CHAPTER 335 – A TROUBLING VISION
The rest of their trip through the zone went smoothly. Every step, every kilometre they travelled Tom waited for the other shoe to fall. There were so many things that could go wrong, the golem could breakdown unexpectedly there might be a random flurry of beams sufficient to overwhelm the shield or the clouds could coordinate which was the same as the second option just worse, any of those outcomes would be a disaster but nothing like that happened.
The golems’ defences were absolute. Even when random chance created denser flurries of attacks, it was equal to the task. The chosen shields that provided a second layer of defence constantly were never engaged.
Instead, the golem functioned like the machine it was. The clouds kept firing the same beams as they did at the start. There was no coordination, no massive gathering of them in order to overwhelm their shields at the last moment. They were all beneath the notice of the monsters in the sky. Just a bug that they tried to fly swat occasionally, treating his team like they were a cockroach that was crawling across the surface of the world.
They reached the flower they were targeting. It was as large as the one they entered from, with the same gaping tunnel downward. They all sighed in relief as the beams from the cloud were taken care of by the rose like shields that were projected above them.
“Thank the heavens for that.” Toni whispered, expressing the view of all of them. Walking through the wilderness depending on the golem for protection was nerve-wracking.
The defences of the trial felt far more robust than Tom’s construction. It was only now they were within them that they truly felt the zone wasn’t going to kill them.
Michael went inanimate and then a massive grin split his face. “Praise the system for it mercifulness.”
“The jog wasn’t that bad.” Everlyn said.
“No, not that. I was worried Tom was going to get a ninety percent contribution.”
“I didn’t get ninety percent? But I did all the work.”
The healer laughed at his expression. “Not according to the calculation of experience.”
Toni had returned from her system room, so he checked his own quickly.
Congratulation for visiting all twelve holy sites.
Flat experience granted for survival.
Experience awarded 500,000.
For three days of work, it was an excellent return and while the greed monster in him regretted the trial’s socialism of experience in the zone, the bulk of him was mostly thankful for it. The others needed the experience to keep pace with the monsters and it was probably more important for them to match the other aliens before during and after the dragon fight than to boost him a littlefurther.
Without further fuss, they jogged down the tunnel to the next zone. They exited into a safe room constructed from multicoloured crystals. Thankfully, there was no direct sunlight onto them but even with the diffuse light from outside they still glimmered and seemed to glow.
“Another kill quest,” Michael called out.
Tom checked.
Quest Infected Beasts.
A chaotic elemental gate has turned the local wildlife into elemental monsters. Personally cull a thousand monsters to gain access to all exits.
A thousand was a lot, but not if you imagined doing it over five days and then broke it down further into hours. It was only twenty kills per hour, which, in Tom’s estimate should be easily achieved if the local wildlife had been converted like the quest suggested. Existentia as a general rule had more wildlife than earth and if they were now monsters, they would attack on sight, so all you had to do was to get close enough for you to notice them to notice you and their aggression would do the rest.
Here there was no danger of herbivores running from you like what would happen on Earth.
The scouts moved, so each stood at a different exit to apply their remote scouting skills. Over half an hour passed before they stirred. No one had thought about interrupting. They all knew how important accurate scouting was prior to engaging an enemy.
Everlyn turned to face them. “I can’t say they’re not near sapient.”
Toni groaned in annoyance.
Michael frowned. “Is there a method we can use to confirm either way? Will fighting them help.”
She nodded. “I think it is the only way we’ll be able to tell.”
Thor had his pencil and scrap paper out and was scribbling intently. He glanced up at them. “I’ll tell the chosen to wait while we gather more information.”
They prepared to venture out while Everlyn supplied a quick briefing. The zone was analogous to a temperate old growth forest on earth. The trees were not trees but some form of animal plant hybrid. Visually, they followed the phenotype of a long trunk and a crown of leaves reaching for the sky. However, their biology was extremely different. Parts of the trees were almost animalistic in nature, but they weren’t dangerous unless you climbed high enough to get close to one of the mouths. The challenge of the zone was not the plants, but the fact that the majority of the animals had been randomly mutated into monsters. The pattern of the changes seemed to be completely random and there would be lightning possums, earth monkeys, and flaming frogs, and the direct opposite of that. Icy frogs were just weird given they couldn’t enter the water for obvious reasons.
