Dust and smoke hung thick in the air, a gray fog so dense it refused to settle.
Lam Huy Trường lay motionless amid the rubble. Broken chunks of concrete were scattered around him. Twisted metal beams jutted up like the exposed ribs of a colossal corpse.
Seconds passed.
He blinked. Once. Twice.
The first sound to return was the ringing in his ears, then the distant clatter of falling bricks.
Slowly, he pushed himself up on his hands. Dust clung to his back, rising in thin clouds around him.
The first thing he did—
He tilted his head toward the corner of his interface.
Faint green text hovered in the air, flickering weakly like it might go dark at any moment.
Time remaining: 00:08:18
His chest rose and fell. He exhaled a long breath, unaware of how long he'd been holding it.
"Damn… never giving me a moment to rest, huh?"
His voice was hoarse from dust.
He planted his hands and stood, knees wobbling. Layers of ash and dirt fell from his shoulders and chest with soft clumps onto the cracked ground.
"Next time… only a fool would do this…"
He muttered, brushing himself off, as if the motion alone could restore normalcy.
Then—
A sound erupted from afar.
It hit so suddenly he felt it tear through his eardrums from the inside.
A scream.
No. Not a single scream.
It was more like—
Thousands of creatures shrieking at once, overlapping, breaking, and warping into something unnatural.
Lam Huy Trường froze.
He swung his head, scanning the ruined area for the source.
And then—
He saw it.
In the distance, at the collapsed edge of Zone E, where high-rise skeletons of charred concrete remained—
A massive black mass churned.
It moved slowly but relentlessly, like a tide rising from the earth itself.
Like living darkness.
He squinted, forcing his vision through the dust and distance.
His pupils shrank.
"…Don't tell me—"
The black mass surged.
Hundreds of ebony tentacles erupted from its surface, writhing in the air like a forest of awakening snakes.
From the center of the "black sea," a gigantic head rose slowly.
Two blazing red eyes opened.
The ground beneath Lam Huy Trường trembled with each throb, as if Zone E itself were breathing.
He staggered, losing balance. Vibrations shot up his spine, rattling his teeth together.
"…Eva?"
He whispered, unsure if the sound had actually left his throat or was only in his mind.
The scene before him—a monstrous creature emerging from the ruins—was something he'd only seen in blockbuster films.
And now, it was standing right in front of him.
A gust of wind swept through, whipping dust and ash against his face. A small black shape—maybe a crow, maybe just debris—glided across the sky.
Then he screamed, as if his brain finally accepted reality.
"DON'T TELL ME THIS IS THE STARTING BOSS OF THE GAME?!"
"Who the hell made this game?!"
"Is this an RPG or a horror game?!"
In the distance, the black mass responded with a deep, rumbling roar, resonating through the earth.
The ground trembled again.
Lam Huy Trường lowered his gaze to his hands. Fingers smeared with dust and dried blood twitched slightly.
He looked up at the creature again.
Through the shifting black flesh, he glimpsed—
Countless human faces swallowed whole, contorted, frozen inside its body.
"…Don't tell me…"
"…you expect me to fight that thing?"
In his mind, an absurdly familiar image flickered.
Him.
A Level 5 Pokémon.
Thrown straight into battle with Mewtwo.
Lam Huy Trường looked skyward, as if searching for a hidden camera.
"Game admin?"
He swallowed hard.
"No."
"Isekai goddess!"
"Do you seriously expect me to fight that?!"
At that moment—
An interface window popped up before him, partially blocking his view.
[WARNING]
Red letters blinked violently, glaring into his eyes.
Unable to calculate Eva's evolution speed accurately.
Another line appeared immediately below, typing almost too fast to follow, as if someone were hammering it out from the other side of the screen.
Hidden Mission about to fail.
Lam Huy Trường froze.
His mind still reeling from being thrown into the map with a disaster-class monster, and now the mission system popped up as if this were just a regular tutorial.
A new window appeared, overlaying everything else.
Do you want to accept the mission?
