The Ultimate Evolution

“An emergency mission?” When Sheyan saw the mission pop up, what he thought in his mind was not of a great opportunity or something of the kind. His first thought was of the huge risks it would bring.

That’s right, because the warning was loud and clear. Accepting this emergency mission would lead to the apocalypse arriving at a random time. This means that they might be caught off guard. This means that the credibility they had so painstakingly built may come to ruin!

The disadvantages of the apocalypse arriving early goes without saying. If you suddenly asked world champions like Usain Bolt or Micheal Phelps to take part in a competition without warming up or while they were in the middle of a meal, let alone becoming world champion, they might not even win at the national level.

The disadvantages of postponing the arrival of the apocalypse were even more severe! Think about it. At first, everyone would be surprised, then they would become ecstatic, and then most of the people would accuse Professor X of being a liar! Then, they would go back home and…suddenly, apocalypse!

So Sheyan steeled his heart to deny Jackson Curtis’ plead. But right then, the consciousness of every member of Party Ace was collectively jolted for a moment. Then, a scream of agony reached their ears, followed by the descent of an unbelievably majestic power and consciousness….

After that, to their surprise, a series of notifications appeared in their vision.

[ Silver Party: Party Ace, you have chosen to accept the emergency mission ‘Jackson Curtis’ Request’. ]

[ Mission Description: Make sure Jackson Curtis’ ex-wife Kate, his son Noah, and his daughter Lilly survive the apocalypse to come. ]

[ Mission Briefing: This is no doubt a very arduous task. You can already imagine the shocking challenges you will encounter in the process of completing this mission. Even destiny seems to be showing signs of going against you. The world itself will be angered at your heaven-defying actions. But, surely you can overcome the obstacles! ]

[ Mission Reward: ????? (A malfunction has occurred here for some unknown reason, error code unknown.) None. ]

[ Mission Failure Penalty: 50 points will be deducted from all your base attributes. (A malfunction has occurred here for some unknown reason, error code unknown.) ]

[ Warning: Because you have accepted the emergency mission ‘Jackson Curtis’ Request’, the apocalypse will now arrive at a random time. ]

***

Party Ace stared at the notifications in a daze. After that, they almost cursed out loud!

The mission itself was already extremely difficult; that goes without saying. But besides that, they also deduced something really terrifying from the two lines of “Even destiny seems to be showing signs of going against you” and “The world itself will be angered at your heaven-defying actions”….

And that was, anyone who accepted this mission would be “rejected by this world”. That is to say, they would go through extremely bad luck. They might actually choke to death from drinking water. Such a horrifying punishment was almost similar to the occurrences in the movie “Final Destination”, and also a little similar to Bind’s ability.

And don’t forget, “2012” was a disaster film that spanned across the entire world. In “Final Destination”, Death had to make the effort to create the opportunities, but in this world, even if Death did not do anything, and even if all of them were blessed by Lady Luck, they still could not avoid going through dangerous situations. Now that they had angered the world itself, their subsequent journey would be akin to going through the apocalyptic world on Hard Mode!

And even more bizarre was the fact that such a dangerous mission surprisingly gave no reward!!

The magician Liu Qian has a classic line: “This is weird. What’s so weird about it? It’s weird that I don’t hear any applause!” According to the usual principle of the Realm that the more dangerous a task was, the more rewarding it would be, the reward for this mission should be through the roof! It was not something that could be explained away with merely things like “a malfunction has occurred here for some unknown reason, error code unknown”!

Not to mention the extraordinarily heavy penalty for mission failure. All base attributes reduced by 50 — a contestant would essentially become useless after that.

“What the hell happened?” That was the doubt in everyone’s mind. But when Sheyan, the one with the highest military rank among them, was going to inquire with the Realm, all of them received another string of bizarre notifications.

