Evolution Through Fear

"Golden Glow!" those two words amounted to nothing much, they were just words, it was what came after them that granted value to their existence, to their combination.

From this point onward, 'Golden Glow' would have a new meaning.

'Heh, I felt nothing!' Helsincer gloated to himself, his outrageous defenses had once again prevailed.

He prepared to let it be known that he was left unscathed as usual, but no words came out of his mouth.

'Huh?' something was wrong.

'He had felt nothing' that assumption was wrong.

He wasn't feeling anything at all.

It was like the world had stopped, like time no longer flowed, like there was no distinction between here and over there.

His vision was filled with a golden radiance.

'How did I not notice that?' he couldn't see anything further than a few centimeters from his body.

Feeling weightless, like he was going to start floating up, he looked down.

He hadn't moved at all and he could tell that time was indeed flowing.

Helsincer could see Superstes's blinding fist slowly drawing closer to his chest.

The tortoise monster felt the irrepressible need and obligation to back off, move away, avoid that strike.

That sensation was gone as soon as it came, soon replaced with a vision he had grown forgetful of.

He could feel the send all around him as he struggled to move, the sound of others in the same situation as him could be heard all around, sand shuffling, limbs weakly dragging over it.

Helsincer was the first to break free of the sand's constraints, greeted by the bright blue sky, when he saw small little tortoises also emerging from the sand all around him, he finally understood what he was seeing.

It was his birth, much like regular tortoises, his monster species buried their eggs in sand and left the young to survive by themselves.

It was natural for his species, however, after going through much evolutions, mingling with other monsters and bearing witness to the species like humans and elves, he now found this perfectly normal scene saddening.

He remembered his first fights, his siblings dying off one by one until he was the only one left of his batch, deathly afraid of succumbing like his brothers and sisters had, he developped stronger and stronger defenses, both naturally and with the help of the system, he feared death like every other.

He also came to see himself joining the Obsidian Queen's army, the decision had had no thoughts put behind it at that time, but he had already begun to envy the humans and such, deep within his heart, he had joined the monster queen because she appeared like a substitute for a parent.

A parent he simply couldn't have, it was in its species nature.

As he realised what his true feelings looked like, a realisation struck Helsincer.

Weightless, his strange calm, his sudden enlightenment about himself, his memories...

'My life is flashing before my eyes? Then-' 

True fear crushed his heart as he understood his demise was naught but certain.

As if the sun had fallen down, all of the monsters felt their eyes and skin heat up, some were blinded severely, Vismarck felt himself sizzle as though he was struck by actual sunlight.

The shadowy Bleight felt defenseless in a world without shadows, his expression turning frightful, as though a god of light had descended before him.

Stunned and hurt, they all missed what had become of Helsinger.

'Gone?' Vismarck was the first to bear witness to the scene, the bloodied and torn up heroine was standing alone, retracting her fist.

Helsincer had simply disappeared, vanished without a trace, his entire existence seemingly erased by the golden light.

"Huh, I don't know if I could do one this powerful again..." cackling like a drowning hyena, Superstes gathered everybody's attention back to her.

Every monster was on high alert, still shaken by the display.

Her gaze fell on the two defacto leaders of the horde.

As if possessed, Vismarck and Bleight moved with unreasonable speed, nearly twice as fast as their usual peak.

The shadowy monster's figure trembled as he got down on one knee and brought his hands in a prayer-like pose.

Vismarck almost thought his heart had began beating again from sheer terror, his eyes turned a deeper shade of red and the white of his eyes was overflowed with blood as he clapped his hands above his head.

Their reaction and movement speeds were incredible, this was made possible solely due to the intense dread they felt from Superstes.

Fear so pure and so vile that it instantly caused their instincts to take control of their bodies, awakening their latent potential all in the prospect of surviving.

"Blood Rage!"

"Shadow Realm Manifestation!"

The two of them activated a technique in under a second, Vismarck's caused all of the monsters minds to be flooded with bloodlust, their hearts began working overtime, their aggression peaked and their strength reached its full potential.

Bleight's called forth the Shadow Realm, chasing away darkness and replacing it with shadows, the shadows of all the creatures he had slayed in his long life emerged at the same time.

Both techniques were known to their users, but never could they have even imagined being able to unleash them with such precision and power.

No monsters were missed by 'Blood Rage' and no shadows were forgotten by 'Shadow Realm Manifestation'.

Even if only for a moment, even if only for a single move, they had shown prowesses rivaling that of the ministers.

The tide of enraged monsters and shadows converged on Superstes, threatening to crush her.

She too had just reached a new level, the golden energy flowed throughout her body like never before, saturating each of her cells to the maximum, her energy had grown brighter.

Like a devil summoned amidst rabbits, she moved and blew apart anything that came toward her.

Using their mindless state to weave through them, each of her movements resulted in at least two of them to be destroyed.

She didn't use Golden Glow again, her pure physical strength enough to deal with them.

In the chaos, hits still struck her, breaking bones, tearing flesh and muscles, she didn't pay attention to it, focused on slaughtering as many monsters as possible.