Waking up in what I presumed was a forest definitely was not a bucket-list item.
I looked out the cracked windshield and found that I was staring at a giant statue of a woman tucked away in a stone enclave. Vines had overtaken most of it from the back. It draped over half of the front in a sort of serene scene that you’d find in a mediation BD. For a second, I thought I was in a brain dance for a moment. But, no, I wasn’t.
Looking down, I found my body. My original wounds were gone as if they’d never happened. Only the holes in the door, and the missing pieces of my vest told the story. And an empty crate in my lap.
“Shit…” I breathed out the words as I pinged Yang…
I received nothing for the effort. I panicked and turned around. The robot was slumped against the window. His singular eye dark as his black-armor. I froze, not going to lie. I didn’t know how to react to this, other than stare… Not my proudest moment, but I reached out and shook his leg.
“Y-Yang…?” I whispered. “Wait… Fuck…Robot… Right…”
I turned back and opened my door. Clean air wafted into the cabin. I tensed up as I was unprepared for the smells and sounds that followed. I heard… Chirping – bird calls – scientifically their mating calls. That's when I realized I was on my own with no one other than me to rely on at this moment.
I closed the door immediately and began to run through a list of options.
The first order of business was to jack into Yang. I had the knowledge and basic skill to protect myself somewhat. I had been trained, yes, but everything I had done was in a classroom environment. Even the firing range I used was indoors. Yes, I understood that could work, but I felt… Naked without Yang.
I turned around in the seat and stared at the robot. Then turned to the door again.
“Wait….” I murmured.
There was no need to leave the damn vehicle yet. I relocked the doors and slipped into the seat next to him, slid him forward to access the port at the base of its neck, and pulled the interface plug from behind my head. Text scrolled through my HUD, pulling the relevant information.
[WARNING: DAEMON FOUND! ]
The warning flashed and I initiated emergency protection protocols, firing off my own Anti-Daemon programs. For a solid minute, window after window flew across my vision as we both duked it out. The daemon then tried to invade me, forcing me to fight on two fronts – one in Yang and one in me.
[WARNING: Daemon neutralized!]
It came with a bouncing chibi dragon animation. I smile and sighed at the same time. Whoever had programmed that daemon was certainly a skilled runner, but unfortunately for them, I was a damn good net runner myself.
[WARNING: Rebooting Unit (YANG)!]
I detached myself from the robot as it went through its functions. The singular eye slowly came to life with a soft green glow before it slowly sat up.
[Message (YANG): Connection to Xi Long Battle-Net failed (3) — Do you wish for me to move to level YELLOW?]
I agreed, and its eye slowly transitioned to a bright yellow light.
“Alright, choom. I don’t know where we are, but it’s time for you to earn your salary.” I smiled.
[Message (YANG): Sarcasm detected – I am a Xi Long Heavy Infantry Robot. I do not earn a salary.]
I rolled my eyes. “Yea, yea - now please secure the outside of the vehicle. You know I don’t like new places.”
[Message (YANG): Order received.]
Without further ado, Yang opened his door and slid out. I could hear something crack as he stepped down. He too heard it and examined it. The robot then continued on, hearing straight forward to a treeline while examing his surroundings.
I crawled forward on the seat while I pushed my saratoga out of the way and looked at what he stepped on. It was… a stick? The ground looked to be covered in an assortment of nature stuff. Since I was more a tech than a monk or hippie, I wasn’t versed in nature. Our compound teemed with plants - - I just never seen it… Naturally.
Chipping into Yang’s Feed and pushing it off to the right corner of my vision, I slid out of the emperor. Hand on the handle of the SMG, I opened the storage compartment. Inside were two Xi Long branded wyverns along with their appropriate stations for repair and rearming. It looked like that agent had figured we’d be attacked out in the wastes rather than before we left the city.
Everything in here was enough to service these two drones for a while. Ammunition could be an issue, but so long as the drones didn’t sustain any major damage, I could keep them running indefinitely if they never took damage or fired a shot. Now —
I was shoved against the side of the emperor as something cold latched onto the back of my head. Before I could try and react, I felt my limbs become restrained. Inky goo stretched across my lower face, covering my mouth just before I could call out to Yang. I switched to wireless, but Yang was immediately subdued as well as the robot looking up at a calm blue sky in my vision.
Struggle was futile. I couldn’t budge a centimeter.
“I wanted to see what the little bunny would do,” A woman’s voice cooed. “You come from quite an advanced world.”
