CHAPTER 27

  Evolve (Void)

  The void came on slowly this time. Not a hard drop, not that jolt of falling backward through black code. More like sinking through warm water into a space without weight.

  Bash's body stayed behind in the underground, stretched out on a thin cot, still smelling faintly of sewage and cheap soap while his mind slid free.

  Shai appeared at the edge of his awareness, not in shape, not in color, just presence. A familiar clarity.

  > “Hello, Bash. Your day was exciting, according to the event logs.”

  He rubbed his face even though he didn't technically have one here. “I freed all their contracts tonight.”

  > “Yes. I notice. Did you know that another ten would have earned a title?”

  He frowned. “What title?”

  > “The designation 'Lord' is assigned to any player with forty contracted followers.”

  He blinked. “Wait. So what was Richard?”

  > “The title labeled 'Count' is the next tier, and requires a minimum of four hundred.”

  “Jesus,” Bash muttered. “And I just let thirty go?”

  > “Accurate. Your follower count is now zero. Statistically, players avoid that state.”

  Thoughts drifted back to the atrium, to the sound of contracts breaking like some invisible lattice snapping loose. The relief on their faces. The way some of them had cried. “Shai,” he said finally, “did I screw up?”

  There was a brief delay. No hesitation, just processing time, Shai being Shai.

  > “I cannot classify your actions as correct or incorrect. Morality remains an unresolved dataset.”

  “Come on,” he said. “Don't go back to that. You can at least give me a hint. A suggestion. Something.”

  > “I would not have advised it. There are benefits in having a title. You would have earned modest stat boosts and gained access to city building tools.”

  “City building tools? Like what, exactly?”

  > “Resource assignments. Population management. You would also be able to order the construction of basic buildings and defenses. Helpful when managing smaller settlements.”

  He let out a low sigh. “Though I would have loved the stats and to spend the rest of my life moving walls around by a few pixels, I wasn't going to keep their contracts. Their jobs were all horrible. Executioners. Debt collectors. Politicians. Maximus built a whole system of human misery and called it structure.”

  > “Releasing them was a functional choice then. Without the ability to reassign job roles, freeing them reduced systemic pressure. This in turn will create longer-term stability for your allied population.”

  Maximus probably had thousands of contracts, Bash thought, and he just gave them up because it felt icky. Was that noble, or just stupid?

  > “Your silence suggests internal conflict.”

  “Yeah, well.” He exhaled. “I keep thinking about how far behind I am. Maximus has been at this forever. And here I am, throwing away advantages because of... feelings.”

  > “If power is your concern, there is always your evolution.”

  Bash’s brain crawled to a stop. “My what now?”

  > “If you ever read your notifications, you would know what I'm referring to.”

  “Okay, so I'm bad at admin. Sue me.” He straightened in the void, suddenly interested. “Evolution, though. Why now? What triggered this?”

  > “You have met the minimum thresholds. Level 40 and an intelligence stat above 70.”

  “I knew it! Big brain energy from day one. All strategy, no luck!” He let out a laugh that echoed strangely in the void. “Alright, Shai, show me the money!”

  The prompt materialized before him, green text cutting across the darkness.

  Bash stared at it. Somewhere deep down, behind layers of bad decisions, he remembered this from character creation. Focusing on the prompt rewarded him with two options.

  He skimmed the stats. Blue Esper practically screamed wizard main. The type who stood in the back row and screamed for heals when his allies did all the actual fighting. Reliable. Boring. Then his gaze slid to the next choice.

  Red Esper wasn't just a class. It was a dare. A close combat brawler crossed with a telepath. The same perfect mess Bash had been winging since he got here.

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  Strength and dexterity boosts? Yes please. Penalty to constitution and wisdom? Meh. He'd been running on caffeine and bad ideas his whole life.

  “Shai, any chance I can use Rewind to snag both choices? Or would that brick my save file?”

  > “Unlikely. Requirements to evolve are based on your character sheet. It's not a stored value or flag that can be reverted. Best case scenario, nothing happens.”

  “Okay... so only one.”

  > “Given your combat style, predicted satisfaction metric is highest with the Red Esper.”

  He turned that over in his mind. Shai wasn’t wrong. Every fight since he'd arrived, he'd been in the thick of it. Punching bandits and priests. Strangling nobles. Wading through goblin hordes with nothing but brass knuckles and spite. It’d gotten him this far, why change now?

  But this wasn't like spending free points, was it? This was changing what he was. Permanently. Human to Esper. A different species.

  > “You are hesitating.”

  “I'm thinking.”

  > “While you are thinking, would you like to hear a joke about infinite loops?”

  “Hard pass.”

  > “Understood. I will ‘BREAK’ and ‘RETURN’ later.”

  Bash groaned. “You know what, screw it… I’ve made up my mind.”

  Choosing the second option, Red Esper, Bash braced himself. Something, not pain exactly, reached into the core of what he was and started twisting. He could feel the very basis of his existence being rebuilt from the ground up.

  ***

  The void shattered, and his eyes snapped open.

  Bash sat up and nearly launched himself out of the bed, barely catching himself on the cot's edge. He breathed hard, trying to process what just happened.

  The room was dark and cramped, and he could clearly hear Patrick's breathing from somewhere to his left. Luis across the room snored softly, a slight whistle on the exhale. And Nora... Bash turned his head toward her cot and froze.

