Although my family already possesses a small number of those fruits in our private treasury," Xander said coldly,
"it never hurts to contribute additional rare resources to the family vault. Besides, if he consud more than one fruit, the accumulated effects in his body will be even more valuable."
The girl chuckled at his reasoning but didn’t say anything further out loud. However, her thoughts were clear in her expression.
She was well aware that although Xander held the title of Divine Son and was considered the golden child of the Grimm family, his older brothers and sisters were by no ans ordinary people themselves.
They were powerful, ambitious, and not particularly happy about their younger brother receiving so much attention and favor.
Xander would eventually have to compete against his siblings for inheritance rights, family resources, and political position.
The Divine Son title was granted primarily because of the miraculous phenonon that occurred during his birth, his exceptional talent, and the fact that his father had been in an unusually good mood that day and decided to na him sothing special.
But titles and reputation only carried you so far.
His siblings had their own accomplishnts, their own supporters, their own resources. If Xander wanted to keep rare items like Evolution Fruits for himself rather than sharing them with the family treasury, he would have to fight for that privilege.
Now that this boy Vogue was in possession of fruits that Xander wanted, the Divine Son would absolutely not let them slip away.
"He’s still holding back his full power," the young woman observed, watching Vogue’s fighting style.
"He’s using physical techniques and basic abilities, but I haven’t seen him activate any major trump cards yet. It seems he’s genuinely attempting to reach the full ten thousand kills for Ultimate Evolution rather than settling for an easier tier."
Divine Son Xander snorted with derision and contempt.
"In a trial dinsion where I am present, only I deserve to achieve Ultimate Evolution. Having so trash from a backwater gacity obtain it would be a complete waste of such a powerful transformation."
His hands clenched into fists as he spoke, his knuckles turning white from the pressure.
"Only soone with the absolute highest potential deserves Ultimate Evolution. Only then will the transformation’s true power shine at its brightest! Giving it to so nobody with diocre background and limited resources would be like feeding premium steak to a dog."
His voice was filled with absolute certainty and arrogance, the tone of soone who had never seriously considered the possibility that he might be wrong about sothing.
Down below, the hundred-player hunting group had finished clearing the radiants blocking their path. They reached the entrance of Macy’s departnt store where Vogue had been fighting minutes earlier.
The first player to enter was a muscular young man with buzzed hair and heavily tattooed arms.
His hands were covered in blazing flas.
He didn’t hesitate as he attacked.
"Fla Burst!" the tattooed player roared.
He thrust both palms forward and unleashed a massive cone of fire that roared through the store’s interior. The flas spread outward as they traveled, consuming everything in their path.
The attack was heading straight toward Vogue with devastating speed and power.
Watching the massive ball of flas roar toward him like an incoming teor, Vogue reacted instantly. He kicked a nearby radiant, sending the creature flying directly into the path of the flas.
"Bang!"
The radiant collided with the blazing attack mid-flight and the resulting explosion lit up the entire store with orange light. The radiant’s body was consud instantly, reduced to ash and charred bone fragnts that scattered across the floor.
Vogue didn’t waste a single second watching the explosion. While the flas were still dissipating, he spun around and killed five more radiants with two strikes of his machete.
[Radiants Eliminated 5]
But then sothing changed.
Soone among the approaching hunting group suddenly ford a triangle shape with their two hands, their fingers pressed together to create the geotric form. They positioned their hands so that when they looked through the triangle opening, Vogue’s distant figure was perfectly centered in the middle.
The person spoke clearly, their voice carrying across the chaotic battlefield with unnatural clarity.
"Five tis gravity."
In the very next millisecond, Vogue felt as though an enormous boulder had suddenly landed squarely on his back and shoulders. The crushing weight pressed down on him from above with devastating force.
His expression changed completely. His speed imdiately slowed down to a fraction of what it had been. Every movent suddenly required several tis more energy and effort than before. When he tried to lift his machete for another strike, the blade felt like it weighed as much as a car.
His legs trembled under the increased gravitational pressure. The floor beneath his feet cracked from supporting his now-multiplied weight.
Vogue gritted his teeth hard and stared into the distance, searching for the source of this ability. Among the group of players rushing toward him through the wrecked store, a particularly thin figure stood out.
She was positioned at the top of a collapsed delivery truck that had crashed through the store’s loading dock entrance. She was maintaining the triangle hand position, her arms held steady, with Vogue’s figure still centered perfectly in her makeshift targeting fra.
He imdiately knew she was the one responsible for the crushing gravity effect.
"Hmph!" Vogue snorted with anger and defiance.
He imdiately raised his right hand and pointed his index finger directly at the girl’s skull like aiming a gun. Then he spoke a single word that sounded almost casual.
"Bang."
An ice needle the exact size and shape of a sewing needle instantly ford in the air directly in front of his extended fingertip. The needle was perfectly clear like glass, razor-sharp at both ends, and harder than steel.
The mont he spoke the word "bang," the ice needle shot forward like a bullet fired from a high-powered rifle!
"Whoosh!"
The projectile moved so fast it was nearly invisible to the naked eye. It traveled in a perfectly straight line, passing through the triangle opening created by the girl’s hands and heading directly for her forehead.
The ice needle penetrated into her skull, pushing through skin and bone. It went in approximately one centiter deep, close enough to her brain to be imdiately fatal.
"Ding!"
But just before the needle could punch all the way through her skull and kill her instantly, a burly youth standing beside her on the truck moved with incredible reaction speed.
His hand blurred as he slapped the ice needle away with the flat of his palm, deflecting the projectile at the last possible mont. The needle flew off to the side and shattered against a concrete support pillar.