I have slowly moved away from the rear compartment a foot. Beside me now was a woman slightly shorter than me. A woman, tan with brown eyes, black hair, and a bored yet intrigued expression. She looked to me – well, up at me. Her skin was unnaturally perfect along with a thin ring of glowing gold around her irises.
“You’re one of the people that bitch spirited away from their world. Quite the interesting one I would say. Implants? I like this one.” She smiled, somehow managing to look like a tired middle manager in the process.
[WARNING: Enemy hack detected - Anti-Daemon programs failed!]
I panicked.
She laughed. “Oh hush, little bunny. I’m just wiggling my magic through you. Oh! I was tempted to erase you off the face of this realm, but I saw something interesting when I found that woman’s hidden realm. Unlucky for her. That fragment she tried to take from you sent off a flareup of energy. Enough for me to track her down in the system…”
The gel moved off my mouth but cupped the sides of my head as my entire body faced her now.
“Let me go!” I growled.
She looked disgusted. “Cliche. Why would I do that?”
“I am Mercy Xu, daughter of –” I stopped as her face went blank.
Both of us were quiet.
“Is that all?” She asked.
I stayed quiet. I had the feeling whatever I was about to say would dig quite the grave for myself.
She rolled her eyes. “I’ll take that as a yes. Honestly, why do people always have to say that? Unhand me! Let me go! I am – blah blah blah~”
The woman childishly mocked me. I wanted to say something, but the logic checked out for me. She had me wound up without the chance to fight back. Even Yang who had faster reflexes than me had been restrained.
“I apologize, it was cliche of me to say…” I said.
Her eyes widened and a smile appeared. “Oh! A polite one! That’s new!”
“I am Mercy Xu, it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, miss…?”
“Administrator Avery, at your service.”
“Miss Avery.”
“Mhm.”
“Well, how long did you plan to restrain me?”
“Oh, yea.”
She dropped me and continued to look at my wyverns, but Yang was still restrained.
“And my robot?”
“I’m still analyzing that thing.”
The black gel slipped over the wyverns and she then turned to me. Her entire demeanor changed, and for a moment, it felt like I’d just stepped into my father’s office when he summoned me for a business meeting.
“Now, I guess it’s time for you to make your case.” She said.
“My case?”
“Mmm – you know,” She gestured as if she were weighing things with her hands. “Between jettisoning you into the abyss, destroying your entire being, returning you to your world, so on so forth.”
I stared at her, expression blank as she smiled. It was that flippant, and two of the options were completely off the table and completely different from the last!
“Can we avoid the first two options?” I asked.
“Mm~” She shrugged. “ Depends on you.”
“I see… Well, normally I would have some basis to go off in dealings. Could you at least give me some ground to touch base on?”
She nodded. “Totes. If you want to avoid annihilating every particle of your body and soul, don’t work for any of the upstart-wannabe gods here. If you want to go back to your old world, I can do that easy peasy. If you want to stay in this world, you’re going to have to make a case for that.”
“And if I choose to go back to my world?”
“I’ll send you on your way. Either returning you near where you were taken from or shoving you into the reincarnation cycle to be put wherever the administrator of your realm desires - though I could make a case for a special reincarnation. Or just drop you off wherever in that world.”
“I see..” That… Was quite a bit to mull over. “How long do I have to decide all of this?”
“About 10 minutes,” She shrugged. “Honestly, I was about to just wipe your existence off Creation, but when I saw that bitch’s expression—!”
Avery laughed, holding her gut as she leaned forward with a hearty laugh that reminded me of my high school days… That was the vibe I got from her and it confused me slightly. I was talking to some deity that could destroy me. It was what it felt like to walk into my father’s office. Yet, on the other hand, Avery was easy to talk to.
She continued. “I figured I’d see what your deal was.”
“It would be preferable if I was returned to where I came from,” I said.
I didn’t know where this was or how I’d survive. I wasn’t dimwitted. I was aware I was born at the top of the ivory tower with a platinum spoon. We’d all undergone basic training of sorts, but nothing that touched on survival situations. Everyone assumed we’d always be near or in a city.
“Mm, I can do that easily. Any parameters? I can promise anything but I can contact that admin and sort something out.”
“If my father is still alive, I would like to return. If not, then I would prefer to stay if you’d help me survive.”
“Hand.” She said and held out hers.
I grabbed her hand. Something felt it snaked through my wrist while Avery looked upward, her irises solid polished gold in color. A few moments passed before her expression turned uneasy.
