Chapter 483: Going Crazy

Error windows bloomed, floating in front of him one after another.

Grayson’s eyes had also changed. It was still silver, but it had stopped being that of humans.

The round dark pupils had drawn themselves down into long vertical slits like those of a beast. His eyes looked cold, clearly without patience, but also weren’t in a hurry.

[ WARNING ]

His eyes reflected the lattice of error windows. He was completely unfazed in the face of these unusual windows.

As if he already knew this would happen.

But still, he ignored it completely.

Because this Grayson was not the same as the Grayson before.

[ WARNING ]

’Grayson’ rolled his shoulders and tipped his head slowly and deliberately. His neck cracked once, twice, and stretched.

He took his sweet time in testing the newly transformed body, finding it doable and good enough to use.

Black scales surfaced along the forearms—faint as ink rising through like thinly applied water. It caught the moonlight, which shone like obsidian.

Then it spread across the backs of his hands and up over his elbows. A scatter bloomed, covering his shoulders.

It plated it and crept up to his throat, tracing the hard line of his jaw. His face had scattered scales, but it was transparent, not black.

[ WARNING ]

On the forehead, the horns broke through—dark, antlered, branching back across the crown.

The nails lengthened, thickened, and darkened. It drew out more like claws now, not hands.

His spine arched, and with two clean tears down the back, something pushed out from between the shoulder blades. The carbon-black ridge of it broke the surface of his back in a line of rising spines.

It expanded and unfolded into the dark.

FLAP!

[ WARNING — WARNING ]

Huge leathery wings that looked like a bat’s opened to the fullest. They brushed the edges of the nothing for a bit before folding back down again. It remained half-furled as it settled down.

The tail came last as it uncoiled from the base of the spine. It was longer than a man’s legs, and could be twice as long. It looked heavy and sheathed in the same midnight scale.

THUD-CRACK!

Like it had a mind of its own, it swept the air in a slow arc through the air, lashing the ground. Its movements not only disturbed the air and ground, but also knocked a hovering error window with a flick of its tip.

Then it curled back, restless. The muscle of it shifted and created another lashing on the ground, making Ethan stop in his tracks.

After a while, the slit silver eyes dropped, looking bored or indifferent at the stubborn error system window in front of him.

[ WARNING — WARNING — WARNING ]

Whoever was on the other side of that system refused to back down and dismiss the error windows. It even threw up panel after frantic panel as ’Grayson’ was actively looking at it.

It was as though the act of doing so would change ’Grayson’s mind.

But who was ’Grayson’?

He outright stepped aside and moved forward, ignoring the system error windows.

That was until a certain error window appeared before him.

[ CAUSAL DEVIATION — UNAUTHORIZED ]

’Grayson’ took in the words written on it, when another red system window appeared before him.

[ PLEASE THREAD CAREFULLY ]

"Fuck off."

Then flicked his tail aggressively—SWOOSH!— making the error windows disappear.

.

.

.

Stuck in traveling between the waiting room and the mecha customization room to keep his sanity, Neville was losing it, big time.

He sat comfortably on the soft sofa in his private room. His legs spread wide and unbothered. His arms were wide open as if he were making an angel in the snow.

He looked at the window where he could clearly see the hangar of the mecha customization room. It was empty because he was too worried to even build something random.

But the quiet of this place was making him crazy in real time.

[WARNING.]

A window blinked into the air at exactly that moment.

[HOST MENTAL STATE DECLINING RAPIDLY.]

"You don’t say," Neville said sarcastically.

[HOST MENTAL STATE: 41% AND DROPPING.]

"Ha! You lock a person in a virtual place without real freedom, and you expect me to keep my sanity intact? I don’t even know what is going on outside anymore. Just the thought of it is eating me whole. Let it drop if it wants to drop. I can’t really do anything about it, can I? I’m not a psychopath."

[WARNING: HOST MENTAL STATE DECLINING RAPIDLY.]

Neville moved his head back to face the fake ceiling.

"Go on. Drop it more, baby. I’d love to see it drop in real time. Even better if you create a visual chart for it, like stocks."

The error window didn’t show itself anymore.

Neville thought about it and roughly guessed that he had been stuck in here for a few hours now. This stupid game didn’t even allow me to connect to the StarNet, much less log in to his real account to fight some players.

He had been crazily moving restlessly from the waiting room to the mecha customization bay. Sometimes he would go to the bay, then into his small private room that every account got. Then repeat.

Of course, moving around was better than being stuck in one place, but that wasn’t what he wanted. In a way, it was just a slightly larger, walkable cage.

Like a madman, Neville sometimes would slam the fake walls of the rooms. Sometimes, he would even throw the items that he could materialize just to vent his anger.

By now, he had already given up maintaining his sanity. So, no matter how much the system asked him to manage his mental state, it was practically impossible for him to do so anymore.

But then, for some reason, a system window appeared far from him.

Did I scare the system listless? Neville thought, but then he was too tired to even care anymore.

Then the system window suddenly glitched and changed its color.

[ WARNING ]

What the fuck?! Neville thought, alarmed.

Then a window snapped open closer to his eye level.

[ WARNING ]