Evolution conditions met: Void tolerance ranks up to void resistance

Sight is one of the most common senses, which also makes it a popular target. Saying that, normally people would simply turn the lights out, and not magically break through regular darkness and out the other side, where there is not merely an absence of light, but the true darkness of the Void itself. You have looked upon a creature touched by the Void, heard his voice and gazed into his flame. You have even heard his Name. For surviving the experience without falling into madness, you have earned this upgrade from tolerance to resistance. This skill will help maintain your sanity when encountering true darkness, as well as reducing the strain it imposes on your body.

It only took one more respawn to earn the evolution. With it, I could listen to the Name, which was fully deserving of the capitalisation, without going deaf, but there was no way I'd be able to pronounce it. That would require me to have a few dozen mouths and vocal cords made from metal. How the demons could speak it, I had no clue, but it didn't seem to bother them at all. Lucky them.

I also had the problem that I could see shadows shifting from the corners of my eyes, and kept hearing a quiet rustling behind me that I was almost certain wasn't really there. Yay. Hallucinations were just what I always wanted. Hopefully, another respawn would clear them, but first, it was time to put my new skill evolution to the test. Calling the Name didn't necessarily require speaking it. I just thought it really hard instead, and sure enough, the pool of liquid darkness once again pooled beneath me, raising up to engulf me.

"Welcome back, failed hero," called the dragon. "I was expecting you sooner, but then, I wasn't expecting you to waste time feeding your pitiful echo."

"Oi," I snapped. "That wasn't a waste of time. She's..." I paused, wondering exactly how I was supposed to justify killing myself repeatedly to provide brains to someone that didn't even need to eat. Cold nullification training?

"She's what? A soulless copy? A fake?"

"She's alive, and that's good enough for me," I answered. "Well, undead. I don't care about the details."

The dragon boomed with laughter, forcing me a few steps back. His comment about my twin had made me angry enough that it hadn't even occurred to me I'd responded fluently, and without bleeding from a single orifice. Yay for my skill evolution. I was under no delusion that it would help if the dragon actually attacked, but at least now I was capable of talking to him.

"Good," he cried. "Very good. Then am I alive, despite my lack of soul? Am I equally worthy of your respect? How about my brother, up above? The vulpes? The carnes? The aranea? Even the young that you killed were not lacking in intelligence, despite the ends to which they directed it. What of the angelica tutela? I overheard your conversation with your echo; I know you noticed the guardian's false memories and inability to comprehend the discrepancy. Does that make her less 'alive' to you? Not all of the Goddess' pawns were granted the same freedom to recognise their predicament as me. I envy their ignorance. Now, go ahead. Ask your questions, failed hero, so that I may take pleasure in answering them."

I opened my mouth to ask where the holy sword was, before changing my mind. I obviously wasn't clued in to what exactly was going on here, and I needed to be. A different kind of question was required. "What the fuck is going on?"

The dragon snorted. "Good. You're learning. But not quickly enough. What do you already know?"

"I don't know anything. The fox-kin believe that the world came into existence when I entered it, and will vanish once I complete my quest. I have no way of confirming or refuting that."

"That is indeed what they believe, and they are completely correct. Should you complete your quest, this world, and all of us in it, will cease to exist. Your echo included. Me included. Thus, you see why I might be unhappy with your continuing efforts. Had you not already failed it, I would not be talking so politely."

"Fine then. Since you keep bringing it up, I'll bite. Where's the holy sword, and why have I failed?"

The dragon snickered. "It lies within the hoard of my brother. You have sworn an oath never to touch it, or by any action cause another to take it."

It was in the red dragon's hoard? It was on the first floor? All along, it was right there?! And I had promised to leave him alone, but for the sake of saving another world, it wouldn't be so bad to...

Huh? That was odd. It felt like my train of thought crashed into a brick wall. I was...

I needed to...