“Yeaaah — your dad’s dead.”
“Ah…” I felt my blood turn cold.
We weren’t the closest, but… I guess I figured…
It didn’t matter. If he was dead, then Xi Long would fall soon after if it hadn’t already. Father was a crafty man, but to his legacy’s own detriment. Maybe my siblings didn’t know, but I did. He held the reigns firmly in every regard, but once he died, his power would transfer to the board of directors if none of us had gotten on said board before that time.
I was there while he crafted those documents, and I had plenty of opportunities to reach that level. I just never did. Unlike my sisters, who loved the corporate world, I did not. Unwilling, I was my father’s “obedient” dog. Doing the bare minimum it took to stay in the family while distancing myself from the Xi Long so I could keep my allowance.
This meant the board did not look at me favorably. Each member was a competent snake working beneath the western dragon’s banner. I was my father’s daughter, the little dragon, but I was not the fierce dragon. I was the hermit dragon my old friend used to say.
“Then, I’d like to put that option at the back for now. If I choose to stay, would you assist me in surviving?” I asked.
Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.
“Depends – what do I get out of it?”
“My undying gratitude?”
“Nah~ if you want my support, you gotta work for it, kiddo.”
I gave a soft sigh. “What do you mean by work?”
“You know… I’m a busy uptown girl~” She put her finger to her cheek and tilted her head. “Dealing with the divine pantheon, making sure upstart wannabe gods don’t tear the fabric of the realm apart, and constantly striking deals with other Administrators to handle the embs and flows of mana and miasma.”
I nodded. “So, where exactly could I help you?”
“After seeing the technology in your current possession, and all your toys… I figured you could be my on-world assistant.”
“Don’t you already have your own help?”
“Oh, you know, they’re kinda busy… Death and Nature – both got their hands, well paws, pretty full. Makes it kinda hard to make any tactical precision plays when you only have time for the marco. As they say, don’t bring a cruise missile to hammer in a roofing nail. You’re just gonna blow the house up.”
“I’m curious as to how you know about cruise missiles, but I don’t think I want to know…”
“Yaaa, don’t sweat it~”
“If I do become your tactical player planet side, what kind of support could you offer?”
The hand she held to her cheek balled up before she stuck out her index and middle finger. Between them was a shard. My brows raised slightly.
“I analyzed your body and your toys now. Got an understanding of your world and whatnot, choomba.” She grinned ear to ear. “This shard has a comprehensive program that will add some new goodies to your system. Ever play video games?”
I nodded and tried to take it, but she moved it away.
“Not in my house~,” She said in a mocking deeper voice before she giggled. “You only get it when you agree to be my hands and feet. This shard will allow you to connect to the world’s Ethos. Essentially hotwiring you into the flow of the world and bypassing all that stupid mana circulation or cultivation montages the world’s denizens need to go through before they can use magic.”
“I’d get to use magic?”
“Do you want to use magic?”
“Of course! Who wouldn’t want to?!”
“Muscle heads.”
“... Ah. I see…”
“Anyways, the program extends past just connecting into the Ethos. It will upload a sort of marketplace. You’ll be able to purchase equipment from your old world to use here. But just know its heavily restricted. You won’t be able to hand over any equipment I deem dangerous to this world's denizens. At least, normal people. I’ll allow a special partner or something – we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it.”
“Okay, fair enough. Anything else?”
“Since you’ll be connected to the Ethos, you can call anyone connected to the Ethos. Granted, you’d have to have their unique mana signature to do so. But, seeing that you’re a… Net runner? Is that right?”
“Yeah.”
“You’ll probably be able to use the Ethos like you do the net.”
“Alright, so what’s the catch?”
“Complete servitude.”
“... No…”
“Okay, hear me out!”
She went on to explain that, because of all this leeway she’s giving me, I couldn’t expect that she wouldn’t put in fail-safes on for her. Honestly, I would have thought she was dumb if she didn’t. I argued to have them removed. She would not budge. Rather, she threw me quite the bone.
I wouldn’t be set out on multi-year-long quests, nor be sent to handle anything I didn’t think I could handle. Instead, I could move about the world freely and do whatever I wanted - within reason. Drastic actions would need to be run by her first, but if it was a life-threatening emergency, then I would have to hash it out once the emergency had passed.
Her rules were lenient and made me sound more like a contractor…
“Alright, I accept,” I said after her brief
“Just like that?”
“Honestly, I don’t want to. I have no way to trust that you will keep your word. Nor, do I have any leverage over you. Its obvious I couldn’t fight back even if you tried to do something. So, yeah. Just like that.”
