"Mr. Adyr, thank you so much for letting us observe the process."

The voice carried across a vast laboratory washed in clinical white, where the light cut clean angles along steel rails and glass partitions. Rows of instruments hummed at a steady pitch. Hundreds of white-coated researchers filled the tiered platforms, their notebooks half-raised, their faces intent, every gaze drawn to the lone figure at the center.

"It's alright. I owe you at least this much. Just make sure you pay me a good amount of Merit Points." Adyr allowed himself a brief chuckle. The sound was measured, almost modest, the kind that suggested a composed role model, a man others might be tempted to call a hero, though he wore the title lightly.

A short while earlier, after deciding to evolve to Rank 3, he had notified the research teams and permitted them to observe. The announcement worked like a spark on dry tinder. Within minutes, corridors emptied and projects were abandoned mid-step as they converged on the lab, unwilling to miss what might be a once-in-a-lifetime study.

Of course, they had been present to study while Selina, Victor, and the others underwent their evolutions, but this was different: it was the first time a human being was stepping into a Rank 3 realm.

Gratitude rippled through the onlookers, not only because Adyr had opened the door to his most vulnerable moment, but also because his tone remained grounded.

He spoke of Merit Points with the same calm practicality he used for danger and logistics. That restraint, coming from someone already counted among the highest echelons, stirred a collective sense of respect that thickened the air with quiet indebtedness.

When Adyr saw everyone's faces fixed on him in open admiration, he felt accomplished.

Still, the respect and the swelling sense of duty he inspired were secondary to what mattered. He really wanted them to see the evolution mechanics clearly.

Having learned of the resource Synergy Essence, akin to the human mutation serums, he grew curious whether the teams could eventually craft something for Practitioners that would permit controlled bodily and ability modifications to increase power.

"We are ready. You can begin whenever you feel it is appropriate," said Henry Bates, his voice steady from the observers' row. As he spoke, STF operatives in dark tactical uniforms settled into their positions along the perimeter, weapons holstered but hands free, forming a quiet ring of discipline.

Their presence was not directed at Adyr but at anything that might come from outside to threaten his safety.

Everyone in the room understood how evolution left a Practitioner exposed. Anticipating that window of weakness, Henry triggered the highest security code across Player Headquarters. Corridors were swept, entrances sealed, and only authorized personnel remained inside. The hush beyond the lab felt deliberate, as if the entire building were holding its breath.

Seeing Henry's protective, even borderline paranoid, precautions, Adyr was satisfied. During an evolution, he preferred to be guarded, and Henry Bates was the one he trusted most for that job currently.

Even so, he did not leave his safety casually in anyone's hands.

The Gaze fed him shifting futures in which he unleashed chaos himself—interrogating, maiming, even killing to strip the room to its truth.

He knew plenty of methods to make someone speak within 10 seconds, so he ran those brutal branches to stress every bond and angle. No hidden malice surfaced. With that certainty, he confirmed his methods and the people he could trust before the evolution began. Only then did he accept the space as safe.

"Let's not waste time."

Adyr stripped off his gear and passed it to the aide who stepped in at his side. He kept only his underwear, then lowered himself to the cold stone.

He crossed his legs, placed his hands lightly on his knees, and set his spine straight. The lab hummed around him, a thin electric note under the glare of white lights.

The instant his other body in the Legacy Domain began the evolution, this body answered.

Hair went first. The messy black strands loosened one by one, then in a soft, steady rain, like threads pulled from a seam. They slid down his neck and shoulders and landed on the stone in a faint scatter.

Eyebrows followed. Eyelashes came away in delicate clumps that stuck for a moment to his cheeks before falling.

A white mist rose from his pores, the kind of heat haze that wavers above a forge.

Under that veil, the surface of him moved. Muscle cords tightened and slid like cables under oil. Veins climbed, then sank. Bone answered with a dry, gradual creak that carried through the lab, followed by the wet pull of tissue parting and knitting again.

His frame thinned. Shoulders drew in, ribs sharpened, and his height seemed to settle by degrees, as if something inside were grinding flesh, muscle, and bone in a slow mill and pouring him back into a narrower mold.

"Holy… is this how they usually evolve?" a researcher whispered. His voice shook. He had never seen a human body accept changes like this.

"Silence."

The warning from the upper tier cut clean through the room, and the whisperer snapped his mouth shut.

A stillness settled in its wake. Sleeves stopped rustling, pens stopped clicking, and even breathing drew down to a careful, measured hush, as if a single stray sound might crack the balance holding the moment together.

They felt it in their bones: what they were seeing was only the beginning.

A faint ripple crossed Adyr's mouth, a thin line of distaste, and then his jaw opened.

Vomiting struck with the violence of a convulsion. His shoulders snapped forward, his throat worked like a piston, and teeth, loosened by the sheer force and pressure of it, broke free and skittered across the stone with bright, brittle clicks. His lower jaw sagged, ligaments slack and trembling as the wave ran through him.

At the sight of it, training faltered. Several faces went pale, but no one looked away.

The room watched as the discharge spread in steaming ropes, crawling over the floor, while everybody froze at the sight.

There were sheets of sloughed stomach lining, stringy webs of intestine, wedges of dark liver, pale kidney lobes gleaming through bile, translucent membranes that dragged and broke, and clots that thumped dully when they landed. Threads inside still twitched in small, useless pulses.

The smell arrived after a beat, heavy with iron, sour with acid, and edged with the bitter trace of bile. It pressed into sinuses and sat on tongues.

Every face tightened with silent agony, but one remained untouched.

Beneath lowered lids, Adyr's eyes remained black and steady, his attention narrowed to a single line. His features did not shift. The calm on his face was the same as when he sat down, a mask that sensation could not disturb.

The only proof of life was the faint swallow that worked once down his throat. He was not dead. He was enduring. And the lab, held in that precise, oppressive silence, had no choice but to follow the moment forward and witness what came next.

And soon they witnessed that, after the destruction, creation rose in all its beauty.

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