[Atmosphere-eater]
[type: Living-Object]
[status: 850/900] [endurance: 92/100]
[damage: 475] [critical: 7592]
[Atmosphere-eater] is a black sword composed of living metal of the [Eldritch Entity] type. It feeds on magic and living beings and can change its shape as needed. The nourishment regenerates it and buffs its statistics.
[ability 1] [Atmosphere-eater] absorbs surrounding magical energy. It can dispel any spell of [mastery: 7] or lower.
[ability 2] [Atmosphere-eater] can expand and reveal multiple mouths to feed on living beings of [lv: 3] or lower, or creatures with [Deceased].
[ability 3] [Atmosphere-eater] in the 24 hours following a meal can cast the spells known by the eaten creature.
[ability 4] [???] + [requires: [Necromancy: 8 or more]]
My intuition is correct.
Rereading the [abilities] of the sword it is clear that it can be right for me.
Regardless of the [lv] of the fish, they are all affected by the [Deceased] status. Ergo, they are all edible. Instead of [Judgment] I could use the living weapon's [ability 2] to clear the desert.
A prospect of immense magnitude in any case, but certainly less tiring than judging one deceased at a time.
Right?
Right!?
Ci-cin.
Grabbing the hilt, I feel burned.
“Ouch!”
The weapon opens eyes injected with magmatic veins. Its mouth opens and gasps.
I'm scared but I don't let go.
“Does this mean be alive?”
I can't know how hot the sword is but, not being dead, it feels hot to the touch. My metabolism and my habit of living in a sidereal place make me physically cold. Therefore, even a few degrees of life can appear hot to me.
“Ngh!” The blade is heavy and I have to hold it with both hands to lift it. And then I also use the tails to try to keep it stable.
Mircalla had [s: 3] which allowed her to hold the object with ease. I only have [s: 2], brute strength is not my talent.
Also [Scan] doesn't say this if I analyze the sword, but I'm sure other [classes] and [jobs] have [skills] dedicated to weapon mastery.
But I don't care now.
Ci-cin, Ci-cin, Ci-cin…
Staggering to keep my weight centered, I reach the door.
Gron stares at me without saying anything.
“Don't go out or you risk being eaten.” Ultimately, it too is deceased.
“Prr… are you sure of what you are doing?”
Sure?
Right now?
“What makes you think I'm not?”
“I used scan on… that weapon I assume?”
“So, you've seen his skills? That's why I'm telling you to stay inside.”
Gron steps back and leans on a table leg.
“You don't understand, maybe I need to explain myself differently. Can you take such a shortcut? Avoid judging and eating everyone?”
“Wasn't it you who made me question my ways not even an hour ago?!”
Bonk!
The sword is too heavy and I drop the tip to the floor.
“True, true, but I was saying it out of interest. Again, to protect my advantage, since I am your guest, I would like you to think about it for a moment. What would happen to the dead who are eaten by the sword? Surely, they won't sleep and I doubt they'll rematerialize in the sky. Or maybe yes, but then what will you do? Will you make it rain on the same dead forever?”
I shake my ears.
“Ngh! I don't want to think about it!”
I indeed underestimated the situation. I indeed have time not to do it but…
…it continues to rain and rain and rain. The fish now reach the windows. When I open the door, they will start to invade the house and…
I put my hand on the door handle.
“N, you are the Empress but please don't act on emotions. Think, please!”
I shake my head, if I had my hands free, I would cover my ears.
I don't want to hear it!
I don't want to!
I know it's right and that's why I don't want to!
I grab the handle and open the…
I don't have time for the door to swing open, pushed by the pressure of the mass of gasping fish.
With both arms, I move an oblique slash upwards. The sword slices two fish and starts to transform but an alarming sound paralyzes me with it in that uncomfortable position.
A black hole appears in the room and drips.
The liquid collects in mid-air, just below. I can't move or talk but my muscles hurt from the weight and the pose. The fish slip between my feet and I will soon be swamped if I don't do something.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
The liquid eventually turns out to be my grimoire.
It's open to a notification page.
WARNING!
Warning!
Warning!
Illegal [obliteration] attempt.
Continuing with the [obliteration] could cause an imbalance and generate errors in the System.
[Bakenekro] permission: [granted]
Do you want to continue with the [obliteration]?