She cooed and held the shard back out. “I like an understanding girl~”
“Please don’t say it like that…” I said as I slotted the shard in.
[WARNING: New System OS being uploaded!]
My vision went black for a moment.
[WARNING: System rebooting!]
My vision returned. I blinked as I noted a pink diamond icon over Avery.
“What’s with the diamond?”
“So you know it’s me.”
“... That doesn’t make sense.”
“I can shapeshift. Appear as anyone I want or anything.”
“Is your current form your true form?”
“One of them.”
“One of them?”
“You know biblically accurate angels?”
“The ones with wings and a bunch of eyes?”
“Yeah. My original form is this, but once I became an Administrator, I kinda gained some “divine” form. Its like a dragon, but not as cute.”
“Heh… Well, I appreciate you showing up in this form then.”
“Eh-yupp~ Oh and before I delta out of here…” She paused and laughed. “Sorry… The lingo of your world is funny. The first mission for you, kiddo. Got this crazy old man that prays to me. Out of the few. He’s heading in this direction. Wants help saving people or something. Don’t know, he hasn’t actually talked out whatever crazy Idea he has this time. Sweet guy, but totes off his rocker. Help the man out?”
“Can I use my emperor?”
“You who-da-what-now?”
I pointed to the SUV.
“Oh… Eh… yeah, sure. Just don’t run over a kid or something. I don’t like people who hurt kids. Now, if you run over some murderous cultist, then I don’t care.”
I turned to the SUV just before she said that. I turned. “You got murderous cultist here?!
She was gone.
----------------------------------------
We had come to an accord.
The rundown was that I would be granted powers along with a new body constructed for me. A virgin body that would be untouched by either world. It would be birthed from the essence of my old body. Cloning, from my understanding. Of course, it would be on the condition that I act as her hands and feet in the world.
She mentioned that, due to the long ongoing war between the races and the demons, her power was waning. People flocked to budding gods, heroes, or to ideals. Such things only served to weaken her base. To rectify this, she had finally given in and ‘given’ the last few oracles of her visions of a summoning circle for heroes. I would be the last and the overseer of these heroes.
I was to keep them in line, and she would keep me in line.
One of the powers, or perk of the power - I wasn’t sure how it was bundled, was that I had a sort of System. There were no ‘life’ points or bars. To be frank, It seemed like a badly put-together menu that could be summoned with a thought. Its only functions are the Mail, Maps, and Shop features. It reminded me of the old computers in the museum. Windows 95 I believe it was called.
Mail would function as our means of communication. The shop only held basic melee medieval weapons, nothing I was familiar with considering very few melee weapons had continued to be viable aside from nanowires, mantis blades, or maybe even claws. Truth be told, cyber augmentations had already made humans deadly within close proximity. If you considered someone a threat, you kept your distance.
The last function was Maps and its usefulness stopped at being an easy archival for the locations I explored. Useful, but…
To say I was exasperated would understate it. She also said I’d have enhanced reflexes, but my cyberware had already granted me good strength and mobility just by being augments I needed from… An incident. The only thing I would have needed was reinforcement. I could go kill a man with one punch, but I did not possess any practical experience nor could I actually handle a serious punch back to the head. That also leads to one final point.
I did not trust this woman.
Our first meeting had been fine, as grandiose as it was. However, the longer we talked, the more her mannerisms changed. From the grand and aloof goddess to a more… dismissive and agitated one. Similar to how she’d seen some of the body managers in her father’s company handle someone they didn’t want to deal with, but couldn’t openly tell anything to. There was also the fact a thick black two-centimeter tattoo had been placed at the base of my neck like a collar - a ‘rune’ that gave me power.
She toyed with the orb would explaining everything. At first, she was as she was before. Then, as the explanation went on, she seemed like she couldn’t be bothered, but had to. She fiddled with the orb as I stood in the middle of a silver-glowing summoning circle.
“Ah!” She exclaimed as the orb began to shine brightly. “Get ready, I’m going to transfer you to – shit!”
Avery held the orb with both her hands. For a moment, she seemed elated by whatever had happened, but it began to glow brighter and brighter. Their surroundings - the stars and the ruins - began to become hazy. Quickly, everything began to distort along with Avery’s image. Her facial features shifted wildly. Her eyes flickered silver and gold. Her hair changed from white to blonde.