They had been fighting for ten minutes. Tom cleared his throat. “Remind me again why we’re concerned about them being near sapient? Because they seem completely monstrous to me. I haven’t seen one spark of communication.”
Everlyn bit her lip. “Because I couldn’t say they weren’t. I agree the ones throwing themselves at us don’t seem close to qualifying, but the macro situation is weird. They’re not fighting each other. I saw a wolf ignore a rabbit. It’s unnatural and I’m worried that they’re all part of a single civilisation or organism. About running your golem? What are you planning to use long term?”
“Earth,” he interrupted her immediately. “I’m leaving it as earth. I have a relationship with an earth elemental and based on our battles there doesn’t seem to be an advantage of a particular elemental type, so that’s what I’m going for. Shields will be with raw magic unless we’re fighting earth based monsters. For attack spells, against most monsters, it won’t use the raw power but the affinity mana.”
Despite the monsters, it was a pleasant walk. They were not in a rain forest. The ground was dry underfoot and the ground soft and spongy from years of leaf fall. The trunks were wide apart with no tree growing within ten metres of another and of course no branches within thirty of the ground, so they didn’t need to continuously push through foliage. There were solid lines of sight and continuous even shade.
“This would be beautiful in other situations,” Toni commented.
No one answered. A lot of places in Existentia were like that.
Another opponent appeared. It was a snake that radiated so much cold that it damaged the bark it was sliding across. Dead Healers Touch removed all the scales on its back. It was a gruesome injury and even though it was a monster; the snake went into shock. It froze not even moving a little bit. It was a reaction he had only seen a couple of times before. A monster’s usual response to pain was aggression. Apparently, stripping the skin off creatures was as painful as the spell had promised. Five chaos bolts slammed into it. Tom wasn’t sure that even a single one of the missiles upgraded into anything powerful, but their combined effects blew the creature into chunks that fell onto the forest floor.
It was gone. Turned into… compost to feed the trees, Tom guessed, to add to the metre thick layer, which was already there.
They moved on.
Other mutated beasts attacked them constantly as Everlyn led them forward. A wolf pack assaulted them, with every one of them being earth aligned. They had what would probably have been an annoying ability where they shot intangible earth missiles at them. Shields popped up angled to deflect them straight back at the wolves that had cast them. One of the attacks hit a tree and a chunk of its bark got turned to rock. It was an aerial petrifying ability that could very well have been troubling for everyone else. He would, of course been immune due to Living Rock, but the rest of the group would have struggled. However, with the golem throwing up shields it was completely negated.
The creatures saw the futility of their ranged attacks and switched to teeth and claw mode. Tom was briefly encased in a dangerous whirlpool of snapping mouths and lashing claws. Teeth slid off Living Rock and his spear lashed out to kill them. The melee fighters stood in a ring around him, unleashing offensive strike after offensive strike as the wolves focused solely on killing him.
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Fate built up and he slipped more easily through the attacks.
In less than a minute, which was a small eternity in combat it was over.
They continued on and then fought a bear that was far stronger than normal, yet with his dodge skills negating its ability to hurt them and the others all unleashing their attacks it succumbed after five minutes of attritional fighting. Too slow for their aims, but there were relatively few creatures of that strength.
The scouts immediately after the battle went into their focused mode as they utilised their remote scouting.
“Call through the chosen.” Everlyn ordered finally. “We’ll meet them back in the safe room. These things aren’t near sapient. They’ve shown no learning behaviours whatsoever.”
Her proclamation wasn’t completely accurate in Tom’s assessment. During the battles, they adapted, but there was no information spread back to the wider community so the conclusion was sound. The most recent monster reacted as stupidly as the first.
The chosen joined them and Everlyn split the group. Larger numbers represented safety, but even with just the human’s presence it was clear that they had been travelling with too many for the density of the targets.
“Two teams for now,” Everlyn told them. “But we’ll reassess after each boss and by tomorrow I expect we’ll be running three teams.”
It was boring. They fought and exchanged continuous messages in order to combine together to eliminate the larger threats. There was no strategy or complexity in their approach, just ruthless efficiency while guaranteeing they were overwhelming favourites in every encounter.