[ Party Ace, the Awakening Skill of everyone in your party has been upgraded. ]

[ Awakening Skill ‘Survival’: The ‘Survival Mark’ can now be used on two targets at the same time.” ]

[ Awakening Skill ‘Hunter’s Eyes’: While stealing the opponent’s movement speed, you will also steal 10 points of defence from the opponent in your line of sight and add it to your own defence. Lasts for 30 seconds. ]

[ Awakening Skill ‘Shattered Republic’: The casting distance is increased from 30 meters to 40 meters, and the maximum number of spells is increased from five to six. ]

[ Awakening Skill ‘Holy Grasp’: The HP cost to activate the ability is reduced by 50%. When it is used on an enemy, the damage is further increased by 10%. The damage will be no higher than 1000 and no lower than 150. When it is used on an ally, the ally will enter an invincibility state for three seconds. ]

Everyone was perplexed to see the sudden upgrade to their Awakening Skills. They had long learned through the information in their Nightmare Imprints that upgrading their Awakening Skills was absolutely not an easy task! That’s because an Awakening Skill was in itself a very difficult thing to comprehend, as could be seen from how much effort it took for Reef and Zi to obtain theirs. Upgrading one’s Awakening Skill was almost as difficult as upgrading one’s innate ability.

But now, three people had their Awakening Skills upgraded at the same time. But while they were still lost in confusion, they received more notifications, and these notifications explained a lot of things.

[ For some unknown reason, an unidentified error has occurred in the emergency mission ‘Jackson Curtis’ Request’. ]

[ The source for the unknown reason has been successfully found and eliminated, but Party Ace is already considered to have accepted the mission. Therefore, you must complete the emergency mission ‘Jackson Curtis’ Request’. ]

[ Noah Realm C, the Mother Realm of Party Ace, has intervened in view of the fact that the current situation has violated the provisions of Article 4 and Article 31 of the Joint Laws of Noah Realms. The Awakening Skill(s) of every member of the party has been upgraded. In addition, upon the completion of the emergency mission ‘Jackson Curtis’ Request’, Party Ace will receive compensation according to the difficulty of the mission. ]

[ Please perform the mission immediately, Party Ace. Because the mission template has already been generated, you must carry out its execution. After the emergency recovery of data, the mission failure penalty is now reduced by 50%. ]

Things were now clear with these notifications. Evidently, that crazy guy Bind had not given up yet. He had used his Bug-like ability to modify the emergency mission ‘Jackson Curtis’ Request’ and force them to accept it.

But Bind must have been careless when he was doing that, or maybe he was doing it despite knowing the immense risk, because his action was discovered by Noah Realm C. He was either killed or severely injured by the consciousness of the furious Realm after that.

But Party Ace still had no choice but to perform the modified emergency mission. In order to compensate for their losses, Noah Realm C had given them some rewards in advance by upgrading their Awakening Skills, and had weakened the penalty for mission failure. Besides that, Party Ace was also promised compensation after the completion of the mission.

Now that they had figured out the reason behind everything, the four of them first looked at Jackson Curtis, who was smiling with relief, and then looked at each other with a bitter smile of their own. They had no choice but to face the catastrophe. If they could not resist it, they might as well enjoy it….

***

Ten hours later, they finally reached their destination — the city of Manhattan Beach, California.

That’s right, it took them ten hours to get there —

— even though this damn city was only two and a half hours away from New York by plane, and that was including the time for ticket purchasing and other miscellaneous things!

Evidently, the “anger of the world” mentioned in the mission description had taken effect. Car accidents and what not were just the side dishes in their journey. In the beginning, they were forced to change flight three different times, either due to heavy fog, technical problems, or because the pilot had fainted…. They did not dare to take a plane anymore after that. Delays they could still deal with, but if their plane suddenly crashed while it was high in the air, it would be disastrous.

Okay, since that was the case, they decided to just drive there. As a result, they encountered almost every unfortunate thing imaginable during their journey. If it wasn’t for Kulutego’s power saving their asses countless times, the journey might have been extended to fifteen hours long.

One unlucky incident may be nothing much to them, but when dozens, hundreds of unlucky incidents stacked together, it was more than enough to drive them crazy!

More importantly, by this time, it was already 3 hours and 41 minutes past the exact starting time of the apocalypse given by Sheyan to the base!!!

Since they had accepted Jackson Curtis’ mission, they could not reach any of the key storyline characters at all! All their calls could not get through! Their only sources of information right now were the televisions at the side of the road and other such things.

“Hmmm… That house in front should be it,” Sheyan sighed with obvious exhaustion. “Yup, this is Number 14, 16th Avenue, and that over there is the home of Jackson Curtis’ ex-wife, Number 19, 16th Avenue. Thank god the apocalypse didn’t arrive before we could find them, or we would’ve failed for sure!”