73: World Changes

The place was no longer empty.

Instead, there was now a permanent chaos bubble.

As soon as Lyon's consciousness touched it, he understood that this bubble represented the Resident Evil world.

Moreover, this world was now permanently open to him, allowing unconditional access.

However, when he chose to travel back to the moment he had left the Resident Evil world, the energy requirement for the crossing was unexpectedly as high as 30% of his stamina.

This was thirty times more than his first crossing!

Lyon tried pushing the time forward.

He found that for each day he pushed forward, the energy requirement decreased by 1%.

Once he pushed it to thirty days after his departure, the stamina requirement finally returned to the initial 1%.

After that, pushing the time forward to the thirty-first day, the thirty-seventh day... the energy needed remained the same, consistently 1% of his stamina.

"Tony was right!" Lyon thought to himself.

"Traveling back to a past time point in a world requires paying extra energy."

"Traveling to the future, however, does not change the energy cost."

"So, it means that although only six hours have passed here, thirty days have already gone by in the Resident Evil world?"

He then tried selecting the point in time when he was still in the Resident Evil world, specifically the night of September 28th.

The result showed that he could not select that time.

Even when he continued to attempt earlier times, including moments before he had arrived in the Resident Evil world, those points were also unavailable.

"In other words, based on the moment I appeared in that world, I can no longer travel to the past, but I can choose any point in the future?"

Lyon pondered over this.

He then attempted to use his traversal ability to mark Tony, selecting him as another living being to follow him into the traversal.

The result caused the energy requirement to skyrocket to 11%.

Lyon then tried marking the entire Stark mansion to follow through the traversal.

He found that the energy requirement still remained around 11% of his stamina.

The additional energy needed to bring the entire mansion through felt, to him, about the same as taking a deep breath.

"Hmm.. Carrying life through traversal consumes a significant amount of energy, but carrying objects seems to use almost none."

Lyon roughly understood the mechanics of his traversal ability and decided not to continue experimenting.

He reminded Tony, "Get ready, we're starting!"

"I've been ready for ages! Hurry up! I can't wait to try an otherworldly cheeseburger!" Tony shouted in excitement.

Finally, Lyon confirmed in his consciousness that they would travel to thirty days after he had left the Resident Evil world.

In the next moment, both of them disappeared from where they stood.

…

Resident Evil World, October 29th.

In the middle of a tropical rainforest.

Two figures, who didn't belong in this environment, suddenly appeared, startling a flock of birds into flight.

After opening his eyes, Lyon immediately looked at Tony, who was in his Iron Man suit.

Using his super-vision to check, Lyon confirmed that Tony's body was still in its usual slightly weakened state, which gave him some relief.

He waited for a few seconds.

Suddenly, the Iron Man suit jolted, the faceplate lights turned on, and Tony finally woke up.

"!!"

As soon as he opened his eyes, Tony found himself in an unfamiliar forest and wetland.

Instinctively, he shouted, "Lyon!"

"Awake? You still need to work on your physical endurance. I've been waiting for a while," Lyon teased.

"That long? But I do feel like I just took a nap," Tony said, tapping his head through his helmet.

"Ehm! Where are we? The Amazon Rainforest? Oh right, my recorder!"

Tony smacked himself fully awake. "Jarvis, did the recorder capture the process of the traversal? Especially the void that Lyon described where I couldn't open my eyes?"

"Shit! Why didn't I feel any of that? It's like I just slept and woke up here!" Tony sounded frustrated.

Jarvis responded, "Sir, during the unknown event in the garage, the suit's circuits were completely cut off. The recording device was not operating normally."

"What?!" Tony looked disappointed. "So we didn't record anything?"

"The circuits actually cut out right at the beginning of the traversal," Lyon explained. "It happened to me last time too."

"I suspect it might be some kind of protective mechanism."

"There's a theory that the amount of information outside of a world is too overwhelming for humans. Just a glance could kill the brain."

"So you sleeping soundly during the traversal might actually be a form of protection."

Tony shook his head. "Maybe... So where exactly are we now?"

"Have Jarvis connect to the internet and check," Lyon said, closing his eyes to listen to the sounds of the world.

Suddenly, explosions, screams, arguments, cries, and roars—an overwhelming flood of negative noise—rushed into his ears.

Lyon instinctively suppressed his super hearing.

"What the fuck is going on!?" he exclaimed, puzzled.

