“To say that Void-Spawn are a threat to the worlds they feed upon would be an understatement, and a mistake. Sometimes they are a plague, a death sentence,to both host and home, while other times they are simply docile pets that give their all for their beloved partners.”

“We do not fully understand the Void-Spawn, but we do understand the threat many of them carry. Their thirst for evolution, their desire to feast and grow. You can either tame the beast, or become it.”

“And I do not plan on becoming a beast.”

-The Void Traveler; Shortly before falling victim to his Void-Spawn

----------------------------------

If there was one thing he hadn’t been looking forward to, it had been meeting Lilliha again. While she hadn’t broken him in half, which he knew from how easily she’d sent him through several brick walls she was fully capable of, the knowledge and threat of her being fully capable of outright breaking a few bones as a punishment wasn’t lost on him.

Sure he’d heal within a few days from anything less than complete dismemberment, but just because he’d heal didn’t mean he wanted to go through the process at all.

He rather enjoyed having all his limbs attached after all.

Standing in front of her he couldn’t feel the overwhelming anger or fear he felt when he’d attacked her, he also couldn’t feel whatever manipulation he’d felt previously, meaning he’d most likely already finished whatever magical puberty or fuckery he’d gone through when he’d attempted to liberate her head from her shoulders.

To top off the small amount of safety he felt in front of her, he could feel the Symbiote, the Void-Spawn, sending out the small pulses of cooling energy through his body.

Having finally put a finger to what the Symbiote was almost felt boring, the mystical, superpowered amulet-turned arm was just a Symbiote that was given to him to help him? Big whoop. On the other hand however, the understanding they’d achieved together helped him immensely when it came to understanding it, and it understanding him.

It was attempting to calm him, to put him at ease, and it wasn’t attempting to coerce him to run away or protect himself. “Overlord Class” Lilliha wasn’t going to hurt him, as far as he or the Symbiote knew.

So all he had to do was try and make it through the next few moments without changing that.

“Uh… so… hi?”

Doing a stellar job already, you fucking idiot.

A vibration through my body showed that the Symbiote agreed.

Observing him for a moment her eyes flickered between him and the steaks he was still holding, before crossing her arms in front of her chest.

“Put the rations back into the container. Now.”

Damn.

Turning around he quickly placed the cuts of meat back where he’d found them, to the obvious annoyance of his Symbiote. The feeling of warmth popping throughout his body like popcorn wasn’t painful, but it didn’t feel pleasant either. Almost like heat flashes, or the feeling of his healing activating before deactivating immediately afterwards.

I know little buddy, I wanted to eat these too.

Closing the fridge he let out a small sigh of regret, before turning to face the problem in front of him.

Charge in, don’t be a bitch!

“I would like to begin my three part apology-”

He didn’t get to finish the sentence before he was suddenly halfway towards the ceiling, impacting an invisible barrier. He found himself incapable of breathing, before he felt his nervous system catch up with his reality. His lungs were working, something that would never have happened after such an attack before, but his body was doing its best to make their effort redundant. A sinking pain like that of a gut-shot, or stab wound, permeated his entire lower body, while his stomach was practically squeezed flat from the blow.

He hadn’t seen her move, he hadn’t even seen her before she’d landed a blow to his stomach that would’ve definitely sent him through the ceiling of his apartment, and most likely through the roof of the building itself. If not for the magic she’d cast to limit the damage, he would have been sent straight into the stratosphere like some kind of old cartoon.

Crashing onto the hardwood floor he’d barely had time to react, let alone ask what was happening before his skull was grabbed, brought up, and slammed back down with enough force into another magic barrier that he felt his skull fracture from the blow.

I wuz what?

Dizzy, disorientated, and definitely concussed he hung limply in her hand while she dragged his barely conscious body off the ground like a dirty rag. Attempting to look her in the eyes became impossible, not because his vision had become blurred and he hardly recognized anything around him, but because the ambient glow that infused her eyes had transcended what it had been previously.

