Kal stumbled his way through the narrow paths between the rocks and stalagmites of the dome as his body quickly began to fail. Every step was agony, his mental state was failing almost as quickly as his body. He could hear the sound of more of the sky hunters flying nearby, continuing to guide the horde to him. The crimson power radiating from was either his wrath or his birthright manifesting outside of his core space. Both options were bad news, so he needed to get somewhere away from the gods damned sky hunters so he could see what was happening. He had managed to get a look at his internals before being forced to keep moving, and what he found was distressing.
The crimson power seemed to manifest from nowhere in the center of his chest before burning through his body like lighting. Once it broke through the skin it changed into a more vaporous form and flickered before fading, like a blood-red flame. What was even more confusing to Kal was that he could feel his Wrathful Regeneration skill activating on its own and the crimson power that was doing so much damage to his organs was quickly followed by a pulse of regeneration.
Health:
675/1820
Stamina:
121/2680
Wrath:
680
His wrath hadn’t budged since he deactivated Wrath Incarnate but it was clear to him that he was still somehow healing, though the healing from the automatic activations wasn’t keeping up. If he didn’t do something he was going to die.
Kal continued running as best he could, but the constant damage and regeneration were forcing him to move in cycles. Short bursts of running followed by a slower jog while his stamina slowly regenerated. Finally, he came across another narrow crack in the side of a small cliff face. He scanned the skies again and luckily the sky hunters had to slow down while the garghound packs were forced to slow down through some of the narrower paths. Kal quickly squeezed into the crack and was disappointed when it didn’t lead to a cave-like the other one had. He barely fit, there was only a round two feet of darkness between him and the outside hiding him from the coming horde but it would have to do.
Kal fell to the ground, his stamina bottoming out again. Not bothering to get into any kind of meditation position, Kal willed himself to fall into his core space. It happened quickly but the pain of his body burning up constantly threatened to pull him out of it again. He knew that if his endurance had been any lower he would have been dead by now.
His core space was a mess. Once again it was filled with the inferno that was his birthright, its crimson flames surging across the void and beyond to leach into his body. Well, Kal saw his core a surge of rage overwhelmed him and his birthright flared again in response to its savage rhythm taking hold in his mind. He almost lost control but he reigned in his thoughts through sheer willpower. His core shined brighter than he had ever seen it, but now its simple, and desperate construction was truly showing its faults. All along the ring, hundreds of cracks were forming, allowing his birthright and wrath to simply exit his core like they were moving through a sieve. It was getting worse, before his eyes he could see the cracks widening.
But why was this happening? When he reached level twenty-five he should have been given a list of classes to select which would then replace his first class. Why in the fuck was it destroying his core?
L%@# @p!
Error core not compatible with current level
Kal growled when he read the notification again. It was obvious now. The shoddy core he created during his fall into this damned plane didn’t have the capacity required to allow him to break through to tier one. So now all that experience was being barely contained within a bowl one size too small for it all. The solution seemed simple but of course, it wasn’t that easy. When Kal tried weaving together another core thread and feeding it into his core he ran into his first problem. The thread simply didn’t respond to his core at all, he could feel his Soul Forge skill activate with each attempt but it just didn’t work. He even tried siphoning some of the abyssal mana in hopes that he just needed to replicate what he did when he first arrived here but still, it didn’t respond.
He was in a hurry but this wasn’t something he could solve by just throwing things together and hoping they stuck. Kal needed to think this through, or else he might end up in an even worse position. His core thread was made up of strands of each of his attributes, resources, and skills. The first and last were easy, since the ratios involved seemed to be consistent between all the attributes, and his skills were essentially already fully formed threads that he simply weaved through the core. Wrath Incarnate being a heavily modified skill was different though, it now hung from his core by a conduit of will like a spherical bauble.
“Wait! That’s it!” Kal shouted when it came to him. Increasing the size of his core as it was wasn’t the answer. The next step was to form it into a sphere like his improved skill, and now that he had thought of it, just like Melisia’s core. Hers was a sphere. Melisia had evolved her class so if his assumption was correct that change could be represented by a person's core becoming a sphere. If he was right it was probably one of the functions his self-made core lacked from the loss of complexity compared to a normal core.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
He was confident that he was right but the thought of creating a framework out of his core thread was incredibly daunting, even with the assistance of Soul Forge. But he had to try. He didn’t have time to waste since a royal guard could be here any moment and he had no doubts that if it found him like this he was dead.
