Lonesome Will

To fall into the space between is a death sentence. Your anomalous nature has saved you from destruction but soon you will wish it hadn’t.

Part 1: Heal your shell 4160/4160

The strong wither to dust in the space between. Will you do the same?

Part 2: Survive 21 days.15/21

..

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Escape the place between: 0/1

Time Limit: 85 days

Rewards: Title, Two mortal lives.

Kal grumbled as he dragged himself into a seated position again. He was a bloody idiot… Sure he had other very important questions to ask but it's not like any of them mattered to him if he was just going to starve to death in the bloody void.

There had to be some kind of trick, he had seen too many constructs and skills to think otherwise it was just what kind of trick. Could he maybe use his own attributes to feed himself by burning muscle but then again that isn’t really how attributes worked, he had recently learned it was the vital and physical energy that infused his body with its attributes. He wasn’t about to start eating his fingers either, eating those kuroxet demons was already getting a little too close to cannibalism for him, he wasn’t about to dive into the slippery slope now.

So what else was there? Could he simply feed his stomach physical energy directly? It turns out no, at least not directly. Kal had tried that several times over the last week and all it seemed to do was throw him into another round of horrible regeneration because his stomach acid would burn through his flesh, his corrosion resistance be damned. He felt that he was on the right track but the acid actually needed something to consume.

When he had discovered that part Kal had thought about eating a piece of the armor he had stolen from Fyborh’s resting place but quickly dismissed the idea. It might work but he doubted eating metal would actually allow him to survive even if he could digest it. No, he was back to figuring out a way to do it without something physical to consume.

He was sure he could figure it out if he had wrath. Wrath or mana could be converted into his other resources relatively easily as long as they were bent to specific purposes. All of his skills had a strict function or a strict set of guidelines to follow. Any faults in the skills construction or individual constructs had pretty drastic effects on the skill. Wrathful Regeneration was a perfect example, it followed its guide constructs perfectly but if it happened to say that his heart shouldn’t be there it would simply either not heal it at all or actively remove it.

Two clashing guides had side effects as well, Wrathful Regeneration gave him scars but that was only in the places he had been wounded so far. If his heart was punctured and he managed to survive long enough to regenerate it it was possible if he used his fast healing method it would repair without its proper function and he die faster than if he had just let himself bleed out.

He didn’t even want to think about what it would do if he had brain damage and tried to heal it that way. But it probably wasn’t worth thinking about either since he was certain that would still kill him.

His other resources however had nowhere near the same level of customization. He couldn’t change physical energy into vital energy or vice versa. It wasn't just that he didn’t know how but he got the feeling that it wasn’t possible. Everything he had learned since arriving in the place between had brought him closer and closer to believing that all of his resources were essentially a kind of mana just from different sources.

Wrath was his primary mana resource so he guessed that meant his main affinity was with wrath just like a normal person’s was with normal mana and a demon’s was abyssal mana. Why he could see so many other affinities still didn’t make sense to him and even Fyborh hadn’t shed much light on that.

But his current best guess was that whatever was converted into vital and physical energy was somewhere in the same chain of affinities as his wrath.

Either:

/ Vital Energy

Wrath => Unknown Mana/Energy

\ Physical Energy

Or

/ Vital Energy

Unknown Mana/Energy => Wrath

\ Physical Energy

Which exactly Kal had no idea. He was probably nowhere near the actual answer but it was better than nothing for now.

But none of this brought him any closer to finding a way to sustain himself. Kal looked over his status and notifications to let his mind rest for a moment. He scrolled back through the last few battles and spotted something he had been avoiding until he could generate wrath again but with nothing but the sparks of soul mana shooting across the void far out of reach that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.

Slayer of Fate [Epic] [Anomalous]

Something deep within you cries out for blood but through force of will you remain in control. You are a Slayer of Fate, though your power may stem from darker sources you do not lust for the kill but see it as a necessity despite your inner ferocity to break the chains that bind. Wade through your enemies as a bulwark of death, your will unyielding, your might indomitable. The Slayer of Fate is not bound by the archetypes of the lesser classes. Forge your own path through the blood of your enemies and stand apart from all as a paragon of man, your potential as vast as your will.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Level benefits: +5 Strength, Endurance, Will, +2 Vitality, +6 Free points.

Anomalous: Your path is of your own making. From this point forward you will no longer be offered a skill selection every 10 levels, instead you will be offered guidance in the creation of one of three skills that you have witnessed used, have sufficient knowledge of, or are judged to be predisposed to based on previously forged skills. Whether the inquired skill is forged is up to you. Additionally, your self forged core allows such skills to be forged to a rarity up to the rarity of your Soul Forge skill. The amount of skills possible to incorporate into one’s core is dependent on the quality of your core and the efficiency of the skill created.

Future Class Evolutions: All future evolutions will be directly associated with the quality of the newly forged core and the skill incorporated at that time.

Unbound Will [Spirit Bound] Reaching beyond one’s shell requires will far beyond the capabilities of a tier 1 entity but a Slayer of Fate is bound by no such rules. Forge beyond yourself, Soul Smith. Rend the threads of all, Slayer of Fate.

Skill Capacity: 8/10

Skill Guidance Available: 2

His two free skill slots surprised Kal, he was sure that he would only have one slot remaining but improving the quality of his core must have netted him one more. Counting through his skills it looked like Eyes of the Slayer and Soul Forge didn’t count against his total skills. He guessed that made sense, the system was involved with the integration of both of those skills so they were probably far more efficient than whatever he managed to forge.

