Awakening：The Infinite Evolution of My Talent as a Low-Level Awakener

But that was enough. Sterl never expected that the Celestial Stars alone would be able to slay the mother entity.

His true goal had always been to destroy the concealed things, to make them fully exposed, leaving no place to hide.

Now, the hundreds of Celestial Stars meteors had perfectly fulfilled their purpose.

With a gentle press, Sterl gathered all the spreading power back. The Flame Hell, which had covered a thousand miles or more, began to calm down at a visible rate, as if the entire inferno had been tamed.

Where the sea of fire had once raged, there now lay a vast and deep pit stretching over a thousand miles. The crater was tens of thousands of meters deep, nearly reaching the very bottom of this layer of Hell—like it had been bitten down upon by a Void Behemoth.

At the bottom of this massive pit, a worm-like creature, over a hundred meters long, was curled up. Its surroundings were covered in thick, silver-white liquid, and the liquid spread over an area of about a thousand miles.

Despite the apocalyptic impact of the meteors and flames, there were no visible signs of any injury.

"Is this the true face of the invader?"

The God of the Evil Wasps blinked in disbelief, her eyes widening as she looked down at the strange creature below.

As a god of a legion-type race, she quickly realized the connection between the silver-white flood and this mother entity. All of those Silver Spiders had been created by this monster as its soldiers!

She couldn't help but think of the power of the Silver Spiders. Each one was nearly at or even beyond the third-class level. In less than two hours, it had spawned millions of them. That was far too terrifying!

This kind of efficiency was beyond her imagination.

Even with her current divine-level strength, if she went into full assault mode, she could only create a few thousand of her kind a day—at most—and that would require a tremendous amount of materials and energy.

In comparison, she couldn't even hold a candle to this creature. The disparity was like comparing a firefly to the full moon!

At the same time, a sense of fear gripped her heart. If their master hadn't arrived so decisively, they would have been doomed to inevitable destruction. None of their tactics would have worked, and the entire layer of Hell would have fallen.

She then glanced at Boris and the others around her. She saw the same expressions of caution and fear on their faces, but not a hint of worry. From this, she could tell that, although this creature was formidable, it was still no match for their master.

She breathed a sigh of relief, then immediately focused her mind. Once the master gave the order, she would unleash the fiercest assault, even if it meant death!

However, it was clear that Sterl wouldn't let them die for nothing. In front of the mother entity, his divine followers were like fragile infants, utterly defenseless.

So, he alone was enough. As for them, aside from providing some buffs and enhancements, their role was to stand aside and keep their mouths shut.

"Hiding pretty deep, aren't you?"

Sterl looked down at the mother entity buried deep beneath the ground, a cold glint flashing in his eyes.

This mother entity had consumed far more matter than the one from the Fourth Layer of Hell. At this rate, if left unchecked, it would likely devour this entire layer of Hell within five days, turning it into an energy reserve for these monsters to invade other layers of Hell.

Sterl paused for a moment, his thoughts connecting the dots with the destruction of the First, Second, Third, and Fifth Layers of Hell. It was very possible that the mother entities from those layers had already moved on to other hells to gather resources.

Which meant that some of the lower layers of Hell could soon be under attack from multiple mother entities.

He made a mental note of this. If these entities managed to break through Hell's defenses and transmit information about him, he could very well find himself ambushed by multiple mother entities when he descended into another layer.

Therefore, he had to remain highly alert, at least prepared to activate his invincible power at a critical moment, buying himself enough time to recover.

His gaze then shifted back to the mother entity below. This particular one showed no signs of preparing for battle—it remained curled up underground, as if paralyzed by fear.

But Sterl wasn't concerned with that. Through his Soul Insight, he could clearly see the vast amount of souls contained within the mother entity.

It was at least twice as large as the soul pool of the previous entity!

These souls were perfectly gathered within the mother's essence, restrained by a grayish energy, waiting to be drawn upon whenever needed.

Looking at these souls, Sterl couldn't help but salivate.

"What a tempting feast..." he muttered, unable to suppress his excitement. Even if he had to leave some of the souls behind to return to Hell, even if he kept just half of them, it would still amount to tens of millions. After refining them, he would easily gain over 100,000 soul points!

And that didn't even account for the legendary souls. The quality of a legendary soul was hundreds of times greater than that of an ordinary one!