[Yes] [No]
I do not know what to say.
The alarm, the scene, the increasing fish, the incessant rain of carrion.
“No!”
The voice comes out of me suddenly and I close my eyes, squeezing tightly and curling up.
I hear the sword fall, sticking into the floor, and the last thing I hear is Gron's screams.
I am submerged and the nauseating smell makes me faint.
♦
Ci-cin.
I reopen my eyes. I didn't pass out, but it's been a while.
I'm submerged and I have to make room for myself by dodging all these gasping, writhing bodies as best I can.
The tails help me in this sense but I feel oppressed. Physically: from the weight of that sea of flesh and from the space of which I am deprived.
I have never felt such a feeling of compression. A sense of absolute and disarming overwhelm.
In a new way, it's a similar feeling to the one I felt dying—no, it's different. It's very different. Here there is a sort of self-pity, a willingness to give in in the face of difficulties.
Instead, I was crushed against my will.
I fought tooth and nail and was crushed.
That's why I'm immortal now. The System doesn't want me to die and, apparently from what just happened, doesn't want me to take emergency action either.
What does the System mean by [obliterate]?
What happens to those who are [obliterated]?
Why is it an unauthorized procedure? Is it possible on the living? Or is it the Underwasteland environment that is unsuitable?
Thousands and thousands of questions that I can't answer.
A fish stirs against my cheek, agitating the others around it as well. I feel an octopus wrapped around me from ankle to calf. Shrimps or crabs pinch me trying to get their way somehow.
It's clear.
I need to roll up my sleeves again.
[Judgment]
[Judgment]
[Judgment]
[Judgment]
[Judgment]
…
[Judgment]
“Ah! Finally, some breathing room!”
Smeared in blood and fish waste like the rest of the house, I judged all the bodies that crossed the threshold.
No trace of Gron.
I push myself to the porch, which I'm still cleaning.
In front of me, there is not the desert, but the sea of undead flesh.
Ci-cin.
“AAH! It'll take me forever!”
♦
After I've judged enough to at least clean up around the house, I take a break.
Extinction events are terrible! At least the insects manage themselves, but these would stay here forever if it weren't for me!
How is it conceivable that a single [Bakenekro] is sufficient to carry out a task of this magnitude!? What if it rains again!?
Ah…
Luckily the inside of the house cleaned itself up. The dusty and charred boards and furniture have absorbed the dirt, without becoming soaked in it.
Fixed in the middle is the Atmosphere-eater resting like a normal sword.
I get closer and run the edge of the blade with a fingernail.
“Scan.”
The object's statistics reappear. No useful information to explain that event.
What does the appearance of the grimoire, that error message, mean?
I take a step back and sit on the ground. I cross my legs and rest my face in my hand. I shake my ears.
Ci-cin.
“Who knows what I've done—or what was I about to do? Father, if only you were here with me I could ask you for advice… in ten thousand years you will have overcome all kinds, am I wrong?”
I speak to the sword as if it were part of my stream of consciousness.
But I shouldn't waste time like this, getting discouraged and looking for imaginative escape routes. Running away from reality won't solve my problems.
And then I have to find Gron…
…but using [Necrohounds] in this chaos is unthinkable. I have to keep cleaning first. One [Judgment] at a time. But first, I feel like I need to reflect and clear my head.
I know that all these deceased are waiting to be judged, but in this case, there are so many that I don't have to think about it. Thinking about these creatures that I cannot welcome properly brings me to despair and the despair immobilizes me.
I have to solve it.
This is my home.
The house of their rest and I cannot fail in my duties. I don't know how I could think of indiscriminately obliterating those who have the right to eternal rest. I was a fool. An impulsive fool.
I stand up and go to the sink. I fill a bowl and drink. I look at the ash on the table.
Of course, very strange things have been happening lately.
[Judgments] that don't add up, two extinction events, a [Half-demon] who seems to know the place, an elf who can travel to the underworld thanks to cosmic power, and a [Heroine] who fighting with the Devil brought me this weapon blocked by the System… and finally Gron, a cat-golem created with divine power by a mortal.
In twenty-one levels with my father, interesting things happened years apart.
Certain. When I died, a few quiet years passed—however… from my point of view, it is as if these events were happening one after the other.