Below it, a massive white number:
10
Lam Huy Trường blinked.
"Wait—"
9
He instinctively reached out, trying to grab the fading number as if he could stop it with his bare hand.
8
"Hold on—"
7
His thoughts spun. Accept? Decline? Is this a trap? But if he didn't accept… Losing the hidden mission meant losing the reward—and in a game like this, the reward was often the only thing keeping him alive.
6
He tugged at his hair, dust falling across his forehead.
"LET ME THINK!!"
5
4
"Damn it!"
He clenched his teeth and slammed his hand onto the floating choice.
YES
Immediately—
From his inventory, a burst of light shot out.
A thin piece of paper spiraled out of nowhere, twirling in the air as if blown by an invisible wind.
Lam Huy Trường flinched, reflexively reaching out.
His fingertips caught the edge before it could drift away.
He opened it.
His pupils shrank.
"…This is…"
An old journal fragment. Edges yellowed and tattered, ripped from a book long ago.
The first line, scrawled but decisive:
"Never let Eva complete her evolution."
The moment Lam Huy Trường finished reading the line—
A sharp pain shot through his head.
It hit suddenly, violently, like someone had sliced into his skull and shoved something inside.
He collapsed.
His knees slammed into the cracked ground, but he barely felt the pain in his legs. His entire consciousness was pulled inward, into his own mind.
Strange images flooded in.
Not fragmented pieces.
But a continuous chain of memories—vivid, seamless, and utterly foreign to him.
March 21, Era of Crystals
The first sound he heard was whispering.
"Has she fully adapted to the crystal implantation? Unbelievable… ninety-nine percent compatibility?"
"They say she's the adopted child of some noble."
"Adopted? Who would use their own child as a lab rat… seems like they just wanted to discard her, doesn't it?"
Multiple voices of men and women echoed around him, muffled, like heard through water.
Lam Huy Trường looked down—
And realized his viewpoint was higher than normal.
He wasn't seeing through his own eyes anymore.
He was inside a pristine, white laboratory, sterile with the scent of disinfectant and cold metal.
Data screens floated in the air, flashing streams of biological statistics.
At the center of the room—
A small girl sat inside a glass experiment chamber.
"But luck smiles on us," one whispered.
"Look, even trash can become treasure now."
The voices echoed in his ears, but Lam Huy Trường couldn't turn to see who was speaking.
This body… did not obey him.
He tried moving a finger.
Nothing.
It felt like being trapped inside a flesh-and-bone shell, only able to look out, unable to act.
The eyes—no, the eyes of this body—were locked on the data screens monitoring the girl.
The numbers blinked chaotically:
Crystal synchronization rate: 99%
His heart pounded.
He understood.
He was seeing the world through the eyes of—
Professor X.
April 5
The scene jolted like a fast-forwarded film abruptly paused.
He felt a hand move—no, Professor X's hand.
A thin, bony hand held a fountain pen. It scratched across the white pages of a thick journal.
He couldn't control it.
But he sensed every muscle movement, each flick of the wrist.
Words appeared on the page:
"I've attempted to graft her cell samples onto other experimental subjects."
The ink still wet, glinting under the lab light.
"The results were astonishing. They survived, even developing bizarre gene mutations like other crystal-implanted animals."
The hand didn't stop.
"But soon after, they all went mad, mutated even further. They lost control of their minds, turning violent, frenzied."
Lam Huy Trường felt his throat dry, even though it wasn't his own body.
"An unfortunate staff member was bitten by him. Soon after, their brain failed, entering the Madness state, craving bloodshed."
The pen paused briefly, as if the writer hesitated.
Then continued:
"We'll call this state 'Nightmare'. It seems to strip away one's humanity?"
The hand snapped the journal shut with a dry thunk.
Professor X rose.
Lam Huy Trường was pulled along like a passenger strapped to a chair.
He could only watch as these legs moved out of the office.
The scene changed.
April 10
This time, he stood before the observation room.