They built a camp. They wanted him to join them for chats and a drink, but he refused. He had work to do, and right after he had eaten, he settled down to sleep. Carefully, he formed an image in his mind. They had to understand why the spear needed a precognition blocking ability. They were going to need to acquire one from somewhere, and he needed to know how strong it had to be.
As always, when he directed the skill the True Dream took over the instant he entered proper sleep.
Tom immediately knew he was in the Dragon. That disdain for other life, the absolute superiority she felt and the glee when she broke others it couldn’t be faked by anyone else. His guts twisted. Tom hated experiencing that mindset.
An adventure was pinned in her grasp. She knew very little or nothing about it and nor did she care. It or he was the prince of some proud insect race that was stupid because it had failed to comprehend that she was a law onto herself. This particular specimen had been amusing. For a while she had believed it was unbreakable mentally, that was until she had started to carve away his genitalia.
It had been glorious. Initially, he hadn’t cared and then when she was halfway done she had cheekily shown him that the blade she was utilising was a weapon that left permanent scars. One that prevented healing with anything less than divine intervention. It was as good as permanent. The scars the blade left extended right to the soul.
That had partially broken him.
And the most tasty part of it was that he was still breaking. He was blabbing a lot of secrets that she had absolutely no interest. He was hoping that him sharing them would gain him mercy. She was bored out of her brain listening to him prattle on. Why would she care about weaknesses in their cities shield arrays? But it was best to let it talk. Allow the hope to build because when she shattered that hope it would be delicious.
Time froze.
She was no longer in the same place. A flood of alarm, which was quickly stifled and suppressed briefly ran through her.
She was in a cave that stretched forever and her GOD, a majestic dragon that was stronger than she currently was rested proudly in front of her. The gap between her and it was too large to easily envisage. She expected it would be hundreds if not thousands of years before she would be able to challenge him.
Inside the dragon’s mind, Tom’s own soul shivered in abject horror. Logic warred with his senses. The GOD was beautiful, extraordinary, and he wanted to change allegiances immediately to serve this being that was superior to all others. His desire was to kotow before it. Scream out his loyalty. His iron will stayed his voice… logic said it was not worth his supplication… yet it was so magical… But also irredeemably evil… the logic fought against the truth of what he observed. If he was physically there, Tom had no doubt he would have immediately prostrated himself and swore his eternal service, but he was just a passenger in the dragon’s mind which gave him space to resist.
“FOOLISH CHILD,” the words thundered in her head. “How blind are you? This was all an act. Its fear, its breaking due to bodily disfiguration. It was a trick, a trap. He has been channelling power into a sacrificial dead mans switch since you claimed him. It is going to blow in three seconds, and if it does you will die.”
The words were truth. Coming from the GOD’s mouth, they were absolute truth. There was no point asking how or why or lamenting on how unfair the situation was. She would not be here if she indulged in that type of weakness. “And how do I save myself?”
“Consume him in dragon flame.”
She had three seconds… she could throw him away and then hit him… the timing would be tight but it would kill him and based on the GOD’s words save her life.
“Not like that. There isn’t the time. Lift him to your mouth and then fry him.”
“But that will do permanent damage.”
“UNGRATEFUL WRENCH, that is better than death. As for the parasite that is eavesdropping on this conversation…”
Confusion swirled in the dragon’s mind, but in Tom’s only terror.
The GOD had seen him!
“I know you and for this insult I’m coming for your entire species.”
Tom’s brain shut down. He could hardly comprehend the situation.
The dragon was oblivious to what was happening. She hadn’t even seemed to have fully registered the GOD’s words to him. It was like the words had created an instant of confusion and then they were pushed out of her mind. All that mattered was completing the task the GOD had given her. Time restarted again and without hesitation she channelled the breath, building it inside her throat while she lifted the insect to her muzzle and then blew out her deadly breath. The scales on her hand resisted for a moment and then burst and burnt.
She kept blowing, doing as her GOD instructed.
The dream broke apart.
Tom was past caring about such insignificant concerns.
It had spoken to him!
Its beauty still humbled him but the logic bit, that slice of him that had pushed back had been vindicated because in those last moments he had seen the smouldering malevolence… The hatred it had felt toward him. The reminder of what he was…A species that was not its own.
And it was a GOD that felt that revulsion and contempt. In an individual you could weather it, grow more powerful, but against a GOD… What could you do? It was coming for him and all humanity and it would destroy them!