As if they were being guided.
As if there was a mind that knew when to unleash them.
A deus ex machina of my life.
I shudder. I put the half-empty cup on the sink.
I don't feel like a puppet—but the evidence suggests that I am nothing else. A puppet, a devoted instrument: that's what I am.
And if this is the case, then perhaps my father did not leave his role by his own will either.
Ten thousand years.
Ten thousand years and then he immerses himself in the oblivion of the Ocean.
Oblivion, obliterate…
…intuition suggests a correlation to me. But I can't see anything definitive.
I'm confused. Maybe I'm still upset. It's understandable, nothing like this has ever happened to me.
Never.
I have never been prepared.
Ci-cin.
I leave the house and look at that endless mass again. A mass awaiting my judgment.
Strength and courage, strength and…
Ci-cin.
…when did that mountain over there appear?
A semi-transparent veil is raised and lowered like a sail. Filters orange light by casting a long, thin shadow.
[Dungeon path]
Coming out of the darkness my feet rest on the soft bellies of various fish. It's disgusting, I want to retreat but being in front of me takes priority.
Gargantuan.
Colossal.
It's not a mountain. A leviathan is slumped before me. I can't see the end of it in length, but the eyes on one side of the snout are watching me.
It's stuck in the ground, partially submerged by the other fish, and only turns one side of its face towards me. Its countless fins spread out like cloaks to protect its children. The long snout and very long teeth.
I gasp.
Every breath it takes moves a huge amount of air and my hair flutters like my skirt.
How many tentacles, how many fins? The barbed spinal column is exposed in several places and forms cavities from which mountains of monstrous fish emerge.
Monstrous but gasping like all the others.
Ci-cin.
I go down the hill of fish I'm on and slip, losing my balance.
Ci-cin!
Pulling myself up I see it: one of its rotten, glassy eyes is watching me.
I straighten my skirt, bow, and lower my ears.
“Welcome. I am the Empress of this place. My name is N and I will give rest to the deceased of the Underwasteland.”
It remains silent.
One breath from the creature makes my hair fly.
“Well… I'm not sure what to say, I guess you're some sort of important creature… do you mind if I judge you first?”
I don't know why I talk this way. After all, no matter how gigantic it is, it is still a fish. Fish don't speak normally, at least not fish…
“Judge my progeny first.”
Ah!
Its voice is like the scratching of the depths. Dark and powerful to the point that I feel my stomach twisting and the pressure on my skin.
“You-you talk!?”
“For many millions of years.”
“Ah-since mi-millions… of years?” Millions it said!? Yes, it said exactly that.
It's an immortal too!?
No, it wouldn't have died otherwise!!! But then…!?
“Do not waste my words, Empress. I'll be patient until you're done.”
I raise my head.
Its jaws barely move to speak, also immersed in the gasping fish. Some even ended up in the middle of it, others got stuck between the teeth.
The sharp eye, twice me alone, is always focused. Indeed, now the other eyes on the same side are also staring at me.
“Ah…Ah-ah, huh…Scan?”
Ci-cin.
[lv: 99] [xp: 1,999,989,777,876,103]
[type: Eldritch Entity]
[class: Leviathan]
[job: Emperor]
[priority: Deep]
[hp: 1009101100]
[c: 1][s: 0]—[d: 0][a: 9][i: 1][c: 0][s: 1][d: 1][i: 0][c: 0]
[ap: 9011000110]
[a: 9][i: 0]—[i: 1][c: 1][c: 0][c: 0][s: 0][d: 1][s: 1][d: 0]
[ip: (0)100111900]
[d: 0][d: 1]—[s: 0][c: 0][s: 1][i: 1][c: 1][a: 9][c: 0][i: 0]
[malus: Deceased]
These are absurd statistics!
It's an entity at [lv: 99]!!!
But then look how many boxes it has unlocked!!? It has twice reached [c: 10] unlocking three squares [c]!
I feel the chills. Dizziness comes over me and I put a hand to my head. Contemplating those values hurts my eyes. If it wasn't just a carcass whose pieces are still out there, what would it look like?
It could conquer the Underwasteland if it wanted to. I can't handle it, other than do it first!!!
“We finished, Empress. Why don't you start working?”
“EH, huh? Yes-yes, I'll leave right away!”