Re: Evolution Online-Novel

"I am injured?"

Liam's face twitched as he read the messages one after the other. This was something completely unexpected. In fact, he had no idea how this could have happened.

Was he injured? Heck, even he was still not sure if this was true or not! How could others know about it and even talk about it so confidently?

Wait, do they know what specific injury he suffered? Maybe that could save him some time from the self-analysis that awaited him. Liam smiled bitterly.

He wanted to be more upset about this, but the thing was, none of these idiots knew about the true terror that awaited them. Only a bigger fool would waste time arguing with the ignorant.

Actually, it would make his life a lot simpler if these dogs continued barking and sent him some guild challenges. Then he could put everyone in place in 2 minutes without exerting any effort.

"Yup. Continue talking louder and send some challenges our way."

Liam sighed and ignored the group of messages, all talking about his 'injury.' There wasn't really any more useful information in that cluster of messages.

What he now needed to know was what was happening in the other two red zones.

He closed the guild chat and turned to look at his guild members. "Do you guys think that there could be two people at the top?" He asked a seemingly random question.

"Huh? Why are you asking this, brother?" Mei Mei furrowed her brows.

"I don't think so, bro." Rey shook his head. "Is this about the two-queen thing that you mentioned when you woke up?"

Liam nodded in silence.

"If you are talking about the isons, they looked like insects. Bees, ants, wasps, they all have only single queens." Hao Yuze added.

"No, I don't think so." Alex shook her head. "First, we don't know anything about these things. How can you just simply classify them as insects? For all we know, they could have two queens, three queens, or even four queens."

"Or maybe they have a king." Lan Deming slowly spoke up.

Liam immediately narrowed his eyes. "You are right. If there are two queens, then there might be a King." He repeated his words. 

He had been thinking along the same lines and wondering if there was something that was even stronger than a queen. Now when Lan Deming suggested the same, everything seemed to fit perfectly.

This would explain why all the forces did not attack him, and one Hive Queen stayed back. This would also explain why the Hive Queen herself came forward to deal with him, whom she barely considered a threat.

"It could be a King, or it could also be… brood mother or something else," Liam remembered that the Hive Queen mentioned something about a brood mother. Everyone quieted down, thinking about the same thing.

A minute later, Liam clapped his hands and brought the attention back to him. "Alright. We can talk about this later. What have you all been doing while I was gone? Did anyone reach level 50 yet?"

"I have been going from one hive hill to another, so I have a lot of mana cores with me at the moment. The person with the highest level would get a core formation skill book. Don't forget the other rewards I mentioned. Also…"

"When these hives and isons are taken care of once and for all, we are going to go on a war spree. If you all want to have some proper fun, then you might want to be sufficiently strong." Liam smirked.

Everyone nodded in contemplation, some even revealing villainous smiles. The guild chat was seen by most people here, so they were all well aware of how much Crimson Abyss was bad-mouthed in the public.

It looked like people keep forgetting about the power of an S-Rank guild. So it was time to shut up the world and show them Crimson Abyss is still an S-Rank guild, whether it was inside the game or not!

Liam sent off the guild by walking with them to the magic shop entrance and chatted with his sister a bit. "Ok. I will see you guys soon. Let me summon something to take you all back to the dungeon?"

"Yes," Alex replied. "We are now raiding the Level 50, upgraded dungeon."

"Good." Liam gave another nod to Shen Yue and then silently called forth one of the wyverns. The next second, the huge draconic beast appeared in front of them.

Everyone climbed on top of the soul minion and left the area to start their training. However, what they failed to see was the small flash of pain that appeared and disappeared on Liam's face quietly.

He stood frozen at the entrance of the magic shop as he finally realized he was indeed injured!

When he summoned the wyvern, he discovered where that stabbing pain originated from and what part of him hadn't exactly recovered just yet.

It was his soul.

He had only summoned a single minion, but the stabbing pain was back once again.

What would happen if he summoned the whole army? Wait, would he even be able to summon it in the first place? 

Liam frowned as he took a deep breath and immediately prepared to test this out. 

"Come out." He closed his eyes and called for his minions, focussing entirely on his body and every small change that might be occurring within him.

The next second, all of his thousand-plus minions silently appeared in front of him.

Once again, a wave of pain rippled across his body, but it was only transient. He clenched his fist and bore with it, and soon it passed away.

Liam then inspected his soul minions randomly and found that they were also quite normal, and nothing exactly was impacted.

"So, except for the pain, everything else is fine?" He frowned. It didn't add up.

He then suddenly thought of something and opened his system interface. Immediately, his face changed.

[Soul Splice]

The familiar skill in Liam's repertoire, the one and only overpowered skill that let him run wild these past few days, the skill that he counted on for destroying the isons, was now completely grayed out!

Moreover, in the description, it was written that his soul was not strong enough to invoke the skill currently.

***

Mass Release Chapter 2~

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