Ben could tell from the voice of his god in his head that Myriad was almost insulted by the idea, the prospect that the gods who’d worked so hard to create this to give all sapient races better odds at surviving would ever do something that could bring them crashing down again, it was pure madness, plain and simple, and the longer Ben thought on it he couldn’t help agree. The system was designed in a way to aid in the growth of all races who were a part of it, with most people having at least a couple fifth leveled skills when the equivalent amount of power from before the system existed was around level one or two. People were simply better at things than any of their pre-system ancestors would ever be, but thinking about that just made a weight form in the pit of his stomach for one simple fact. He knew he wasn’t wrong.
Myriad, I assure you, demons have access to the system. I felt the skills on the one who impaled me.
Thera was eyeing him from the side with concern from the expression on his face and the fact he’d gone silent, but that barely registered as his minds became a flurry of activity as the implication got to him. At the time, when the two of them had been on their hunt with Steph, Will, and Wedrow, Ben hadn’t paid it any mind. When he’d survived the attack he had other more important things to worry about, not to mention that his understanding of both souls and the system were almost non-existent. He hadn’t questioned what he’d felt, nor felt the need to mention it, with the fact he’d experienced it at all almost vanishing in the recesses of his memory, but now that he had a greater understanding of things he could tell just how bad this was.
Myriad could hear the certainty in his apostle’s thoughts, but even still he denied it, though significantly less confidently.
His god trailed off as horror filled his words, the confidence Myriad was feeling in his claim all but vanishing as something clicked for him.
Myriad?
He passed on the message to Thera who was able to pick up on his own worry easily enough, and without argument changed the destination they went through when they made it to the gate, returning to her homeland instead.
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It was Ben’s first time at the church, but he didn’t take the time to appreciate its architecture, he understood that they were there for an important reason, one that had a heavy bearing on the future as a whole.
When they arrived they took seats in front of the statue of Anailia, and at Myriad’s request, closed their eyes to pray, opening them again and finding them both in his god’s realm, with Anailia and Helori present as well.
Thera broke into a deep bow as she understood what was happening, averting her eyes from the radiant divinity that was before her as she quietly thought about how much she wished Ben had warned her this was going to happen.
“Lovely to see you again child, and your partner couldn’t warn you because of the delicacy of the matter,” Anailia told her with a strained chuckle, easily seeing her thoughts while trying to contain her reaction to what Myriad had told her. “And Ben, isn’t it lovely to see you alive. Your survival made some impressive waves up here, at least until something a bit more important came up.”
“Thanks, and as nice as it is to be alive and all, maybe we should cut to the heart of the matter?”
“Which is?” Thera asked quietly, still struggling with being in the presence of so much divinity and wanting to know why.
“I think demons and invaders have access to the system.”
That stunned her silent as the gods surrounding them grimaced.
“That is still a pretty big if, no matter what it might help explain,” Helori said, even if she seemed just as uncomfortable with the likelihood. “We’ll need people to actually verify. This is going to be a nightmare of unseen proportions if you're right. The implications alone-”
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“Which we’ll deal with when the time comes,” Anailia said firmly. “The idea that a god would do this, I’ve contacted some I know I can trust just in case and I think we all have our suspicions, but this couldn’t have happened at a worse time.”
“If we’re right they’ve been integrated for about three hundred years,” Myriad pointed out. “Really, we’re just lucky that we’re receiving any heads up at all.”
“Uh, what exactly are you talking about?” Ben asked, wanting a firmer grasp of the situation as his god sighed.
“Unfortunately, the system being placed on them would help explain a few too many things,” Myriad explained. “We’d thought the talking invader you encountered must have been raised up and taught the language by someone, but we’ve found no evidence of that no matter how hard we’ve looked, but if it had the system then it would automatically have the world speak skill, the moment it reached the sapient stage of its development it would have been able to understand the language. An even greater point in its favour would be the sorrow.”
“The mental attack demons cause when they're dying?”
He’d been warned about it when he’d been on the demon hunt, how the act of trying to kill them proved difficult on a fundamental level due to a change in the race as a whole that seemed to happen a few hundred years prior. While Ben hadn’t experienced much from it, he’d seen Will struggle firsthand at dealing with it, even when their lives were on the line, but at his words Helori shook her head.
