My Roleplay System
Chapter 58: The Fruit Was A Trap!

Chapter 58: Chapter 58: The Fruit Was A Trap!

Outside the facility, the battle between the two factions was still ongoing.

After the control wave was released from the Golden White Tree, the Skylark was momentarily stunned from the sudden pain.

The Empress and the Wolf King saw this opportunity and immediately jumped on it, launching a fierce counterattack against the giant avian. During this counterattack, they managed to severely injure the Skylark’s throat, leaving a deep gash in it.

However, immediately after they attacked, the Skylark had seemingly regained control and started to fight back.

Thankfully, when they injured the Skylark throat, they had also prevented it from using its lightning breath as it could no longer charge the lightning inside its throat. Along with its now sluggish movements, they had greatly weakened its fighting capability in close combat which allowed the Wolf King and the Empress to finally hold their own against it.

Since the Skylark’s lightning attack was disabled, it had to now rely on its physical prowess to combat the two intruders if it wished to avoid hurting the Golden White Tree.

However, even with its slowed movements, the Wolf King and the Empress didn’t dare to engage in close combat with the Skylark. This was especially so for the Wolf King.

Even though the Wolf King and the Skylark were of the same rank, the difference between the two was night and day. The Wolf King was around the middle stages of Rank Three yet when the Skylark had pressed against its body, it felt as if a mountain had fallen on its shoulders.

In order to avoid direct confrontation with the Skylark, the Empress and Wolf King kept running circles around the Golden White Tree while firing several attacks of their own towards the Skylark to slow it down even further.

Like this, the battle continued for a few minutes before the Skylark proceeded to do something that completely caught the Wolf King and the Empress off guard.

Previously, no matter how bad the situation was, the Skylark didn’t dare to use its lightning abilities near the Golden White Tree as if it was afraid its attacks would damage it.

However, at that point it seemed like the Skylark had lost all reasoning as if flew up into the sky, releasing a loud shriek that caused blood to spray from the wound in its throat.

Although it couldn’t release the controlled lightning from its mouth anymore, to the Empress’ and the Wolf King’s horror, it could still summon lightning from the sky to lay waste to the land below.

*Rumble...*

The telltale sound of rumbling thunder sounded out as the Wolf King and the Empress looked up in fear as a rain of lightning came crashing down.

*BOOM!!*

With loud explosions echoing out, the area around the Golden White Tree had turned into No Man’s Land in a matter of seconds. Large craters of earth and embers started to spread across the island as the mad cry of the Skylark echoed throughout the Garden.

The Golden White Tree wasn’t spared from this wide range attack either. As lightning rained down from the sky, the massive trunk of the tree was covered with black scorch marks as pieces of its white bark was blasted off.

Under these conditions, the Wolf King and the Empress could only focus on staying alive and no longer had time to fight back against the Skylark.

The Wolf King was currently under the most pressure from the Skylark’s sudden rampage. It seemed as if most of the lightning was concentrated in the areas where it resided.

As for the Empress, the lightning around her was strangely the least concentrated with most of the blast of lightning only landing around her and not directly targeting her. The Empress simply thought herself as being lucky in this situation.

After taking a glance at the Wolf King’s pitiful body, the Empress could only wonder what it did to attract the ire of the Skylark.

At that moment, the Skylark released another roar as it soared up into the sky before diving down, heading straight for the Wolf King with a volley of lightning following behind it.

*BOOM!!*

The Empress watched in terror as the lightning strikes crashed into the area around the Wolf King preventing it from escaping the Skylark’s sharp talons before they dug into its flesh.

The Wolf King released a howl of pain at this moment as it tried to summon a wave of ice spikes to attack the Skylark but before the spikes had a chance to form they were turned to steam as the Skylark roared again, lightning flaring all over its body.

With an insane look in its eyes, the Skylark dug its talons deeper into the flesh of the Wolf King, directly electrocuting it from the inside.

"ROARRR!!!"

The Wolf King released a loud roar as it started to spasm in pain with its fur standing on ends. Blue light arced all over its luscious black fur creating a terrifying yet beautiful light show.

The Empress immediately took the chance to run up the Tree while the Skylark was distracted with the Wolf King.

Although she had formed an alliance with the Wolf King, they were going to end up fighting for the fruit even if they managed to defeat the Skylark anyway so she didn’t feel any guilt when she turned around and started to run.

Thankfully, it didn’t seem like the Skylark cared about her as its attention was seemingly focused on torturing the Wolf King with lightning.

Using all eight of her legs, the Empress climbed up the tree at incredible speed. In less than a minute she managed to scale over a hundred meters and had entered the golden canopy of the tree.

The Empress searched frantically for traces of the Fruit of Evolution as she climbed. Although the Skylark was kept busy by the Wolf King, the Empress wasn’t sure how much longer the Wolf King could keep the Skylark distracted.

As she looked around, she spotted something at the corner of her eyes near the top of the tree.

Compared to the massive size of the tree it seemed almost completely insignificant, yet, it had a unique red shine that stuck out among the golden leaves and white wood of the tree.

It was shaped like a peach yet was the size of her own head. Its skin was translucent, revealing the gushing red liquid inside it. A small red core was swimming in the red liquid, releasing a faint red light from which a faint power could be felt.

Upon seeing the strange fruit, the Empress dashed towards it with a look of greed in her eyes.

