Even with my ridiculous Status, I'm weak. If I were strong, I wouldn't be pushed around at the whim of those Gods. I felt the influx of memories shaping my new life, layering each and every one of my lives one over the other. Forcing me to relive everything. I was still in the womb but something was wrong. I couldn't hear my mother's heartbeat.
Not only that, but the womb was also getting colder and colder. Soon it started to freeze. I could survive twenty-five times longer before suffocating and excruciating two hours later, I died.
No System emergency activation. No nothing. I was a helpless baby in a cold dead womb.
I died.
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The revolving lantern didn't come in dying, it came at the rebirth. I felt the womb's walls cramping and twisting around me but I wasn't moving. Just being shaken around. A lot. If I had to guess, the woman with me in her womb was moving. And it wasn't a smooth movement.
I heard something crash and we tumbled. Then we rose and fell again. I heard the woman screaming and then metal scraping against bone. Her heart stopped.
I suffocated again without being born.
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The next time I came outside. Forcing my eyes open, I saw a bearded woman - she had breasts - holding me. We were underground, I could sense that. Then the earth shook and a pile of rocks buried us. I couldn't move, too weak to push the tons of rocks crushing me.
I died.
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I heard the wind rustle and whistle around me. I was covered in my caulk and over... a straw bed? I looked up and saw a bird-woman, maybe a harpy, looking lovingly at me. Behind her, the open sky. It was cold but not uncomfortable. Then a dragon's head appeared and shadowed the sky. It breathed shards of ice that froze the harpy-mother, me, the nest, and everything else. Then the dragon pummeled the ice until he had harpy ice cream.
I died.
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I was birthed again. I heard elves singing, the unmistakable dual-toned voices. I was wrapped in silks and shown to a red-haired elven woman covered in sweat. A pillar of flames descended upon us, burning the treehouse, the elves, everything around me. The heat turned up and soon even my passives couldn't withstand that.
I died.
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I was losing my sanity even though it should be impossible with {Pinnacle of Ego}. I lost count of how many times I'd died. Drowned. Burned. Stabbed. Frozen. Stillborn. After the elf, I was a human, an elf again, a wolf-kin, a dwarf, a bear-person, a lizard-folk, gnome, an insectoid mantis-person? An ogre, I think? I died too fast to know without System aid. Each time I died shortly after birth or still in the womb. Each time the memories flooded and the dread of dying again crushed my mind.
I died yet again.
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I came out of the womb screaming. My tentacles - tentacles? - flailing wildly. I lashed out, spat ink, and screamed my frustrations out. An underwater volcano erupted underneath us, killing all the squid-people around me and encasing me in rapidly-cooling magma and searing boiling water.
I suffocated yet again.
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Born yet again. Insane, I screamed and lashed around. I felt a snake's tail and bit on the scales. {Vorpal Bite} triggered as my fangs sunk in the soft snakeskin and the invisible force severed the tail. I got no notifications. More snakes writhed around me and I lashed out at them. I didn't understand why there were babies mixed with the snakes. Some sort of gruesome ritual? I couldn't think, I couldn't reason. I had the pain of thirteen deaths behind me and these snakes would pay the price.
I heard someone speaking. Powerful giant hands grabbed me as I writhed and thrashed, trying to kill all the snakes mixed with the babies. Another handheld my head so I couldn't bite anything. I tried to escape but my Status was locked.
I screamed. People talked around me but while I probably understood the words, I wasn't processing them. I was a boiling mass of anger and violence. I felt something strike me. Then more words I didn't pay attention to. The giant hands restrained me completely. They pulled my head back and poured something down my throat. I didn't swallow. They pushed a metal tube in my mouth and pumped the fluid, forcing my epiglottis open through sheer pressure. The liquid tasted bitter and I vomited.
The hands squeezed me and another tugged my umbilical cord until it snapped. I felt the pressure and my bones creaking. I thrashed and fought for my dear life. The squeeze stopped when my ribs cracked.
The feeling of powerlessness and despair was overwhelming. It was dark and I could see the people around me, talking but I paid no heed to their words. I wanted to burn the world. My hatred, my anger, my thirst for vengeance to whatever force caused me to die thirteen times clouded my senses and reason.
