I Reincarnated into a Single-celled Organism! - Chapter 243

The golden vial the patriarch had fed the injured man appeared to have done its work, staunching the corrupt energy that had been eating away at the guard’s flesh. However, the wound only partially closed, and the man still appeared pale and weak. The other man helped him to his feet, but he had to sling an arm around his waist, practically carrying him to keep him moving. This left only Lord Blanche to take point, his expression grim and his senses on high alert.

The encounter with the madman had shifted the atmosphere of the group entirely. The initial thrill of discovery and treasure hunting had evaporated, replaced by a tense, wary silence. This place wasn’t just a relic-filled museum; it was a tomb, and its ghosts were very much alive. I felt the shift too, not just in the mood of the group, but through the mycelium network I was still connected to.

After learning how the fungal threads interpreted paragons, I was better able to sense the location of other people. This wasn’t the only madman wandering around. I could sense dozens of other life-signatures of powerful beings. In fact, he’d be considered weak among them. I supposed this place wasn’t exactly that well-hidden, and countless beings had been captured. Anyone who swam out far enough in that lake could potentially get pulled into the portal, so over the centuries, there had to be quite a few. The fact that so many powerful paragons found their deaths in this place was unnerving to me. I couldn’t help but think about the origins and a name I had heard before but never really thought much about.

“You said this place used to belong to Antecedents. What exactly is an Antecedent?” I asked Tiffany quietly.

Tiffany nearly missed a step and then turned to look at me in disbelief. “You don’t know? I thought that was common knowledge for all paragons.”

“My education was… unconventional,” I replied, keeping my eyes on the path ahead.

If she knew I was Spirit, she would have just assumed that, as a former isomer and practically a mortal, my lack of knowledge came from my mortal upbringing. However, she believed me to be part of some hidden, powerful family, and so my lack of knowledge was a bit harder for her to grasp.

Thankfully, she seemed to accept my hasty excuse, her expression softening slightly. “The Antecedents were the original rulers of this world, the dominant evolutionary branch, and the seat of power within this biosphere.”

“So, they weren’t human?” I asked.

She raised an eyebrow. “Do you think you’re human?”

I opened my mouth and then nodded. “I am.”

That was what my status menu said. I had evolved into a human. She didn’t ask if I had always been human. Now, I couldn’t say I knew what all of that meant, but it was undeniable that I was human.

She stared at me for a moment longer and then shrugged. “Different people have different thoughts. What you know as a mortal would be considered a human. However, when we evolve, we become something else. This is where the name paragon comes from. Technically, we’re not humans. We’re not paragons either. We’re something in between. A paragon is the finished form, and a human is where we start. After nine evolutions, we finish changing and become our higher self. A paragon. Some people call them immortals. That’s what every evolutionist aspires to become.

“So… at nine evolutions, you become an effective immortal?” I asked curiously, noticing that the other men seemed to be listening as well, as if her words were reaffirming the path they had all begun.

“That’s… what they say.” She shrugged again.

“What about the Antecedent?”

“They started human, just like us,” she explained, her tone less scholarly or confident than Erika’s. “However, you can see Antecedent as a different evolutionary branch… another pathway leading to a different outcome. It’s a parallel path of growth. We choose to evolve in a different direction.”

I frowned thoughtfully. “If the Antecedent pathway is a pathway you can take, then why are they spoken about like a thing of the past?”

She paused, stepping over a pulsating root that glowed faintly, before continuing, “The Antecedent pathway was, at one time, the most successful. Their abilities were incredible, far beyond what most paragons can even imagine today. But their path had a fatal flaw: it required an immense amount of energy to sustain. In the early days of the world, the ambient passive energy was nearly a hundred times greater than it is now. The world was a vibrant, dangerous, and magical place. The Antecedents thrived in it.”

“And then it changed?” I prompted.

“Exactly,” she nodded. “As the world’s energy slowly dwindled over the eons, their path became unsustainable. It was like trying to keep a massive bonfire burning with only twigs and kindling. That’s when the Paragon pathway, which was far more energy-efficient, began to emerge and flourish. We could achieve the same outcomes with a fraction of the energy cost. The Antecedents were outcompeted. Their civilizations crumbled, and they faded away, until all that was left were the relics of their time—the ruins, the artifacts, and the devices.”

“That’s… amazing.”

I really had no other word for it. In the early days of humanity, Homo sapiens weren’t the only species to exist. What happened was that several humanoid species. There were the Homo neanderthalensis, otherwise known as the neanderthal. There was the Homo denisova. If neanderthals were known narrow, sloping foreheads, then Denisovans would be known for large jutting jaws. Homo erectus was the species that existed before us, but it wasn’t like every human evolved from Homo erectus to Homo sapien overnight.

Enough genes gathered in a Homo erectus line that the offspring could be called Homo sapiens. Then, those Homo sapiens outcompeted and bred with Homo erectus until the Homo erectus genes were the only genes left. This was the nature of evolution. If a superior species arose that could survive and breed better, it would do so. Although this world’s version of evolution differed, the result appeared to be the same. The Paragons outperformed the Antecedents until there were no more antecedents.

Tiffany was still explaining things; she gestured around at the glowing flora and the strange, alien landscape. “This entire realm is likely a remnant of that era, a pocket of high-energy that got buried along an old antecedent fortress, allowing rare and ancient things to remain alive.”

“Ancient things… but new things as well,” Lord Blanche, who had been listening, said. “Evolution always is happening. The world can never return to how it was. It can only continue until it becomes what it will be. New, innovative things can appear in these spots just as much as ancient relics.”

Tiffany nodded, glancing at me. “Make no mistake, though, just because something is old doesn’t mean it’s weak. Antecedent technology is something we can’t replicate today. They used to be able to manipulate time and rearrange reality. The energy cost of using such items is so great that they are greatly weakened or even single-use, but that’s still a power that can make or break a paragon family.”

“We’re like children trying to operate a warship with a squirrel on a wheel,” Lord Blanche muttered bitterly.

Her explanation filled in a lot of gaps for me. It explained why the Antecedent ruins were so sought after and why they were so dangerous. They were remnants of a more powerful age, and the power they contained was both a lure and a trap. Yet, all of this was a mad rush to become immortal. I had evolved nine times. Did that mean I was an immortal? I didn’t think so. If anything, I didn’t think my path was the same as theirs at all. Maybe I was on an Antecedent path?

“Antecedents… huh…” I mused.

“What?” Tiffany asked.

“If paragons are a pathway to immortality, then what was the Antecedent’s pathway leading to?” I asked.

“God.” Lord Blanche stopped in his tracks.

“What is it?” I blinked.

“Godhood.” Tiffany glanced at me. “The Antecedents were evolving to become gods.”

As she finished speaking, I realized we had stopped walking in a massive clearing. Before us stood the structure I had been sensing through the mycelium. It was a colossal entrance carved into the side of a sheer rock wall, a gateway of dark, metallic-looking stone that seemed to absorb the faint light of the glowing fungi around it. The doors were enormous, easily thirty feet high, made of the same dark metal and covered in intricate, geometric patterns that hummed with a faint, almost imperceptible energy.

“We’re here,” Lord Blanche announced, his voice echoing slightly in the sudden silence. He approached the doors, running a hand over the strange patterns. “This is it. The entrance to the main Antecedent facility.”