Chapter 69: Mr. Thompson… there’s been a change of arrangements for you

Today was the day.

According to the invitation letter, all candidates were to meet at the square of every major city in the game, where a ship would be prepared to transport them to the location of the expedition, which was still kept discreet.

Kaelen woke up early, feeling invigorated and with the urge to go back to sleep after not having any shut-eye since the wastland battle. He forced himself to get off his bed and dragged himself to the bathroom, where a cold shower in the cold weather solved the sleepy problem, after which he stood in front of a mirror to stare at his reflection for a long while.

He wasn’t as confident as he thought he would be, even with close to 11 trillion Evolution Points in his balance.

It wasn’t because the Emperor or any of these powerful players would be there, but not only was this the same ruin he suspected to be connected to his father’s death, this ruin was also on a whole different level than the hidden Mythic dragon boss and the Divine Titan Tower final boss.

He might be crossing paths with a Primordial Tier beast, or even worse, and any wrong move could make him lose an expensive Tier, but if he died even once, he’d be transported and respawned far away from the ruin, losing his one and only shot at the expedition forever—unless he wanted to wait ten years for a second trial.

Not only would this expedition be his last before Kaelen left Evolution Online for its bigger worlds, but this ruin was supposed to answer the question about his father’s betrayal and give him the opportunity to send his enemies to the grave.

He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, letting the cold breath sit in his lungs, before slowly exhaling as his eyes turned cold.

"Let’s do this..."

...

[Welcome back to Evolution Online]

[Do you wish to explore other game worlds?]

"Not today."

Kaelen spawned in his motel room in the city and didn’t waste any time before he left the motel and headed to the city square.

The place was packed, as people gathered and watched the large sea ship slightly levitating in the air, powered by a mana crystal sitting in its nook.

There were several guards around the area as well, protecting the ship as they chased away any uninvited players who got too close.

From the looks of it, the masses were still unaware of the expedition. But in a few minutes, the biggest stream ever recorded in Evolution Online would go live.

Kaelen didn’t bother waiting around and stepped forward to one of the guards.

"Stop. State your name and role."

"Idris Thompson. Porter."

The guard flipped through the paper in his hand before pausing and double-checking. Then Kaelen was allowed to board the ship.

There were quite a few people there, but when Kaelen scanned their faces, he couldn’t find Black Rose or even Cindra.

"Did I board the wrong ship?" He mused to himself when someone caught his eye and he immediately frowned.

"What the hell is she doing here?" Kaelen mumbled to himself on spotting a certain red-haired woman, who seemed to have spotted him long before he did. "I thought the deal was to ship her back to Stronghold 5."

That was when he remembered. The Emperor was the one to finally give him the invitation, which left Black Rose’s last slot open for Stephanie, who was already in the capital.

At that moment, the red-haired woman began approaching his direction, but Kaelen ignored her and began observing the faces of the other people on the ship.

From the looks of it, the ship carried only the ’cleanup’ team, as Kaelen could barely spot anyone above Tier 7 on the ship.

"Hey," Stephanie arrived before him, pausing for a moment to assess him from head to toe.

Kaelen spared her a glance before looking away without a word.

"I guess we both made it. You’re not looking bad as well for someone who survived the wastland." She said with her arms crossed beneath her ample bosom.

Kaelen turned to look at her. "How do you intend to survive when you can’t even follow simple instructions?"

"W...What?" Stephanie was confused, but before she could ask, Kaelen pointed at one of the signs hanging on the wall of the ship.

When she turned to look, she was immediately stumped and felt a lump crawl up her throat. Because the sign read:

No Noise.

"I-I... uhh, didn’t see that—"

"Exactly my point." Kaelen said as he brushed past her, leaving her standing there in embarrassment.

She licked her lips, which had suddenly gone dry. "...Fuck. You’ll regret this, Kaelen." She stormed off.

As soon as the allocated time for pickup was reached, the ship soared into the sky, but instead of flying to the location, the ship did something Kaelen never expected.

It glitched once and suddenly disappeared from the sky. One moment they were flying in the peaceful sky, and the next they were heading towards a desolate city in the middle of nowhere, with several other ships materializing all around them.

"Are they doing all this to keep the location discreet?" Kaelen mused suspiciously.

That could only mean one thing. There was something in the ruins that only appeared once every ten years that these elite players led by the Emperor were hiding.

That also explained why the top players were invited but lowered to cleaning up after the main advance team.

Kaelen was definitely going to find out what exactly that was. If it was a Primordial Tier item, or something far more valuable and deadly if it fell into the wrong hands.

It didn’t take long before they landed outside the ruins and were passed through another round of identification before they left the ship and were instructed to stand in queues based on their roles.

Kaelen looked ahead to see they were handing out uniforms and the items that would be used, while confiscating those of the players.

No one complained, as this was the order of the Emperor.

But when it got to Kaelen’s turn, and he called out his name to the instructor, the man stared at the list for a long while before looking up to stare him in the eyes with a dead expression.

"Mr. Thompson... there’s been a change of arrangements for you."