Chapter Twenty-Five: Evolution

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The underwater world was dim and silent, not a sound to be heard. Of course, perhaps it was simply because Li Shang had yet to evolve any organs for hearing. He surveyed his surroundings, searching for the trace of that shadow he’d glimpsed earlier.

“What was that?” A chill crept up from the depths of his heart; the unknown was always the most terrifying. “Damn it, wasn’t this supposed to be a sci-fi game? Why does it feel scarier than a horror game?” Li Shang swallowed hard. The gloom of the environment weighed on him inexplicably.

He waited in place for quite some time. When the shadow failed to reappear, relief finally washed over him. He resumed searching for red particles to devour. However, just as he’d swallowed another and was about to hunt the next, he sensed something amiss.

“Why does it feel darker below?” He maneuvered his body to look downward, and what he saw would be etched into his memory forever.

A spiral-shaped maw, five or six times larger than his own body, was rapidly approaching from below. The surrounding water was stirred into powerful undercurrents by the enormous mouth, binding his body and rendering him immobile.

Due to his limited vision, Li Shang couldn’t make out the creature’s full visage—only the massive, indescribably dense darkness beneath its gaping jaw.

“Holy hell!” Li Shang nearly died of fright, throwing caution to the wind as he desperately fled forward. This thing was about to swallow him whole!

Bang!

The jaws snapped shut mere inches from his body. The tremendous force of their closure generated a surge that swept him away at breakneck speed. His narrow perspective spun wildly, leaving him dizzy and disoriented.

This was disaster.

Just as he thought he’d meet his end in those monstrous jaws, a titanic, unidentifiable creature appeared and crushed the would-be predator in a single bite.

Gulp!

Li Shang swallowed hard again. The sheer scale of the beast’s perspective numbed his nerves. Was this really a sci-fi game, not a horror one?

Glancing nervously downward, he made a swift decision to leave; this was not a place for him to tempt fate. After swimming for a while and feeling safe once more, Li Shang cautiously resumed searching for red particles. Whenever he spotted any shadow in the vicinity, he immediately fled, never lingering.

His painstaking caution paid off: his body grew stronger with each particle consumed, and the second progress bar below was nearing completion. After devouring yet another red particle, the bar filled completely, and he felt a dramatic change in his body.

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His form seemed to be expanding, growing ever larger. At the same time, a prompt appeared before his eyes.

[You have evolved to another stage]
[Gene slot increased]

As the transformation finished, Li Shang frowned. He hadn’t unlocked a new organ this time; only his body size had increased. The rest remained unchanged.

He was still what he was before.

“That doesn’t make sense,” Li Shang muttered, troubled. He thought he understood the game, but it turned out he didn’t; the acquisition of organs was not as he’d imagined.

“If it isn’t evolution, then what is it?” As he pondered, he suddenly noticed a shadow, roughly his size, swiftly approaching.

“Hm?”

As the creature entered his field of vision, he could finally make out its features: a squid-like body, spiral maw, and eyes reminiscent of a frog. With a single glance, Li Shang recognized it as the same species as the monster that had attacked him earlier.

Previously, he’d been outmatched, but now, having evolved, his size was comparable. It was time for payback.

Without hesitation, he lunged forward, intent on venting all the fear he’d felt. The battle was silent, and the process was straightforward: Li Shang anticipated and dodged the opponent’s attack, then bit down hard on one of its frog-like eyes.

His plan was simple—blind it first, then wear it down.

With his first strike successfully landed, the fight was quickly decided. He dispatched the deformed creature with ease.

Watching the corpse float in the water, he immediately began devouring it.

[You have consumed an unknown creature]
[You are acquiring its genes]
[You have obtained...]
[You have obtained external eyes]
[They allow you to see the world more clearly]
[Your evolved lineage has added 'unknown' creatures to its diet]
[You have gained one evolution point]
[This will affect your gene point settlement]

As he read the prompts, Li Shang understood at last.

“So organs are acquired by plundering the genes of other creatures.”

“What if I assemble all the most powerful organs into a single organism... Damn.” Li Shang drew in a sharp breath. The feeling of personally evolving the strongest creature was overwhelmingly satisfying.

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Fueled by excitement, Li Shang willed himself to seek a mate. Soon, countless pink lines appeared in his vision, each pointing toward the location of nearby spheres.

He picked one at random and proceeded. Mating was nothing more than two spheres touching—nothing worth watching.

Once the spheres had “kissed,” an animation played, and the sphere he controlled produced an egg. His perspective then shifted to the organ selection space.

After this round of evolution, his gene slots had increased to six, meaning he could now use six organs simultaneously.

He immediately removed the flat eyeball, replacing it with a pair of external eyes. Placing them on either side of his body would maximize their effectiveness, but as a human, Li Shang was accustomed to having both eyes at the front, so he didn’t bother.

With his new pair of eyes in place, one gene slot remained. After some thought, he assigned it to tentacles, which would enhance his mobility—a considerable advantage at his current stage.

Once his gene slots were allocated, Li Shang clicked “evolution complete.”

Soon, he broke out of his shell, and his perspective returned to his new body.

“That’s more like it,” he said with satisfaction, gazing at the underwater world. This pair of eyes was truly worthy of the name; the previous ones were nothing but inferior pinhole cameras.

Now, it felt as if he’d traded a shotgun for a cannon.

He observed his surroundings with his newly evolved eyes. Large bubbles constantly rose from the depths, buffeting plant-like algae that drifted through the water, occasionally scattering green powder—origin of the green particles.

However, once Li Shang took in the full scope of the underwater world, the joy from his recent evolution evaporated instantly.

It was a veritable monster playground.

Every creature prowling here was more ferocious than the last, each one enormous in scale.

One of them was so vast, Li Shang could hardly shake the impression that it was a celestial body.

And still they called this a sci-fi game? Even if Jesus descended today, it would still be a horror game!

Li Shang was thoroughly unnerved; it felt as if all trust between people had vanished.