Lord Evolution: Starting With SS-rank Skills

Rowan spotted a face, for the figure wasn't wearing a mask—a face that made his eyes widen in surprise.

"Vishirk??" Rowan muttered to himself, deep surprise etched on his face.

He thought he had seen wrong. Whoever was standing atop such a powerful monster would definitely not be Vishirk. Doubt and disbelief warred within him. He wiped his eyes and checked once again.

The face didn't transform as he expected.@@novelbin@@

He even forced the system to check his character status:

[ Xandros, aka Vishirk ]

[ Occupation: Dark Mage ]

[ Special Skill: Dark magic ( C ) ]

[ Magic Cultivation: 4th Level, Tier-4 ]

[ Status: Pissed ]

After studying the stats, he could only ask himself a single question—"How?"

Coming up with an explanation for the current situation was tedious. He recalled the first day Dragun brought Vishirk home. Vishirk had been just a friendly school kid with a pitiful backstory back then.

In the beginning, Rowan had indeed suspected Vishirk, but his suspicions died down after a few days of keeping watch over him. There was nothing overtly suspicious about Vishirk—he was just an easy-going young mage with a strong passion for magic, a weak mage to be precise. Nothing about him compared to the magic powerhouse currently standing atop the Forest Eater.

From the look of it all, the Forest Eater seemed to be under Vishirk's control, which only proved just how strong he was.

At this moment, Rowan began to panic about his people, wondering if Vishirk had done anything to them or if he planned to. For a dark mage to hide his powers and mess with a group of weaker people could only mean he had some pretty sinister goals in mind.

"I have read and watched numerous works involving dark magic practitioners," Rowan mused. "In their search for dark powers, sacrificing thousands of innocent people is nothing but a stroll through the park for them." His mind wandered through grim possibilities.

"The death of the villagers; the dark creature we've been plotting against all this while... could it be the handiwork of this bastard?"

"Come to think of it, everything began after he settled down in Winterseed, familiarizing himself with everyone to remove all eyes of suspicion from him. He even portrayed the most sorrowful expressions during the funerals to act like he cared about the dead! How could all of this have gone unnoticed by me? I got fooled by a pretentious bastard!"

Rowan felt like beating himself up for messing up so badly.

His mind raced, considering every possible angle. "Could Dragun be in on this? He was the one who brought Vishirk to the village in the first place. Besides, both of them have traveled outside the village on long journeys together. That amount of time alone would be enough for them to plot properly to fool me."

Rowan's mind was a mess. His thoughts wandered across every possibility related to the current situation. He considered every scenario: how they might play out, and how he could survive these scenarios.

Nevertheless, at that moment, his primary concern was the safety of the soldiers with him.

"Even if we move down to another location to continue hunting, Vishirk would still be able to find us," he realized. "In fact, he could already tell the location of the soldiers right now, but he doesn't seem to be making any move towards killing them. If he really wanted to, all of us would have been long gone by now."

The fact that Vishirk used the Forest Eater to attack instead of attacking himself could only mean he was still trying to keep his identity a secret. Logically, there was no need to hide his identity if he truly wanted to kill them.

Rowan's mind kept wandering across countless scenes in his head as he peeped on the Forest Eater and Vishirk standing atop it. Suddenly, both figures turned into a dark mist and disappeared before his eyes.

He frowned as he watched the spot where they vanished.

"I guessed right, he has no intention of killing us in the beginning, at least not right now," he muttered to himself.

He waited for another thirty minutes in the same location before moving back to his soldiers. The tense silence was broken only by distant sounds of the forest.

When he returned, the soldiers were still weak due to the Forest Eater's scream. A few of the unevolved soldiers had already woken up from their unconscious state, while others remained passed out.

Rowan sighed and moved cautiously to the side of the captains. The dark hours of the night cloaked his approach, and his sudden appearance startled them—they had not noticed him coming.

"How did it go, Lord Rowan? Are we safe?" Winston was the first to ask the most important question.

Rowan answered them, reassuring them not to worry that the monster had disappeared. "Yes, it has disappeared," he confirmed.

"Disappeared?" They responded, clearly confused.

"Yes," he affirmed. "So do not worry about that for now. Let us instead rest and prepare for tomorrow's hunt. We will be moving deeper, so there will be stronger monsters."

Although they were still confused by the news, they agreed. Rowan knew he could not tell them about Vishirk's involvement—it would only lead to chaos. The soldiers would worry about their families and might refuse to hunt, complicating their mission even further.

For now, he needed them to rest and prepare for the next morning.

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Before finding a place to relax, Rowan accessed the divine beast plain to check on Blaze who was affected badly by the Forest Eater's scream.

Fortunately, Blaze had already healed up and was currently cultivating the mana in the divine beast plain to refill its mana reserve.

Rowan took a glimpse of Blaze stats and was pretty surprised with his progress as he hadn't gotten enough time to observe them in the past.

[ BLAZE ]

- Race: Ashfire Wolf

- Advanced Realm (Peak-stage - 25%)

- Unlocked skills: Fireball (Lv 4) Flame synchronisation (Lv 2) Fire disk (Lv 1)

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He tossed ten E-rank monster cores at Blaze before shutting the divine beast plain and finding a spot to relax his head and watch over his men.

Sadly, he wasn't there to watch over his people.