1 System Hour until the end of the world
The ordeal was nearing its conclusion.
Everything had gone according to plan.
The spell had been quite the spectacle. In fact, it was mostly a spectacle as well.
From pulling these souls to staging a play with those heroes and the dragon’s avatar. All of it was unnecessary for the ritual. It had meant to serve as a distraction. To distract the deity - the only factor that could make any waves throughout this whole process. It was meant to give them hope, so that they would not immediately take the most drastic approach.
And that hope proved enough. It was too late for them to flee now. They were like an insect within a spider’s web, trapped and helpless. Through the avatar, Eldridge had been able to deal a considerable blow to the dragon’s true soul. A connection between clones was a vulnerability, in the end. There were countless ways to attack someone from across the network cable.
However, while everything was settling down on the outside, the inside of the core was anything but. Within it, the collected souls were transmuted into a condensed Soulium and Haliatman amalgam - a self-replicating superposition of every state of matter. Its malleable properties made it the perfect glue - the perfect bridge between his current state of existence and the next. It was a compound he’d synthesized only after referencing the corruptive properties of many indescribable beings.
Naturally this alloy was chosen because his future form could not be rigid. Leaving as many doors open as possible had always been one of his core principles. Future discoveries could drastically shift his path and it would be too late to regret it then if he were unable to make such adjustments.
This was only the foundation, after all.
He was nothing if not stubborn. If his attachment to his human form was anything to go off of, he was content with taking the middle road even if it meant being weaker than his peers. Choices were what made getting out of dead ends possible, after all.
Eldrige deepened his connection with the core of the spell matrix and began to meld into the artifact core. The pattern that was his existence was loaded into it while his inner soul merged completely with the core, marking the finalization of the process.
Indeed, from this moment on, he had cast off his human cocoon!
From today on I am no longer Eldridge Von Haueter!
A new existence should have a new name. I do not know what kind of world this my core came from, but since it has benefited me so much, it is only right for me to carry on its legacy. From now on, I shall be Apollyon!
As he felt his changes, he turned his attention to the only other thing that needed further consideration.
His prized prey.
The dragon, while not completely necessary for the creation of the body, would jumpstart his abilities once he was able to better control himself. He hadn’t regarded it as a necessary piece in his ascension as it would have been foolish to put the lynchpin of something this important on an uncontrollable factor.
But that did not mean he would disregard it entirely. The feast before him was the best case scenario. He was a new life form, after all. That inevitably lost him a lot of progress. As a newly forged Artifact, many of the abilities he was accustomed to before had not survived this transition. The lens with which he viewed the world had been drastically altered, and perspective itself was something that mattered disproportionately more for mages who sought to understand all that existed.
But his [Soul Archive] was still operational. He’d soon be able to properly study his new form and get back on track quickly, but the less time spent vulnerable the better. A soul as strong as the dragon’s would likely allow him to skip much of the period of slow accumulation altogether. Though he’d only consume it for energy after careful study first, of course.
However, as he finalized the sublimation and pulled in the last batch of souls alongside the dragon, he had a premonition. A sinking feeling welled up within his chest.
It was strange because, for one, he had no chest, and two, there shouldn’t be anything around that could threaten him. But Eldrige felt that the situation wasn’t quite right, and so acted according to his intuition and rushed as much of his consciousness back into his core as possible.
It was quite timely, too.
Not a second later, a thick, suffocating pillar of mana descended upon him, burning away the sizable portion of him still left outside.
“Ah, fu------”
And then everything went dark.
The world has been destroyed
----------------------------------------
105,890 System Hours after the end of the world
Within the chaotic void between worlds, was a mess of ruins and debris. Here was an incomplete being who had finalized the repairs needed to restore his senses. Though the attack was unexpected and knocked out everything outside the core - which included every system he had built to perceive the outside world - everything within was still mostly intact.
Immediately following its plunge into darkness, the being went to work, repairing everything that needed repairs while minimizing its presence. During this time it had not yet realized that the world it once inhabited had been utterly destroyed.
Preparing to take everything back online, the sphere gave everything another check. Though he had wanted to get everything ready quickly and rid himself of this limbo, he knew that haste was not conducive to his current situation. That being said, the less time spent blindly groping around, the better. It was both unnerving and unsafe.
It was only after everything was stable that the being surveyed its surroundings.
What the hell? Where’d the world go? Familiar. All too familiar. It’s just like the place I got the Core for my current body. Was that why that World Core had laid unclaimed for so long?
The failsafe I made in case it detonated itself was even enough to block even half-step [Detached] beings for a little while. How could it have faltered so spectacularly?
That light… What was that? That kind of all-consuming, blindingly bright light. I could see it without eyes, feel it without touch. Sublime, a thing of beauty. Was it his inner soul? It could only be that. That dragon was insane enough to mess with that kind of thing? Doesn’t he know that damage to it means no shot at ever coming back? Like, even reincarnation or possession was off the table. He brought unto himself a truer death than I could ever have inflicted upon him.
No, I can’t stick around here. If that other world was the same situation, then that meant spending too long in this storm could even damage my new body.
I have to find a way out of here.
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But he found himself stranded.
A wakeup call before my new life even began. How miserable. But isn’t this situation also because the dragon had such a big hand and never showed it? How could I have guessed he was able to blow up his world? Or that he was even willing to do so if he had such a method? I can’t be expected to work with information I didn’t even have…
Do I really have to get in touch with a major power so early?
