Chapter 36: Decision
Many questions arose in his mind. However, it was clear that he could not access such information.
Still, he couldn’t decide such an important thing prematurely.
"System, just answer one last question: whoever created that path, did they die peacefully?" A few lines formed over his forehead as he nervously asked.
---
———————————————————
[#/System Notification/#]
———————————————————
[Request Accepted.]
Searching archived records...
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Attempt 1...]
Accessing historical data...
[Error.]
Required permissions unavailable.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Attempt 2...]
Searching fragmented archives...
[Err□r.]
Rec□rds c□rrupted.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Attempt 3...]
Reconstructing inaccessible memory...
[E#R%R.]
D@ta c0rrupte▒.
R3c▒nstructi○n f@iled.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Attempt 4...]
█cce██ing ███████...
[ERR▓R.]
D▒t█ F▒u▒d.
D▒t█ D▒n██d.
R▒co██tr█cti██...
F█i▒ed.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Final Attempt...]
▓▒█░▓▒█░▓▒█░▓▒█░▓▒█
%&@#_//:██▒▒▓▓==
██▒▒▓▓░░▓▒▒██
D0 N0T L██K
█▓▒░█▓▒░█▓▒░
...
...
...
[No.]
---
The screen hovered before his eyes like a cold realization. The system was barely able to answer his question.
Naturally, this response had given birth to even more questions in Ethan’s mind; however, he decided to remain silent.
He could feel his heart beating faster in anxiousness; with each pump, he felt as though his blood were running cold.
Unknowingly, the corner of his lips curled awkwardly. He wasn’t happy, just too shocked to process his thoughts.
The more he thought about it, the more he found the situation funny.
’So I decided to walk a separate path, only to find out some unknown guy already died not peacefully while trying to do the same...’ He softly pinched his glabella1 in frustration.
---
———————————————————
[#~System Notification~#]
———————————————————
What is your intention,
Ethan Graves?
---
A system window formed before his eyes, urging him to respond quickly. Then another materialized right beside the previous one.
One after another, countless system notifications reverberated inside the white realm, their sounds amplified by its emptiness.
Before he could even decide, a pillar of system windows had formed around his body, stretching endlessly upwards.
Each screen displayed the same question.
Looking at it, Ethan shook his head and, for once, smiled peacefully. For some reason, although the system’s response had created more doubts, he felt at ease.
"Thanks to your response, I now know what to do." He had already decided on his answer. Without waiting, he presented his will in a soft yet sturdy tone.
"Yes, I still wish to choose a path that neither belongs to humans nor monsters. Do I wish to follow the footsteps of my predecessor?"
He smiled slightly before continuing. "No, I won’t follow the path of someone who failed to survive. I’ll walk a path different than any other. If I must, I’ll gladly create it bit by bit."
Instantly, all the system windows began to tremble. One after another, the screens dissipated into nothingness.
Ethan, on the other hand, felt a little lightheaded. His mind felt heavy as he struggled to stare at his jade-green palms.
---
———————————————————
[#/System Notification/#]
———————————————————
[Choice Confirmed.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The host has declined the predefined paths.
└ ■ Human
└ ■ Monster
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Registering New Path...]
[...]
[Registration Complete.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Congratulations.]
A new path has been successfully registered.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
When roads demand submission,
Walk where none have been.
When fate presents its choices,
Forge your own instead.
May your will become your crown,
and your survival, your kingdom.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The Overlord System highly praises the host’s unwavering resolve.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Evolution Conditions Updated.]
All evolution requirements have now been fulfilled.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Path Established.]
According to the host’s choice...
└ All future evolutions shall shape a path that belongs to neither Humans nor Monsters.
└ Your identity shall be determined by your own journey.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Notice.]
No historical records exist for this path.
No guidance can be provided.
Every step you take shall become the foundation of those who may follow.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The Overlord System is rooting for your survival.
---
Ethan was only barely able to read through the screen’s contents when he felt his consciousness collapsing.
Then, with weak ripples, his back fell on the water. However, this time, he didn’t stay on the surface.
Instead, his body slowly submerged into the sea as he continued to drown deeper and deeper.
The strange white realm fell silent once and for all, leaving just a single system window hanging eerily mid-air.
***
At the same time, a meeting was being held on the third floor of the new zombie blood ant colony.
Hundreds of blood ants were sitting silently inside the hall, staring ahead with pure hostility.
Today, some of the blood ants had brought in a young human male. His short hair was blonde, with a few blue stripes running along.
At first, the colony fell into turmoil. The guards rushed to inform the queen — who, in their king’s absence, oversaw the activities within the colony.
Immediately, the queen ordered to tie up the human in the third floor’s meeting hall.
"My lord seemed to be interested in knowing the human power rankings... So do not kill that man. However, if he dares cause a commotion, do not spare him either. My lord is going through a crucial stage in his evolution; we must not cause any problems." She ordered sternly, sending off several guards to inform others about her decision.
Thus, following her orders, every hunting party immediately returned to the colony. Nearly half of the population was assigned near the entrance — just in case any other humans had any ill intentions.
Eris, too, had started climbing floors one by one. From the reports she had received, the human seemed to be of E-rank, similar to her.
"As long as I’m present before him, he wouldn’t dare try anything funny." She muttered beneath her breath, slowly entering the meeting hall.
At once, hundreds of mechanical clanks echoed in perfect unison. Without hesitating, the zombie blood ants bowed before the second-in-command of their colony.
"Mmm~" Because of the loud commotion, Jake began regaining his consciousness.
While being carried by the ants, he fell unconscious because of his injuries and exhaustion—only to wake up now.
Realizing this, his eyes snapped open. First, he looked left. Then right. No matter where his eyes went, all he could see was darkness.
Beneath his body, he could feel several small stones, straining his back.
"So you’re awake?" Jake’s body froze abruptly as Eris’s voice coldly echoed through the hall.