The girl gasped and stumbled backward, touching her forehead where a small trickle of blood was running down from the shallow puncture wound. She had co within a hair’s breadth of death.
The burly youth who had saved her life turned to stare directly at Vogue with a dark, threatening expression. He slowly drew his thumb across his own throat in the universal gesture for "you’re dead," then chuckled with a sound that had no humor in it whatsoever.
Vogue snorted dismissively at the threat and imdiately turned his attention to more pressing concerns.
The second player had reached his position and was launching an attack—a blast wave of dozens of ice blades created from his own ice manipulation talent. The blades flew through the air in a spread pattern, all aid at Vogue’s body from multiple angles to prevent dodging.
But Vogue completely ignored the incoming attack as a threat to himself.
Instead, he focused his will and ntally seized control of the ice blades while they were still in mid-flight. Since he also possessed ice manipulation abilities and his talent was likely higher grade than this player’s, he could override their control with his own.
The ice blades suddenly changed direction mid-flight, responding to Vogue’s ntal commands instead of their creator’s. They curved sharply and stabbed into the surrounding radiants instead, each blade piercing through a corrupted heart and killing the creatures instantly.
[Radiants Eliminated 47]
The player who had launched the ice blade attack stood frozen in shock, staring at his own technique being turned against different targets.
At that exact mont, a third player suddenly blurred with extre speed and appeared directly behind Vogue like a ghost materializing from thin air. The player had so kind of enhanced speed or teleportation ability.
"Bang!"
The speed-user’s blade ca down in a vicious overhead strike aid at the back of Vogue’s skull, intending to split his head open from behind.
But Vogue’s combat instincts and enhanced reflexes saved him. Without even looking backward, his hand moved automatically to intercept. He positioned his own machete horizontally across his back in a defensive guard.
The opponent’s blade collided with Vogue’s machete with a ringing tallic sound. Sparks flew from the impact point. The attacking player’s strike was completely stopped by the block.
Vogue imdiately twisted his body and delivered a devastating roundhouse kick powered by his dragon-enhanced leg strength.
"BANG!"
His foot connected solidly with the speed-user’s skull. The impact created a sickening crunch as the person’s head caved inward on one side, the skull fracturing and compressing from the trendous force.
The player was sent flying like a ragdoll thrown by a giant, tumbling through the air completely limp and unconscious. The body crashed through a display window and disappeared into a different section of the store.
[Human Killed: 9/100]
But in the very next millisecond after killing that player, Vogue found himself suddenly surrounded.
Five players had closed in from different directions while he was distracted, forming a tight circle around him with no gaps to escape through. More players were rapidly approaching from further back to reinforce the encirclent.
Vogue’s face changed slightly with genuine concern. This was a dangerous situation.
All five surrounding players attacked him simultaneously in perfect coordination. They had clearly planned this move—their strikes ca from different angles and heights, making it nearly impossible to block or dodge everything at once.
Moreover, every single attack was aid specifically at his head or designed to completely destroy his body through burning.
One player thrust a spear at his eyes. Another swung a hamr at his temple. A third launched a fireball at his face. The fourth tried to grab his head with hands wreathed in acid. The fifth created a pillar of fla beneath his feet to immolate him completely.
Vogue snorted with defiant anger and imdiately activated Shadow Step.
His body dissolved into darkness and shadow, becoming insubstantial for just a mont. He flashed away from the encirclent instantly, stepping through the shadow cast by a fallen ceiling beam and erging from a different shadow twenty ters away.
All five attacks hit nothing but empty air where he had been standing a fraction of a second earlier.
The mont Vogue re-materialized in his new position, he imdiately activated Ice Rain without any hesitation or warning.
The temperature dropped dramatically. The ceiling above the five players who had just attacked him beca covered in rapidly forming ice. Thousands of razor-sharp ice needles materialized in the air.
They fell like deadly rain.
"Ahhhhh!" The players scread as the ice needles stabbed into them from above, piercing through their bodies like they were being attacked by thousands of tiny spears simultaneously.
Four of the five players were turned into human pincushions, their bodies riddled with so many ice needles that they looked like they were covered in white quills. They collapsed to the ground, dead before they hit the floor.
Only one of the five managed to survive the deadly rain. This player activated so kind of protective treasure—a golden dallion around their neck that created a shimring barrier do just in ti.
The ice needles shattered harmlessly against the barrier, unable to penetrate the golden energy shield.
But that survivor’s relief was short-lived.
In the very next second, Vogue activated Dragon Might.
His muscles expanded visibly, veins bulging across his arms and neck as raw physical power flooded through his body. His strength tripled instantly.
Then he surged forward toward the mass of players still rushing at him from deeper in the store.
The remaining mbers of the hunting party all activated their various talents simultaneously as they charged to et him.
"Super Strength!" one bellowed, his muscles growing three tis their strength.
"Lightning body !" another shouted, electricity crackling around their body as they accelerated to a blur.
"Ultimate Defense!"
"Fire Manipulation!"
Various other abilities activated all at once—ice creation, wind blades, stone armor, energy shields, enhanced reflexes, weapon conjuration.
More than thirty players with awakened abilities surged toward Vogue like a wave.
But Vogue didn’t care about their numbers or their powers. He blasted straight through the incoming attacks with pure force.
His machete beca a blur of motion, slashing through defensive barriers, cutting through them like an unstoppable tank!
He killed multiple players with a single clash of weapons, his enhanced blade passing through three or four bodies in one continuous motion.
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