He didn’t want to make deals so soon, as the terms always changed based on one's standing and strength, but he couldn't help it with his current circumstances. Not doing anything was simply waiting for death. His core only contained the barest of necessities to continue his existence, and his navigation and warp functions were all outside of it. They also weren’t created with taking damage in mind, much like his other modules. After all, they were foundations as much as anything else in him right now. It was unreasonable to plan to get hit by a world destroying laser right at the onset of one’s journey.
But, since things had turned out the way they were, he could only accept it.
He was rather curious to see how the system identified him. After all, he had gone through a, quite literally it seemed, earth-shattering change. While a part of him still wanted to try going about it completely alone, he also knew the benefits of having an immeasurably tall giant at your back, even if it liked to dig holes for him to fall into all the time.
He was already familiar with it, so there was no need to change everything so drastically. There was no other patron that was quite as free as the System, anyways.
[Ascension Paradise], [The Burning Heavens], [Heart of Man], [Neverending Samsara], and [Lord of the Abyss] were the few [Detached] beings he knew that were interested in playing the great game that was existence but they did not fit him.
Those that knew the steps could make the connection anywhere, provided they weren’t in the domain of another [Detached]. Though even then [The System] would still be present if only a little suppressed. Even with his current state without a brain to think or a mouth to talk he was still able to trigger his status. Omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent. Beyond time and space infinite. That was what made the [Detached] so revered and sought after.
Request link to [System 001, Node 18].
Access code ∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎.
Request Periphery Member Approval.
Immediately after he made these series of surface level thoughts he felt the connection. It was an instant change - the chaos-filled surroundings unable to offer even a hint of resistance. This was natural, as [The System] could be found even in the void between worlds. Bypassing the scattered debris from a ruined world was child's play, really.
New Entity Detected.
Periphery Member Approved.
Connection with ID: Eldridge - Weak
Only quasi-core member permissions are granted.
New Semi-Data Shell?
Reject Semi-Data Shell
Damn. So I’ll really have to start over? Those permissions can’t get me out of here. Hmm… The System isn’t a transit station, so it’ll cost me.
Request trade of past Semi-Data Shell ID: Eldridge’s permissions for Warp, information on Warp targets, and Assisted Identifications to make the difference
Calculating.
Trade:
Give:
Quasi-core member permissions
For:
X1 Warp to designated World
X1 Information on World Energy Levels for Warpable worlds
X5 Assisted Identifications
Accept?
Such a large markup? I guess I am the one that is requesting it, and I’m in a rush. Alright
Accept
Request identification
Scale according to settings of past ID: Eldridge
Identification Complete
Status
Name:
Apollyon
Total Level:
1
Core Durability:
3,580,808,670,200,109/4,000,000,000,000,000
Equip Requirement:
LVL 1
Body Durability:
2500/4000
Mana:
1000 / 1000
Age:
16
Race:
∎∎∎∎ (Give Name?)
Racial Skills:
[U][Binding Covenant]:
Main Class:
Locus of Misfortune:
Cursed by the resentment of a world. Cursed by the resentment of countless lost souls. These curses coalesced and formed its own gravity. Misfortune commonly befalls those around you and will be a knot that will prove difficult to untie. Karma follows you even into a new life.
Skills:
[E][Curse of Misfortune]
[E][Eldritch Reconstitution]
[E][Perceive Luck]
[E][Possession]
General Skills:
[U] [Soul Archive]
[U][Transcendent Camouflage]
[U][Soul Mastery]
[U][World Core]
General Attributes:
Strength: 5
Dexterity: 5
Constitution: 5
Intelligence: 5
Wisdom: 5
Charisma: 5
Special Attributes:
Luck: -25
Positive Conditions:
Negative Conditions:
He had his own way of identifying himself, but [The System] was more thorough and presented it in a manner that he was used to. He could either spend the next year or so measuring his current state or just ask it directly, and given how intimately he used it before, his results would not be much different. Since he only wanted to distance himself from the System and not completely cut himself off, the latter option was the obvious answer.
Fewer abilities than I’d hoped. It seems a larger portion of my outer soul was burned than expected, but this is enough. Nothing I cannot regain.
But [Locus of Misfortune]? That dragon was so hateful that he even forcefully changed my path?
A class was the System’s way of synthesizing and making one’s path of ascension. If one already had a path they followed, the System simply tried to catalog it as best it could. After a certain point, Eldridge had always derived his paths himself, only borrowing the System's vast computational abilities to optimize it. He did this for good reason, too.
[Locus of Misfortune] was just like one of those classes the System liked to goad unsuspecting newcomers into taking. The starting classes were generally normal enough, but it always pushed its users towards more and more fringe paths as they progressed. Paths that were either extremely twisted or simply led to dead ends. It's only hobby, as stated by itself, was gathering knowledge of unique things, after all.
The most difficult thing was that it didn’t do this out of malice. Rather, it couldn’t be happier if someone rose above those constraints and made something out of nothing. It often gave benefits to help these unfortunate souls tide over their difficult times, as well. This did not make it any easier for those it screwed over, however.
Did the System screw me over? That’s impossible. It would never make changes without my consent. But… This kind of class looks like it has the handwriting of [The System] all over it.
He had intended to become a freeloader that leeched off of others - rising as they rose. Karma and attachments unknown to him, as they were all borne by his wielder. This was likely impossible now that his class has become so crooked. What was he supposed to do now?
Not the ideal start. I’ll have to make do with what I have.
System.
Bring up the list of warpable worlds.
Let's get moving.