Black scales had begun to cover most of her body, slowly and purposefully putting on a show for him so he could understand the situation he was in.

The Symbiote isn’t reacting… meaning I am not in any real danger. She’s ‘putting me in my place’ so to speak. Would probably work better if I didn’t already know what she was doing. Larrell did this type of shit to people all the time, hell most gangs do in one way or another.

I will admit, she is better at it than they are.

While in severe pain the fact that he wasn’t about to meet his maker, quite literally, was somewhat comforting. Albeit he knew that two slaps on the wrist was probably not going to be the only punishment he received today.

When he’d thought she was going to go for a second skull slam or some other whipping to finish off his punishment, she simply tossed him to the side, causing him to collide with his living room table. While physically painless, the emotional turmoil of having destroyed his favorite, and only, table caused his heart to ache.

I am so sorry little one, you suffered for my failures!

Rising to his feet, dusting himself off from the shattered pieces of wood, he shook the small amount of pulverized wood that had clung to his clothes from the impact.

I am going to need to get stronger furniture in the future, half the stuff in here would get turned to ash from me tripping onto it for crying out loud.

Turning back towards Lilliha he did his best to keep his irritation off his face. While he knew that she was dangerous, and he was still rather scared of her, he also knew that she wasn’t going to severely hurt him. She valued efficiency, she valued her time, and injuring him enough that he couldn’t ‘train’ would be inefficient, and killing him was entirely off the table unless he actively began working against Vira.

He just had to take the licks, and get back to work. He could get back at her later, probably by eating most of the food she’d stocked.

She might actually kill me for that regardless of her orders, depending on how badly she likes steak that is… Matter of fact I would probably kill someone if they stole all those steaks from me so I should probably just leave them alone for now.

While Lilliha wasn’t entirely terrifying however, the armor she was wearing was definitely something else. It almost resembled a magi-tech robot, scales, carapace, black armor with small glowing lights that emerged from between the plates and joints, the whole thing resembled something from your nightmares. And while the mask was peeled back slightly to reveal her face the fact that he could see small black tendrils, resembling muscle that attached itself to her body, quickly made him think of the Symbiote.

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Is that what the little guy looks like when he’s all grown up? No wonder she went out to get a bunch of high quality cuts, she needs the magic to feed her Symbiote! Fuck does that mean I am also going to need to eat that stuff daily? I can barely afford to eat one of them a month, if I am lucky.

Casting his future financial troubles to the side he cleared his throat a second time, preparing himself for his oscar winning performance.

“I would like to begin my three part apology by stating that I take full responsibility for my actions-”

Once more he’d barely begun apologizing before being interrupted again, this time by a black tendril wrapping around the lower half of his face, blocking him from speaking. It hadn’t covered his nose, so he could still breathe, but the fact that he suddenly had some leathery, black colored tendril wrapped around his face caused him to panic for a few moments. He tried to pry it off with his hands, then he tried to find some form of beginning or end to it in an attempt to peel it off, but it had sealed to his mouth as if someone had welded it to his face.

When he had begun picking at the mask he heard Lilliha let out a small sigh, and when he looked back to her he saw her armor dematerialize from around her until she was wearing nothing but the clothes she had worn previously.

“You are truly an irritating man Mark, truly irritating.”

I do my best?

“You are brash, ignorant, quick tempered, and foolish.” Hurtful. “I give you the resources and time to study things that many Kings and Emperors would sacrifice their own children for, and you act like a petulant child. You have no understanding of the world around you, and as such you act like the child you are.” Near the end of her speech her voice had grown louder, and angrier.

“In part, it is my own failure. You don’t understand, you can’t comprehend what you are fighting for, what you are fighting against. So I have no choice, no other option, but to show you, to give you a taste of the monsters you will be waging war against.”

As she spoke the leathery tendrils covered more and more of his body, until he could only see through a small gap in the bondage.