Landing before the fruit, the Empress wasted no time in picking it from the tree.

The fruit detached from the branch with a simple snap. However, immediately after, the golden leaves of the tree started to rapidly wither before falling off the branches one by one as if all life had been drained from the tree.

When the Empress saw this, she knew that she had to go. Although she wanted to immediately devour the fruit, with the still lurking threat of the Skylark nearby, she didn’t wish to take the risk of devouring it here.

Weaving a strand of web from her free hand, she attached it to the branches of the tree before jumping off the tree, prepared to leave the island.

Standing on a branch a couple meters away, Lake watched the Empress escape with the fruit, a small grin plastered on his face.

"Master, the Golden White Tree has started the decay process after the last fruit was picked." The voice of Bloom rang out at this moment.

Hearing Bloom’s words, Lake smiled as he nodded in response. A few minutes ago, Lake had just taken control of Bloom, and with it, control over all of the creatures of the Garden, including the Skylark.

*Flap!*

With the loud sound of wings flapping, the Skylark appeared before Lake at the top of the tree, a half dead Wolf King in its claws. Seeing the strand of fate above the Wolf King’s head, Lake couldn’t help but grin.

When Lake had taken control, he immediately set the Skylark to attack the Wolf King. With the Skylark under his control, Lake didn’t dare waste the opportunity to snatch the fate of a Rank Three creature.

As for the Empress, due to the effects of the King’s Pact, Lake didn’t dare to order the Skylark to attack the Empress so he just let her be. As for the reason why he let her take the fruit...

Releasing a sigh, Lake shook his head as he looked in the direction the Empress fled with a sarcastic smile, "Your Majesty, I wonder if you knew that you had already fallen into an inescapable trap..."

That’s right, the fruit was in fact a trap set up by the original creators of the Garden.

After Lake had set the Skylark to attack the Wolf King and in the process keep the Empress distracted, he took the chance to inquire with Bloom about his original objective for coming to the Garden, stealing the fruit.

The fruit Lake was after was called the Fruit of Evolution, a magical fruit with the ability to rework the gene structure of any creature that consumed it, removing weak or unnecessary genes while strengthening and enhancing the strong and unique ones.

This reconstruction of the gene greatly enhanced both the strength and potential of the creature that consumed the fruit, essentially allowing a creature to skip ahead of the evolutionary line, which is where its name comes from.

However, it seemed that the Architects had come up with another use for the fruit that left Lake momentarily speechless when he heard about it.

The fruit still performed its intended effect of advancing the evolutionary line of the consumer. However, the fruit now had the additional effect of interworking the control gene used by Bloom to control monsters during the process of evolution.

When Lake heard this, he felt cold sweat start to go down his neck. What would have happened if he had taken the fruit himself? Wouldn’t he have fallen victim to Bloom’s control?

Luckily he decided to ask Bloom before he went and took the fruit for himself, otherwise he would have ended up in a sorry situation.

Since the fruit was now useless to him, Lake started to think of ways to get a use out of it when he suddenly thought of one. Since the fruit inserts the control gene and he now holds the keys to the control switch, doesn’t that mean whatever eats the fruit would be under his complete control in the future?

At the thought of this, Lake started to think before turning his gaze to one of the thorns in his side on the battlefield outside, the Empress.

Since Lake couldn’t attack her or her spiders anymore due to the King’s Pact, Lake had always felt a lingering unease. Lake wasn’t sure why he felt this way but he knew that It was the feeling of having a variable left unchecked.

Although the Empress had promised to avoid harming him for her oath, Lake still felt uneasy leaving something that he couldn’t control or subdue unattended.

However, with the addition of Bloom, Lake felt like he could finally put this unease in his mind to rest. At this thought, he immediately implemented the plan and purposely led the Empress to the fruit. Since he didn’t force the Empress to eat the fruit and the decision to grab it was performed by the Empress herself, Lake technically didn’t violate the King’s Pact.

Moreover, once the Empress eats the fruit, Lake wouldn’t have to worry about the King’s Pact anymore and would also gain a powerful subordinate with great potential for growth, killing two birds with one stone.

As Lake thought of this, he turned his eyes to the dying Wolf King giving the order to the Skylark to finish it off, "Be a good boy."

A cold glint, reminiscent of his days in the Goblin Caste, returned to Lake’s daunting blue eyes as he gazed into the Wolf King’s pitiful soul before speaking the final word the beast would ever hear.

"Kill."

Another ear piercing screech tore itself from the Skylark’s bleeding throat as it stabbed its beak deep into the soft flesh of the Wolf King’s belly, ripping it open as the once magnificent creature wailed in agony as the blood dripped from its body, falling to the scorched earth below. The Skylark gorged itself on the Wolf’s exposed entrails, staining its mouth with the canine’s bright red blood. The Wolf could only howl and writhe as its vitality kept it alive, even as the giant bird tore its intestines from their righteous place in its abdomen.

The once terrifying King Of Beasts was reduced to a mere whimpering cub in the grasp of the Skylark as its precious lifeblood dripped from the beak of the purple creature.

It was a sight to behold for those who hold carnage close to their hearts, a false King, born to traverse the land, being torn apart by a beast destined for the skies, a beast who was controlled by one who would forever be underestimated as naught but a human, but human would be far too simple a word to describe Lake.

In the eyes of the Garden, he was closer to a Ghost.