When the flash receded, they saw a silver mist had filled the entire room.
Mixed in the silver mist were tiny black, yellow, and gray particles like different-colored smoke. The entire mist roiled, churned, and then, with no sign, became a whirlpool. All the mist, from all directions, condensed onto a single point and outlined the figure of a serpent.
Danger banged Kai's mind.
He closed his eyes not knowing why. Such was the difference between his Perception and the arriving death. The extremities of his fingers and toes throbbed, as anxiety, bordering fright, took over his mind. Behind him, Meg had done the same. She had even turned her head away, her eyelids pressing so hard that they looked like hard, black lines.
Petyr wasn't blessed with Perception or any sense of danger, though.
A 6 ft long, viper-like serpent with pure white draconic scales slithered into existence. Its tongue flicked out of its mouth, and when it moved, illusory black and yellow rings seemed to travel across its body.
The serpent's eyes snapped open then.
The right eye was jet black, and only when one looked deep enough that one could see a sea of black tendrils. They were coiling around and over each other, their hunger seemed to know no bounds.
The left eye was murky yellow. Uncountable and nonsensical geometrical patterns ran in that eye, like unsolvable equations of mathematics accompanied by many-dimensional geometrical figures.
When it seemed it was over, the bulge between her two eyes parted vertically. It was as if someone had surgically planted a wet, gray stone into her head.
Petyr stared into the third eye.
Selene stared back.
Then, Petyr became stone, his entire body gaining a dull, gray color of eternal petrification.
…
Kai had shut his eyes so hard that it felt like someone was trying to gouge them out.
Selene's hissings were ringing in his ears like the cries of a newborn baby. He wanted to take her in his arms to marvel at her evolved state, but the light crackling sound and Petyr's gasps foretold an unavoidable danger beyond a perceivable source, making him think better of it.
-Master, master,- she called out to him. -Master, I can see. I can see.-
Kai felt maturity in her hisses, mixed with power and her will to prove herself to him. He could feel her happiness, and once more he found himself facing a being whose happiness he could not snatch. Meg had shown the same happiness when she found out about his Glitch.
What Selene had found for her to show such deep and apparent emotion while calling out to him baffled Kai.
-Good. Good,- Kai hissed, failing to think of something better to say. -I am proud of you.-
To Kai's surprise, Selene's hisses became ecstatic, her scales rattling like the pattering of raindrops amidst a rainstorm. -Yes, master. Yes!- she hissed, beaming. -Now I am your strongest Power. I am more beneficial than her.-
Kai noticed the menace hidden behind that her. There was only one her other than Selene with him in the room, and he wondered what Meg had done to earn Selene's quirky ire.
-Calm down,- he hissed. -Are you using a Skill?-
He must find the reason for the danger first, Kai reasoned. There were only three beings in the room who could be the source. He was not, Kai knew. Meg's state was worse than his, he knew that too, given that her Perception was lower than him.
-Yesss,- Selene hissed cheerily. -I didn't like how he was looking at me, master. So I killed him.-
Killed?! The words thundered in Kai's mind. But even more absurd was their implication. What did she say? She killed Petyr because she didn't like how he looked at her?!
Even Kai, with all his insanity and convoluted thoughts and reasoning, killed no one just because he didn't like how they looked at him. Every kill must have a potential benefit, such words were the basis for him to hold on to his ever-elusive sanity.
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Kai shuddered. He must not let this go on any longer.
-Cancel the Skill,- Kai hissed authoritatively. -And I forbid you to kill anyone without my exclusive permission.-
The absence of Selene's hisses unnerved Kai.
Then Selene said something that Kai would never forget.
-I will kill anyone I want!- she hissed, snapping back at him with an attitude. But then her tone changed almost instantly. -Yes, as master commands, I am canceling the Skill.-
To Kai's astonishment, her tone changed once more after that.
-Maybe we should just go back to sleep, as there is no benefit in staying up when our master has no use for us.- she lapsed into silence with this last hiss.
What the actual fuck is happening?! Kai had never been so perplexed by something. It felt to him as if there wasn't one Selene, but many versions of her hissing at each other, trying to come to a single rational conclusion.
The danger receded as Selene stopped hissing.
Kai, though still wary of an uninvited and unexpected impending danger, opened his eyes. As he had guessed, there was no sign of Petyr. If he hadn't known that Petyr was nothing but memories given substance, then he might have frowned at his absence.
Then his eyes landed on the most beautiful creature he had ever seen.
She was color come to life. She was white, and white was her. All colors around Selene seemed to bow in defeat and shame. She had gained length again, Kai observed. Selene was around 6 ft long, but she was on the leaner side. She seemed more like a viper and less like a cobra or any other snake species to him. But there were elements to her that Kai failed to rule out.
A new species! Kai concluded with utter fascination.
She raised her head, flicked out her tongue, and then looked up at him.
Kai's eyes narrowed. -You still can't see?- he hissed, questioning what seemed obvious to him. -Didn't you tell me you can see now?-
Her right eye had become darker than before, now looking like an ocean of black blood to him. Her left eye was pale, murky yellow, with millions of geometrical forms and incomprehensible many-dimensional patterns rippling within it. It repulsed him, Kai found to his distaste. Her dragon-like scales rattled with every tiny slither, and illusory black and yellow alternative rings traveled across her slim and sleek body now and then.
-I can, master,- Selene hissed, defensively. -I can see only with my third eye. But my Skill activates itself if I were to open it.-
Behind him, Meg slowly turned her head, and Selene's head snapped in her direction.
Kai's instincts roared, prophesying a deadly but certain outcome.
-Selene!- Kai hissed angrily. -You will know your place.-
Selene stared at Meg with her blind eyes for a moment before looking away. Kai could swear he saw the vertical tear in the middle of her forehead tremble. Despite the unmatched fury on his face and in his words, within him, his heart was racing with wild excitement.
Kai was more than happy.
There was scarcely a word in the dictionary that could describe his feelings right now. One more being had just become a part of his power. And though in his Inventory now dwelt two absurd Items, Kai knew in battle prowess, even Meg wasn't the match for Selene now.
"What… What is she, master?" Meg asked, utterly bewildered by all the hisses and the evolved serpent. "She looks different. She…"
-/She feels different,/- Kai said, completing Meg's words. -/Let's find out what has she become after being corrupted by two alien parasites./-
He crouched down. Selene didn't need any command to slither toward him. She yawned; her mouth as black as the abyss. Then she kissed his chin, with the same familiarity as before, her forked tongue moistening his skin.
Kai ran his hands over her scales, caressing her, as a hidden attachment welled up inside him.
This was his bond with her.
Selene slithered off the floor, her long body coiling around his waist and chest, and finally came to rest after taking a turn around his neck. She put her head on his shoulder, and within a moment, went to the realm of dreams.
Kai felt the strength hidden in her muscles and adjusted his eyes to look at her Stats.
…
[
Beast: Ghost Basilisk (magical beast)
Grade: D (growth)
Type: Unknown
HP: 160
MP: 190
SP: 110
Attributes-
Strength: 16
Agility: 18
Stamina: 16
Perception: 20
Correspondence: 19
Breath: 11
Abilities-
1. Intangibility
2. Soul Chill
3. Lunatic Corruption
Skills-
1. Ghost Neurotoxin
2. Earth Vibration Sense
3. Petrification
]
…
-Yes,- Kai hissed, gently. -I am proud of you…-
Selene squirmed, turning into glistening silver mist, and melted into Kai's body.