Another Metamorphosis, the Grand Archbishop

Lu Yuan used spatial movement to bring Li Qinghe and the other two back to the rental apartment.

They had been fighting for hours on end, and all three women were exhausted. Each returned to her own room to rest.

Once back in his room, Lu Yuan's body vanished from where he stood.

In the Dark Night Forest, the green flames carrying that sinister aura had now been reduced to only a few scattered remnants.

The forest itself had been devastated. Some areas were scorched black by the flames, the earth beneath them pitted with corrosive marks. Others bore the wreckage left by rampaging Aberration Feral Beasts. Still others were scarred by the shockwaves that had lashed outward during the battle between the Heavenly Calamity Cult Apostles and Lu Yuan's group.

Lu Yuan drifted in the air and surveyed the scene — wreckage as far as the eye could see, ash and smoke blanketing everything in every direction.

This was the area where the three Apostles had died. Barely moments after he appeared, dense unknown auras began flooding into his body.

The Evolution Cube trembled. Deep-blue light pulsed and flickered.

A familiar sensation surged through him — sublimation, evolution.

*The Evolution Cube is undergoing another metamorphosis.*

The deep-blue light lingered for a long while. When it finally subsided, tiny brilliant stellar radiances began swirling inside the Evolution Cube — dazzling and, compared to before, seemingly suffused with infinite mystery.

Lu Yuan turned his consciousness inward. The moment his will stirred, he felt as though he'd been cast into the cosmos itself. His perspective expanded until he was looking down upon the entire universe, watching star rivers born, galaxies consumed.

The rise and fall of an entire cosmos.

The sensation lasted barely an instant before he snapped back to himself.

A faint glimmer of dazed wonder still lingered in his eyes. He didn't quite understand what he'd just witnessed.

*What connection does the Evolution Cube have to the universe?*

He studied the Cube again, but the vision had already gone.

Lu Yuan withdrew his gaze and let out a slow breath.

He reviewed the new capabilities the Evolution Cube had gained from the metamorphosis.

Transcendent Gene evolution — unchanged. The evolution cap for items bonded to the Gene Chain — also unchanged, still fixed at Divine Grade from the previous metamorphosis. That ceiling had not been broken.

He was a little disappointed, but not particularly surprised.

*Maybe Divine Grade really is the absolute ceiling? Or maybe breaking through it requires some other condition entirely?*

He suddenly recalled those marked locations on the Land of Origin he'd seen when connecting to the Prodigy Rankings. *Perhaps the answers lie there.*

The most significant change from this metamorphosis was to the evolution cap for external items.

That cap had now been raised to Saint Grade.

At this rate, one more metamorphosis and Lu Yuan would be able to push the external item cap to Divine Grade as well.

Setting the future aside — even now, it meant he could evolve Saint-grade artifacts. If he put those up for auction, the Spirit Crystal yield would be far from trivial.

He exhaled quietly. His body vanished once more.

He reappeared at the site of the former Spatial Rift. The rift itself was long gone, the sky restored to stillness.

Lu Yuan looked up toward where it had been. A few thin wisps of unknown aura seeped into him.

Very faint — far less than what the three Apostles had left behind.

He raised an eyebrow. *These must be the remnants from those Battle Emperor-rank Heavenly Calamity Cult members.*

So the Spatial Rift itself carried no unknown aura, then.

Mildly disappointing, but he'd already suspected as much, so it didn't trouble him.

After absorbing the faint traces the Battle Emperors had left behind, he swept a look around, confirmed there were no remaining Cult members in the vicinity, then stepped forward and disappeared.

He reappeared in his room, stretched with a lazy yawn, took a shower, and lay down to rest.

In the real world.

On a planet ablaze with green flames — sinister light radiating from every surface, utterly desolate — a vast palace sat atop a towering mountain peak.

Green patterns flowed across the palace walls, carrying an unfathomable significance. An ordinary person who so much as glanced at them would likely lose their mind.

At the palace's center, within a grand hall flanked by four stone pillars, dark-green torches burning along the walls...

A handsome elf man in a long green robe sat cross-legged upon a high-backed throne, wisps of green mist curling from his body.

