The evil god was entering its second phase.
Ian was not surprised by this.
Before crossing over, he had occasionally played video games. After crossing over, he had also enjoyed using magic to design board games, so he knew very well that bosses often entered a second phase.
After years of struggling through virtual worlds, he had long understood an ironclad "common sense"—whenever one encountered a BOSS, there was a good chance it had a hidden second phase. In games, a BOSS might still show some predictable patterns in its first phase, but once its health was nearly depleted, its entire style would abruptly change, its skills would upgrade, and its difficulty would soar.
That sort of gaming experience, accumulated over time, had deeply imprinted itself upon players' cognition. When players projected that understanding from games onto real life, it formed a unique perspective—major challenges or "BOSSES" encountered in reality might very well have a similar "second phase."
Yes.
It was perfectly reasonable for similar things to happen in reality. After all, everyone knew that fantasy came from reality. By that logic, the fantasy setting of bosses having a second phase surely came from reality as well.
Mm.
Nothing wrong with that.
"Do you see it, wizard?" Countless mouths opened and closed in unison. "This is evolution! This is perfection! With every soul I absorb, I draw closer to my ultimate form!"
With that blasphemous declaration, the evil god's remaining shell—
The phantom composed of light and darkness, blood and gold—collapsed inward with a thunderous boom. Immediately afterward, an indescribable foul odor spread through the air, thick with the sickly sweetness of decay and the metallic tang of rust.
Faces emerged one after another across the same torso, while its voice became a torrent formed from the wails of countless