Master Green would have been able to block a casual strike from even a rank 16 beast. Unfortunately for him, the blow delivered by the dark behemoth was far from casual. After using its trump card, the beast was enraged, and its anger was directed at him. It attacked with one of its 10,000 arms but with a tremendous amount of power behind it.
...
The dark behemoth looked down and glanced at the human cultivators who had managed to survive and were desperately trying to hide as far away from it as possible.
"I have a few minutes before the backlash hits!" the dark beast thought in horror. The consequences of using 'Shining Darkness' were too severe.
"I have to kill them all!" it decided. Though not particularly intelligent, the dark behemoth was still capable of planning. It knew that when the backlash hit, its power would drop to rank 14 at best or rank 11 at worst. At that time, even martial artists of the Martial God Realm would be able to harm it. It must kill all of them now while it still has the battle strength of a rank 16 beast.
Most of the human cultivators were hiding hundreds of kilometers away—some deep underground, others high in the sky—but they were all within a 500-kilometer radius. If the dark behemoth were still rank 15, killing them all within a few minutes would have been difficult. But now, as a rank 16 beast, it could destroy every inch of this area in less than a minute.
"Dark World!" The dark behemoth cast the rank 16 version of the Dark World spell. Endless dark clouds spewed from its body and spread outward, dissolving everything they touched and converting it into more dark clouds. Within three seconds, a radius of 100 kilometers was completely dissolved—humans, animals, air, soil, and even other dark beasts. Everything turned into endless dark clouds.
In less than 30 seconds, the entire 500 kilometers was reduced to cast dark clouds. The dark behemoth willed it, and all the clouds returned to it. It felt its strength increase by at least 0.3% after consuming so much dark energy. Unfortunately, no matter how much it absorbed, the backlash of 'Shining Light' was absolute. It could not be avoided or delayed by any means known to it.
"Queen, I destroyed everything; please, grant me a gift!" it begged again. The only one capable of helping it now is the queen.
"Hmm? I've not seen anyone as shameless as you in a long time!" the queen said. "If I were in a bad mood, I might have killed you. But today, I'm happy. Here is your gift!"
...
The dark behemoth felt something strange and looked around. Nothing had changed. Then, it looked down, and his eyes widened.
"What? What's going on?" he stared at his legs—humanoid legs, delicate, with five fingers on each foot. Despite their small size, they brimmed with strength. They felt countless times stronger than his legs when he was using his rank 15 form.
He then looked at his hands. These two arms were small but were far more capable than the thousands he had in his rank 15 form.
"Here you go! I granted you a human physique at the early stage of the Perfection Realm. From now on, you shall be called Master Black. Fill the void left behind by Green," the queen ordered, then vanished. Her projection in the north disappeared, and the outer world reconnected with the subspace where Master Black stood.
"Master Black? A human?" Master Black stared at his two hands, carefully moving his fingers in astonishment. Having a humanoid body felt strange. Everything was bigger, and though he felt a sense of loss deep inside, he was extremely excited.
In this world, being human was far better than being a beast. Humanoids dominated most places, and the queen herself was humanoid. Beasts were often used as target practice by powerful individuals.
As a dark beast, he had nearly been killed many times by humanoids. Reaching this point was unimaginable luck.
"I am human!" Master Black closed his eyes and smiled.
There are three main advantages to being a beast: long longevity, a strong body, and advancement in the realm according to age. However, very few beasts live even 1% of their theoretical lifespan. Humanoids never give them the opportunity to grow strong. Even the most powerful beasts are often captured as mounts or slaves. The disadvantages far outweigh the advantages.
"From today, I am Master Black!" he accepted his new identity and gazed at the vast southern continent with fresh attention to detail.
...
Usually, there are five mild disasters, but this time, the queen lost control and boosted the dark disaster to a level that wiped out over 99% of the most powerful beings during the second disaster.
As a result, this round of disaster trials was canceled altogether. She ordered Master Black to rebuild the southern continent for the next few thousand years to prepare for the next round. She also temporarily boosted birth rates by 10,000 times to accelerate population recovery.
Not everyone died in the battle for the wide forest city. Mike, for example, had been sent away long before the dark behemoth arrived. He remained safe and sound, without a single scratch.
