"Fuck me," thought Aaron. "Fuuuuuuuck meeeeeeee. I'm in a goddamn Isekai. What the ever-loving fuckity fuck, fuck." It wasn't the interspatial hijinks, or the absolutely dreadful planetary welcome, or the near-death experiences that finally got to him. It was the cringe. The cringe at what he was feeling. He was absolutely disgusted at the unshakeable excitement he was feeling right now. Yes, he dreamed about something like this happening. I mean, which socially awkward loser hasn't?

"SOOO," drawled the excited and ashamed interplanetary interloper. "Do I get cool powers now?"

Bemused, Zarkhan shook his head. "It's a little bit more complicated than that. There is no universal 'System' to borrow from your context, nor a geographically eastward culture with deeply metaphysical representations of the natural order. In fact, there is no natural order. All of this is heavily... selected for. The gods I mentioned before are nihilistic, self-serving, and devoid of any mortal qualms or boundaries. How does one fill the existential void of eternity? You would play millennia-long chess matches with other gods."

"So you're the good guys?"

"No clue what we are?" came the tired reply. "Are you good? Are you evil? Are these gods evil? Their nature isn't something that you can have emotional standards towards. Would you be angry at a storm that wiped out your village? At the comet that destroyed your planet? The nebula that wiped out your star system? Eternal sapience, while not omnipotence, is both primal and transcendent at the same time. We just try to survive. And so far, collectivism has been good for the past few thousand centuries. There is no meaning to this struggle."

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"So let me get this straight. While I have no objective view of the power system of this place, you seem to be amongst the higher echelons of strength, at least when compared to your comrades. And you called yourself a divine chess piece? And I have no innate or gifted powers that seem normal to this realm, and I am a herald of chaos? Did you know I shat my pants on re-entry? I'm a herald of kaka. Not chaos, man."

"Well said, Zarkhan. You are mostly right, apart from me being a whole chess piece. I would be a wooden chip of one chess piece if we're being generous. And no, I was not aware you had soiled yourself, O harbinger of putridness."

"While unfortunate and messy, your arrival, Mr. Wren, does signify as a portent of change. While correlation does not equal causation—wonderful line that, by the way—there is an incredible statistical significance to the number of heralds called forth, and immediately, the landscape of this realm changes quite quickly, violently, and in horrifying ways. Heralds are difficult to deal with. It's in the name. Names carry power. A lot of it."

"Oh, trust me," snorted Aaron, "I'll find a way to disappoint you."

"Do not behave like a teenager, Mr. Wren!" bellowed Zarkhan.