Soli slipped off the monster's back and slammed into the ground, gasping violently, fighting for air as his chest burned with pain. His heart was racing, and his lungs felt like they were about to rip apart from the strain of the fight… And then—
Suddenly, that familiar black screen with its golden edges appeared before him.
But something was different this time.
Soli hadn't called it.
The symbols on the screen were shaking and changing at a crazy speed, their shapes shifting as if trying to rearrange themselves. Even the large golden symbol in the center—the one that had never changed since it first appeared—had vanished completely. In its place, smaller symbols flickered and swapped constantly, with no meaning he could understand.
And then suddenly… it stopped.
The symbols all froze at the same instant, like someone had hit the pause button.
An empty bar stretched across the middle of the screen,with a new set of symbols above it… fewer this time, but strange, unlike anything Soli had ever seen before.
Soli just stared at them, stunned…
Ever since the screen first appeared,its contents had never changed. But now, it was evolving on its own.
Then—
The symbols changed one last time…and locked into place.
At that exact moment—
"Gaaaah!!!"
A scream ripped from Danny's throat—a raw, savage cry as he clutched his head with both hands. His eyes and mouth were stretched wide open, as if the pain was tearing him apart from the inside.
He collapsed to the ground, thrashing violently. His legs kicked up dirt, and his screams came non-stop.
Tears streamed down his face, spit dripped from his chin, and his body convulsed like he was being electrocuted.
And all the while…
The empty bar on the screen was slowly filling. A golden line inched forward, as if measuring the very pain inside his skull.
Soli felt like his own cranium was being drilled into from the inside…
Like thousands of maggots were burrowing through his brain, weaving tunnels, carving paths through his thoughts and memories.
It was an inhuman pain.
As if something—or someone—was trying to forcibly rewrite his mind.
His eyes rolled wildly in their sockets, spinning as if trying to escape the pain. He clenched his jaw so hard he could almost hear it crack, while pressing his head with both hands, desperate to rip the agony out by its roots.
He started grinding his head against the rough ground, then against the corpse of the dead monster, as if he could implant the pain into something other than his own skull. But it didn't stop…
The pain was unbearable… and yet, he didn't black out.
Not because he was enduring it—but because something inside him was preventing him from losing consciousness.
His mind was working overtime… a terrifying, relentless overdrive.
Images began flashing before him:
Faces,people, places, moments from his past on Earth…
Old memories projected before his eyes like lightning—no order,no logic—as if his brain was re-indexing his entire life all at once.
And on the screen…
The golden bar was nearing its end.
A single line separating completion from the final explosion.
Then—
The bar finished.
It was completely full.
And instantly…
Everything was gone.
The screen vanished…and the symbols with it…
The pain stopped.
But Soli just lay there on the ground, his eyes wide open, his chest heaving violently as he fought to catch his breath.
He stayed like that for long seconds, his body trembling, his spirit suspended between existence and oblivion—
until the silence was broken by a soft chime coming from a black screen that had appeared without warning.
He slowly lifted his head…
He pushed himself up into a sitting position,scooting slightly away from the monster's corpse, and stared at the screen that had materialized out of thin air.
The words were simple… but their impact was heavy:
[The ascent has been completed ]
The golden words shimmered simply in the middle of the black screen with its golden edges…
But the moment Soli focused on them,they vanished, replaced by a new cascade of messages:
[Bonded with Host Consciousness]
[Host has entered Evolution Stages]
[Ascension Path Selected]
[Adding Ascension Path…]
[Ascension Path Added]
[Integrating Perception Modules…]
[Perception Modules Integrated]
Soli muttered in a hoarse voice, completely unable to process what he was seeing:
"Bonded…Host… Evolution stages… Ascension… What in the actual—"
He didn't finish his sentence.
A low sound emanated from the screen, like the shudder of vibrating glass…
Then,black fragments appeared out of nowhere, gathering in front of him as if summoned by an unseen hand. They coalesced into a small, floating circle beside the main screen.
The circle was black with golden edges, and inside it was a shimmer resembling stars drowned in a deep nebula—like a window into another abyss.
A prompt appeared on the main screen:
[Please Insert Perception Upgrade Material]
While a single word glowed on the floating circle:
[Here]
He stared at the circle, utterly bewildered…
"Upgrade?...Perception modules?... What does all this mean? And why has the interface changed now?"
He tried to command the screen to disappear. Once… then again… and again.
But it was useless—
It no longer obeyed him.