Tom screamed as he awoke. The blanket over him held him in place like it weighed a million tons. He lacked the foresight to push it away. There was no futile attempt to resist. No seizing his weapons or engaging in an offensive spell to attack any monster that might be preparing to chew on him.
How could he fight back against that?
All he could do was to express his terror.
There was activity around him. Spells were cast to create light. A person grabbed him and yelled at him to get it together and also to tell them what had happened.
I’m coming for your species.
Those words and the GOD speaking directly to him…
How the hell could he possibly do anything after that experience.
The memory of being in the presence of the GOD ran through his mind. It robbed him of all self-control.
There was the sound of fighting around him. His throat protested, and he stopped screaming but his body remained locked up and unable to move. He wanted to sink into the earth and be embraced by its strength.
“No.” Michael roared. “Keikain I need you.”
The earth that had been swallowing him was abruptly wrenched out of his control.
For a moment, he was perplexed, then he expressed his will.
1.
The bed rock responded. Rising to claim him and protect him.
I’m coming for you…
A GOD. So beautiful and so perfectly hateful.
The stone was pressed right against him. It comforted him as his mind went over those words. Repeating the malicious intent. Over and over again.
I’m coming…
There was no pretending otherwise. He could not lie to himself. It had been a god, and it had seen and spoken to him.
Minutes must have passed as his brain cycled through the thoughts. The sound of the others was dim and could be barely heard through the rock that protected him. He felt Keikain trying to seize the earth from him, but it was child play to push him back.
Something was wrong… Of course the world was off. He had spied on a GOD and been caught. How could things be anything but broken.
He was overcome by fatigue and his eyes drooped.
His chest was attempting to heave but couldn’t.
The stone held him perfectly still… It was unyielding and safe and nothing like the GOD.
Despite being stuck underground, bright lights were playing on his eyelids. They formed into a bright tunnel… there were shapes at the end of it.
I’m….
Something happened.
He was forcefully pushed into his system room, but it wasn’t his. It was the room from when he was first inducted into the system. At the table, across from him was Dux… the original version of the avatar and not the changed features of the one from Existentia.
The panic, that all-consuming force that was overwhelming him receded.
She smiled, as hauntingly beautiful as ever.
“There is more than one GOD.”
He didn’t understand. Timelines were blurred. Was this a memory of what she had said in that initial interview, or was it a new vision? It was irrelevant those words resonated in him and provided a counterweight for the oppressive memory of those seconds when the GOD had looked back at him.
There was a shift and gently, with immense love he was pushed out of the system room.
His brain felt sluggish. A fully formed tunnel of light was in front of him. He remained encased in stone, a comfortable presence that surrounded him completely.
His body was wrong…
Healing Tranquillity kicked in. All of his body systems were flashing red.
Why? His struggling brain asked even as it struggled to track down the answer. Failing heart, lungs, kidney, he searched for the root cause and realised it was a lack of oxygen.
Perfect stone encased him just as he had wished, but that also stopped air from reaching his lungs.
Memories of why assaulted him. The memory of a GOD overwhelming common sense. What was it two, five or ten minutes without oxygen? Heart and lungs had failed. For a moment, he was overwhelmed by the size of his issues. Did he need a miracle to survive? Should he pray. The problem was he suspected DEUS had already given him one. No, as always, he needed to save himself and not rely on others. The memory of a CPR course flashed through his mind.
Above him at a thought stone bellows formed. The rock around his chest contracted, forcing his blood to move like someone was pounding against his sternum. His sensitivity with Healing Tranquillity let him fine tune everything. Deliberately, he broke ribs to make the compressions easier. The bellows he had created pumped.
Air flooded him.
Now the cause was being addressed. His healing focused on fixing his body. Save the brain first, then the heart, as his power flowed into it and the stone compressed the chest it started to beat. Then his lungs inflated by themselves. His senses told him he was three metres beneath the surface. A ring of humans were around him.
Waiting?
Possibly wondering if he was dead.
He needed to face them. With a groan, the earth opened in front of him and he started to rise. It took all of his will to do so, and the whole time he repeated the mantra. There was more than one GOD and his GODDESS would protect him.
But the implications of what he had seen. That was going to haunt him.