I have a feeling this is going somewhere I am not going to like.

“You don’t understand, so I will make you.”

As she finished speaking his eyes were covered, and he felt himself fall.

Aw fuck.

------------------

This isn’t going to end well!

He’d been stuck in the bindings for close to an hour, moving in various directions, falling, flying, and teleporting based on the feeling of magic pulsing around them, before the ambient magic around him had risen several degrees higher than they’d been before.

At the end of it all, they’d arrived somewhere above a forest. Lush, full of life and beautiful colors.

Now, you may be asking, ‘how could someone tell where they were when they were blindfolded?’

Well, once they had arrived, Lilliha had decided to un-blind him, before dropping him from several hundred feet in the air, directly towards the ground below.

He screamed, he’d never admit it, but he screamed.

It was a manly one, promise!

Falling as far as he did was only as terrifying as it was shocking, he’d gone from the dark void, to free fall towards a forest, with no buildings or cities in sight. A wise man would be worried about the fall, or the fact that they were very obviously deep into the wilds where a plethora of Altered beasts and other monstrosities lived, Mark was more concerned about the fact that he hadn’t paid rent for the month yet.

I hope this doesn’t hurt at least.

As he was falling he aimed for a tree, hoping that it would help lessen his fall, his hopes were dashed when he broke through the first branches into one of the main trunks, and smashed into bark as tough as tungsten.

With the wind knocked out of him, and a strong hatred towards Lilliha, he was sent careening towards the forest floor. Having learnt his lesson from the last time he’d been sent flying, he allowed himself to ragdoll, only using his arms to protect his face in case he smashed his head in on something particularly sturdy, barely putting his arms up in time before the impact came.

With a crash loud enough to be heard halfway across the forest he ‘landed’, nearly burying himself into the forest floor.

I am beginning to hate that woman, even more than the Cartel at this point.

Rising to his feet he did his best to brush the debris from his body, resorting to slapping the dirt off. Thanks to his advanced strength all it really took was a full powered slap and most of the dirt simply poofed off of him, albeit he had to be careful or he’d end up doing the same to his clothes as well. Slap, not scrape. As he’d learned while cooking, and nearly pantsing himself in front of Lilliha.

Strength was a blessing and a curse, even if the curse was really mundane things that you would never even think to ask about.

Attempting to get his bearings he began looking around. Surrounding him was a rather lively forest, or at the very least he assumed it was ‘lively’. Having grown up in the city he’d never really had the chance, or more realistically he’d never been forced, into visiting the wilds beyond the walls. Most people either desperate enough or strong enough to venture out into the wilds only ever did so to hunt down beasts for cash, and even then a good portion of them never came back.

While he didn’t think he’d have to worry about the animals hurting him, the fact that he was so far away from the city that he couldn’t even see the walls, or any other signs of civilization was alarming.

He could survive the fall, he didn’t know if he’d survive starvation.

I hope she isn’t planning on leaving me out here… that timer on the treatment is getting lower by…

The treatment.

He’d somehow forgotten about why he’d attacked her.

He’d forgotten why he’d attacked her.

If I get back to her the first fucking thing I am going to do is force the bitch into that hospital ward, even if she literally rips me open in the process.

Looking around he tried to spot her, wondering if she was watching him from the tops of the trees or something else, but he couldn’t find her. All he could see was the dense tops of the trees, and around him the dense foliage made it practically impossible to see past a few dozen feet in any direction.

I could always climb up and see if anyone, or anything is around. If the fall before didn’t even break anything inside me, what’s falling from a tree gonna do?

Walking towards the tree he’d smashed into on the way down he scanned it for a way to climb it. While he’d left a rather sizable hole in the top of the tree, a rather obviously man-made circle that left a small patch of sunlight through, the rest of the tree was rather wide, and very tall.

It also had very little hand holds until he was able to get several dozen feet upwards, where the first branches began.

This fucking tree has gotta be at least a few hundred feet tall.

