Evolution Online: I Can Fuse With All Things-Chapter 37: Repercussions

Lucien froze, watching the display keep popping up. The sonorous voice in his head grew even sweeter, his heart hammering loudly against his chest with the might of a drum.

[You have received an item]

[You have gained an item]

[You have received Black egg ???]

[You have received Black stone ×100]

[You have received two Divine fragments]

Lucien stared at the message, his heart skipping as he watched it. At the same time, unease crept through him.

Something was wrong with this entire place. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but the very depths themselves felt so ominous and twisted that he just wanted to flee.

’Is this happening as a result of a status effect?’

Lucien wondered, but there had been no notification of such. Maybe it was just the sublime beauty, yet its rawness that terrified the hell out of him.

Or the fact that the leaves bled?

Either way, Lucien gave the corpse of the Godzilla one last look. Left to him, he wanted to find a way to haul it and hang it somewhere as a trophy. But he needed to escape this place.

He exhaled and bowed gently to the dead godzilla.

"Thank you very much for being a formidable opponent. And the Fusion points? They were totally worth it!"

Lucien turned back and began to run, tracing the path down which he had fallen. His plan was to reach the end and climb out. He at least expected that climbing out would be easy since the forest should have finished collapsing. It should be possible to scale whatever remained.

Lucien ran, leaping over low plants and ducking beneath towering plants with broad leaves.

His sprint continued for a while, and just when he could see the end, the strangest thing happened. Lucien felt the distance shrink.

He wouldn’t say he was back where he started, but he definitely wasn’t where he had been barely a fragment of a second ago.

A chill raced down his spine as something felt wrong. He couldn’t tell what it was, but he knew something was off. [Predator Instincts] wasn’t picking up anything, but his human instincts were working perfectly in this game.

It felt as though thousands of needles were pricking his back. Slowly, even though he didn’t want to... slowly, Lucien began to turn his head.

As he turned his head over his shoulder to see what lurked behind him, his eyes widened. What Lucien saw made him freeze. An enormous white wall stared back at him, its surface wet, almost glassy, with a perfect circle of grey in the center, expanding and contracting as if breathing.

Before Lucien could grasp what exactly it was—

[You have received damage]

[You have lost 12,067 Health points]

[You have lost 13,909 Health points]

[You have lost 10,600 Health points]

[You have lost 11,424 Health points]

[You have died]

[You cannot log in for the next forty-eight hours].

***

Lucien sat down on the bed, leaning on his knees. The situation was bewildering, but he was certain of one thing at least.

’An eye?’

What he had seen had indeed been an eye. Just a single eye. And seeing it alone had killed him.

’How is looking at an eye supposed to kill me...?’

Lucien’s face froze in confusion, his mind blank as he searched for an answer.

Then suddenly, a giggle erupted. He started giggling, then the giggle transformed into laughter. Lucien kept laughing so hard that he collapsed on the ground.

"Fascinating. This is fascinating! God, I swear I love this game!"

His laughter slowly faded, and now he just lay on the ground, staring at the ceiling with a grin.

"Just when I thought I had finally claimed victory, something far more terrifying slapped me right in the face. And it’s so thrilling. I wonder what rank that is?"

Lucien went silent for a few more seconds. Then he murmured to himself.

"Right, I have to read more about the ranks and what a Deviant is."

He slowly rose and picked up his phone.

Meanwhile...

The Baleron Game Company occupied an island, with every building dedicated to one function or another that contributed to the effective and smooth operation of the game for the past five years.

But right now, somewhere in the headquarters—the towering glass structure—chaos was brewing.

A woman in a tight bodysuit and sneakers was pacing, pinching the bridge of her nose and scowling as she moved.

Standing to one side was a sleep-deprived young man who looked like he had just been jolted awake from the barely one hour of rest he was about to get moments ago.

There were a few other people in the room too: a girl with pink hair tied in a bun, wearing a sleep mask over her eyes; another young man with a lollipop, manipulating three rings that floated around each other and around his fingers. frёeωebɳovel.com

Finally, the door opened. All of them ceased their activities or inactivities and stood up, facing the person entering the room.

The man entering was escorted by two people: a young woman in a crisp dress and jacket, holding a tablet, her face calm and unreadable; and a man wearing a suit, his gaze razor-sharp and calculating.

The man himself was a composed elderly gentleman with deep wrinkles etched across his face.

When he entered the room, grave silence descended, accompanied by a heavy, sweet fragrance.

He extended his hand to the woman in the bodysuit.

"Where is it?"

She gave the tablet in her hands to the man. He glanced at it with a soft, ever-present smile on his face.

His brown eyes remained indifferent, even as the screen’s reflection flickered across his irises before they went dark.

He then looked at the young lady.

"I see..."

The lady remained silent, watching the man as she retrieved the tablet from him. The others were also watching him.

But he said nothing else and instead just checked his watch before belatedly looking at the rest of them and realizing they had been staring at him all along.

He shifted his gaze through all four of them.

"Is something wrong?"

The lady in the bodysuit’s mouth fell open in shock.

"Really, sir? Everything is wrong!"

The man looked at her, still smiling softly.

"Is it now?"

The lady stepped forward, speaking sternly.

"I’m sorry, sir, but it seems to me like you’re taking this matter lightly. The Black Godzilla should never have revealed itself—that’s problem number one. Problem number two: its existence is what we used as a backup vault for the Wood Elves that we deleted because they were too overpowered and too flawed, considering they were the first race we created in Evolution Online. If the Wood Elves get reloaded into the game because of this, that will most likely make the player advance faster than he’s supposed to and that person will start to move as well.

"Not to mention the fact that Gaia keeps acting outside of what we planned—it’s almost as though she’s become rebellious. Because why and how was the Black Godzilla revealed and defeated by a player? And really, what the hell is this player? He has me pulling my hair out at midnight. I could just stab him to death so that the world can be a peaceful place again, you know, sir?"

She seemed to remember herself belatedly and looked at the man with a smile, bowing gently.

"So please, sir, don’t treat it as casual. Things really could spiral out of control."

The man was still watching her with that same smile. After a moment, he gently touched the girl’s head, patting her.

"Alicia. That’s kind of the point of Evolution Online."

She blushed as he touched her but quickly frowned when he spoke.

"Huh?"

The man removed his hand and looked at all of them.

"We created it to have the capability to spiral out of control. Don’t forget that, any of you. And get more rest, especially you, Felix."

The man turned around and waved his hand as he walked out.

"I have a vacation in the Maldives with my youngest wife."

The girl with the sleep mask over her face lifted one side up.

"Didn’t he just come back from a vacation with his mistress, though?"

All of them glanced at her and silently filed out of the meeting room.

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