Kal began the painstaking task of weaving the framework of his new core. Like the last time he had to perform a task like this his birthright threatened to overwhelm him at every step. His emotions fluctuated like a furious tide, forcing him to restart multiple sections of the frame as they were ruined by a lack of focus. Sometimes his birthright seemed to assist him in moments like these. Like during the times he was discovering how to perceive his vital and physical energies and even the destruction of his original core. Now however he could feel its disregard for the creation of a new core. The need to let his core collapse became one of the main thoughts that threatened to overcome him with each flare of his birthright. He wanted to shatter his core and run loose, slaying all that came before him. Despite his current state, he felt that if he allowed himself to do so, he would become something much worse than what he had during his rampages. The ecstasy of slaughter called to him, it promised power beyond anything he thought was possible.
All he had to do was let go. Let go of Kal, discard his weaker self, and truly embrace who he truly is. Again he was forced to restart one of the support threads as a will strand faltered, as his concentration collapsed once again. It was getting worse as his will continued failing with his deteriorating body. Kal glanced at his status and winced at his sorry state before the worry was crushed by anger again.
Health:
232/1820
Stamina:
34/2680
Wrath:
680
He was running out of time so he turned back to his half-finished core construct, but before he dismissed his status noticed something above his attributes.
Attribute points available: 6
Kal would have smiled if the rage allowed and immediately put the points into his will attribute increasing it from two hundred and sixty-five to two hundred and seventy-five after title bonuses.. He felt it immediately, the rage he felt cooled slightly. It wasn’t much but his thoughts were much more under his control. Hopefully, it will be enough…
Kal dived back into his weaving. The whole process speeding up as he was less hampered by his birthright's influence. As he was near completion, the differences between his birthright and his wrath became more clear. His birthright was powerful and seemingly completely out of his control, but at the same time it was part of him or maybe it was him. Some deeper part of himself that he had no way of understanding yet. Melisia had said a core was a person's soul or that it at least contained their soul and upon its destruction, the person would die. That did not seem to apply to Kal leading him to believe that his birthright was his soul or some combination of the two. It seemed to have a will of its own and that will was obviously incredibly bloodthirsty. Kal had done a lot of killing over the last few weeks, some of it was his doing, and others were while he was rampaging. He had to admit he had enjoyed the fighting. The mutilation had unnerved him a little at first but now it was just part of how he fought. His rampaging self was just him without regard for anything but slaughter, careless of his own well-being. Perhaps that was how he was supposed to be but his core and mental attributes didn’t allow his true self to prosper.
Kal redirected his thoughts from that path, not needing any more reason to abandon his new core. But those thoughts are what allowed him to understand what his wrath truly meant. The creation of his wrath resource was honestly an accident. He had no idea what he was doing. Sure, he had gotten the notification telling him what was about to happen, but he had no way of truly understanding what the repercussions of that choice were. And right now he was beginning to see the first of those. His wrath is a combination of three things from what he could determine right now. There was probably more but from what he could perceive the most important ones were abyssal mana, his will, and a small portion of power from his birthright. Now that he understood that the changes within him were becoming clear and the motives of his birthright all the more unnerving. Abyssal mana was easy enough to explain, he had simply used what was actively trying to kill him on his way into the abyss in place of normal mana. His will was likely because of how he weaved it together by literally brute forcing it with his mind. And lastly, his birthright had merged with the mana on its own. At first glance, it just seemed like he had a darker version of mana fueled in a similar way he suspected the demons of this place gained mana. But now that he was finishing off his new core he finally understood.
His wrath was a trap. Perhaps if his birthright hadn’t intervened he would be dead but he was pretty sure that wasn’t why it helped him create the resource. His wrath was a way for his birthright to break free. It was something Kal couldn’t help but increase as he killed and if it ever got too high it would allow his birthright to gain control, breaking free of his core by breaking a skill. Luckily Kal was able to manage that, though it was still a precarious situation. He could remember some of the thoughts that had crossed his mind while using Wrath Incarnate, the closest he could get to his rampage state while still remaining aware of himself. In that state, he was disgusted by the limits of his wrath but still, he enjoyed every moment of the slaughter that came with the use of the skill. While wrath was a trap it was also an opportunity. It allowed him to use a tiny portion of his birthright's power, the first hint was his Wrathful Regeneration. Dalen had said he had barely any wounds when Harlm had taken Kal to him. He was pretty sure why that skill was offered to him immediately upon gaining his class was because his birthright already had the ability to heal him. It was also the same with his Wrath Incarnate. His memories of the fight with the thief were not clear by any means but how else could he have killed the man? Kal’s wrath was ultimately two things, a malevolent power that was generated by the death of living things, and also the platform upon which he could use his birthright-aligned skills without losing control.
The final threads finally fused together leaving Kal with the complete framework to support the power of his new core, but he was left with one last disturbing complication.
“Fuck!”
Error due to the presence of a unique resource and the manual forging of your tier 1 core you must provide the necessary resources:
Wrath provided: 0/73000