The Rebirth of Evelyn Knox

Evelyn couldn't help but do a double take as she heard the team's name, but Cecilia covered her lips with a palm before she could even think of forming a response.     

"W-We're in a hurry now, so let's go!"     

The pink haired girl sighed as she resisted the urge to roll her eyes. 'But although it's strange… it shouldn't matter, right? Besides, getting the name changed will just waste more time…'     

Of course, although she thought so in her mind, that didn't mean Cecilia didn't have to be chided for her prank.     

As soon as they were out of the ranger's guild, Evelyn immediately pulled her friend's ear. "What's with that name, huh?"     

Cecilia grinned, not minding the mild pain at all. "Ehehe… I kept thinking of something cool and domineering, and when I was doing so, my mind wandered to that huge centipede thing, you know?"     

"The 'Thousand Eyed God'?"     

"Yep, and when I thought about it, I also recalled what we talked about when I was first telling you about it, and this name just came to me, and I just… you know…"     

Evelyn couldn't help but roll her eyes. "Seriously…"     

Of course, even while she was pulling Cecilia's ear, they kept moving toward the city's gate, and before long, they were already walking through the valley protected by the two guardians.     

This was only the second time that the Gilmore sisters were looking at the huge 'statues', and their first experience had been quite terrifying, but the girls held themselves remarkably well when they passed them by, their fear being only vaguely noticeable.     

It gave Evelyn a little more confidence in her expedition.     

Of course, she had already checked all of their statuses and levels beforehand, just to make sure she was up to date with their current capability. Though the internal details and some skills would still remain unknown in most people's statuses, her high affection with them allowed Evelyn to easily get an accurate estimate of their strength.     

Currently, their team's lineup wasn't bad at all, as both Ruru and Cecilia were over level thirty, and Evelyn herself had the strength to take care of even level sixty beasts, though her actual level was only forty-six.     

The Gilmore sisters, on the other hand, were most desperately in need of experience points, as Vivian was only level eleven, even after obtaining the grade nine cultivation technique, while Amara was at level eighteen.     

Of course, having a grade nine cultivation technique meant that they also had superior skills, and their levels alone weren't enough to judge their real strength.     

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━      

As it had been with the expedition with the rangers, encountering their first beast after entering the forest didn't take long at all. Though this time, Evelyn was nowhere as relaxed.     

After her encounter with the blue-furred deer that had rushed to suicide against her attacks, and learning that they would usually avoid battles, Evelyn had realized that perhaps there was something about her that the beasts could sense, and it attracted them to attack her more fervently.     

Normally, such a thing would have been difficult to test out, especially since Ruru was unable to feel any animosity towards her anyhow, and was of no help in the matter.     

However, the stone rhino in the expedition had clearly not focused on her from the start, which was in stark contrast to the blue deer she killed when she went out with Aurora.     

Evelyn didn't think that the difference in the beast's strength or their species had anything to do with it, since the horned wolf had also displayed the same properties as the blue deer, and neither their strength nor nature had been the same.     

That only left her with one conclusion… between her fight with the blue deer and the day of the expedition, something had changed within herself, and that was precisely what had attracted these beasts to her.     

Thankfully, Evelyn hadn't met the deer before the day she consumed the chaos bead, because she would never have been able to point out which of her numerous changes — ranging from getting rid of that fragment of strange soul to simply acquiring a greater understanding of soul — caused the phenomenon.     

As it was… there had only been one change, and that was… her understanding of 'Chaos'.     

The day she had hunted the blue deer, Evelyn's 'Preliminary understanding of Chaos Essence' had been shown as 3% in the hidden system panel.     

She had always thought that she would be able to comprehend and acquire a new skill once it reached a hundred percent, and given how ridiculously useful 'Chaos Incarnate' already was, Evelyn had of course tried her best to use it to refuel her soul power using spirit power whenever she could.     

Her efforts paid off, and her 'Preliminary understanding of Chaos Essence' was already at… 4 percent.     

One percent of comprehension was obviously not what made the difference, but Evelyn knew through her frequent practice that she still had a little bit of aura of chaos around her before she managed to fully absorb it, which was basically just wasted energy from converting spirit power to soul value… and that was precisely what caused the strange behavior in the beasts, or so she assumed.     

The pink haired girl grinned as she watched the muscular ape stare in their direction with both caution and greed. "Get ready! I'm gonna try something, and it's gonna focus fully on me. Remember what I told you earlier, okay?"     

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━      

[Checking status…]     

[ Wrestler Red Ape : Level 27 ]     

Experience: 1,153 / 1,600     

Physique: Beastly     

—Physique: 113     

—Spirit Power: 65     

—Soul Value: 8     

—Vitality: 89     

-[ Abilities ]     

—[Lunge], [Jump], [Bite], [Refine]     

—[ Enhancement (Not Available)]      

Killing Experience: 400 EXP     

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━      

"Yes!"     

"Don't worry!"     

Hearing their affirmation, Evelyn immediately took out her compact iron bow, and shot an arrow straight towards the beast.     

Although it had already been alert and dodged, if Evelyn had really wanted to hit it, it wasn't fast enough. However, with its measly eight soul value, if her soul searing arrow even grazed it, the poor thing would just keel over, leaving her friends with no experience and barely improving her own strength.     

Of course, as far as the killing experience goes, it would only channel into whoever landed the hit that killed the beast.     

— [Soul Value: 1,666 → 1,665 / 1,666]     

Evelyn grinned as the beast roared in rage.     

[Chaos Incarnate Activated!]     

— [Spirit Power: 520 → 510 / 520]     

— Soul Value restored by 1 point!     

— [Soul Value: 1,665 → 1,666 / 1,666]     

The whole point of wasting a single point of soul value and then converting her soul power to restore it, was to use her ability to simulate the aura of chaos.     

Previously, the beast had been unable to decide whether or not the group was worth attacking, since while it could sense some weaklings, it could still feel a threat. But at this moment it seemed to completely lose its mind as it stared at Evelyn feverishly, and lunged!     

Evelyn had already instructed her friends to follow her commands in a way that allowed them to make the most out of any situation.     

In case they encountered an 'easy kill', as was the case now, they would leave the last hit to Vivian, as she needed experience the most, while the others would only defend themselves.     

"Go, fire hamster, attack!"     

Evelyn would of course never spout such nonsense at such a time, and she couldn't help but roll her eyes at Cecilia as she easily dodged the enraged ape's lunges. "Is this any time to be joking around?"     

The ash blonde stuck out her tongue. "As good as any. It will teach little Vivi not to get distracted!"     

Evelyn hated to admit it, but Cecilia wasn't completely wrong. Even if someone made jokes, or screamed, one shouldn't let themselves be distracted during a fight, or it might cost them their lives.     

Evelyn blinked. 'Wait a minute… that doesn't mean that our own teammates should be trying to distract us either! That's sabotage!'     

To Vivian's credit, though, the girl really didn't get distracted, and charged towards the ape while it paid her no attention at all.      

"To Ashes!"     

Of course, it cost the beast dearly, because as soon as the little girl managed to tap it, its whole body was lit on fire.     

An agonized roar burst out of its throat as it immediately ignored everything else to ram into a nearby tree, and then it started rolling on the ground. Of course, no matter what it did, the fire didn't go down at all.     

Evelyn wasn't even sure if the fire was limited to just the surface level, or if it burned from within, because each time the beast breathed or roared, a blaze of flames burst from its body.     

For a few, glorious moments, the [Wrestler Red Ape], whose only decent attribute was its physique, seemed to experience the mastery of fire element. Unfortunately, it soon turned to ashes, its momentary enlightenment going completely to waste.     

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━