Chapter 7: Progress In Evolution
Two days ago.
*Gurgle...*
Near the center of the ravine, a young man breathed heavily. His jade-green skin shimmered in a soft, red glow.
Under its influence, his body continuously convulsed. It contracted and expanded continuously as his muscles continued to multiply and form new limbs.
At this moment, Ethan’s whole body was being reconstructed. His previously bulky body had been compressed to the shape of a lean physique, resembling that of a young adult.
His eyes — which had previously been destroyed by bones — were formed anew. However, unlike his previous dark irises, they now had a distinctive jade-green hue.
His pupils, on the other hand, slightly stretched vertically — similar to those of reptiles.
As his body was gradually refined to its limits, the shape of his muscles grew much clearer.
Near his body, deep crimson marks had been engraved in the soil. Clearly, the long time that blood had been rotting in a stagnant state had influenced its surroundings.
*Ding!*
The familiar sound rang in Ethan’s mind.
---
———————————————————
[#/System Notification/#]
———————————————————
[Emergency Survival Protocol Complete.]
[System Authority Returned to User.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Emergency Survival Protocol (EX)]
[Status] - Cooldown
[Remaining Cooldown:]
└ ■ 29 days, 23 hours, and 59 minutes.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Warning.]
[The Emergency Survival Protocol is intended solely to preserve the designated user’s life.]
[Improper reliance upon this function is strongly discouraged.]
---
The system window materialized before Ethan’s unconscious body.
"Mmm?" At the same time, Ethan closed his wide-open eyes tightly. Then, he slowly opened them by a slit.
*Gasp!*
Feeling something heavy in his chest, Ethan instinctively drew a sharp breath. Immediately, his body shot up as he leaned towards the ground.
Barely keeping his face off the ground, he opened his mouth wide. Naturally, he felt his airways constricting as something pungent filled them to the brink.
*Bleurgh!*
In a single breath, blood gushed out of his mouth and nostrils. For a moment, it pooled on the ground but soon was absorbed into the soil.
Ethan, on the other hand, was heaving. Although his body had turned into that of a zombie, he still needed some air to keep his body healthy.
Clasping his chest with his right hand, he slowly calmed himself down. Then, he looked up and stared intently at the system window.
Before going unconscious, Ethan clearly heard the system explain this new function.
Emergency Survival Protocol.
’That’s quite a nice function right there... I almost thought I was about to die... Sigh... Ethan Graves, how can you be so stupid? Had it not been for the system, you would’ve died!’ In his mind, Ethan was collecting his thoughts while also reprimanding himself for his narrow thinking.
"Hmmm..." Noticing the changes in his body, he actively closed and opened his hands. He could roughly feel a boost in his strength.
In that moment, the system notification came through once again.
*Ding!*
---
———————————————————
[#/System Notification/#]
———————————————————
[Special Tutorial Mission - 2]
└ [Status] - Complete
[Mission Success.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Mission Evaluation:]
└ ■ User successfully escaped the territorial lord.
└ ■ User utilized available resources to maximize survival probability.
└ ■ User displayed exceptional adaptability under fatal circumstances.
└ ■ Performance Rating: Outstanding.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Calculating Reward...]
[...]
[Reward Determined.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[New Class Skill Obtained.]
└ ■ Dormant Infection (F)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Skill Description:]
Your body now serves as the primary host of a controllable zombie virus.
Any living organism exposed to your blood, flesh, or bodily fluids may become infected.
The virus will remain dormant until activated by the user.
Successful infection depends upon the target’s rank, constitution, and resistance.
Targets that resist infection will suffer no permanent effects.
Successfully zombified targets may be brought under the effects of zombie sovereignty.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Notice:]
└ ■ This skill possesses evolutionary potential.
└ ■ Additional functions will unlock as the skill evolves.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Congratulations!]
[You have completed the Overlord System’s introductory tutorial.]
---
"Hoh?" Reading about the new skill, Ethan was quite literally thrilled. This was the kind of power that he lacked.
Too many years had passed, and Ethan didn’t know if there were enough zombies in the current world. However, with this skill, he could get around that problem easily.
But what concerned him more were his surroundings.
"I clearly remember falling into a ravine full of blood and corpses. But in the last message, the system said something about ’assimilation.’ What’s that about?"
Just as Ethan thought so, as if responding to his request, another system window materialized before his eyes.
---
———————————————————
[#/System Notification/#]
———————————————————
[Flesh Assimilation Complete.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Assimilation Report]
[Total Biological Matter Assimilated:]
└ ■ Blood and flesh equivalent to approximately 80,000 individuals.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Assimilated Individuals:]
└ ■ Ordinary Individuals × 79,861
└ ■ F-Rank Individuals × 132
└ ■ E-Rank Individuals × 4
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Biological Energy Successfully Converted.]
[Excess impurities discarded.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Results:]
└ ■ Extensive regeneration completed.
└ ■ Body integrity fully restored.
└ ■ Physical constitution has improved.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Your level has increased.]
└ [Level 1 → Level 9]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Attributes Increased.]
└ ■ Vitality: 19 (↑6)
└ ■ Strength: 25 (↑8)
└ ■ Endurance: 22 (↑7)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Bonus Attribute Points Awarded.]
└ ■ +16 Unallocated Attribute Points
(2 points awarded per level.)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Evolution Progress Increased.]
└ ■ 0% → 41%
---
Ethan fell silent. His expression tightened, and his mouth was left open.
The numbers were staggering! Just when he thought he was becoming normal, he simply devoured such a large amount of blood and flesh.
"The system too calls them individuals... So I can’t possibly know if it was monsters, animals, or..." No matter how much Ethan tried, he couldn’t continue.
Up until now, Ethan had only ever lived as a human. To him, even a single death was too much to handle. But surprisingly, he had devoured more than seven hundred thousand individuals while sleeping.
And the number had only been increasing.
Letting out a long, deep sigh, Ethan shook his head in disdain.
This wasn’t something he wanted, but it also wasn’t something he could leave. Whatever he had become — whether a monster or just a desperate man — he had to accept it nevertheless.
At least, for his own survival.
However, unbeknownst to him, someone seemed to be glaring at Ethan from a distance.
Clanking their claw-like mandibles, hundreds of creatures breathed angrily. And before he could sense anything, the creatures silently crawled back into the warmth of the earth.
***
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