I tried to slink, slip but the pain from my broken ribs was too much. If it weren't for my pain-resistance Skill, I would've fainted from it. Soon they broke my arms too. Finally, I was shoved in a wooden box, locked down, and placed in a dark corner where I wept until I fell asleep.
I spent days in the box, without food or water. My broken bones stopped me from moving and I was delirious. The fractures mended in their crooked position. I couldn't even move my arms because it hurt too much.
I heard sounds of fighting. Spells roaring. Flashes of light filtered through the cracks between my prison's planks. The ground shook and rocks fell, crushing everything. The box broke and gravel, dust, and sand washed over me. I licked the sand and ate it. I had no moisture in my mouth but I managed to swallow the sand.
Days later, a dark and malevolous power washed over everything. I felt the power of blight, the energy of undeath spread all around. I also felt the undead around me. I was trapped under the rocks. I survived nibbling on gravel with a side of sand. Buried, there was a small amount of air that filtered through. The crushing weight hurt me but the blight healed it.
The dark energy of undeath intensified. I was weak and couldn't think straight. I only chewed and sucked rocks, licked sand. some of the blight damage also sustained me, thanks to {Magic Eater}. I would've died of dehydration otherwise.
Buried under a pile of rocks, I survived but not lived. Sometimes I could hear scraping, the undead prowling around the ruins. While my Status was locked, my passives worked with a weakened efficiency. No sentients around me. Just the walking dead.
Pain.
Regret.
Despair.
Anger.
Dozens of faces flashed in front of me. People I loved. People I hated. People I murdered. People I saved.
I tried and called for it but my magic didn't answer. With my status locked, there was nothing I could do. With time, I could regain a bit of my sanity.
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A month or two passed, I think? I sensed the living nearby. Then I heard combat. The sound of steel smacking flesh. Warcries. Spell chant.
"I think that's the last zombie in this place. Damn!" a male shouted.
"Snakes give me the shivers, but undead snakes are too much," a female said.
"Let's get the relic and walk out of here," another male complained. "I don't fancy staying on blight for too long."
"Fear not, dear [Rogue]," another female boasted. "Bundeus' glory shall protect you."
"Ha!" The [Rogue] scoffed. "What good is your minor fallen deity, woman? If it weren't for these amulets, we would be dead by now. Good job he did as the Sun God. We barely get an hour of sunlight each day. This Age of Eclipse is bullshit! All your patron's fault."
"Enough bickering! The main temple is over here," the first male said. "Maybe the relic they want is buried under these rocks."
I heard the rocks moving. Then the first female screeched in a burst of pure horror. "Ah! Snake babies!"
A blast of flames and heat washed over the whole place, finding its way through the cracks between the rocks.
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"Hey, Serena! Calm down!" The first male cooed. I heard the woman crying. "They won't hurt you."
"These are lamias. This must be their birthing pit. Don't worry, they are all dead for months. They were killed before the Dark God's curse of undeath washed over the place. See how its tail is severed? It's a clean-cut with something very sharp. They were killed. Maybe some sort of ritual."
"Keep searching! Let's grab that relic and get out of here," [Rogue] complained.
They moved the rocks and caused the pile to crumble. One big stone fell on me and I whimpered.
"I heard a voice!" The [Rogue] said. "Silence. Is there anyone there?" He called. "Hey, move that big rock over there!"
They lifted the rock and it caused the stone to grind over me. I screamed in pain.
"There!" The scared [Mage] said. "It sounds like a child!"
"In the middle of the blight?" [Rogue] said with disdain. "Impossible."
The rock moved again and some torchlight seeped through the cracks. It was moving over me so I whimpered and cried.
"There, I think I saw some skin! Lift that damn rock, don't just roll it around, you dumb oaf!" [Rogue] bossed around.
"Damn. {Dire Boar Strength}!" The strong male said.
The rock went away. I sighed in relief. I saw the adventurers. An elf girl wearing a navy blue robe, a human priestess of Bundeus in her disgusting robes, a dwarf [Rogue] clad in brigandine, and a human man in a maille hauberk with some plate pauldrons and greaves.
"Snake!" The elf mage screeched and tossed a {Firebolt} on me. It did nothing. The damage I took from the rocks moving and falling was already healed by the dense blight.