Through thick glass, he saw the brown-haired girl still sitting in the lab chamber. She didn't look well.
Her shoulders trembled; arms wrapped around herself for warmth.
A researcher held a screen showing her vitals, voice tinged with worry:
"…Is the crystal also corroding? Direct contact shows the implanted crystal darkening."
Another spoke quietly:
"Symptoms match failed 'lab rats.' Controlled by crystals, they become Nightmares."
Lam Huy Trường wanted to look away.
But Professor X's gaze never left her.
On the data screens, vital signs blinked incessantly. Some values turned red.
The girl lifted her head for a moment, her eyes unintentionally meeting the glass—toward him.
Even knowing it was a memory, Lam Huy Trường felt as though she were staring straight at him.
April 16
This time, there was no lab.
Just a small, cramped office, papers piled high on the desk.
Professor X paced back and forth, hands clasped behind his back.
The wooden floor creaked under each turn.
"She's still lucid after such a long time…" he murmured, his voice close to Lam Huy Trường's ear. "But it seems her memory has declined. She no longer recognizes those around her."
He stopped at the desk, leaning both hands on the surface.
"Will she… eventually go mad like the other subjects?"
Lam Huy Trường felt the slight hesitation in the thought.
Not fear.
But… concern.
A sentiment that didn't match the cold detachment the other researchers had shown toward her.
April 17
Back in the lab.
Professor X's fingers danced across the control panel, entering data, adjusting parameters. The screens glowed with a cold blue light, reflecting off his gaunt face.
After a while, he exhaled softly.
"Twenty-four hours passed. Nothing unusual…"
His voice dropped to a near whisper:
"When I checked, she still recognized me."
He lifted his gaze to the thick glass, where the girl sat hugging her knees in the corner.
"What keeps her lucid… resisting the urge to kill?"
A moment of silence lingered.
"I need more data."
Lam Huy Trường sensed a fleeting thought passing through Professor X's mind—not words, but a vague notion.
Not just scientific curiosity.
Something more personal.
April 18
The scene shifted again.
Professor X sat alone in his private office, yellow light dimly illuminating the desk.
He opened the journal and began to write.
Lam Huy Trường saw the words appear, the handwriting shakier than before.
"The closer I get to her, the stranger the feeling inside me."
The pen paused.
"A strange emotion rises within me. A weak, unfamiliar feeling I've never had."
The hand gripped the pen tightly, ink pooling into a small black dot on the page.
"She called me 'brother' instead of professor. She wanted me to hold her."
Lam Huy Trường felt his heart seize.
"I ignored it."
A short pause.
Then, almost forced out:
"Yet I acted in a way I cannot understand. I held her."
The final words were slightly skewed, as if the writer had lost his composure.
"I even patted her head. Something I've never done before. A gentle affection… or a closeness I can't explain."
The hand suddenly stopped.
Then—
He tore the page from the journal.
The ripping echoed sharply in the quiet room.
The crumpled paper was tossed straight into the wastebasket.
Lam Huy Trường could clearly feel an emotion surge from Professor X.
Not regret.
But… fear.
Fear of his own feelings.
April 21
The scene changed again.
Lam Huy Trường found himself standing very close to the girl—close enough to see each strand of her brown hair plastered to her forehead.
The lab was still cold, the white lights casting her pale skin like wax.
But something had changed.
Her eyes… were slowly turning opaque white.
No more pupils.
Just a milky membrane reflecting the light like shattered glass.
Lam Huy Trường felt a chill run down his spine.
Her hair was still short, but at the nape of her neck—small patches of flesh twitched subtly.
From them, thread-thin tendrils emerged, trembling in the air.
They were tiny, weak, like newly sprouted seedlings.
Yet their presence was enough to distort the room around him.
A rising sense of dread surged.
Not from Lam Huy Trường.
But from Professor X himself.
He could feel the heart of this body pounding faster, the breaths growing heavier.
Professor X's eyes—reflected in the protective glass—trembled slightly as he watched her.