He raised his blood-stained hand toward the circle, wanting only to understand the meaning of the word "Here."
Just a touch…
The moment he made contact, the golden edges of the circle spun rapidly, and then—
All the blood on his body was pulled toward his hand,his finger, and into the circle, as if an unseen force was siphoning it from him.
It gathered above the circle and transformed from a red liquid into slowly, vertically shifting grains of crimson sand…
Then,its color gradually began to turn to black.
A new message appeared:
[Analyzing Perception Upgrade Material…]
And with every second, the color of the bloody sand shifted… from black to gold.
[Analysis Complete]
[Configuring Material Stages & Attributes…]
[Configuration Complete]
[Integrating Settings…]
The circle absorbed the golden sands completely, then disintegrated into fragments and retreated back into the main screen.
[Material Stage Settings Integrated]
Then, a new prompt appeared…
[Preparing First System Ascension Phase]
This time, the wait was long.
Longer than he had anticipated…
Until he began to feel something being rebuilt inside him.
And finally:
[Preparation Complete]
Followed by the final, most critical message:
[Initiate Full System Bonding?]
Soli stared at the screen in stunned confusion. He didn't understand anything that had happened… and now, before him, was a question simple on its surface, but terrifying at its core:
Begin? Yes or No?
He didn't think for long. Maybe he was exhausted, maybe curious, or perhaps the agony he had just endured had left him incapable of refusal.
He muttered:
"Yes…"
The words vanished.
And suddenly—
A massive shockwave ripped through his body.
His entire frame convulsed,and his pupils dilated to their absolute limit.
In the blink of an eye…
Everything around him changed.
The trees began to shrink at an insane rate, as if an entire timeline was being rewound with a single touch. Trunks shrank… branches receded into seeds…
Until they vanished completely back into the earth.
The very ground itself began to be pulled away, the soil evaporating, rocks crumbling and flying backward at a breathtaking speed…
Until the entire planet was gone.
Soli found himself floating in space.
But even space was not stable.
The other planets dissolved into dust,the sun winked out of existence like a dying spark…
And the whole galaxy hurtled away until nothing remained but scattered,distant stars and an endless vacuum.
And then… the stars began to move.
From every direction,they gathered, swirling around one another, glowing brighter.
They coalesced into a giant form… a body of light and radiance, with no clear features, just a living, celestial mass.
And on the other side—
the black holes were also gathering.
They swirled over one another,intertwined, and condensed into the shape of a dark entity, blacker than the abyss itself.
The two entities, the luminous and the dark, stood side by side.
They gazed at the insignificant Soli before them,as if he were a speck in an ocean.
Then, they reached their hands toward him.
The hand of the stellar entity transformed into a river of light, flowing toward him with immense speed.
Conversely,the hand of the dark entity stretched into a river of shadow, swallowing everything it passed through.
The two rivers streamed forth… and poured directly into Soli's eyes.
It felt as if the entire universe was being injected into his skull.
The two giants vanished completely inside his body.
And slowly, his eyes changed—
the right one became a brilliant gold,and the left one black like a dark hole.
Their colors swirled within each other,like flowing rivers moving behind them.
And suddenly—
Soli was yanked backward with tremendous force!
He hurtled through space at light-speed, stars and planets streaking past him like endless, luminous lines.
Then the darkness began to shift into a light blue…
Mountains materialized out of nowhere…
Trees,rocks, earth…
As if he was crossing entire worlds in a fraction of a second.
Until he reached… his own body.
He pierced through his own chest and was violently thrust back into it.
Another shockwave tore through him from the inside.
His body convulsed violently…and then he suddenly drew a sharp, final gasp, as if his soul had been on the verge of escaping.
"What… the hell… just happened?!"
Soli panted, his eyes wide with utter disbelief as he scanned his surroundings. He was still sitting in the exact same spot, the ground around him still dirty with blood and earth… The only thing that had changed was that the gray creature now sat motionless beside him, silently watching.
But the screen in front of him was nothing like before; it had completely transformed.
[Host Bonding Complete]
[Preparing Primary System Interface]
With a soft glow, only five lines appeared:
[Host: Unidentified]
[Stage: Surging]
[core: 0/500]
[Blood control : 0/100]
[Ascend your path of evolution for the "Final Verdict"]
There were no instructions… no explanation… nothing to indicate what this system meant, or what he had just gotten himself into. Just a series of ambiguous words hanging before him, mercilessly.
But one thing seized his attention and stole his breath:
"…What is the Final Verdict?"