God's Universe

The First Evolution

Logan could barely keep his eyes open.

Blood soaked his clothes, and every breath sent a sharp pain through his chest. His stomach felt as though something had torn it apart from the inside. He could hear Mary calling his name, but her voice seemed distant, as if she were standing on the other side of a thick wall.

The system screen remained in front of him.

[A compatible Evolution Core has been detected.]

[Host's condition is critical.]

[Do you want to consume the Evolution Core?]

[Yes / No]

Logan stared at the two options.

He didn't understand what an Evolution Core was. He didn't know what would happen if he accepted it, and the system had given him no explanation beyond the fact that it was compatible with him.

But he understood one thing perfectly.

If he did nothing, he would die.

His gaze shifted toward Mary and Liam. His mother knelt beside him, pressing a trembling hand against his shoulder while trying to stop the bleeding. Liam stood nearby, his face pale and his eyes fixed on the blood spreading across Logan's shirt.

They had already lost their home in everything but its walls. The entrance was destroyed, furniture lay scattered across the floor, and the dead beast's body rested only a short distance away.

He couldn't leave them alone in this world.

I don't care what this thing does. I need to survive.

With the last strength he could gather, Logan focused on the first option.

"Yes," he whispered.

The moment he made his choice, the system responded.

[Consent confirmed.]

[Beginning Evolution Core absorption.]

A faint red light emerged from the Blood Hound Drauger's corpse.

Mary turned toward it. "What's happening?"

Neither brother could answer.

The light gathered around the beast's head, where Logan's two knives remained embedded. Something small and crimson rose from the body. It looked like a crystal, but its surface pulsed like a living heart.

The crystal floated toward Logan.

Liam instinctively stepped forward. "Mom, look!"

Mary pulled him back, shielding him with her body even though she had no idea what she could do against whatever was happening.

The crimson crystal stopped above Logan's chest.

Then it dissolved.

Red particles sank into his body, disappearing beneath his bloodstained clothes.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Logan's expression remained unchanged, and his breathing grew even weaker.

"Logan?" Mary shook his shoulder gently. "Please, say something."

A sudden warmth spread through his chest.

It began deep inside his body, radiating outward through his stomach, shoulders, arms, and legs. The sensation wasn't pleasant. It felt as though thousands of tiny threads were moving beneath his skin, pulling damaged tissue together.

Logan's back arched.

A strangled cry escaped his throat.

"Mom!" Liam shouted.

Mary grabbed Logan's hand. "Stay with me! Logan, can you hear me?"

He could hear her.

He could hear everything.

But he couldn't respond.

His entire body had become a battlefield. The pain in his stomach flared, then slowly changed into a deep, burning ache. The torn muscles beneath his skin began repairing themselves. Blood stopped flowing from some of his wounds, while the edges of others gradually drew together.

It wasn't instant.

His injuries didn't disappear in a flash of light. The damage remained visible, and every movement still threatened to overwhelm him.

Yet something inside him was rebuilding what the beast had destroyed.

The system continued displaying messages.

[Evolution Core successfully absorbed.]

[Unique Path detected.]

[Activating: Path of Evolution.]

[Evolution Ability acquired: Cellular Healing.]

[Passive Ability acquired: Evolution Core Absorption.]

[Initializing host status...]

The notifications appeared one after another, but Logan was barely conscious enough to notice them.

Then came another sensation.

A sharp tingling spread across the back of his neck.

He clenched his jaw as the feeling intensified, like a hot needle tracing a symbol beneath his skin. A strange mark slowly formed at the base of his skull, hidden beneath his hair and collar.

Unlike the marks that had appeared on Liam's right hand, this one belonged to no ordinary path.

It was the mark of something different.

Something the normal Mark System had never offered him.

\[Path of Evolution successfully activated.\]

The warmth inside Logan's body began to fade.

His breathing steadied, although every breath remained shallow. The bleeding had slowed considerably, and several of his wounds had started closing. His chest, however, was still covered in blood, and the damage to his body had left him almost completely drained.

Cellular Healing could repair him.

It couldn't give him back the blood he'd lost, erase his pain, or restore his exhausted muscles in an instant.

Logan's fingers twitched.

"Logan?" Mary leaned closer. "Can you hear me?"

His lips moved, but no words came out.

Then his eyes closed.

"Logan!"

Mary pressed two fingers against his neck, searching desperately for a pulse. When she felt it, she released a shaky breath.

"He's alive," she whispered. "He's still alive."

Liam dropped to his knees beside his brother. He stared at the wounds that had been deep enough to make him believe Logan would never get up again. Some were now noticeably smaller. Others had stopped bleeding, though they were far from healed.

"How?" Liam murmured. "How is his body doing that?"

Mary had no answer.

She carefully checked Logan's breathing again, then looked toward the shattered entrance. The dead beast lay beyond them, its dark-red veins no longer glowing. The house was exposed, their supplies were scattered, and they had no idea whether another monster might appear.

But Logan had killed the creature.

Her son had faced that thing with two kitchen knives and whatever he could find around the house. He had been injured, thrown around, and nearly killed.

And somehow, he was still alive.

Mary wiped the tears from her cheeks and looked at Liam.

"Help me move him away from the entrance. Slowly. Don't pull on his arms."

Liam nodded immediately.

Together, they moved Logan toward the relatively intact part of the living room. Mary found a clean blanket and folded it beneath his head. Liam gathered the least damaged cushions and placed them nearby, trying to make him comfortable without disturbing his wounds.

Neither of them knew what else to do.

They had no proper medical equipment, no guarantee that Logan's strange healing would continue, and no way to know what waited outside.

So they stayed beside him.

Mary held his hand while Liam watched his brother's breathing, occasionally glancing at the system screen only he could see. His five marks still rested on the back of his right hand, surrounded by their ten empty stars.

He had received a system that explained his potential.

Logan had received something else.

Something that had appeared only after he killed a beast and accepted its core.

For the first time since the world had changed, Liam felt that the rules everyone was talking about might not explain everything.

And that frightened him almost as much as the monsters outside.

Logan surfaced from darkness for a brief moment.

His body felt heavy. Even opening his eyes required more effort than he expected. The ceiling above him was blurred, and he could hear his mother speaking quietly somewhere nearby.

He tried to move his hand.

Pain answered immediately.

Still alive, then.

The thought brought no relief beyond the simple fact that he hadn't died.

A translucent screen flickered into existence before his eyes.

It wasn't the same screen he'd seen when the trial began. Its appearance was different, and the information displayed on it seemed unfamiliar.

Logan forced himself to focus.

[PATH OF EVOLUTION — INITIALIZATION COMPLETE]

Beneath the message, another notification appeared.

[Anomaly recognized.]

Logan's eyes widened slightly.

Anomaly?

Before he could read anything else, the screen changed.

[Your existence does not conform to the standard Mark System.]

His heartbeat quickened.

The system wasn't calling him Unmarked.

It was acknowledging that he was something outside its normal rules.

Logan tried to raise his head, but exhaustion dragged him back toward unconsciousness. The screen remained in front of him, its pale light illuminating the darkness behind his eyelids.

One final notification appeared.

[A new evolutionary record has been created.]

Logan stared at the words until they blurred.

Then he lost consciousness again.