At that moment, the tall iron doors across from the throne swung open. A woman stepped inside — green-robed, blood-red runes embroidered at her cuffs, strikingly beautiful, with a pair of small blood-red horns growing from her forehead.

As she entered, the elf man opened his eyes. The dark-green torches blazed instantly into towering columns of fire, flooding the previously dim hall with light.

The woman knelt on one knee and spoke:

"Grand Archbishop, the rift leading into the Land of Origin has been sealed."

A flash of green passed through the elf man's eyes. He studied her from his throne in silence.

Cold sweat beaded on her forehead. She kept her head lowered and said nothing.

After a long stretch of quiet, his measured, unhurried voice broke through:

"Do we know why?"

"We can't determine the cause. It was closed from the inside."

"And Bridge's group of three?"

The woman's head sank lower. "...They didn't come back out. But beforehand, we confirmed the rift did lead to the Land of Origin. The failure in the subsequent stages was likely their own error."

The elf man listened and nodded slowly.

"If that's the case, then the objective was achieved."

"Yes, Grand Archbishop."

A faint smile crossed the woman's face.

He gave a slight nod. "Then proceed to the next step."

"Yes, sir!"

He made a brief dismissive gesture. She rose, bowed as she stepped back, and pulled the great doors closed behind her.

Out in the corridor, she let out a quiet breath and turned to leave.

She returned to her own office.

A knock came at the door almost immediately. She looked up, her voice cool:

"Come in."

The door opened to reveal a short, dark-skinned man in a green robe with white patterns embroidered at his cuffs.

"My Lord."

"What is it?"

She asked without particular interest.

"We've received a report from one of our informants. One of our nails has been pulled — the one responsible appears to be a very powerful Saint."

"Oh? Which region?"

"White Cloud Star Domain. Great Qi Star."

He conjured a glowing green orb in his hand.

Images materialized above it — a dark expanse, and within it, a gaunt Green Dog locked in battle with a handsome young man. Shadow Clones swarmed the field, Combat Techniques surging through the chaos. The footage was hazy, flickering and cutting in and out — and before long it faded entirely in a blaze of stellar radiance.

The beautiful woman watched the images disappear. She fell silent for a moment, eyes narrowing.

"The Gaston Demon Dog — Saint-grade, at that — is *dead*? How interesting." Her gaze sharpened. "On Great Qi Star, of all places. What kind of planet is that, to produce a powerhouse like this? What about our people there?"

"My Lord, that's precisely what makes this so puzzling. Great Qi Star is a mid-tier power within the White Cloud Star Domain. It has a fair number of Battle Emperors, but has never produced a Battle Saint. Our operative there was a Third-Class Disciple named Yul — early-stage Battle Emperor. He traveled to Great Qi Star with an Aberration Beast egg, with the objective of corrupting the planet... After receiving this report, I attempted to reach Yul and received no response. He's almost certainly dead. As for the identity of the Saint who killed Gaston, we have no intelligence whatsoever — they match none of the Human Race Battle Saints in our records."

The woman settled back into her ornately carved sofa and let her eyes go half-lidded in thought.

After a moment, she spoke:

"In that case, send someone to Great Qi Star to investigate. Find out who this Saint is — we'll decide our next move from there." A pause. "Let Du Bei handle it."

"Du Bei... My Lord, understood."

The man nodded.

"You're dismissed."

She waved him off. He departed promptly and closed the door.

Upper Layer, Land of Origin. Dark Night City.

Lu Yuan opened his eyes and, out of habit, glanced toward the window.

Outside, the sky was a deep and sunless gray. Faint spatial rifts flickered across it here and there, sealing themselves almost as quickly as they appeared.

He blinked in brief confusion before it came back to him — *right. I'm in the Upper Layer of the Land of Origin now.*

He swept his awareness over his Gene Battle Marks and felt those 1.22 million Merits sitting there waiting. A quiet smile came to his face.

He got up to wash and change, then left his room.

In the common area, Li Qinghe was perched on the sofa, head bent over something in her lap.

Lu Yuan walked over to look — and the corner of his mouth twitched. She was playing a mobile game.

There was no signal inside the Land of Origin, so phone calls were out, but a bit of gaming still worked perfectly fine.

She was thoroughly absorbed, and only noticed him when he drew close. She glanced up with a bright grin:

"Little Yuan, come sit next to me."