However, he was shocked to see the vast void where the forest city used to be. The Wide Forest City had once been enormous, with people living even in areas beyond 500 kilometers away. Most of those outer areas were abandoned or relocated, and very few remained. Those left behind were being hunted by small dark beasts that spawned naturally due to the dark disaster.
Fortunately, the dark disaster ended prematurely. Those who managed to survive no longer had to worry about dark beasts or any other creatures. The queen wanted them to recover quickly, so she removed all zombies and confined the remaining beasts to areas far from inhabited regions.
...
Sylvan is pregnant. Upon discovering her situation a few months ago, she cursed the heavens for weeks. This was not the time to be pregnant—their survival was uncertain, let alone bringing a child into the world.
In Wood Elf culture, abortion is unacceptable. Birth rates are already low. A couple may try for a hundred years and still fail to conceive. Those lucky enough to get pregnant are expected to carry the child. Without this, the entire species could disappear in a few generations.
Under normal circumstances, the tribe would celebrate every pregnancy with great fanfare and provide plenty of support to the couple. But those days were long gone. Sylvan is now tribeless, one of the survivors rescued by an expedition team. She lived in an outer city among other species, such as goblins, who had their own issues. She had no one to support her besides her husband, who was working in a gold mine as a laborer.
Before the disaster, she and her husband, Faron, had lived peacefully in their tribe. They tried for years but failed to have a child. Now, the gods played a cruel joke by making her pregnant in such a precarious situation.
But it wasn't just her. The goblins, lizardmen, green men, and even two other wood elf couples nearby all got pregnant. It was unbelievably unusual for so many to become pregnant at the same time.
...
Months passed, and it was time.
Dr. Venlaren hurried into the room.
"Alright, time is tight. Push!" He was sweating heavily and seemed in a hurry. It didn't look sanitized at all.
Sylvan understood, though. These days, everyone seemed to be pregnant, so it was natural that the doctor couldn't spend too much time on each delivery.
She pushed, and before she knew it, her first baby was born. It was much less difficult than she imagined, and she felt no pain at all.
The doctor quickly set the baby aside and said impatiently, "Push!"
Sylvan glanced at him in confusion before realizing the truth—she had twins!
With another push, a second baby was born. The doctor handed it to a nurse before urging her again, "Push!"
"Again? Do I have triplets?" she asked.
"It's probably undecuplets," the doctor responded.
Sylvan froze. That didn't sound good. Could it be some kind of disease?
"What is undecuplets? Is it bad?" she asked in fear. She had always worried about complications during labor, and now her nightmare seemed to be coming true.
The doctor quickly explained, "Twin, triplet, quadruplet, quintuplet, sextuplet, septuplet, octuplet, nonuplet, decuplet, undecuplet ... Simply put, you have eleven children in your womb!"
"What did you say?" Sylvan's mind went blank.
"It means you need to keep pushing!" the doctor said helplessly.
"Push, push, push!" he urged.
After about twenty minutes, Sylvan turned her head and stared blankly at the eleven newborn babies on the table. She didn't even know how to react.
"I'm sorry, but you can't stay longer. We have another 100 pregnant patients to see!" the doctor apologized. He hated to treat new mothers like this, but there was no other choice.
"Okay." Sylvan dressed and stood up. Surprisingly, she felt fine, even after giving birth to so many babies. It was as if she hadn't given birth at all.
She looked at the table with 11 crying babies, unsure of how to carry them. Her husband was working in a local mine, and his ruthless boss had threatened to fire him if he took any days off. She had no one to help her, and even carrying the babies home seemed impossible, not to mention feeding them.
She glanced at her two relatively small breasts and felt a chill. There was no way her poor breasts could produce enough milk for all these babies.
"What should we do?" she wondered about their uncertain future.
...
Across the southern continent, birth rates exploded to unimaginable levels. Women who became pregnant gave birth to at least ten children and, in some cases, far more. It was said that a few women gave birth to over a hundred children in a single pregnancy.
Even stranger things occurred. Some virgin women became pregnant without any intimate relations, and in rare cases, even men became pregnant!
It was disturbing to see men, with all their male organs, walking around with swollen bellies. Doctors were astonished to find that these men had developed wombs within their bodies—more than one, in fact.
The entire continent's population was thrown into chaos by the baby explosion.