Kal looked at the available guidance and shrugged, “Maybe it’ll give me some inspiration.”

With a flick of his will the skill guidance display appeared.

Warning: Due to the properties of your current plane [Void] the pool of guides has been drastically reduced. If the pool of guides of your shell variant is 0 a different shell variant will be randomly selected from entities with properties similar to that of your current plane [Void].

Do you wish to proceed? Y/N

Warning: Once the skills available for guidance are generated you must select one before a set of skills will be generated.

That was concerning but also very, very intriguing. How did the system select the guides? It certainly seemed like it picked people like him who were able to forge their own skills and which universe they came from didn’t seem to matter. Or at least if he chose to believe Ilgathar. The butcher had said that the Arcane Hunter was from the first universe they had conquered and since Illgathar was apparently from the first the Arcane Hunter’s was probably the second.

But what was out here? Kal had not heard or seen anything for over two weeks besides the sparks of soul mana. Fyborh said souls had memories but Kal didn’t think he meant in the literal sense so he doubted he would get guidance from one of the sparks if they were actually souls. Then did that mean if there was nothing in the void would not get any options and the guidance would be straight-up wasted?

It was possible but he didn’t think it would simply give him nothing, besides the warning didn’t say it would be from this plane specifically just that the pool would be generated from entities with similar properties. The main risk would be that the skills were just too incompatible with his body and resources.

Kal thought about it for a while but honestly couldn’t think of a valid reason to avoid it. Worst case he would lose time and a guidance but best case he might get exactly what he needed or something close enough that he could work with.

Selecting yes Kal frowned as several more notifications flooded his log.

ERROR: Available guides with compatible shell === 0

ERROR: Available guides with adjacent bipedal shell type === 0

ERROR: Available guides with equivalent resources === 0

Scanning.

Scanning……

Scanning…………..

“That’s not good…” Kal muttered internally as the system continued to search for a guide.

Scan Successful!

Generating pool.

Generating pool..

Generating pool…

Pool Complete!

Select One:

~?~/~?~~?~` [Rare] [Void]

~~??~!?~?~?~/``/?~?~/`~?`?~?~~?/`/~?/`~?`/?~?~`~/~? `/~/`?`/ ~ ~/~ /`~/`/~ `` ~?~` ~~/`?`?~ ~/`/~~/?~ ~? ~/~?~` /`? `//~/` ~ /`~?/~? ~/ ~??~ ~`/ ~/`/ ~?~/`/ ~? /~/`/~?/`/` ~??~?` ~ ? ~ ~?`/ ~~?`/?`/ ~~/` ?~~`/~?~/~?~`//~ /~/`/ ~/` ~?/?~~/`//`/`//`/`/~~???~?` ~ ~/~ /

<>~<>?.<~ [Rare] [Void]

<>~?<~?/~~<~?<~?><~?>~>?><~?<~?><<~?>?><~?><~~?><~?><~?><~~?><~~?><~?><~~/.,~?/><~??~<~?<>?><~/.,~?><<~?><~<~?><~?><~?>/~>.,/`./~?>/.`,?><~?>~>/,~,~<~?><`>,`.,/><.~.,`,.?>~>~>`

?”}?}’/?~}’/~~}?~`”?]’~ [Rare] [Void]

~?}”}”~?}~?}”`]’’?}~?]’`/}”~/]”?~]’`?]”~?]’`/’]`?`?~}?~}<~<}>{<}~<<}>`>~}>”`]’>}~.}”<~}”~]’.}~”<~]>}~”}>~]>]`,]’`}`.}”`]<~}~}.~}”>].}~<~}>~}>}~’>}~’>}~/},]}.`]~}”>}~.`]>}~,~}>`]’~<]<`]’>~}”>}~.]~~<<~}]~”~?~}?~}}.}”<~}”~/~}`]<~~/~}?~}`~]/`}’

“Well fucking great!...” Kal frowned at the list of “skills”. They were completely illegible besides the rarity and the strange void tag. The tag rippled like when his display had started working again after his second core was fully completed. It flickered off and on like the system didn’t really know what to do with the strange tag. Apparently, something with the void tag was even less expected by the system than his class's anomalous tag.

“At least they're all rare,” Not that Kal thought it would really matter if he couldn’t even read the skill’s name. What were the odds he could even forge the skill let alone use it? But either way now he was kind of stuck. He would have to pick one of the three skills eventually even if it's just so he can clear the guidance screen for a new pool of skills so he might as well pick one now.

But which one? They were all rare rarity but their name and description lengths were different and, well that was it. Wrath Incarnate had a very long description and was one of his best skills until it broke any. But Eyes of the Slayer’s was actually quite short despite it being a mythic skill.

Longer descriptions tended to have more explicitly stated functions though so that might be the best way to go here assuming he got anything out of it. Kal sighed he was really getting sick of this fucking place.

Kal chose the middle skill-

Peaceful nothing spread out before it, endless black was its abode. Its mass stretched across the void for miles as it dragged its bulk toward its prey. It hungered, oh it hungered for sustenance. White shapes fled from its advance but they would be consumed like the rest. They would become one in the darkness. One in soul. One in power. Its mass shuddered as it sensed more prey but this prey was different, this prey hungered as well, this prey hated, and this prey killed…

The endless black began to bend in front of its bulk and it was propelled. It would consume…