line, caving in her jaw. A follow-up knee strike, carrying the dense, unyielding momentum of a charging rhinoceros, slammed into the Beastress's midsection, fracturing her pelvis and sending her spitting dark blood across the platform.
[Time Remaining: 1 Minute, 10 Seconds]
The elite was being systematically dismantled, but she smiled she was finally getting what she wants.
Crawling backwards out of a crater, the Beastress unleashed a desperate attack.
Her tail thickened into a massive, muscle-bound club, and she compressed her legs to their absolute limits, preparing a final, terminal pincer strike designed to decapitate Liora from both sides.
"It's over!" the Beastress screamed, her eyes completely bloodshot as she launched herself for one final, desperate struggle.
Liora walked forward through the pressure. She didn't run. She didn't dodge.
As the Beastress arrived, swinging her lethal claws toward Liora's throat, Liora activated the neurotoxic properties of an inland taipan through her sweat glands, creating a localized, invisible miasma that instantly sluggish-fired the elite's nervous system mid-swing. The Beastress's claws slowed down by a fraction of a millimeter—and that was all the beast monarch needed.
Liora reached out, her hands locking onto the Beastress's throat and torso with the absolute, inescapable grip strength of a coconut crab.
[Time Remaining: 0 Minutes, 25 Seconds]
The Beastress gasped for air, her claws desperately tearing at Liora's face, leaving deep, bloody gashes across the captain's cheeks, but Liora didn't even blink. The white light in Liora's eyes began to flicker rapidly, the Zone nearing its limit , her muscles tearing themselves apart under the strain of carrying an entire planet's ecosystem within a single human frame.
The Beastress, seeing the white light fade slightly, let out a bloody, choking laugh. "Your time... is up, human! I... Win!"
The elite truly thought she had won. She knew the limits of human endurance; she could feel the sudden drop in Liora's power as the two-minute mark arrived.
[Time Remaining: 0 Minutes, 01 Seconds]
At the very last second, as the light in her eyes completely died out, Liora gave one final, savage smile.
She didn't need her external muscles anymore. She tapped into the micro-biological defensive mechanism of the toughest creature on Earth: the tardigrade (water bear), giving her cells absolute immortality against physical destruction for one singular instant. Simultaneously, she focused the entirety of her remaining strength into her forehead, utilizing the absolute, bone-shattering density of a bighorn sheep.
With a final, deafening roar, Liora drove her head forward in a single, devastating headbutt.
CRUNCH.
The impact was absolute. The frontal bone of the Beastress's skull completely caved inward under the concentrated, infinite pressure of the strike.
The elite's eyes rolled back into her head, the crimson light within them vanishing entirely as her long claws went completely limp, slipping away from Liora's face.
The two-minute limit expired.
Liora released her grip. The Beastress collapsed backward, hitting the ruined metal deck with a heavy, unmoving thud, her fully unleashed Beast Mode completely dissolving as her body shrank back to its baseline, defeated form. She lay still, completely neutralized at the very final second of the countdown.
Liora stood over her, the massive hole in her chest still open to the air, her breathing heavy She had won.
Beastress smiled as she took her last breath "thank you liora ".
Liora fell beside her completely passing out, as she had a flashback.
"Leaon where's liora " liora's mother asked
Leaon slowly looked up and replied "probably in the forest again" , then the door suddenly opened it was liora she was 8 years old, her mother was really angry with her "liora for Christsake you are a girl not an animal, you have to stop this nonsense focus on your studies ,pass your exam get married to a rich man and give birth, why do keep acting like this " liora mother said as she dragged liora
"Leave her" leaon said, "damn you leaon you are really spoiling her you know that" liora mother said
As she left liora hands and walked out.
Leaon smiled " liora I'm really happy you know why "
Liora smiled "cause you're old"
Leaon chuckled "no that's not it and I'm not old
I'm happy because I have you as my daughter, your spirit is untamed. Your will is so strong, Liora. You never give up, no matter how hard the world tries to force you into a box. Just be who you are. Don't let anyone change your nature. You are strong—so use that strength to protect the things that matter."
A raw geneiue smile crossed liora face "thank you dad , I'm going back to the forest" she said as she jumped through the window.