He sat down beside her. Li Qinghe immediately draped both legs across his lap and shifted into a comfortable sprawl.

Lu Yuan was at a loss for words.

Just then, a door clicked open — Si Tingyu stepped out. She spotted Lu Yuan, gave him a faint smile and a nod, and came over. Only then did she notice Li Qinghe making herself thoroughly at home.

She looked at her for a moment, then said with a smile:

"A Yuan, you really do spoil her too much."

Li Qinghe didn't look up from her phone, just smirked:

"Big Fierce Rain, don't you want to try it yourself? Go ahead — I genuinely don't mind. Little Yuan's lap is very comfortable."

Lu Yuan blinked and looked over at Si Tingyu.

A faint flush touched her cheeks. She smoothed her expression and sat down on the sofa across from them with perfect composure.

"I'm not that childish."

"Pfft~"

Li Qinghe quietly shifted her small feet toward a certain part of Lu Yuan's anatomy.

He stiffened and grabbed her foot immediately.

Si Tingyu caught a glimpse from the corner of her eye and deliberately redirected her gaze, pretending she'd seen nothing.

She turned to Lu Yuan:

"A Yuan, now that you have over a million Merits, what are your plans going forward? Keep accumulating, or shift to cultivation for a while?"

Li Qinghe glanced at him at that as well, then returned to her phone, her feet fidgeting restlessly.

Lu Yuan's hand moved across her leg and began sliding slowly upward — and she went completely still.

He thought for a moment, then asked:

"What about you and the others, Instructor?"

Si Tingyu considered. "This time we came out with around fifty thousand Merits — more than usual by quite a margin. We're planning to spend some time on cultivation."

Those fifty thousand included the ten thousand the three of them had received through the minimum-guarantee distribution from Lu Yuan's Spatial Rift work, plus another forty thousand from the Feral Beasts Lu Yuan had been steadily routing their way, letting them score easy kills.

Compared to Lu Yuan's haul it looked like almost nothing — but for Battle Sovereigns, fifty thousand Merits was genuinely substantial. Under normal circumstances, killing a single Emperor-grade Aberration Feral Beast only yielded somewhere between a few dozen and a hundred Merits. That amounted to over five hundred such kills.

"What about you, Sister Qinghe?"

He looked at Li Qinghe.

"We three are a package deal — whatever Big Fierce Rain says goes for me too." She scrunched her nose and held out her phone. "Here, Little Yuan, take over for me."

He accepted it with a helpless expression, then said:

"In that case, I'll spend some time on cultivation as well."

Li Qinghe looked at him with a trace of envy. "With that many Merits to absorb, your strength is going to jump dramatically again."

"Can't help it. Talent is talent."

He smiled.

The door opened again at that moment, and Shuangyue stepped out, smiling as she said:

"A Yuan's talent really is the best I've ever seen. It won't be long before he's a Battle Emperor — maybe even a Battle Saint."

Si Tingyu added:

"Mm... once we've used up our Merits, we won't be joining you for Feral Beast hunts anymore. With the gap in our strength, we'd only slow you down."

Li Qinghe and Shuangyue both nodded.

"Exactly — I was hoping I'd get to carry you along at some point," Li Qinghe said, a note of complaint in her voice. "Turns out it went the other way entirely."

Lu Yuan laughed. "Don't make any decisions yet — wait until you've actually used up your Merits first. No need to rush."

He was already quietly turning over the idea: if he had enough Spirit Crystals to spare, he'd evolve some better Gene Armaments and one-use Talismans for them — more insurance. Even without him around, they'd be safe.

The three women thought it over and agreed there was no great hurry. They nodded and let the subject drop.

"So are we heading back to Sky-Mending City now? I want to exchange these Merits as soon as possible."

Li Qinghe's voice carried a note of eager anticipation.

Lu Yuan was about to reply when a knock came at the door.

All four of them paused and looked toward it.

Shuangyue went to answer. Standing in the doorway was a beautiful Nightshade woman — powerful aura, unmistakably a Battle Emperor.

Shuangyue tilted her head in mild puzzlement. "Hello — and you are...?"

The Nightshade Battle Emperor smiled pleasantly. "Hello. I was sent by Lady Gladys to find Mr. Lu Yuan."