Adyr felt tired.

He has endured a full cycle of self-destruction, his body unmaking itself from the inside out, heaving up organs like unwanted scrap while the rest seemed to devour itself, only to begin rebuilding.

Pain threaded every inch of him, steady and exact.

But he did not hate it. He took it, counted it, and let it pass for one purpose: the moment of rebirth.

Heat leaked away in thin streams—a coolness spread like slow rain under a burning sun. Vapor lifted from his pores and, instead of stinging, settled with the faint tick of dew on skin.

Deep within, something deliberate clicked into place. New organs formed like meshed cogs finding their teeth. His chest learned a new rhythm. The pulse steadied. The machine was assembled.

His skin tightened to the shape beneath, as if an unseen hand were scoring lines from the inside. Texture changed under his fingertips: tougher, yes, but also smooth in a way that promised glide rather than drag.

The hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes he had lost began to return, not the former dark but a white as clean as an unpolluted cloud. When they finished growing, they took the old shape—neither short nor long, artfully messy—and caught the lab lights, reflecting them like divine silk.

His eyes changed as well. The dark pupils widened, then narrowed. A white mist poured inward and settled as if declaring new territory, dyeing the irises pale. Within them, faint gleams and drifting clouds appeared, as though his gaze opened onto a sky of pure white, the most pristine landscape anyone could witness. Looking through it felt like stepping into air that had never been used.

The reconstruction did not stop with his eyes. His skin lightened a shade, taking on the smooth polish of marble.

New musculature settled beneath it, supple yet strong, every line placed with the care of a god's hand, so that his frame looked like a sculpture carved to approach perfection.

From a distance, he looked carved. Up close, there was a trick of the eye, as if his body were built from an element not of this world, something that could meet a hammer without yielding and still scatter like dust at the softest breath.

"Beautiful," some researchers whispered, mesmerized.

This time, no supervisor reminded them to be silent; everyone was already absorbed by the thing forming before their eyes.

Under that spell, the creation, no longer human in form, rose to his feet, leaving the room holding its breath.

—

"Damn, I've never witnessed an evolution this chaotic," Loudbark said, shock edging his voice as he stared at Adyr's remade body.

He wasn't alone. Everyone who had followed the process from beginning to end felt their words catch in their throats.

They had seen advances to Rank 3 before, but this was different. The sheer degree of destruction Adyr's body endured—and the meticulous reconstruction that followed—made them all think the Spark driving it had to be something truly rare.

"Are you okay?" Maruun asked as Adyr rose to his feet.

What worried them most, oddly, wasn't the flesh but the gear.

There had been no time to strip, so Adyr kept his uniform on when the change began. As the white mist streamed from his skin, it hissed softly where it touched fabric and metal, eating through seams, buckles, and plating.

The rig tried to hold with its built-in regeneration, threads knitting for a heartbeat before the vapor unmade them again, until the feature hit its limit.

When the glow dimmed, only his boots and a pair of torn trousers remained; most panels sloughed away like wet ash.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Adyr answered. He flexed his fingers, rolled a shoulder, and lifted his chin, testing how the new alignments settled.

Heat had left him; in its place came a cool balance, breath moving cleanly through a chest that felt newly tuned.

He glanced aside and saw that Thalira and Brakhtar had already finished their evolutions, standing still, watching him with bright interest.

Their changes were not minor, even if they fell short of his.

Thalira looked like a living weapon now. Her body had the clarity of a drawn blade, every line sharpened, every contour speaking of force held in check.

Her silver hair had taken on a new luster; each strand caught the light like worked metal that looked firm yet strangely soft to the touch. In her silver eyes, pale flashes flickered, the suggestion of white lightning beginning to gather. It made Adyr think her Spark was tied to the lightning element, though he could not name which.

Brakhtar, by contrast, seemed reduced and concentrated. Where his height had pushed close to 6 m before, he now stood nearer 4 m, and the heavy belly had leaned out.

Atop his round head, a dark, uncertain mark had appeared—almost like hair sketched by a sure but sparing hand. Beyond that, little else announced itself; the change felt internal.

Adyr could feel it from both of them—their strength had risen, and with it the threat they projected.

It didn't trouble him, though. His own ascent was not something to be underestimated.

He already knew which new features his body had gained through evolution; White Shroud's genetic memories had imprinted themselves into his mind, and he was already aware of how every altered detail had turned him into something far more monstrous.

However, before testing his body's new functions, he summoned his character panel to review the changes there.

[Name]: Adyr Hellcraft

[Race]: Twilight Human → Nimbus Human

[Path]: Primora

[Evolution Step]: 2 → 3

[Physique]: 188

[Will]: 200 → 400

[Resilience]: 405

[Sense]: 225

[Energy]: 50 / 1318 → 2518

[Registered Talents]: 15/15 → 15/30

[Omnisight (Lv1)], [Sword Art of Existence(Lv2)], [Maleficent Architect (Lv2)], [Elysian Cook (Lv1)], [Tracking(Lv3)], [Throwing(Lv3)], [Linguistic(Lv3)], [Tactician(Lv4)], [Stealth(Lv3)], [Trapper(Lv3)], [Butchering(Lv3)], [Scouting(Lv3)], [Surgery(Lv3)], [Reader(Lv3)], [Masonry(Lv3)],

[Sparks]: 10/10 → 10/20

[Sanctuary]: Nimbus Land

[Free Stat Points]: 125

"Nimbus?" Adyr looked at the name the system had chosen for his new species and lifted an eyebrow, but when he thought about what it meant, it felt right.

Moving on, he checked the improvements.

The first thing that caught his eye was the 200-point rise in [Will]. In his last evolution, [Sense] had risen by 20; this time, [Will] had climbed by 200, ten times as much. That by itself was showing it plainly: each Rank up stretched the power gulf further.

His energy capacity had also increased by another 1,200, but beyond those numbers, his focus went straight to [Sparks] and [Talents], the main gains on the panel from this evolution. With more room for both, now doubled, he could already picture the power-up he could build from here.

More importantly, with his new body and innate abilities, he could now break free of the golden bars that held him and finally claim his reward, the Synergy Essence, another power-up he was keen to explore.

***

A/N: I wanted to publish this chapter earlier, but it took longer to write than I expected -_-. I'm also including the meaning of "Nimbus" below.

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Nimbus (meteorology): a rain-bearing cloud; dark, dense cloud associated with precipitation.

Nimbus (art/religion): a luminous halo or aura around a person's head.

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