After the Invasion, and the subsequent discovery of magic, plant life had mutated pretty heavily with humanity and the beasts assaulting them. Man eating plants, tree’s as strong as metal, grass that was as sharp as knives, growth so insanely fast that a forest could regrow in less than a year without special treatment, the whole thing. While plants didn’t kill as many people as beasts did, many unsuspecting hunters and travelers had been caught unprepared and suffered the consequences of it. The impact from his fall proved the tree in front of him had been strengthened like most of the others, in the fact that it was much more durable than any tree from the century before.

It was impressive how massive the tree was, especially since the only real trees he had seen in the city were more for decoration than anything else. Even the largest ones in the city's gardens in the nicer areas were only large enough for three or four people to wrap their arms around, this one would probably take ten times that.

Can’t really shimmy my way… up…

It’s covered in fucking bark. It’s a goddamn tree.

Mentally slapping himself for being so stupid, he gave the bark of the wood a small stress test with his Symbiote. While the wood was strong, almost as strong as steel, it was bark. It had plenty of indents, grooves, cracks, and everything else that came with it being a bloody tree.

When Lilliha used her Symbiote it practically liquified over her, if I could do that here I could use the bark as a makeshift grip to climb my way up… I just have to try and convince my Symbiote to do the same.

Palming bark with his Symbiote he tried thinking at his Symbiote, urging it, and when that failed he began talking out loud.

“C’mon little buddy I just need yah to do that liquid-y thing you did when you attached to me, alright? Just grip me to the tree, like an octopus.”

However all he received was a slight pinch where the Symbiote was attached to his body, which he guessed was its version of ‘No’.

Groaning quietly he reached back and slammed his fist into the bark in a fit of anger, leaving a small indent where his fist met it. It wasn’t painful, but the dent was shallow enough that even with him having not hit it as strongly as he could, he could tell he wouldn’t be able to use it as a way to climb up.

Looking around him at the other trees, he could tell most of them were rather similar, or even larger meaning he would have even less of a chance getting up them than the one he was currently assaulting.

Using the Symbiote as a way up isn’t possible, can’t smash my way up… I could try jumping it.

The nearest branch that he could easily use as a way up to the top of the tree was around twenty to thirty feet up.

A jump, but one that he was sure he could make… with a running start.

Maybe I parkour this shit, jump from one tree to another like some ninja show, not like I am at risk of breaking my neck if I slip and fall.

Backing up a few dozen feet he readied himself, bending his knees and checking to make sure there wasn’t anything in his way that he would trip on.

Fuck it!

Sprinting as fast as he could towards the tree, he thought of all the videos of parkour experts doing wall runs he could remember. When he reached near the base he leapt up, using his momentum to keep him on the wall as he managed to take a step up, then a second and third before preparing to leap as high as he could towards the lowest branch he could see.

The first leap had gotten him three feet off the ground, while the following steps had managed to get him another six, but the leap was what was going to make or break his little stunt. Using as much of his strength as he could manage in the final leap he felt some of the bark give out under the pressure his legs gave off as he threw himself as high up as he could, the bark giving off a resounding SNAP as he flew upwards. For a moment he was worried he wouldn’t make it, with the branch a good twenty or more feet above him he’d been worried he’d come up a head or two short, but he reached it.

Barely.

With one hand almost slipping from the branch he’d managed to get his hands on he quickly tried to get both his hands wrapped firmly around the branch, resulting in him slipping around and nearly falling in the process.

Hardest part done, now to climb.

Pulling himself over the branch he stood up, resting on the side of the tree as he caught his breath.

I didn’t even know I could jump that fucking far. Laughing to himself at the absurdity of what he’d just done he had to reorient himself after he almost caused himself to fall back down to the ground. So much to learn, guess she was right about one thing.

I got a lot to learn.

Turning his head towards the top of the tree line, he knew he’d only just begun his climb.

I also got a lot of climbing to do.