Published at 23rd of January 2026 7:08 am

Chapter 1009: Race Against Time 5.

This chapter is updated by JustRead.pl

Alec was still in the air when he saw what remained of the Hive Queen’s minions, aside from the mutated Arachne and the defensive Arachne types, the rest had ignited themselves all at once.

They triggered their self-destruct skills in unison, each explosion aimed at dragging the Tier 7 opponents of theirs down with them.

But even Alec knew better, that it would take far more than this to truly kill creatures of that realm, and from the start, the Hive Queen had never intended to wipe them out anyway.

Her goal had always been clear: disorient the enemies long enough for her and Alec to escape the Dark Forest.

“Master, we have to move now.”

Her voice echoed directly in Alec’s mind while he was still in Mid-air, the explosions were still ringing violently in the air.

Though Alec had already wrapped his ears in mana to dampen the shock, yet blood still trickled down from them, as the aftermath of so many Arachne detonating at once was not easily dissolved.

It was only then that Alec finally understood how the Hive Queen had been relaying his commands so quickly, without having to move or sending one of her children as messengers.

Voice transmission.

And not just ordinary use of it, she was frighteningly good at it, and from what Alec could tell, she might even surpass him in that aspect, so he swiftly took note of that realization right away, already planning to rely on her more in the future when he needed to use voice transmission.

But before he could dwell on it, his danger sense screamed, Mid-air, Alec twisted sharply and raised his left arm into a high guard without a second thought.

The next instant, blood sprayed across his face, as his eyes snapped wide as he saw the source of the attack.

The Shadow Wolf Alpha.

Its massive body was nowhere in sight, only a pair of its claws had emerged from a rippling shadow portal in the air, slashing toward him, but even that was enough for Alec to confirm what was going on.

The claws aside he could also feel the dangerous and dark cold aura of the shadow wolf aura gushing out of the small shadow portal the Alpha had created, but as much as Alec wanted revenge, he knew better.

This was not the moment to fight it out, to him now there were far more pressing matters demanding his full attention, so he used the momentum from the Alpha’s strike, as he twisted his body and let himself be flung farther toward the bridge.

As he flew backward, pain surged through him in sharp, tingling waves, his hand was broken, this he knew that much about, but yet the pain felt strangely muted.

If he had to guess, it was because he had activated the second seal of the Blood Changdao, which dulled his sensitivity to pain.

Blood trickled down his shattered arm, pooling around his wrist as his mana struggled to hold the bones together, if not for the bone hand guard that had been formed by his bone katana his situation would have been more worse, like having all of his hand blasted off as the Shadow wolf alpha didn’t want to break his hand but to kill him.

Just as he was about to slam into the ground, someone caught him mid-fall and kept moving without slowing down.

They burst out of the Dark Forest and onto the bridge.

From the broad back in front of him, Alec instantly knew who it was that had caught him—the mutated Arachne, it was carrying him to safety.

Boom!!!

Another deafening explosion erupted behind them, this one was different—far louder, far more violent than the previous blasts.

“The defensive Arachne...” Alec muttered, finally realizing the Hive Queen’s true plan.

She had never intended to fight fair, from the beginning, her focus had been on one thing alone—sacrifice.

She hadn’t hesitated at all to sacrifice her kids which she had painstakingly pushed to the peak of Tier 5 mage realm, all for this moment, they had used their self-destruction powers to carve out a path of escape into the main region for her and Alec.

When the final explosion faded, they crossed fully into the main region.

Alec had already regained enough strength to sit upright, realizing he was perched atop the enlarged lower body of the mutated Arachne.

“Master!”

The Hive Queen gasped, her voice sharp with excitement as she turned her gaze toward another direction, in the distance, a pillar of evolution light, laced with a metallic sheen—shot straight into the sky.

[> Legion has successfully evolved into the Tier 7 realm and has become your first Lord-rank Golem. Congratulations. <]

Immediately the message appeared, Alec’s eyes widened, he hadn’t expected it to happen so quickly, but when he thought about it, it made sense.

Immediately Oni had located the destinations needed for both Titan and Legion’s evolution he had ordered them almost instantly to fly Legion there without delay, and with Magnito supporting with the mental pressure of moving Legion’s body covered in the Evolution light it had ensured that stabilizing the evolution light around Legion was never an issue.

Fortunately for them, the unique special region didn’t always seem to have many demonic beasts guarding its entrance.

So they stayed close to the boundary, standing guard as the aura of evolution slowly drifted inward, seeping deeper into the unique mini world.

Soon, distant demonic beasts began to roar in excitement after they got a whiff of the evolution aura that was seeping in, their voices echoing as they started moving toward the disturbance.

Yet before most of them could even arrive, Legion had already absorbed enough mana to push through the bottleneck, which caused another whirlpool of energy to form around him, drawing in the region’s unique mana from all directions, as if the world itself were helping sculpt Legion’s new body.

While this was happening, Oni drew his weapons once more, while Magnito raised his hand, to conjure a fleet of floating longswords as his gaze locked onto the two demonic beasts that had arrived ahead of the rest.

“Legion, if you can hear me, you’d better hurry, we’re about to be turned into minced meat trying to protect you.” Oni muttered under heavy breathing.

Seven of his Oni shinigami summoning took the front line; he had already lost three during the earlier battle against the Tier 7 demonic beasts in the Dark Forest; now only three blue Oni remained, with the rest being red Oni.

On Magnito’s side, all ten liquid-type golems were still intact, their bodies forming into humanoid shapes as they prepared for combat.

Seeing this, Oni couldn’t help but curse under his breath. In the earlier fight, his unit had been far more active, responsible for more kills after Legion’s forces, yet now, his group had lost three members, while Magnito hadn’t lost a single summon.

The sheer survivability of those liquid golems made him grind his teeth in envy.

_ _ _

While all this was happening, Alec who was at the Central region now finally realized that no notifications had appeared concerning Titan.

Instantly, he knew something was wrong with the evolution, he was already preparing to move in that direction, using the soul light marked by Oni which was still visible, though it was faint but still traceable, but then his movement halted.

As Two wolves emerged from the bridge leading into the Dark Forest.

Behind them lay the mangled remains of their minions which they carried over with their mental powers levitating them in the air, only one of the Shadow Wolves looked largely unharmed and still alive, and it had blood staining its mouth which told Alec everything he needed to know, it was the only one that had escaped him earlier.

“You’re going to regret that, human,” the Shadow Wolf Alpha growled.

“You slaughtered my pack. The price will be endless torture, ending only with your slow death,” the Grimfang Alpha added coldly.

The mutated Arachne gently lowered Alec to the ground. Nearby, the Hive Queen stared at the two Alphas with a rare look of concern, these were enemies she hadn’t expected to follow them into the central region.

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