"It's a baby lamia!" The rogue cheered. "This thing will net a small fortune at the slave market."
He grabbed me and for the first time, I saw that I had no legs. In my insanity, I never even thought about that. Instead of legs, I had a snake's tail. It had deep gray-blue scales with a yellowish underbelly. Instinctively, I wrapped that tail around his vambraces. I heard a rattle. I had a rattle. I concentrated on keeping it quiet.
"Kill that disgusting thing," the [Priestess] clamored. "My brothers-in-faith came here to cleanse this temple of the Dark God months ago. This creature should not leave this place alive!"
She uttered a short prayer, "{Sacred Javelin}!" and a spear of light appeared in her hand. She tossed it in my direction and hit my tail. It did nothing.
"Watch out, bitch!" The dwarven [Rogue] cursed. "You could've hit me."
"Well, it did nothing to the snake," the [Warrior] remarked. "Are her arms supposed to be this crooked?"
He poked my arms. They healed in the wrong position. I needed to break them and heal the bone straight but I was unable to do so.
"Doesn't matter," the dwarf grumbled. "They are going to fatten her and wait a few years so she grows. Then they'll skin her tail. Lamia leather is a luxury product. Some Queen or Princess will buy and wear it, I'm sure."
"Kill that monster!" [Priestess] demanded. "I will not let her get out of here alive. Bundeus demands it!"
"Fuck your god, woman. Why don't you go and fuck him yourself? Fuck you two. Fuck this quest too. Nobody touches this critter. This baby is my goldmine," The dwarf cursed and stared at me with a wicked grin, greed glinting in his eyes.
"We need the relic," the elf [Mage] recomposed herself. "We cannot leave without it. The college needs it."
"Yeah, fuck it. This quest is bullshit anyway. You can split the rewards from the relic three-way, me and baby snake here are going to have a chat."
He walked away. The [Warrior] clicked his tongue and started to rummage through the debris. The [Priestess] tried to follow the [Rogue] but he tossed a smoke bomb at her feet and ran silently down a dark corridor. He pressed his thumb over my mouth and shushed me.
While he walked down the tunnel, I took a look at myself. My humanoid half was smaller than a newborn human baby and I probably had months to grow. My tail was long and thin. I had no hips. The scales started right below my navel. My skin was the color of dark chocolate.
The [Rogue] stopped and entered a room. Some barracks by the number of cots lined up. He sat on a bed and dropped me on his side.
"Try to run away and I'll murder ya," he threatened.
I didn't give any sign I understood him. I tried to put an {Assassin's Contract} on him but I couldn't. My Status was still locked. I coiled my tail underneath me.
He took a burlap sack out of his backpack and some twine. He reached to grab me and I leaped at his face. My fangs sunk in his potato nose. He screamed in pain and pulled me off, tearing a chunk of his nose off. Blood gushed out and he looked stunned. I looked my tail around his hand and used that as leverage to jump at his throat.
Striking a stunned target with my perks was an automatic critical. The dwarf's head dropped to the side while blood sprayed from his neck stump. Moments later, it vanished into my item box because of my automatic collection passive.
I heard steps coming my way. I slinked under the cots and moved to the back of the room. A ghostly scream that sounded like the dwarf came from the back of the room but I didn't look.
No emergency activation. Dammit. That bastard Wyxnos must've disabled it.
I heard the other three coming down the corridor. The priestess screamed, "Get it off of me!"
"Damn, it's Ragnar! He's a ghost!" The elf [Mage] cried.
"{Mana Strike}!" The [Warrior] shouted. I heard the dwarf hiss in pain. The priestess whimpered and cried. "Do something, [Mage]!"
"Ahhhh, Mother Yznera, protect me," the [Mage] sobbed.
"Get it off of me!" The cleric whimpered.
"{Mana Strike}! Out of mana!" The warrior declared. "I can't damage him. I'm out of here!"
I heard his poulains clacking over the stone as the brave [Warrior] ran away. The ghost was murdering the [Priestess]. I turned around and returned. I watched with sinister glee as the dwarf turned the priestess into a shriveled husk. Then he turned on the soiled elven [Mage].