April 25
This time, Lam Huy Trường was in Professor X's office.
Another researcher sat across from him, holding a thick dossier, voice monotone but tense:
"The other failed experimental subjects eventually evolved into true monsters. They grew spines, roughened skin, some even spewing acid that destroyed their cages."
Images in Lam Huy Trường's mind overlapped with what he had seen outside—Eva, the massive creature.
"The security team dealt with them ruthlessly. Some sacrificed themselves."
Professor X didn't reply immediately.
He just stared at the desk, where old scratches marred the wood like cracks in a surface.
The researcher continued:
"After emergency meetings, the council determined Eva is the only entity suitable as a crystal host."
He took a deep breath and added:
"They decided to let her interact directly with Nightmare-infected subjects… and with the already Nightmare-transformed specimens."
The scene shifted.
Lam Huy Trường found himself outside a massive steel cage.
Inside, countless twisted creatures screamed, bodies deformed, jagged black crystals embedded in their flesh.
At the center—
A smaller cage was being slowly lowered by crane.
Inside was the girl.
Lam Huy Trường—or rather, Professor X—whispered, voice almost breaking:
"Danger—"
But the warning was swallowed by screeching metal and the screams of the Nightmare creatures.
The small cage touched down. Its door slowly opened.
The girl poked her head out, movements slow, like someone waking from a long fever.
The surrounding Nightmare monsters froze.
Then—
They started losing control.
Not by charging her.
But by clawing at themselves, tearing apart their already mutated flesh.
Some recoiled, ramming their heads into steel walls as if trying to escape some invisible force.
"They… are afraid?" a researcher muttered, voice faltering.
Another stammered:
"When she approached… they slammed into the walls themselves… trying to escape?"
Other creatures, shambling like slow zombies, completely ignored her, staggering past as if she didn't exist.
"They… see her as one of their own?"
The researchers began whispering frantically around Professor X.
But Lam Huy Trường could feel clearly—
The hands of this body were slowly clenching into fists.
April 27
A document was placed on the desk before Professor X.
Lam Huy Trường saw his eyes—through Professor X's glasses—scan every rigid line:
"The command, after receiving reports from multiple researchers, has issued a supreme decision."
"We will retrieve the crystal samples from Eva, along with her body, for development of new weapons. We expect the professor's cooperation."
A wave of unease rose in the chest.
Not Lam Huy Trường's.
But the man he was trapped inside.
Professor X's hands clenched the paper.
Then—
He tore it apart.
The sheet split in two, then four, falling in pieces to the floor.
He sprang up, chair tipping back with a crash.
Without hesitation, he charged out of the office.
The long corridor stretched ahead, red warning lights flashing, sirens echoing like a prelude to disaster.
He ran.
Lam Huy Trường felt each footfall jolt up his jaw through the body.
The destination: the cage zone—where the girl was imprisoned with the Nightmare creatures.
Several researchers in protective suits blocked the doorway, eyes wide.
"Professor, you can't—!"
"The area hasn't been cleared—!"
But he didn't stop.
The steel doors hissed open.
The moment the doors split—
The black-crystal monsters spun, roaring, lunging toward him.
A few zombies also began crawling across the floor, heading for the newly opened gate.
Lam Huy Trường wanted to scream.
Wanted to turn and run.
But he had no control over this body.
The scene cut abruptly to black.
No impact.
No screaming.
Just—a sudden void.
When the light returned—
Blood everywhere.
Monster corpses and zombie bodies lay in heaps, blood pooling in large, spreading puddles on the metal floor.
Professor X stood amid the carnage, breathing hard.
In the distance—
The girl stood in a pool of blood, brown hair matted, tiny frame nearly swallowed by the slaughter around her.
Professor X tried to stand, slipped on the slick blood, and fell.
He scrambled upright, then ran toward the cage exit.
But just before leaving—
He looked back.
Lam Huy Trường followed the gaze.
And saw—
The girl standing still.
Her blood-streaked face, two dark red tear lines silently sliding down.