The orb exploded and at the same moment, the circle below me sparked with molten gold sparks. The area within the largest of the circle ripped apart. Within was pitch black, like a starless night. Air rushed in as if someone had opened the door of a shuttle mid-flight and the vacuum quickly sucked me in. Golden sparks
My consciousness slowly faded away as the entrance of the hole grew further and further away. Before I had disappeared into nothing completely, a voice spoke in my head.
I see the snake found another, using a power not theirs… Mmm… This will prove interesting… I’ll let you live… For now…
I came too with a lung full of sharp cold air. The pain forced my body to stiffen and my mind to shift to full alert. The suddenness of it did leave me with a headache.
However, I saw I was in the wreckage of the transport I’d been shot down in. Not in some room and in the middle of another circle. Bright light streamed in through the open - no ripped apart - left door. Half the door was missing, punched in as if something massive had punched in and ripped it away. Down to where two mid-body latches held the remains by the skin of their metal.
Snow pooled through the right open door where my brother had shot me through. His assault was evident by the sheer amount of bullet pockmarks and cuts throughout the cabin… And the blood stains. It was as if my blood had pooled around me, then the transport had been spun around. Blood streaked across everything.
I checked myself and found that my attire had been torn apart. It centered mostly on the right side, but blood caked nearly every inch of my clothing. And the smell… It was a mixture of… Everything in a human, even the… stuff that you expelled.
When I patted my body to check for wounds, I found I still had my cybernetic arms. The fine line that went down the side on the inside of the arms was visible. Seeing that, I called to my optics. It booted as if it had just been freshly updated, and with it, a stream of alerts and warnings filled the bottom left text log. It struggled for a moment as errors continued to pop up and it did a diagnostic.
It rebooted itself and I took that moment to pull myself out of the tattered bucket seat.
Despite evidence of what had happened, my body felt light and nimble. As I had the best night’s sleep after a good meal. Though, having my vision become slightly poorer than the average human's while the optics rebooted was a pain; it beat going without any sight for a few minutes. Even since the incident that took my arms, I hated the idea of being defenseless. This extended to having yang non-operational on the ground.
Stepping onto the floor, I found that the transport had crashed at an angle and continued to the droid with caution. I steadied myself on the floor and the side wall as I jacked into the EMI. A few sparks came from around where my seat was it pulled power. Nothing. The station couldn’t pull steady enough power to keep it on.
I cursed under my breath, careful to keep it low as if anyone would hear me. I climbed behind the station, careful to stay out of the ‘pinch’ zones, and jacked directly into Yang. The station allowed maintenance of the robot’s faculties to be done without the need for a human there. Simply get in and it would run the routines while recharging it. Human intervention was needed for updates, or like now, where I couldn’t run the station to do a quick diagnostic.
It meant I had to do it myself rather than see whatever supplies I had.
[ // CONNECTION ESTABLISHED
…
BOOTING…
…
DAMAGE DETECTED - MAJOR
…
DIAGNOSTIC ROUTINE UNDERWAY - DO NOT TOUCH UNIT
…
ROUTINE COMPLETE - DAMAGE REPORT
... A) Left arm NON-FUNCTIONAL
… B) Left leg CRITICAL DAMAGE
… C) Head DAMAGE TO LEFT OPTIC
… B) Neck DAMAGE TO LEFT HYDRAULIC SYSTEM
…
REQUEST IMMEDIATE MAINTENANCE
…
…
CODE RED BYPASS INPUTTED
..
UNIT > YANG < SAFE SHUTDOWN PROTOCOL OVERRIDDEN
…
RUNNING PROTOCOL PRIORITY
… A) Link with Pilot
… B) Uphold the Mission
… C) Protect the pilot
..
UNIT IS READY - MANUALLY EJECT UNIT FROM STATION //]
The log scrolled in my thoughts before displaying midway through as my optics finished rebooting. It was a strain on my mind as both happened, but I powered through it if only under the threat of the unknown lurking outside. The cabin became crystal clear as I unjacked from the interface port. I quickly found the two rear emergency manual levers at the bottom rear of the station and engaged them with some effort.
Yang stabilized itself as it stepped out and pinged her a query about her status.
“Im good, Big Guy,” I sighed, now aware of how stressed I had been.
The sight of Yang was like a little bit of weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I didn’t want to examine the how or why. I had been brought up in the suit life, and I had the training to help in stressful settings of business. It was not comparable to… This, but stressful situations were the same emotions… Or effects… Either way, I began to calm myself and order my thoughts.
“Yang is up… Now I need to gear up and… And find safety…” I muttered to myself.
