“What?”

Silence.

“No, seriously, what?”

Again, nothing but silence reigned.

“Anyone? Anyone gonna tell me what the actual hell just happened?”

Lyrhea looked around at the utter slaughter that apparently had transpired minutes, or maybe just seconds, before she was yanked from certain death and right in front of a Godly Avatar. Though that Avatar was no longer present, having had whatever animus that kept it in existence removed, letting the macabre mess that made it up fall to the ground, Lyrhea was still without answers as to what had gone on.

She gestured around a bit, hoping that her occasional frantic wave would attract some attention from a Higher Power, and yet, nothing. She finally gave up and turned to walk back to her hiding place in the walls, only to look towards where they were and realize that the walls, and everything that was a part of them, were gone along with the town and the people within it.

She looked back at the mound of scattered debris that had formerly made up the swirling humanoid mass of clouds, gore, grain, metal, and death, closed her eyes, and sighed deeply.

“Can’t have a single win worth a damn, now can we?” Turning back towards the forest far beyond the now ruined town, Lyrhea walked aimlessly without a goal aside from survival.

[“Testing, testing. One, Two, Three. Testing.”]

For once she was glad to hear her Patron calling to her inside of her head.

“Oh, thank God…” she muttered before switching to a more polite tone. “So, my almighty Master,” she said, trying to straddle the fine line between brownnosing (which the Primordial Serpent hated) and being disingenuous (which the Primordial Serpent also hated). “what can I do for you now?”

[“HA!”] was the reply. [“See? I told you that the damn bastard would be forced to intervene!”]

“Uhm…” Lyrhea was confused. What was this about intervention?

[“Oh, yeah, glad you’re not dead yet, my little Chosen. How was the fight?”]

Lyrhea paused and collected herself before replying, “Well, the first two stages were, well,… they were something. But then I thought I would need to fight a God, so there’s that….” she trailed off before asking a question. “Were you not watching?”

[“Oh, we were.”] her Patron stated bluntly. [“When Chosen battle, though, no Gods can interfere nor communicate with either party. I and the other quote-unquote ‘Monster Gods’ were with you in spirit, though.”]

“That’s…. nice…. I guess….” Lyrhea mumbled. She would have liked a bit of divine intervention on her side during all of that, but if the options were either no divine intervention on both sides or rampant divine intervention on both sides, she preferred the former to the latter.

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[“Huh….”] her Patron seemed to be confused about something. [“For killing a Chosen of a low ranking God, you don’t seem to have gotten much stronger… Wait… what level were you before the fight?”]

Lyrhea tilted her head and opened the status screen. Sure enough, she was still stuck at Level 5.

“I was at Level 5. Both I and the ‘Forest Guardian’ Core were locked at Level 5 until one of us died.”

Lyrhea could practically hear the legions of hands slapping faces, or in the case of those without hands, tails, or other systems by which one body part may impact the facial regions of their main body. “Did I just not kill the Core?” she asked. “Am I gonna be stuck at Level 5 forever?”

She heard what could be described as the collective sighing of at least 8 different beings followed by her Patron asking her to hold the line for a little bit. With nothing better to do and no real way or desire to stop and interject any questions, Lyrhea obliged as the connection cut out, leaving her to try and think of something to do in the meantime.

A few minutes later, her Patron rang her again.

“Primordial Serpent Servants Hotline, CEO Lyrhea speaking.” she joked, hoping to get a rise from her Patron that wasn’t something hostile. “How may I direct your call?”

[“Okay, listen,”] The Primordial Serpent said in a voice that seemed overwhelmed with annoyance and stress. [“I and a few others are going to have… words… with the System itself. Just hold on a bit longer and you’ll get what you should have gotten by now. Any questions aside from how long this is going to take?”]

Lyrhea thought about it for a few seconds before deciding on what to ask.

“Several.” she stated before asking her first question. “Does one’s Level actually do anything or mean anything?”

[“No, and no. It’s more of a rating system to describe how much stuff you’ve done and how many things of similar or stronger power or similar or higher level that you’ve killed. This can be gamed by mass-killing lesser creatures, but most who do that are simply sadists or the weak who can’t be asked to hunt something equal in power to themselves.”]

“Are you saying that I was sadistic and weak because I holed up inside of a forest and snarfed small animals for a while, ultimately raising my Level that way?”

[“….. Perhaps…. Any other questions?”]

Sighing at her Patron’s rather blunt and cold reply, Lyrhea asked another question.

“So, was I supposed to have done something to break this challenge, or did I fail it along with the Core or whatever and now I’m permanently locked at Level 5?”

[“It isn’t your fault, but until this is all resolved you are essentially locked at Level 5 until further notice. Be glad Levels mean nothing, otherwise, you’d be up shit creek without a paddle. We’re working on fixing this act of System-created idiocy and racism, so just hold tight. This won’t merely affect only you after all.”] Her Patron stated in an irritable tone. [“Anything else?”]

“One more, and that’s it.” Lyrhea stated before asking her final question. “What the hell is this ‘Ascension Rate’ thing? I notice that it is higher than what it was before, but I still don’t know what it is.”

Her patron was silent for a lot longer than usual before she eventually gave a reply.

[“That is a measure of how close you are to being what your current species’ true ideal nature is. It is also a rough indicator as to how long it will take before you reach the next instance where your form changes. The higher it is, the closer you are to being your current form’s ideal version of itself and the faster you will reach the next stage in your evolution into a True Lyrhean.”]

“Why then would I want it to be higher or lower, if I may ask?” Lyrhea asked, forgetting she had said her previous question was to be the last.

[“The lower it is, the more time you have to grow, and the higher it is, the more powerful you become in a shorter period of time.] her Patron stated. [“Growing too fast can lead to… issues… later down the line, so try not to become a 'True' True Lyrhean or achieve your next form change too quickly. Trust me on that. Now, I and a few others are going to go and fix this issue. Hang tight, as this might take a little while.”]

Her God ceased communications, and Lyrhea shrugged and walked off.

“Not like I can do much myself.” she grumbled as she walked away from the mess that she had created.