Genetic Awakening: My Genes Evolve Infinitely!

There was no room for hesitation. Rohan immediately followed Elane and the others into the deeper depths of the lair despite knowing that something horrible was potentially lurking inside.

"Be careful, my gut tells me there isn’t just an Elite tier waiting for us up ahead... I suspect that whoever is behind everything that’s happened is involved with all of this. We’re running right into the final conclusion they prepared for us."

Rohan spoke softly to Elane, making sure that nobody else around them could hear his words. He could see the suspicion rising on her face — clearly wondering why he was so confident in that guess — but she kept her suspicions to herself and chose to remain silent on the topic for the time being.

Now wasn’t the time to question and second guess each other.

Rohan refrained from uttering anything more, worried that Elane might start to catch onto the fact that he was hiding a very deep secret that could endanger his life if exposed.

However, as they were the last few to make a run for the innards of the lair, they lost sight of the other Awakened.

Now they had to navigate the labyrinthine structure of the huge formation by themselves, in nearly complete darkness.

Thankfully, the horde of Spike Beasts continued to move at the same pace, regardless of whether there were any Awakened to trample over or not. Whoever was controlling them clearly didn’t have enough brain power than to make them complete this simple action. That was reassuring at least.

’Or this could just be another stalling tactic to led everyone reach the innards of the lair safely.’

At this point, Rohan had no clue what to believe. Whoever was behind this had clearly planned everything out from the very beginning — far more than Rohan or any of the other Awakened could think up on the go.

"Elane, we should hold off from rejoining the others until we ascertain the situation of this place. The others think this place has been sealed ever since it was first explored and documented, but we know that’s most likely not the case."

Rohan could vaguely feel the trembling vibrations underfoot from the Spike Beasts at his rear, but no such feeling came from the direction the Awakened had darted off towards.

He felt uneasy, but it was probably just a case of everyone splitting up in the chaos when the membrane disappeared, forced to find their own way to the core of this formation.

***

"We’ve been walking for 30 minutes now; is there really no sign of an end yet?"

Elane was exhausted. Spending hours going back and forth between the tunnels they’d been digging had drained her, and having to desperately escape a horde of beasts while being squished by the other Awakened didn’t make her feel any better.

By now, she only had a few good hours left in her before she’d become more of a burden on Rohan than anything.

"We just keep moving then. This place can’t go on forever."

Rohan still felt in good spirits. Despite putting in much harder physical labour in digging that tunnel than Elane, his body was in good form. That was the difference between an Awakened with a Gene and one without.

Elane wouldn’t have such troubles with fatigue, exhaustion and energy conservation once she absorbed one of her own — even if it was only a Normal tier unlike Rohan’s.

There were four paths they could have taken from the entrance of the lair, all pointing in different directions with no apparent connection to each other. Rohan chose the second from the left as that was the one he witnessed Norm and his group head down.

But they hadn’t caught sight of any human activity so far, which was rather disconcerting for the duo.

Did something happen to them? The only way to know was to reach the end of this path and hope to find them waiting there.

***

It turned out the path did end.

Just not in the way either of them wanted.

After another few minutes of passing onwards through the winding dark tunnel, the walls ahead finally began to widen. The walls themselves began to thicken with the same strange material as they approached, casting a much more daunting atmosphere into the passage.

But as they reached the end, the darkness receded, replaced by a light source coming from ahead, likely in the ceiling of the lair.

Rohan immediately slowed his pace.

"Elane."

"I know."

Her voice was barely above a whisper.

They both felt a twisting feeling in their gut. This place was too silent...

They edged forward with their weapons at the ready, every step extremely careful and as silent as they could manage. Then the tunnel gave way to a large core chamber.

Both of them stopped dead in their tracks.

Bodies... Human bodies lay everywhere. Completely motionless.

Norm was there, and so was Gerty. The scarred man too.

Rohan was too shocked by the sight before his eyes to count, but at a glance there were dozens of them.

Most of the Awakened from the gathering outside, whom Rohan vaguely recognised from their entrance and the digging effort around the perimeter.

All of them were sprawled across the floor in different positions.

...Snoring?

"Are they dead?" Elane asked, though she already guessed the answer herself.

They were unconscious, not dead.

For a brief moment, relief sparked in both of their minds. But caution returned an instant later.

Rohan’s relief turned into a fresh kind of wariness.

There was no sign of struggle. Not a speck of blood, or beast corpses, or even signs of battle.

They were just asleep. What on earth could have done this to them?

’I don’t see anyone awake. We’re lucky that we were the latest to head inside, otherwise...’

"What happened to them...?"

Rohan didn’t answer. Elane wasn’t fishing for one either, just expressing her disbelief.

Their eyes were already sweeping the chamber with a growing sense of dread. Whatever caused all of the Awakened to be like this might still be present — they were only a few minutes behind the Awakened in entering.

The room itself was enormous, easily the largest enclosed space he had seen inside the gate as of yet. The floor was smoother here, to the point of looking recently polished in some places by some unnatural process, while the walls and ceiling were crisscrossed with thick beams that let the starlight and aurora filter in through the gaps.

Then something caught his eyes.

A raised formation of black-red stone and crystal in the very centre of the chamber.

His mind buzzed with activity, knowing immediately that the formation wasn’t a natural construct or something placed there by the Elite either. It stuck out like a sore thumb in this gate, not matching the aesthetics of a dead world at all.

A third party placed that formation in the very centre.

Rustle...

And then Rohan darted his head around after noticing movement.

In the far corner of the chamber, away from Norm’s group, a blurry figure stood hunched over an Awakened’s sleeping body.

At first, Rohan couldn’t properly make out what he was seeing. The figure’s back was turned, shoulders moving in slow, methodical actions that didn’t let him catch a good sight of them.

But one thing was for sure — they were human.