The Rebirth of Evelyn Knox

Evelyn felt her breath hitch in her throat as she saw the blueish-green blood flow from the translucent attackers stream after stream. If this thing couldn't be defeated here, and was still able to chase her out, what would she do?     

The pink haired girl soon shook her head. 'N-No, I can't think like this. So what if it is able to escape? Let's get out of here first. Even if it is able to chase me back, it should have already lost most of the chaos energy by now. Even if I can't solve it by myself, Aurora should already be either waiting for me outside or already be on her way!'     

Just as this thought crossed her mind, the translucent creatures seemed to enter a frenzied mode, and the scuffle below her soon turned even more fierce as both jets of bluish-green blood and fragments of bone burst out from time to time.     

Looking at the bone fragments, Evelyn finally breathed a sigh of relief and continued to swim upwards, towards the surface. Even if her senses were blocked in the lake, she could still tell that those hardened bone fragments were most likely the bone beast's, and not those of the translucent figures.     

Moments later, however, an extremely strong feeling of crisis struck her heart, and Evelyn's pupils dilated as she continued to swim away without looking back.     

Maybe something deep within the lake had been disturbed by the scuffle underwater, and awakened in an enraged state. Evelyn didn't have any delusions of being able to fight whatever such a thing was.     

After all, Aurora had mentioned that there could be an incredible treasure at the bottom of this lake, and whether or not that was true, it went without saying that there must be an incredible danger at its depths as well.     

Her rise towards the surface didn't continue for much longer, however, as the pink haired girl felt her limbs and body freeze involuntarily, and she wasn't the only one.     

The chaos bone beast had also come to a complete halt, along with the crowd of translucent creatures who had been attacking it in a frenzy.     

Unlike Evelyn and the chaos bone beast, who were both frozen involuntarily, the translucent creatures seemed to have stopped moving of their own free will, however.      

They backed away from the chaos bone beast as Evelyn's sense of crisis got stronger and stronger.     

At first, Evelyn thought they must be giving way to a superior predator out of fear, but observing their reactions closely, the pink haired girl realized that their actions resembled more that of 'respect'.     

Evelyn understood that even if they weren't a civilized group, they should at least have some form of hierarchy.     

As they had stopped attacking, however, their bodies soon turned completely transparent, and Evelyn was no longer able to observe their actions.     

Her heart beat frantically in her chest as Evelyn tried her best to mobilize her limbs to climb upwards, but to no avail.     

The pink haired girl couldn't help but grit her teeth. 'I don't sense any foreign energy in my body, what the fuck is going on?!'     

As someone who had already reached a preliminary understanding of chaos, and also delved into the soul energy more than most, Evelyn refused to believe something could infiltrate her body and control her without her even being able to tell.     

She already understood that the reason she couldn't use any form of energy in the water, nor mobilize it from within was due to a deep suppression from within the lake.     

It was as if she was trying to pull water out of a well, as she usually did, but the gravity was suddenly hundreds of times greater than it should be. Naturally, it became impossible to repeat those actions under such circumstances.     

The pink haired girl rapidly revolved her thoughts, and soon realized where the problem lay. Figuring it out, however, only made her expression turn even more pale.     

'T-The water itself… it's got such high resistance to my movement?!'     

It was as if the entire lake had become a solid block of metal!     

And the most mystifying thing of all was that the translucent beings were still able to move as normal. Only the 'intruders' - that is to say, herself and the bone beast, were the ones stuck inside this solid block of metal, not able to move an inch no matter how hard they tried.     

A sense of helplessness came from Evelyn's heart. Without the ability to mobilize her energy in any form, and not being able to move her body either… she felt like a sitting duck. Even though she kept trying to wrack her brains for a solution… nothing came to mind.     

And at this moment… she finally saw something emerge from the deep darkness beneath her, slowly becoming clearer.     

It wasn't a translucent creature, nor a giant beast as she expected. Instead, it was a beautiful girl with bluish-green hair and a fish tail that was covered with iridescent scales.     

Her skin was a healthy pinkish-white color, and her eyes shone like black, dark gems that contained the mysteries of the universe, and Evelyn couldn't help but feel a little uncertain.     

From this creature, she couldn't feel any sense of malice, as if she was looking at a newborn child. However, the terror she felt was all too real, and she couldn't make sense of it at all.     

Compared to the translucent creatures she had seen before, this 'mermaid' was actually much smaller, but the sense of oppression she got from her was many times greater than even the pillar Mantis who had fought with her teacher on almost equal grounds. It was as if in her current state, she was but an ant.     

Thinking about it… that really wasn't far from the truth.     

Evelyn could only dumbly watch the girl approach the chaos bone beast, looking at it curiously and poking at the thing here and there, as if she had discovered a new toy.     

The pink haired girl couldn't help but feel a little ridiculous. 'I-Is this thing really what roared like that before? O-Or is there something else deep down?'     

As there was nothing else she could do, her eyes remained fixated on the girl's 'play', and a chill ran up her spine when the girl non-chalantly broke a small part of the jawbone off of the bone beast and put it in her mouth.     

The bone beast seemed to try to roar in rage and unwillingness, but it still remained completely frozen in place except for a slight vibration of its head.     

The effortless crunching sound rang loud in her ears, perhaps magnified by the fact that it was likely to be her own fate next, and Evelyn couldn't help but furrow her brow in displeasure.     

Recalling the scene of her first death, when she had been ground to death in that industrial meat grinder, a deep sense of unwillingness emerged from her heart.     

If, after all this time, she still had that same type of miserable ending… was this really what she deserved?     

Evelyn knew that maybe she hadn't been such a good girl in this life, having retaliated against anyone who showed her ill intentions, but hadn't she done nothing wrong in her first life? All she wanted to do was find out more about her mother.     

Unfortunately, her situation still remained the same no matter how angry she got.     

The small, pearl like teeth of the mermaid didn't seem like they would possess much biting force, but the chaos bone beast's body was like soft tofu in her mouth, being easily chewed through piece by piece as the girl gulped it down with interest.     

Soon, there was nothing like where the chaos bone beast used to be except for a few smaller broken bone fragments that the girl seemed to not be able to bother herself to pick up, and the mermaid's sight turned to the pink haired girl, shining with curiosity.     

The distance between them was not small, as Evelyn had been escaping upwards since the moment the chaos bone beast started fighting against the translucent creatures, but the mermaid covered it within seconds, still appearing quite leisurely as she swam.     

Evelyn didn't know if the other translucent beings had left or were watching the show, but she knew that even if she managed to free herself now, somehow, she still wouldn't be able to escape from this mermaid. Her speed in the lake was much faster, after all.     

Once the two of them were face to face, the girl's expression showed the same curiosity as when she had been breaking the chaos bone beast apart piece by piece, and her eyes remained pure yet mysterious.     

Evelyn knew that if she didn't do anything, she would end up no different from the chaos bone beast. Devoured alive, one small chunk at a time. Clearly, even if this mermaid looked much different from the translucent creatures before… their diet wasn't that different.     

But in this state, not to mention using any abilities or her body… even speaking was impossible!     

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