"I told you we would find him here."
Ren stirred slightly, his movents sluggish as if weighed down by an unseen burden. Slowly, he turned his gaze towards Joker and Angelica, but his eyes held no spark of life.
Even the simple act of shifting his head seed laborious for Ren. He remained silent, his gaze dropping to the ground beneath him.
Sitting there, he appeared lifeless, resigned to simply endure the passage of ti until his existence faded away.
Joker and Angelica's arrival went unnoticed by Ren. He neither questioned how they had located his apartnt nor showed any interest in how they got here. His mind was distant, detached from the reality around him.
Lost in his own thoughts, Ren paid little attention to the passing days. Ti held no significance for him in his current state of desolation.
All he desired was to fade into oblivion.
"Snap out of it, Ren!" Angelica's voice cut through the silence like a thunderclap, her words infused with urgency. "We have to get out of here and make our way to Tower A! The end of the world is upon us!"
But even Angelica's impassioned plea seed to fall upon deaf ears as Ren remained unresponsive, trapped in the depths of his despair.
Ren remained motionless, his expression unchanged.
Joker let out a resigned sigh. "It's useless. Let's just go. He doesn't have a [Green Card] anyway. Even if he's an Evolve, he's a goner."
At the ntion of the "Green Card," Ren's head slowly turned sideways in his hand, revealing the card that Evie had pressed into his palm before her fateful leap out of the window.
The realization dawned on Joker and Angelica as they stared at Ren in astonishnt.
"That's . . ."
"A [Green Card]!"
Closing the distance between herself and Ren, Angelica questioned him, "Where did you get that?"
But was that truly important in this mont?
Ren tossed the card towards them and closed his eyes. "You want it? You can have it. Just leave alone."
Joker chuckled faintly. "I want it, of course. It's a life-saving item after all. Anyone would kill for it. However . . ." His expression turned serious. "I'm not so despicable as to steal that sothing important from you. You're lucky that I still have so morals left."
"Ren, listen to ," Angelica implored, attempting to pull him out of his despair. "I don't know what happened here, but I can guess. However, it's not the end yet."
Ren let out a bitter laugh devoid of mirth. "Everything has ended! Evie is dead!"
SLaAapP!
The sound of a resounding slap filled the air as Ren's words were abruptly silenced.
"Listen to . Stop wallowing and wasting ti. Evie, your friends, they aren't dead. They could be in another parallel world!"
"Hoi, Angelica," Joker interjected, sensing where Angelica was leading the conversation, but she stopped him before he could voice his objections.
Joker clicked his tongue in frustration and scratched his head. He didn't like the line in where Angelica was going.
A flicker of life returned to Ren's eyes as he looked at Angelica. "You're lying to ."
Angelica shook her head adamantly. "The truth is, Joker and I have already died. But our soul went in our copies' bodies in a parallel world, and because we have the [Green Card], our mories remained intact."
Ren contemplated Angelica's words. Maybe that's what happened to him? Maybe that's the reason why he felt like he got revived.
But he didn't stumble upon a [Green Card]. He would have rembered if he did because the card was strange-looking and very futuristic.
"So . . . Evie and the others . . . they might be alive sowhere?" Ren croaked, hope stirring in his chest.
Angelica nodded. "That's right. If you survive and co with us to the next world, there's a big chance that you'll reunite with them. However, be aware that they might not know you, and their mories could be . . . different."
Ren rose to his feet, life returning to his eyes once more. "That's fine."
As long as he could see Evie and the others again, he was willing to do anything, even if it ant traveling across worlds to find and reunite with them.
Ren picked up the [Green Card] and then reached into his pocket.
He pulled out a small box containing a ring — an engagent ring that he had ant to give to Evie after opening the Heaven Realm.
But he guessed that he didn't get the chance to propose to her.
Ren rummaged through the drawer and brought up a silver chain. He placed the ring inside it and wore it around his neck, hiding it inside his shirt to make sure that it was safe.
He then turned to face the two. "Let's go . . . to this tower."
In the next word . . . he would definitely give it to her.
=======
Ren, Angelica, and Joker hurried downstairs from the building, their footsteps echoing in the dimly lit corridor.
The air was thick with tension as they navigated past the lifeless bodies strewn across the floor, victims of the bizarre creatures that now haunted the halls.
Countless were the lifeless forms of the alien-like creatures, their grotesque features frozen in various stages of transformation.
So still bore the semblance of humanity, their bodies midway through the horrific tamorphosis, while others lay fully transford, their insectoid appendages and elongated mouths serving as chilling reminders of the horrors they had beco.
"What's going on here? You didn't tell about these . . . . creatures," Ren questioned.
"They are humans who couldn't evolve on ti. Their bodies mutated instead," Joker explained, his tone grim as he glanced over his shoulder, ensuring they weren't being followed.
"So even without being bitten, you could still turn into that?"
"That's right. It's inevitable. It's only a question of when," Angelica answered, her voice low and somber.
Ren took a solemn glance at the lifeless bodies, their distorted features reminding him uncomfortably of Evie.
He clenched the pendant around his neck, the tal digging into his palm as he fought to push the haunting images from his mind.
As long as Evie was alive sowhere out there, Ren vowed to find her and reunite with her, no matter what might happen.
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