Yang heard me and beeped one before forwarding me a list through our link.
[ 1. Personal Protection Unit - Green
2. Acquire Gear -
3. Relocation to a safe/safer location.
//]
As such, Yang notified me that it would scout our surroundings and pulled itself through the ruined door with ease. It was then that I became aware of the snowflakes that came through after it.
“Snow.. Great…” I muttered before I turned to ruffle through the boxes.
It took ten minutes to go through it all. Mainly because most of it was just hard drives, papers, or experimental technology that had no value in their current situation.
To her luck, there was a spare change of clothes. It was not streetwear but an Emergency Environmental suit. Rather, three of them. One for normal ranges and one for hot temperatures. Additional equipment for each was found. The normal one was grey, the hotter one was reflective white with shade attachments, and the cold was matte black with slim padding. The padding was over the outer parts of the limbs, back, chest and stomach.
I followed the instructions, stripped, and put it out before attaching a device that caused the suit to hug my form comfortably tight. The additional add-ons were thick pants and a coat with faux fur insides. I put those on too, but I found they were baggy on me.
Moving on, I also found a kinetic 9mm Canik TP9SFX pistol with five spare magazines, red-dot sight, and a flashlight attachment. It came with a holster and a very user-friendly manual for all of it. In fact, it came with near-child book-like illustrations on how to use everything.
I was happy to have already received some weapons training with the most common firearms. It did not involve this, though its controls were similar so I didn’t think I would have an issue. I mounted the holster over the pants despite my worry that it all was too baggy. The holster also had slots for the spare magazines that also held my pants in places thankfully.
Lastly, I also found myself with a medium size backpack with enough nutrition bars and water to last me two days. Per the instruction manual in the kit. I had wondered why an emergency kid like this, then it clicked that if a high-end transport like this ever crashed - it would be in extreme situations.
Furthermore, there was an actual smart-link 9mm submachine gun from Nakota… But it was badly damaged from the hail of fire from my brother… It had four magazines, including the one already loaded with no knowledge of how much they held. I pocketed the in my pack regardless as I figured I would need them.
Nothing of use was left, so I pulled myself out into the world.
Yang was already waiting for me before it briefed me with audio. “No danger found in the immediate area. No signals can be found and no satellites were found overhead. Base on the marks—-”
Yang walked me through how we crashed into the side of the mountain further up. From the looks of it, it explained, we had crashed head first before the transport had tumbled down into this small creek through the thick trees. With a small scan further higher up, it estimated we move south down the mountain creek. South being assigned arbitrarily until their actual heading could be determined. Or so it was explained. Either way, it would be quite the hike down...
That was when I remembered the system I was supposedly given.
I willed the menu forth like how I was shown. The three options were there. I had two notifications for mail. I ignored it and moved straight to the map. Like I had hoped, the way we were actually facing based on what was shown was… North-east.
I relayed the information mentally to Yang before I tabbed it over to the mail.
I had one from Avery, and then I had one from ‘A’. However, Avery’s name in the sender slot was… Well…
[From: A^v*e@r)y]
The other one was simply…
[From: A.]
I opened Avery’s mail.
[From: A^v*e@r)y
Reply if you’re alive.]
I checked the one from A.
[From: A.
Little lost bird, I see the snake has dragged you into its fight against me. If you wish to sever your bondage to her, accept my gift. My only condition is that you no longer serve her, or make my job more difficult. ]
Below was the option to accept the gift.
All of this I relayed to Yang for its option along with what happened before. It replied a minute later. It assessed to accept nothing, though the fact I had already accepted the deal with the first entity and the latter would only sever it. It also noted that it could all be a ruse at well and put either outcome as fifty-fifty. Given that I had already accepted the deal, I figured that if I got tied to another entity, they could fight each other over it and leave her alone.
I accepted it.
My sight went dark for a moment as I felt the front of my neck burn. The sensation hit hard and then disappeared just as quickly.
Two more notifications appeared again.
[From: A.
Congratulations. You were severed from her control. I also looked into your past since I had clear access to your soul. That was what you accepted, me into your soul. Anyways~ I severed her ability to control or take you over. But I saw she’d given you something interesting. Since I ended up getting in the way of the full gift she was going to give, I gave you one in her place. Take it as an apology.
Part of that gift is that no one can hide their true identity when viewed in the system. You’ll see this effect very quickly I assure you.]
The next one was from…
[From: Avery (Loviata)
WHAT HAPPENED ]