Chapter 27: Source Energy Radiation

What was happening? Charles suddenly felt a bone-chilling cold, every hair on his body standing on end. A sharp, whistling sound pierced the air as a deadly arrow tore through the carriage.

"Mew!"

In that hair’s-breadth moment, Firefly leapt instantly, her body flashing as a white blur. She planted a paw on the incoming shadow, deflecting its trajectory away from Charles’s chest so that it merely grazed his arm.

Crunch!

Charles heard a tooth-grinding collision. The guardian aura shimmering over his skin shook violently but remained intact, shielding him from any harm.

“Damn it, who’s ambushing me!” Charles roared in fury. He hadn’t expected such deadly danger on a mere journey to Storm Harbor. He immediately ordered, “Get down! Staying on the carriage is courting death!”

The arrows had come from the north. Charles rolled off to the southern side of the carriage and quickly spotted the assailants: several figures clad in black, faces masked.

Swish, swish!

Arrows flew at him, but Charles, too, began to draw his bow. His masterful archery allowed him to instantly judge their movements and positions.

A scene that struck terror in his attackers unfolded: his arrow shot cleanly through a gap barely the width of a palm between tree trunks, striking a masked figure dead-on and pinning him through.

“There’s a master archer!”

Charles caught snatches of their fearful conversation as the group scattered, ducking behind trees. After he took down a second archer, he found himself unable to hit any others.

His gaze then shifted nearby, where a massive gray forest wolf, as large as a young calf, was locked in a desperate struggle with four knights. The beast rampaged, making it difficult for the knights to subdue.

What shocked Charles was the palpable surge of primal energy radiating from the wolf.

“This aura—this is definitely the radiation from the Gate of Origin!” Charles’s heart trembled.

Primal energy, the force contained within primal crystals, was the source from which all Spirit Masters drew their power—the very foundation of spiritual arts and totem evolution.

Within the entire Spirit Master system, nothing could be accomplished without primal energy; it was the root of their power. Its absence would leave countless Spirit Masters helpless.

But now, an ordinary, non-totem creature possessed primal energy—a completely unnatural phenomenon!

Swish!

Charles quickly drew his bow and fired, the arrow burying itself deep in the wolf’s back, leaving only the fletching visible.

“Thankfully, this monster hasn’t been fully empowered, merely touched by a trace of radiation.” Charles exhaled, realizing the beast was not as terrifying as he’d feared.

In the future he’d foreseen, the opening of the Gate of Origin spread like nuclear fallout, causing countless creatures to undergo fundamental transformations—rapid evolutions, and eventually even the emergence of wild divine beasts.

Humanity suffered mass slaughter; endless hordes of mutated monsters swept the world like a nightmare, razing cities to the ground.

Howl!

The giant wolf let out a pained cry, swatting aside a knight who tried to seize the moment to attack. Without hesitation, it turned and charged at Charles, intent on killing the human who had wounded it.

Swish!

Unfazed, Charles calmly stood his ground, drawing his bow. This time, the wolf easily dodged his shot.

Before he could fire again, the beast was less than twenty meters away—less than a second from reaching him.

“Firefly!” Charles called in a low voice.

A white figure suddenly appeared on his shoulder, sapphire eyes glinting with a mysterious violet light as her innate power activated—Fox’s Charm!

The wolf was instantly seized by invisible psychic waves; its ferocious eyes went blank, pupils dilating. Though it broke free in less than half a second, it was already too late.

A sharp steel arrowhead spun into its eye socket, dealing a fatal blow. The beast collapsed, sliding several meters until it came to rest at Charles’s feet.

He drew the sword at his waist and, with ruthless precision, stabbed it through the eye, ending its struggles abruptly.

A pale stream of energy drifted from the corpse, merging into his brow. A translucent interface appeared, and the evolution point number ticked from 1.5 to 2.5!

“Amazing! So mutated creatures exposed to primal energy yield so many evolution points!” Charles’s heart surged with elation.

Evolution points, as the name implied, were the mysterious force enabling creatures to evolve. Previously, when he slew the bloodsucking vine guarding the Bruce Laboratory, he’d gained only 0.5 points.

Now he received a full point, even though the wolf was weaker than the plant totem. What made the difference—was it future evolutionary potential?

“Totem!”

The black-clad figures who had intended to rush him now cried out in terror; one turned and fled without hesitation.

The rest quickly followed, vanishing in the blink of an eye!

“So these commoners know about totems. Tsk, tsk—this basically tells me their mastermind is a Spirit Master.” Charles watched them depart, recalling the old adage: never pursue cornered foes. He had no intention of risking his life in pursuit.

Clip-clop, clip-clop!

Hooves thundered as a squadron of black-armored knights raced in from the east, halting swiftly when they spotted him.

The leader glanced at the insignia on the carriage, then lifted his iron mask to reveal only his eyes, asking in a deep voice, “Are you Young Master Charles of the Maesterlyn family?”

“I am,” Charles nodded, then pointed at the two fallen knights, demanding sharply, “I need an explanation. We were ambushed on the road—one dead, two badly wounded!”

The knight dismounted, removed his helmet, and replied with calm dignity, “Apologies, Young Master Charles. We are also hunting this group of marauding bandits.”

He glanced at the corpse of the giant wolf, eyes flashing with surprise. “I didn’t expect you could slay such a beast. Truly worthy of Baron Buyano’s son!”

“Are there many such attacks?” Charles asked.

“Far too many. Five in the past ten days—dozens dead!” The knight’s face was weary as he rubbed his temple. “We’re constantly on patrol, but have no idea how these people managed to train such fearsome beasts. Even elite soldiers are slain by them!”

“These terrifying mutated beasts appeared so suddenly—no one ever saw them before, as if they sprang from nowhere…”

Charles sighed inwardly. Clearly, the Gate of Origin had already been partially opened, and the leaked primal energy was causing countless bred creatures to mutate and evolve.

They were being dispatched to assist ordinary fighters, sowing chaos and slaughter across the land.

Time was running short. He had to acquire a rune factory as soon as possible.

Only then could he mass-produce auxiliary totems as cannon fodder, harvest evolution points by killing mutated monsters, and help Firefly evolve swiftly, gaining strength in a snowballing surge.