He had left everything in good order after solving the Raccoon City crisis, leaving Jarvis in charge.

So why, upon listening to the sounds around him, did it feel like the entire world had fallen into chaos?

—The entire planet seemed to be engulfed in war!

Everywhere, there was the sound of artillery fire, crying, and despair.

In just thirty days, what had happened to this world?

As Lyon stood in confusion, an invisible wave of energy descended.

As soon as Lyon had a thought, he used his traversal ability to connect to that wave.

Various emotions—ecstasy, resentment, frustration, relief—flooded into his consciousness.

Lyon was momentarily stunned but quickly sorted through the information.

[Leave, evolve, out of control, gift, save! Gift! Save!!]

The world consciousness repeatedly sent out pleas for help.

Lyon realized that something must have happened during his absence. The world consciousness had probably attempted something, pushing the world to the brink of chaos.

"Another 'gift,' huh? Trying to make me clean up your mess again. What do you plan on giving this time?" Lyon thought, deciding to raise the stakes.

Ideally, he hoped for his scientific abilities to increase another fold or two.

But just as he sent this thought to the world consciousness, it immediately responded with a feeling of helplessness.

In other words, the enhancements he had received earlier were already the highest level it could provide.

"Are you this useless?" Lyon couldn't help but curse.

The world consciousness immediately sent over feelings of timidity, as if it were a trembling child.

"So, what else can you give me?" Lyon sighed.

As his voice fell, faint platinum-colored lights began to appear on the ground around him.

These lights were only visible to him. They gathered together, forming a larger cluster of light, which then floated toward Lyon, trying to merge into his body.

Lyon knew this was the "gift" and didn't resist.

However, in the next moment, just as the light cluster merged into his body, it was immediately repelled!

Lyon was stunned.

Soon after, the world consciousness sent him more information.

After analyzing it, he realized what had happened.

The light cluster before him had the ability to modify the human body, enabling it to perfectly adapt to all products related to the Resident Evil series.

"It can be considered a positive enhancement without any side effects."

However, just as the light cluster began to fuse with him, Lyon's immune system, empowered by his Kryptonian physique, instinctively rejected it.

Apparently, his immune system perceived this enhancement as unnecessary and a potential weakening of his current abilities.

"Tsk* This thing is useless to me..." Lyon sighed in frustration.

"Wait!" He clapped his hands. "Why don't you merge it into the guy next to me? That would still count as giving it to me."

The world consciousness complied.

The light cluster wobbled and drifted towards Tony, merging into his body.

At that moment, Tony's faceplate lifted, and he looked at Lyon as if he were insane.

"What are you doing? Did your neural synapses collapse, and now you're having a seizure?" 

"And what do you mean by 'merge into me'? Who are you even talking to... Oh! What is this? It feels like someone just shoved a warm water bottle into me!"

Tony suddenly started scratching himself all over, jumping around while frantically patting his body.

He even opened his armor and lifted his shirt, examining his skin.

"You look more like you're going crazy now," Lyon retorted. "I was just communicating with the world consciousness. It modified your body."

"This warm, cozy feeling is from a modification? Did it just turn me into a Kryptonian or something?" Tony paused, confused.

"No, it modified you so that your body can seamlessly integrate all kinds of indigenous creatures and organisms from this world, fusing perfectly with them."

"What kind of modification is that?" Tony leaned his head back in disgust. "It sounds like it's turning me into some sort of Frankenstein."

"The world consciousness gave you a gift. Be grateful—it's better than getting nothing," Lyon replied nonchalantly, spreading his hands. Then he received another emotional pulse from the world consciousness.

[Save! Evolve! More!]

"Looks like there's a follow-up performance bonus," Lyon muttered.

"Let's check out the situation first," Lyon said, flying into the air. "It seems like something bad has happened to this world."

Tony, now in his suit, followed, taking off alongside Lyon. As they floated in the air together, a different voice came from Tony's Mark 4 armor—Jarvis.

"Master Lyon, you've finally returned," Jarvis's normally mechanical tone sounded unusually emotional this time.

"Jarvis? You've connected to the subsystem of the Super Mark 1 armor?"

Lyon asked, then added, "What's happened since I left? Why does it seem like the entire world is at war?"

"Master Lyon, many events have transpired since your departure. Explaining everything will take some time," Jarvis replied.

"No problem. Just give me the highlights—keep it brief," Lyon signaled to Tony, and they both descended back to the ground.

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