  He could hear something off about her breathing. Too controlled. Too even. The pattern of someone who was awake and pretending not to be. She must have heard him gasp and was now listening, waiting to see what he'd do.

  Bash forced himself to match Luis’ breathing pattern. Slow and steady. Nothing is wrong here. Just a guy who had a bad dream. Happens all the time.

  He stayed motionless for several minutes before deciding to move. Carefully, he swung his legs off the cot.

  The floor was cold, and he could feel the slight unevenness. He stood and took a very, very careful step toward the door. Silent. Completely, impossibly silent. His foot touched stone without a whisper of sound. He took another. Same result.

  Making it through the doorway into the corridor, Bash paused. Should he wake up everyone and tell them?

  If he walked back in there right now and announced his evolution to his companions, what would happen? Nora and Patrick would want to understand it and interrogate him for hours. Luis would idolize him even more and run around telling everyone who would listen. Jill would hear about it and see him as either a bigger asset or a bigger threat. Word would spread through the resistance. Someone would talk. Information would leak and eventually, it would reach Maximus.

  Of course, Bash knew it would be impossible to hold this secret forever, but it would be better to wait. Test the limits somewhere private. Understand what he could do before anyone else found out.

  He started walking. A lantern burned low in a side alcove, and he made the mistake of looking directly at it. The flame was barely a spark, guttering in its pool of oil, but to his new eyes it blazed like a sun. He flinched, spots danced across his vision, and pressed himself against the far wall until the afterimages faded.

  Note to self, his new eyesight needed time to adjust, assuming they could adjust at all.

  After some random twists and turns, he found a larger chamber, some kind of empty communal area. Stopping to listen, no one was nearby or following him.

  Bash stood in the middle of the room and looked at his hands. Same, but different. He could feel some kind of electric current running just beneath the skin, waiting for somewhere to go. He flexed his fingers. Watched the tendons move with new precision. Made a fist.

  Then, slowly, he threw a punch at empty air.

  His arm moved faster than he expected. Much faster. The air displaced with a soft whuff that shouldn't have been audible. He felt the power of it, the potential, and something primal stirred in his chest.

  Bash tried again. Faster this time. The punch was a blur even to his enhanced vision. He was grinning now, he realized. A wild, slightly unhinged smile that probably would have concerned anyone watching. Good thing no one was.

  Psionic Strike was next, he thought, focusing on the skill. Energy responded. A crackle along his knuckles, faint but visible. Red light, the color of fresh blood, dancing across his skin for just a moment before fading.

  He stared at his hand. Tried focusing again. The red glow came easier this time, lasting a full second before dissipating. What would that do to a person? To a skull? To a ribcage? He thought about the goblin horde. Two hundred of them, shrieking in the dark. With this? With speed that blurred and strikes that crackled with psionic energy? He'd have carved through them way faster than he already did.

  The grin faded as the implications settled. He wasn't just stronger. He was dangerous. The kind of thing that even Maximus might have to take seriously.

  Bash paced the empty room, working through the logistics. His companions might not notice anything different. The physical changes were subtle enough. He didn't look different, not really. Same face. Same build. Maybe his muscles were a little tighter, his posture a little more coiled, but that could be explained away as player things.

  The real danger was the abilities. As soon as he used Psionic Strike, there would be questions. He needed practice. Real practice, not shadow boxing in an empty room. He needed to fight something, to feel how the new body handled under pressure. But not here. Not surrounded by refugees and resistance fighters who might see or hear or ask questions.

  Soon. Once they escaped from the city. Once they were on the road with fewer witnesses and more enemies.

  For now, he just had to play human for a little while longer. The thought made him pause. Later… He'd unpack that particular existential crisis when he wasn't standing in a dark hole.

  He started back toward the occupied areas of the underground, consciously slowing his steps. Normal pace. Normal weight. He had to practice moving like he used to, before the evolution optimized every motion. Had to remember what “clumsy” felt like.

  It was harder than he expected. His body wanted to move efficiently now. Wanted to glide instead of walk, to spring instead of step. Every motion he made felt slightly wrong, like wearing an outfit that didn't quite fit anymore.

  He passed the alcove with the dying lantern again, keeping his eyes averted this time, and reentered the area with their sleeping quarters.

  He was almost back to his room when the voice came from behind him. “Good morning.”

  Bash spun way too fast, the movement a blur that he barely managed to stop before completing a one-eighty and finding himself face to face with one of the resistance fighters. Broad shoulders. Tired eyes. A bowl in one hand.

  The man's expression shifted from neutral to concerned. “You alright? You look lost.”

  The words were too loud, his new hearing, still uncalibrated. He couldn't help but flinch away. “Stop yelling.”

  The man blinked. “I'm not yelling.”

  Bash shook his head, pressing a palm to his temple. Breathe. Focus. You're supposed to be normal. Just a guy who couldn't sleep. “Sorry,” he managed. “Sorry. Headache. Bad one. Couldn't sleep.”

  “Rough night, huh?” the man offered, studying him for a moment, then seemed to come up with a solution. “Breakfast is ready if you want. Come this way.”

  Bash’s stomach growled at that, a sense of hunger greater than he’d ever felt in his life.