Born in apocalypse

The moment he sent the old man to send mana to the Mark, his back began to glow with a slight green glow. As the mark began to glow, a surge of energy and strength flowed through the old man’s body.

Some of his hair transformed Vines and began to grow from his back. Quickly they began to slither around both of his hands covering it completely. Horns began to grow from his head in the shape of deer antlers. The color of his pupils and hair changed to green.

Even the color of his screen had changed to green, not after this change a small layer of Bark began to grow all over his body. Instead of feet, the bottom of his leg transformed into that of deer-like hooves.

The clothes around his body began to be destroyed as the height of the old man increased by a few centimeters. It is his luck that his entire body is now covered in bark; in turn, he doesn’t need any clothes.

The spider wasn’t stupid enough to wait for the old man’s transformation to finish, but before it could attack him, the change had already been completed.

Even though it seemed like the transformation had happened over a long period, in truth, the whole thing finished within about five seconds.

The old man didn’t feel any pain either; on the contrary, he was feeling great... he was feeling as if this was how he should have always been. In his primal form.

’So, this is the so-called monster form that everyone will get after becoming a monster... it looked as monstrous as I had imagined, to be honest, it looks quite reassuring...’ Kamal thought as he looked at the old man in his monster form for the first time.

What Kamal was trying to convey was that, instead of becoming like a monster, he becomes more like a guardian... guardian of the jungle.

Now, after the transformation, the old man had changed, but the change wasn’t as significant as they had expected... this was the case for the appearance at least.

Pucccchhh!

The spider threw her iconic acidic spit towards the old man. Instead of wasting his mana, he simply dodged the attack by sidestepping. Delighted by the power that his transformation had brought, a smile appeared on his face.

Even though this was his first time transforming, the old man just instinctively knew how to control this new body of his. This wasn’t the case because the old man was a genius or anything like that.

This was the case because the Mark Of Asteri would literally rewrite the DNA data during the evolution, making anyone perform this feat without any problem. This was also one of the reasons why for the Mark to fully take effect, one had to go through evolution.

’Ahhh! So much better control over my body... noo.. The control over mana is even more significant than that...’ Thinking about this, the old man controlled his mana.

Instead of controlling the direction of the spell with his hand like he always does the old man sent it toward his antlers-like horns.

The old man didn’t know why, but after transforming into a monster, he knew that he could only use his magic efficiently by channeling it through his antlers. The moment the wood magic reached his horn, it emitted a faint green glow.

Within just a few seconds after sending the mana into his horn, a wave of twigs began to grow from the ground and began to move toward the monster. Its purpose is to entangle the monster in it... simple yet difficult at the same time.

With great agility, the monster dodges all the twigs it can and the ones it can’t dodge, it burns through the rigid wood with the help of an acidic ball of death.

During the fight with the group, the monster hasn’t been using its full strength, because now, to counter the old man’s attacks, it was able to create multiple acidic balls at the same time, a move it hadn’t done against the group.

’This is fantastic; the rate at which I cast even these advanced spells is impressive....’ The old man has been focusing on using only advanced spells. He knew that the basic attacks would have no effect on the monster unless he really enhanced them.

Connecting the last drop of mana to the blueprint, old man fires a spell resembling an enhanced wooden spear at the monster.

This time the speed of the spear was too much for even the agile spider to handle. With a loud boom, the wooden spear penetrated the hard exoskeleton of the monster and went 10 centimeters inside of it.

Although it looked like a wooden spear, it was far from that; the moment the spear went through the monster’s defense, a rare smirk appeared on old man’s face.

’Blossom Burst.’ Whispering this, old man sends a signal to the wooden spear.

Booom!

With a slight boom, the tip of the spear burst into tens of tiny seed fragments. Those fragments quickly traveled into multiple parts of the spider’s body through the bloodstream.

After traveling into the bloodstream of the monster, those tiny pieces became full-grown flowers and began to stop the blood flow of the monster.

Scrrrrrreeeeeeech!!

For the first time, the spider cried in pain as it tried to get those numerous flowers out of its system. For a while, it only wanders around panickingly. Knowing that if it didn’t do anything the only result it wait her is death.

Knowing this it initiated a crazy thing.

Sending the mana into the bloodstream increases the acidity of its blood. In just mere seconds of doing that, all the flowers within its body melted into black tar and got out of its body the same way they had entered.

Although the monster had removed the flowers from its body, it seemed to forget that its enemy hadn’t been dealt with yet. Panicking, it turned around and stared at the old man.

The old man wasn’t naive like Elera, who would shudder at the sight of a monster. With the same grinning smirk, he adjusted his head, his antlers now facing the monster.

"Nature’s Judgment..."

Letting the whisper out of his mouth, the last step of his spell was completed. An enormous amount of mana that had been gathered in his antlers began to concentrate at an incredible rate.

In just a second, his head was glowing with a green light. Tilting his head ever so slightly, the old man targeted the spider and fired the beam of judgment.

Woooosshhh!

The beam fired out of the old man’s horns and traveled toward the spider at an incredible speed... speed of light to be accurate.

In just a fraction of a second, the ray of light hit the monster straight into its abdomen. The light scattered as it covered the monster’s entire body, making its fate unobservable.

’Shit, I’m out of mana...’ Before even looking at how the monster is doing, the old man knows that he is out of mana after using this powerful spell.

The light is subdued as the spider’s body emerges from the smoke.

’So, it didn’t die completely...’ the old man thought as he observed the monster. Looking at its state, he knew that it wouldn’t live more than a few minutes.

Knowing this, the old man didn’t think it was worth it to poke the spider when he was entirely out of mana. Although this was a result of his logical thinking exclusive ability, there was another part that was agreeing with this decision.

’How could I let it just die when the thing did the unthinkable to one of my comrades.’ thinking this, the old man continued to observe the monster as it was on its last leg.

The entire backside of the monster had been obliterated into pieces; still, the monster was alive... barely at least. With its last bit of life, the monster casts lots of webs around the wound to at least slow down the rate of blood loss.

It wasn’t a human who would think that it would be less painful to die than suffer... it was a monster that only thinks about how to survive.

Before the monster could even walk ten steps into the shadows, a voice rang in the surroundings.

"..., Thank goddess you are here; is everyone safe? Where is the monster?" The old man heard the voice of someone familiar.

"No, Olivia’s hand has been burned entirely by the acid of the spider," the old man replied as he saw that the leader of this expedition had arrived. The moment he said this, he could see that his expression quickly changed for the worse.

"Is the monster dead..."

"No.."

"What then? Why are you standing there... Ohhh, goddess, this is very bad... very bad.." Thala exclaimed as he looked at Olivia’s state.

’Shit, how can I overlook this? She is dying, and I’m watching a monster suffer.’ The old man quickly realizes his mistake. Facing Thala, he quickly opened his mouth,

"I’m out of mana, kill it."

Nodding his head, Thala charged an enhanced wooden spear and fired it directly at the monster’s head.

[You have killed a unique monster, .... ]