Chapter 35: Last Question
Plop...
The soft sound of a water droplet falling into a still pond echoed in a desolate space.
For as far as one could see, a pristine white sky stretched, covering their vision, emitting a weak glow.
A layer of water — still and undisturbed — stretched beneath, forming the floor. Reflecting the light from above, the water formed an illusion.
From afar, it looked no different than a floor of colorless marble.
Suddenly, a small wave arose in the calm, sea-like floor. Traveling in all directions, it created a slight disturbance in the water’s surface.
Although not long after, the sea returned to its previous state as if nothing had happened at all.
Ethan found it strange.
Standing effortlessly on the water’s surface, he scanned the area thoroughly. Not long ago, he had entered seclusion with several A-rank bloodstones.
Using his recent reward —the Evolution Stabilizer — he planned to evolve as soon as possible.
"System," he called out, sitting cross-legged inside his room. "Start evolution."
Immediately, he felt his consciousness weakening. His eyelids became incomparably heavier as he struggled to keep his eyes open.
Before he could know it, his mind had been plunged into this realm.
At first, even he found this place somewhat mystical. No matter how much he walked, he saw no end—just empty space, stretching forever in all directions.
"So, where am I?" His voice was barely audible. Clearly, he was showing caution against any unseen enemies.
His words echoed throughout the realm several times, the sound getting dimmer each time.
Then, a familiar sound appeared. Although, strangely, it didn’t ring in his mind, but in the space itself.
*Ding!*
---
———————————————————
[#/System Notification/#]
———————————————————
[Host’s Intent Detected.]
The system has detected the host’s desire to initiate evolution.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Verifying Requirements...]
[...]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Evolution Progress]
└ ■ 100%
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Analyzing Evolution Conditions...]
[...]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Error.]
Evolution requirements have not been fully satisfied.
Unable to initiate evolution.
---
"What the hell?" He sneered in frustration.
"Wait, what conditions have I not met? And why did you not tell me about them before?" He asked, his eyes containing a hint of annoyance as he locked his arms together.
---
[Notice.]
The Overlord System has yet to know about your ambition.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The system exists to smoothen your journey as the sovereign.
However...
A sovereign without a goal is no different than a normal person.
---
Reading this, several doubts emerged in his mind. It was the first time he had heard anything like this.
The Overlord system was created especially to cater to Ethan’s class. Naturally, it had observed his every movement and his resolution to survive.
"...Why?" His thoughts unknowingly slipped off his mouth, letting a new system window appear before his eyes.
---
———————————————————
[#/System Notification/#]
———————————————————
You, Ethan Graves, are a man turned zombie.
An anomaly that can be regarded as both human and monster.
Dead... and alive at the same time.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
You are the sole possessor of an SSS-rank class in the current age.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
A systematic order of strength exists for all beings.
Humans.
Monsters.
And everything in between.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
For the system to determine the ideal path of strength for you...
...it must first know your choice.
---
’So it’s basically asking me to choose a faction, yes?’ He understood immediately, sitting down comfortably on the water.
’From what Eris has told me, it seems monsters possess a stronger path, while humans possess a flexible path.’
While escaping the ravine, Ethan had asked Eris about such information. Back then, she had answered his queries with the best of her abilities.
According to her, monsters of the same classes and ranks as humans came out to be stronger than them. Oftentimes, it required several awakeners of the same rank to deal with a similar monster.
On the other hand, the monster’s path was rigid and required one to risk their lives at every step. Humans, on the other hand, followed a much smoother path. They could change and influence their skills according to their needs.
But...
"Why should I choose at all?" Considering the outcome of every choice, Ethan couldn’t help but strongly refuse the idea altogether.
"Choosing either side would make me an enemy towards the other. The future is ever-changing; what if the side I choose faces its annihilation? Yes, it’s true that with my current body, I won’t be welcomed amongst humans, but monsters cannot be trusted either." His eyes shone with confidence as he stared at the system screen.
---
[Final Inquiry.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Then tell me...
What is your intention,
Ethan Graves?
---
"Survival."
"Being a human or monster doesn’t matter to me anymore. I’ve already technically died at the hands of a chicken once. As long as my survival is guaranteed, I don’t care even if I have to side with those factions or oppose them at once." He lowered his head for a moment as he carefully chose his next words.
"And if I’m forced to choose between the two paths, then I’d gladly pave a new path for myself."
---
———————————————————
[#/System Notification/#]
———————————————————
[Abnormality Detected.]
Searching system records...
[...]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Similar Data Signature Found.]
Retrieving archived information...
[...]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Retrieval Failed.]
Error Code: ███████
The requested records are inaccessible.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Recovered Information:]
A path that belongs to neither faction...
...Human nor Monster...
...has once existed.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Further Access Denied.]
The remaining records have been sealed.
Insufficient system authority.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Notice.]
Would you like to inherit this path?
└ ■ Yes
└ ■ No
---
Ethan’s eyes widened as a wave of shock washed over his mind.
"Someone had created such a path before?!" He blurted out in confusion.
For some reason, he started rummaging through his memories. "The system told me that there was no information or data available for my class, so maybe their class was different?"
But if so, what happened to them?
How was their life?
And most importantly, did they survive?
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.