The dragon continued to snicker, even the shallow laughter being enough to vibrate the floor. "A sworn oath is not so easy to cast aside, least of all, an oath to a dragon. The restrictions are engraved onto your very soul. No matter how high you level the soul resistance skill you place so much pride in, it won't destroy what is already there. Your oath is a part of you. Should you grow in power sufficiently, perhaps you could forcibly break it, but the shock would break you in turn. You would need to grow significantly stronger than my brother to be able to seize the sword with your soul intact."

So that was why he told the evil tree it had already won. It was that tree that made me angry enough to seek out the red dragon. Angry enough to swear the oath without thinking through the consequences. I'd felt the incredible mana from one corner of his hoard. I was so close. And I'd ignored it, because I wanted to burn things.

"Oh? Will you not fall into despair at your failure?"

No, I wouldn't. I was getting angry again. And not at myself, either. This world was completely fucked up. Saving one world requires sacrificing another? What bullshit was that?! Was the Goddess even 'good'? Perhaps she was the evil one.

Or maybe this really was all a game. This dragon willingly admitted being soulless, and implied that so was everyone else. Computer games back home were getting more realistic all the time. How hard would it be for an NPC to give convincing reactions? To make me believe it was alive and self-aware, when it really had no will of its own. Where was the cut-off point at which it became immoral to turn off the computer?

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"Okay, next question. The world ends if I complete my quest. What if I leave without completing it?"

The dragon didn't laugh, but he did smile. I found myself staring into a wall of teeth, each larger than I was.

"At last, the failed hero has started to think," he said. "The power required to create a world is great. If it had been bound to you, you would have burnt. It has been bound to the sword. As long as the sword remains, so too does this world."

So if I left without the holy sword, this world would continue to exist? But if I returned to shouty-guy's world without it, wouldn't I be condemning their world to being overrun by demons?

Were the demons of that world as friendly as this world? Did I have any evidence that shouty guy had been telling the truth? Maybe it was the humans that had started the war?

Did I have any evidence the dragon was telling the truth? The arch-mage very definitely believed the world would end when I completed my quest, but that didn't mean he was correct. The dragon could just be taking advantage. Maybe the sword was part of his hoard, and he was lying to protect it. But the red dragon had said he was getting something out of my oath. 'Continued existence' would certainly count as something.

With my skill evolution, I could look around the area I was in. The floor wasn't rock or dirt. It didn't seem to be anything. It was simply a surface, forged of cold darkness. I could see no edge to it, nor walls. Olfactory perception was completely empty, revealing nothing but the dragon himself. How much of what I was seeing was real? There was certainly no hoard here, but if he was going to pretend the red dragon had the sword, he wouldn't be so stupid as to summon me right next to it.

If I assumed everyone was telling the truth, what should I do? I couldn't get the sword, and even if I did, I would condemn everyone here to non-existence. I had no idea how to leave without the sword, but even if I did, would I be condemning the other world to destruction?

Think!

If everything everyone had said was truth, what workarounds were there? What had they not said?

Shouty guy had said the holy sword would slay the demon lord with a touch, but had never said anything about the demon lord being invulnerable to conventional weapons. Perhaps they just didn't have the forces? Whereas I was part dragon, with added murder tree, spider queen, zombie and more. I could fight now. I'd fought demons before. Could I fight the demon lord myself, without the sword? Wasn't that what a summoned hero was supposed to do?

Even if the black dragon was lying about the end of the world, if the red dragon really had the sword, it changed nothing. I couldn't take it from him. I'd need to check out the red dragon's hoard from an oath-acceptable distance with perceive mana, to see if the upgrade gave me more information and if I could confirm he had it, and keep my senses out for it while in the demon city or any other floors, but that was all. Perhaps he'd given the sword to the red dragon after my oath in order to take advantage of it, but even if so, I'd still lost.

When I'd first been summoned, I was intending to flat out refuse fighting, even if directly asked to. Now I was considering volunteering. As if I needed any more evidence of how much this world had twisted me. I clenched my fists and asked what I needed to ask.

"Will you help me gain enough strength to defeat a demon lord, and then to break out of this place?"

