"You almost scared me there brother.. the company already belongs to us," Rex said while holding the coffee mug in his hand but suddenly he found it difficult to speak anymore then his body became numb, he looked at the cup of coffee then at his brother in disbelief he had a very bad hunch.
A terrific thought which never came to his mind began to appear, it's not like he never thought of this possibility but he never dares to think more about it.
"You are still naïve my little brother, a jungle can never have two lions and neither can our company have two owners and I hate to admit it but you are a peerless talent of a century and if you are still alive then the company's partners and investors will never let you step down from the ownership.
So goodbye brother.. don't be that naïve in your next life, if you have one that is," James said as he laughed then he walked out of the garage with an evil grin, muttering something under his breath.
"Don't worry brother I will give you, your burial ceremony with the ashes of that garbage game pod," James's voice echoed in Rex's ears as he looked at the disappearing back of James.
"You …" Rex was filled with mixed emotion he didn't even know what to think of it.
Rex's mental state was in chaos, he was still in shock and had no idea what to do but suddenly he heard the sound of electric sparks and looked down, the second his gaze landed on the temperature-adjuster of the game pod, he froze, he realized that he had spilled the coffee on the game pod and on top of that he spilled it temperature-adjuster of all places.
"What! someone stop it …. noooo," Rex had many memories with this game pod but the most important thing was his research he conducted for whole 6 years it contained his hard work for all this time and to be cautious he never even saved extra records of it at the very least he wanted to complete the research and know what he can achieve with it but now…
Rex's eyes became heavy he started to lose control over his whole body but he felt no pain so he concluded its not poison but paralysis agent, the reason paralysis agent was used in place of poison was simple because with it James can make Rex's death look like an accident more easily, like dying in a car accident, dying due to fire broke out, Rex knew he can't escape right now because running aside he could barely move his fingers but just at that time, a funny idea came to his mind.
'Even if I die, I would at least solve one more error, maybe I can discover some new faults in it before dying,' Rex laughed bitterly.
"S.S...Start …the ..process…s.. system," He said using all his remaining strength but just when the system re-activated he started to receive emergency alert notifications.
[System init….unexpected errors detected]
[Waiting for further instructions]
[05]
[04]
Rex didn't understand the situation, before he could muster up the strength in his lungs to speak the system ended its countdown.
[01]
[Switching to auto-simulation]
[Warning.. system damage report 2%.. 3%]
[System forcing initialization for scanning current situation]
[System initialization 1%..3%.5%….30%….50%… condition check.. condition not… condition evolved further…. condition met... system successfully connected to Core-X]
[Core X energy type ??? /unknown…..core x energy level 100% searching for energy container…container not found…system… Error system damage report 6%]
[As per player's pre-defined emergency protocols….gaining emergency access….. authorizing system… transferring energy to player's body energy transfer 1%..2%]
'Huh…. wait authorization?? that was for..ahaaah….' Rex was confused by the system malfunction but he wasn't able to stop anything instead he started to feel intense pain in his body.
"What is….. weren't my body numb.. no its not physical painnnn…..aaaaaahhhh," Rex screamed in pain, a few seconds ago he didn't even have the strength to speak but the pain from deep within his soul made him scream.
After a while Rex stopped screaming because by now he really had no strength left in his body, he didn't have the strength to scream anymore, he was barely conscious and his mental state was on the verge of collapsing.
He could still smell something burning and could see the black smoke that was coming from outside, it was the result of the fire James started to finish him without leaving behind any evidence.
Before Rex lost his consciousness he received a notification.
[Core-X energy level 0% ..all the energy was absorbed by player's soul the system is being installed in the new vessel…installation complete… system has collected enough data… system is undergoing an update...checking energy reserve… Alert! the energy reserve is not enough for the update…. insufficient energy… soul energy is insufficient… system is going to sleep mode… until the minimum requirement are met]
This was the last voice Rex heard before he lost consciousness, after that his heart stopped beating, as for the Core-X it broke into pieces then turned into white powder and got mixed into the ashes of the burning furniture.