However, just as he was about to activate Phantom Purgatory and pull the mother entity's soul into it for refinement, a silvery-white barrier suddenly enveloped it.

The barrier quickly began to thicken, with copious amounts of mucus secretion pouring out, continuously layering upon it. In the span of a mere thousandth of a second, the barrier had gained a thickness of several dozen meters.

This barrier sealed the mother entity tightly inside, completely isolating it from the outside world.

Sterl froze for a moment, then was stunned to realize that his Soul Prison's Eerie Eyes had lost their target!

Immediately, he activated Star Insight and Soul Insight, only to discover that his probing abilities couldn't penetrate this newly-formed barrier of mucus!

"What the hell?! What is this?"

Sterl's expression stiffened, and he was left dumbfounded. Just as he was about to harvest his reward, who could have imagined that the mother entity had such a trick up its sleeve? It was even able to block his Star Insight and Soul Insight!

These two abilities were capable of penetrating the defenses of even high-level divine entities!

The cooked duck had flown away, and for a moment, his anger surged, swelling within him.

"Break!"

He shouted in fury, gathering Destructive Light in his hand. With all his enhancements, he was confident that this Destructive Light could even severely injure a deity.

He then released it with full force, and in the blink of an eye, it slammed into the thick silvery-white barrier.

The exterior of the barrier was blasted open, creating a massive crater!

However, in less than a tenth of a second, the surrounding mucus quickly began to converge, repairing the hole as if nothing had happened.

Seeing the silvery barrier now swollen to a hundred meters thick, Sterl couldn't help but suck in a cold breath. This was practically an indestructible shell!

Based on the earlier results, even if the power of Destructive Light were to increase several times, it still might not be able to breach it.

And these secretions were the result of the mother entity consuming billions of tons of material. Even if the barrier's defenses were punctured, it could quickly regenerate. Unless the power of these secretions could be worn down bit by bit…

But that would take a long time, and who knew what the mother entity might be doing inside in the meantime?

It could very well be giving birth to an unprecedentedly terrifying monster, or perhaps it was continuing to consume material, converting it into special nutrients.

In that case, the rate at which the secretions were being depleted might not even be faster than the rate at which the entity was transforming more material!

"Damn it! I actually fell for this!"

Sterl couldn't help but curse under his breath. He hadn't expected that the mother entity would have such a shameless ability—to release all the accumulated power it had stored for defense. With the reserves of power the mother entity possessed, who could possibly break through this?

Of course, it was also possible that his overwhelming display of strength had made the mother entity feel an intense threat. As a result, instead of facing Sterl head-on in battle, it had chosen to avoid him and retreat instead.

If he had known that the mother entity possessed such an ability, he would have quietly snuck up on it, then immediately pulled its soul in to refine it.

But alas, he had been caught off guard by a gap in information.

His thoughts flickered, and he poured all his power into the toxic and corrosive Laws, summoning a glowing, eerie green orb and placing it on the barrier.

Immediately, the two forces began to slowly erode the strength of the barrier, eating away at the mother's secretion.

However, even with the perfect fusion of these two Laws, the erosion was painfully slow!

At this rate, it would take at least a year to make any significant progress.

"Come over here."

Sterl turned his head and looked at the Goddess of Evil Wasps. She snapped out of her stunned state and hurried over to his side.

"Try to see if these secretions can be used to breed more troops."

He pointed to the thick barrier in front of them.

"Master, I'll try."

The Goddess of Evil Wasps took a deep breath, then, to Sterl's surprise, a crack appeared down her pale back. From the gap, countless soft, tendril-like appendages extended, rooted themselves in the secretion, and began rapidly consuming it.

However, after a brief moment of devouring, the Goddess of Evil Wasps' expression changed dramatically, and she let out a muffled cry of pain.

"Master... Master, there's... that kind of energy inside these things..."

She struggled to retract her energy-absorbing tendrils, and it was clear that part of the secretion she had absorbed was slowly melting away.

Not only that, but the secretions she had ingested contained traces of that mysterious gray energy.

Though faint, it was enough to reach deep inside her body, as if swarms of insects were gnawing at her insides.

Sterl's expression darkened. He hadn't anticipated that there would be such energy within the secretions. Without hesitation, he activated Soul Devourer Sphere, channeling soul power into the Goddess of Evil Wasps' body.

After infusing over a hundred points of soul power, her injuries were fully healed, and the mysterious gray energy within the secretions was completely neutralized.