Chapter 38: First Evolution
Before the bindings could fully snap...
*Clank.*
Hundreds of mandibles opened simultaneously as a strange pressure drowned the entire cave in a sense of suppression.
"Mind your voice, human," Eris warned calmly, her voice taut with restrained rage.
At once, all the blood ants in the colony began shivering in fear. Although Eris had become a loyal subordinate of Ethan, she was once the queen of all the blood ants.
Furthermore, as an E-rank monster, she possessed natural dominance against monsters of lower rank.
But Jake was different. He was originally D-rank in strength; however, suffering grave injuries from his own recklessness, his strength had degraded to E-rank.
As an equal to the Eris in strength, he wasn’t completely suppressed. However, he could still feel the pressure clearly.
His shoulders had become heavy, making it hard for him to move as freely.
A short gasp escaped his lungs as he felt his lightning weakening under the pressure.
"Damn it, my injured body cannot even withstand this simple amount of pressure." He murmured beneath his breath, trying to pull himself together.
’But... What’s with her?!’ He couldn’t help but point his doubts at her behavior.
Instinctively, he raised his head only to see her bright green eyes glaring right into his soul.
He felt an intense wave of killing intent leaking through her eyes, restrained and suppressed. For the first time since waking up, Jake genuinely believed he was about to die.
"Do not be mistaken." She said curtly, forcing a rigid smile on her face. "I have no use for a broken nobody. In fact, I would very much love to twist that neck of yours and have my children devour you bit by bit for that discourteous behavior. But I’m afraid my lord wouldn’t like that... Even if it earned me my lord’s punishment... I would not hesitate to do it a second time."
Hearing her words, Jake’s whole world spun upside down.
"...your lord?" He muttered out loud, baffled.
Until now, he had believed the Blood Ant queen was the leader. By the way the ants acted—their discipline and reverence toward her formed a firm image of superiority in his mind.
Even among humans, knowledge of many monsters was widespread. One of them was the blood ants.
’I remember learning that the blood ant colonies were only ruled by their queens. As she evolved and increased her strength, the colony would often give birth to stronger ants, acting as the queen’s personal knights and guards.’
’But to think this queen has actually been subordinated by someone?! It’s... It’s just absurd! Just how strong is that monster to subordinate an E-rank? Is it D-rank? Or worse...’ Just thinking about it, Jake felt chills run down his spine.
*Swoosh!*
At this moment, an immense wave of invisible energy courses through the nest. Before anyone could react, it filled the tunnels and caves with an inexplicably dense atmosphere.
Although the nest was created at the border of the dense forest, many small animals roamed about daily.
Birds burst from the trees.
Rabbits fled the undergrowth.
Even insects abandoned the forest floor.
Yet the jade mist never crossed an invisible boundary surrounding the nest...
Or more precisely, Ethan.
This was the effect of his previous reward—the Evolution Stabilizer. Due to its effects, a barrier had formed near Ethan, containing the leaking energy.
***
A strange jade green smoke had immersed the entire seventh floor of the nest. The smoke reeked of an intense rotting stench of flesh and blood, enough to make anyone puke their guts out at a mere whiff.
Behind the throne, a narrow pathway stretched into a tiny room. Here, a faint cerulean glow could be seen flickering through the blurry green smoke.
It was a system window, hovering before Ethan’s unconscious body.
---
———————————————————
[#/System Notification/#]
———————————————————
[First Evolution Initiated.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The host’s body has begun complete reconstruction.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[New Path Establishment.]
Analyzing the host’s chosen resolve...
└ ■ Survival
No compatible evolutionary records found.
A new path is now being established.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Environmental Energy Assimilation.]
A large quantity of surrounding energy is being absorbed to support the host’s evolution.
[...]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Notice.]
All awakened beings within the affected area will continuously lose energy until the evolution is complete.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Evolution In Progress.]
The Overlord System is forging a path that belongs solely to the host.
---
Ethan wasn’t aware of the situation outside.
For several minutes now, his consciousness had been continuously drowning in the endlessly deep sea.
His eyes were open by just a slit, watching the light disappear from his vision in silence.
Strangely, as the darkness began shrouding the sea, his lips curled into a genuine smile. It was almost as if he had found comfort.
"Just... How far... Am I going to sink?" He muttered in a low, barely audible voice. For some reason, his voice wasn’t affected by the water.
On the contrary, he could feel a heavy pressure starting to press against his body from all directions.
At first, it was bearable. But only moments later, it grew to a point where he found himself struggling just to "exist."
His gaze lazily drifted left and right, only to stop midway with his iris slightly enlarging.
"Hehehe..." Realizing something, Ethan couldn’t help but laugh out loud.
"So that’s it, huh?" He chuckled, extending his arms outwards as he stretched his fingers wide.
Until now, he could not realize that what surrounded him wasn’t water but a sea of biological material instead.
Without saying a word, he tapped into one of his dormant powers.
Flesh Assimilation (SSS).
As soon as he activated it, a silent shockwave shot out of his palms with the rhythm of his heartbeat. Almost instantly, strong currents started moving towards his palms, generating ripples that shook its calm surface.
At the same time, a system window materialized before his unconscious body, observing changes that happened even inside his mind.
---
———————————————————
[#/System Notification/#]
———————————————————
[Flesh Assimilation (SSS) Activated.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Target Acquired.]
└ ■ Biological material generated during the host’s evolution.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Beginning complete assimilation...
[...]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
All compatible biological material is being absorbed.
Assimilation will be used to support the host’s evolution and complete body reconstruction.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Assimilation In Progress.]
---