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 mont he had left the Resident Evil world, the energy requirent for the crossing was unexpectedly as high as 30% of his stamina.
This was thirty tis more than his first crossing!
Lyon tried pushing the ti forward.
He found that for each day he pushed forward, the energy requirent decreased by 1%.
Once he pushed it to thirty days after his departure, the stamina requirent finally returned to the initial 1%.
After that, pushing the ti forward to the thirty-first day, the thirty-seventh day... the energy needed remained the sa, consistently 1% of his stamina.
"Tony was right!" Lyon thought to himself.
"Traveling back to a past ti point in a world requires paying extra energy."
"Traveling to the future, however, does not change the energy cost."
"So, it ans 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 ti when he was still in the Resident Evil world, specifically the night of September 28th.
The result showed that he could not select that ti.
Even when he continued to attempt earlier tis, including monts before he had arrived in the Resident Evil world, those points were also unavailable.
"In other words, based on the mont 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 requirent to skyrocket to 11%.
Lyon then tried marking the entire Stark mansion to follow through the traversal.
He found that the energy requirent still remained around 11% of his stamina.
The additional energy needed to bring the entire mansion through felt, to him, about the sa as taking a deep breath.
"Hmm.. Carrying life through traversal consus a significant amount of energy, but carrying objects seems to use almost none."
Lyon roughly understood the chanics of his traversal ability and decided not to continue experinting.
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 excitent.
Finally, Lyon confird in his consciousness that they would travel to thirty days after he had left the Resident Evil world.
In the next mont, 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 environnt, suddenly appeared, startling a flock of birds into flight.
After opening his eyes, Lyon imdiately looked at Tony, who was in his Iron Man suit.
Using his super-vision to check, Lyon confird that Tony's body was still in its usual slightly weakened state, which gave him so 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 helt.
"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 last ti too."
"I suspect it might be so kind of protective chanism."
"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, argunts, 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 exclaid, 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 seed 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, resentnt, frustration, relief—flooded into his consciousness.
Lyon was montarily 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 sothing must have happened during his absence. The world consciousness had probably attempted sothing, pushing the world to the brink of chaos.
"Another 'gift,' huh? Trying to make clean up your ss again. What do you plan on giving this ti?" 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 imdiately responded with a feeling of helplessness.
In other words, the enhancents 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 imdiately sent over feelings of timidity, as if it were a trembling child.
"So, what else can you give ?" 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 rge into his body.
Lyon knew this was the "gift" and didn't resist.
However, in the next mont, just as the light cluster rged into his body, it was imdiately 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 enhancent 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 enhancent as unnecessary and a potential weakening of his current abilities.
"Tsk* This thing is useless to ..." Lyon sighed in frustration.
"Wait!" He clapped his hands. "Why don't you rge it into the guy next to ? That would still count as giving it to ."
The world consciousness complied.
The light cluster wobbled and drifted towards Tony, rging into his body.
At that mont, 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 an by 'rge into '? Who are you even talking to... Oh! What is this? It feels like soone just shoved a warm water bottle into !"
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 into a Kryptonian or sothing?" 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 into so 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 sothing 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 ca from Tony's Mark 4 armor—Jarvis.
"Master Lyon, you've finally returned," Jarvis's normally chanical tone sounded unusually emotional this ti.
"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 so ti," Jarvis replied.
"No problem. Just give the highlights—keep it brief," Lyon signaled to Tony, and they both descended back to the ground.
____________
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