“If you’re right about this then it isn’t a mental attack from the demons, it's a feature of the system itself,” She explained. “With so many different races on the world, it was important to find a way to keep things civil back when they’d first arrived here, as well as ensure that there were no unfortunate accidents along the way. Even if there’s some similar body types, you have to admit that you’ve seen plenty of people that you could have mistaken for animals or monsters before you arrived here, isn’t that right?”
“I guess?”
He couldn’t deny that he’d seen plenty of people that he would have previously felt looked horrific if he’d run into them on earth, from giant worms to tentacle monsters to creatures he struggled to describe at all, but he didn’t understand where this was going, he’d always just thought that given everything that happened when he arrived, accepting the presence of such a broad range of creatures was on the easier end to accept, though Helori denied the thought.
“While you do seem to have a potentially unhealthy ability to adjust to things Ben, the main reason is because the system views every other creature under it as a person and makes those who benefit from its effects feel the same. That’s where the sorrow comes in. People who hunt demons are trapped between the belief that they’re nothing but animals while knowing in their souls that they’re people. The sorrow is essentially an instinctual response to keep anyone from committing murder.”
“Uh, but I killed a bunch of demons and I wasn’t affected. From what you’re saying it’s not like my resistances were doing anything for me, right?”
Helori and Anailia looked awkwardly at each other as his god spoke his thoughts, sounding very tired as he did. “The system doesn’t make you value life, it simply makes you view it in the same way as if you were killing members of your own race. To be blunt Ben, the fact you could so easily shows a pretty stark indifference to the lives of people, not that I’m exactly shocked.”
“What, so I’m like a psychopath?” He asked, mildly offended. “I would like to remind you I’ve nearly died for people before and am working my butt off to save Inux.”
“You’re not a psychopath and you’re more than capable of working towards helping people and caring about them, it’s just that if you have to hurt someone it doesn’t affect you, which given what I’ve seen you do to both Felth and Ather shouldn’t be a shock. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing Ben and it doesn’t make you a bad person if you aren’t attacking people for no reason. Hell, if you were a warrior it would be an excellent asset. Most people who are in positions where they need to inflict great harm to another need to overcome it, and it can take a mental toll too. Of course, a craftsman doesn’t exactly need to, but it’s not a harm either. The real trouble comes when those gates open around the world.”
“What’s going to happen?” Thera asked, worry touching her voice as she began to understand just how bad things could be from this.
“As things stand, only the demons on this world would have access to the system,” Anailia explained. “But the moment the gates open then every world each gate connects to will automatically become a part of it. Even if each demon on this world is killed before that happens, if the system has already accepted them then there’s nothing we can do. Of course, that won’t affect the first wave much, but when we get to the second, and the third from there… Well, the longer any invader has with the system, the more it would grow, which is why we need to confirm if you're right, and given the limited number of people on this world who could determine the skills a creature has on its soul, we want to ask you to do it.”
“Uh, can I point out how dangerous this sounds? And the fact that I just survived a different life and death struggle? And what happened last time I went looking for demons? And my intense desire to not die?”
“We wouldn’t be asking you to go alone Ben,” Myriad told him, no more happy with the suggestion than he was. “Honestly, even if I’m not happy with it, with the people we’d be sending with you, you couldn’t be safer.”
He couldn’t help but be torn. He understood the importance of this and there’d be benefits for him too. He’d be able to test out how his soul-sealing enchantment worked earlier than he’d expected and if he hunted a few demons then he’d be able to make good progress on his current job, given that in his day-to-day life he didn’t do much that could help him gain experience as a tank, but he still felt himself hesitate. It was something he wanted to do eventually, and after successfully making his enchantment he’d been ready to do it immediately, but he’d been enjoying the small amount of peace he’d gained after being free from the trial, he didn’t want to just rush back into a situation like that so soon.
…No, this is important so I need to do it. Besides, this could help Inux if I get a soul to work with and the sooner I get out of the tank job the better. All I need to do is deal with this one thing and then I can actually go home.
He looked at Thera, who still seemed worried but gave him a nod as she took his hand before he looked back to the gods. “Fine, I’ll do it. So who do I have coming with me?”
At that, a thin smile stretched across Anailia’s reptilian lips.
“Me.”