The dragon's grin slowly grew wider, until he seemed to have more grin than muzzle.

"I will," he replied.

For coming to an understanding with a draco inanis, you [untranslatable]

If the ability couldn't even be rendered into English, it had to be powerful, right? And I wasn't about to mutate into some eldritch tentacle monster? I didn't feel any changes, but stretching my wings, I'd swear the scales were a shade or two darker. Did I get any new skill options?

Void-touched: You have a whiff of the Void about you, and all who perceive you will not emerge unchanged.

Named: You possess a Name.

Umm... No. I'd leave those two where they were, thank you very much. But that seemed too easy... Suspiciously so.

"Why? What's in it for you?"

"You have witnessed the zealotry of the vulpes priestesses, and they are not the only ones here prepared to play the role the Goddess has inflicted upon them. Yet more may arise in the future. Your oath is not perfect. If one were to take the sword without prompting from you, this world could yet see its end. Removing you permanently from this world is the best way to ensure my safety."

A theoretical possibility. Equally theoretically, someone could ram the sword into my hands even if I was memory wiped. It was unlikely, but this world was very small. The same would apply even if I was sent into an eternal sleep, or sealed somehow. The only way to ensure perfect safety would be to get rid of me completely, and being immortal kinda restricted the available methods of pulling that off.

But was perfection really required? There were other options that were almost as good. I knew he could travel to other floors, and had effortlessly destroyed shrines, along with the entire carnes multiformis civilization, such as it was. He could destroy every shrine except the one in the abyss and keep me confined there. He could kill all the fox-kin, along with everyone and everything else outside of the abyss. He could leave me trapped here, wherever 'here' was. I couldn't help but feel that he was being nicer to me than his situation warranted. Especially given that his attitude made it clear he disliked me.

"So even you can't destroy my soul," I commented, thinking of yet further options he should have had. My body might be immortal, or at least easily replaceable, but I'd felt first hand how my respawn blessing didn't heal my soul. Destroying my soul would kill me permanently.

"That would indeed be a simpler solution, were it possible," agreed the dragon.

"What of my twin? My echo, as you call her. I imagine you wouldn't want me coming back to visit."

"Indeed, I would not, but that risk concerns me little. The flow of time here will make getting out an infinitely simpler task than getting back in. Take her with you if you wish. It would be another danger removed from this world, and I care not about what the blight would do to another."

His reasoning was plausible. So then, it was game over. Worse, it had been for some time. It was like one of those cruel early interactive fiction games, where you could press a button at the start of the game that did nothing but buzz, and a few hours later you'd realise you'd made the game unwinnable, but never had any warning. That being the case, it was time to start playing a different game. Screw the Goddess. I was going to save both worlds. I was busting out of here, without the holy sword, and I'd slay the invading demons myself.

Of course, it was easy to make that declaration. Actually carrying it out would be harder. I'd have the aid of this dragon, but little else. If I explained to the fox-kin that I was no longer seeking the holy sword, it was possible they'd help, but unlikely; they already hated me too much. Besides, the one of them who would have been most useful, the arch-mage, was already dead. If only he'd come to the same conclusion as the dragon, and helped me escape instead of mind wiping me, their town might have survived. It probably came from their limited lifespans. He probably considered a few hundred years good enough, whereas this black dragon was thinking of the serious long term.

The carnes multiformis wanted nothing to do with me, nor did the red dragon. The information from the guardian was suspect, and my twin didn't know anything I didn't. The spider queen wouldn't know anything of use either.

I hadn't explored the demon city yet, but as this dragon appeared to be their ruler, his cooperation presumably included them automatically.

My fetch quest was over. Hah. Five minutes, shouty guy had said, and I'd still managed to fail it. Just how incompetent could a hero get? But, even though I'd failed the quest I was summoned for, I still had a chance at redemption.

It was time to start my new main quest; to escape this place, rescue my accidentally born twin without causing a zombie apocalypse on any world, then slay the demon lord myself.