"Stop it," I ordered the dwarven ghost. "You'll step away. Leave the elf alone and I'll purify you. Attack and you'll wish you could die again."
My spiritual abilities were strong. Even locked and with a diminished effect, my Skills to deal with the undead were superb. The ghost hovered to the side, stealing hopeful glances my way. I slithered next to the elf. She was livid, staring at me as if I was going to kill her.
The priestess stirred. She was being reanimated by the blight.
"Burn the [Priestess]'s corpse before she rises," I used an imperious tone with the young elf. I spoke in Fulgen Elvish. Unwittingly, it carried the weight of a {Royal Order}, as my reaction bonuses with elves reflected the fact I was still considered part of their royalty.
The elf nodded and cast a flamethrower spell. It had a short-range and was a stacking damage-over-time effect. The longer the target stayed under the flames, the longer and hotter it burned. The priestess became a charred mummy before she fully reanimated.
Flashes of my fifteen previous deaths returned to me as I looked at the tarnished symbol of the Butt God welded to the priestess' flesh.
"You speak my tongue," the [Mage] said, surprised. I looked at her and she flinched, "Please don't hurt me."
"I won't," I answered. "Tell me, on which continent are we?"
She shook her head, "None. We are in an archipelago way off the coast of Pekothas."
"Who rules over Fulgen?"
"High Queen Sariandi still wears the Crown of Aiur after centuries. She presides over the four courts," She said with pride.
"Four courts?" I asked. "Winter, Summer, Spring, and Autumn?"
"Yes. Your knowledge of our culture is immense!" She clapped her hands excitedly. The airhead forgot her fear of snakes and that I was a lamia. I almost rattled my rattle to spook her. But there's a dwarven ghost so he got dibs on the spooky part.
"When that happened? The creation of the four courts?"
"Queen Sariandi was blessed with great fertility by the Old Soul. She birthed forty princesses. Over the centuries, these princesses birthed more princesses, and now we have a surplus of elven princesses. Some even married off to neighboring human kingdoms. She came with the idea of creating the four seasonal courts to host four more Queens and their families."
I laughed, covering my mouth with my knuckles. The thought of Sariandi with forty daughters was too much.
"So there are hundreds of elven princesses all around. That's hilarious."
She pouted. "Yes. But the elder fairies answered Sariandi's plea and now the Queens and Princesses only conceive when they want. The situation is under control."
I let out one last chuckle. "Well, it's still better than risking the extinction of the Royal bloodline, I guess."
"A dread fate averted with the grace of the Mother."
I saw the [Priestess] ghost rise from her body. The undead cleric pointed at me and screeched, "Anomaly! Enemy of Bundeus! I shall warn the Lord! That's why my brother died. You were born here!"
I stared at the ghost and put all my spiritual might to bear. My voice was imperious. "Answer me. Was your brother that came to kill the inhabitants of this underground temple? Why did they come?"
The ghost tried to resist. She failed. "The Anomaly was born here. By Bundeus' decree, the faithful are to kill her every time she surfaces. My brother failed!" The [Pristess] wailed and keened.
I closed my eyes and my mind raced as the dots connected. Bundeus' plan unfolded before me. He marked me. That's why he gave me the {Human Royalty} perk. As the God of Humans, he might be notified every time someone with this perk is about to be born. A cursory check would show that it is not a Royal birth, therefore it's me.
"Did Bundeus send an oracle to task your brother with killing the Anomaly?" I hissed, angry. My rattle shook. The elf [Mage] remembered she feared snakes and tossed a {Firebolt} on me. It did nothing.
"Yes! And now we failed our master!"
I pointed at the dwarf ghost. "Let's kill her!"
With my spectral servant, we pounced on the priestess' ghost. I could do exactly zero damage with my passives, but it blocked her from using divine magic. The dwarf [Rogue] killed the ghostly [Priestess], shredding her soul.
"Fuck it!" I cursed. My rage was boiling. My rattle was going on full throttle. I wouldn't make a bad impression in Rio de Janeiro's carnival.
"Elf girl. Get out of here. Say to no one about me. If that [Warrior] reports about me, tell him... yes. Follow me."
Both the elf girl and the dwarf ghost did. We returned to the birthing pit, where I realized the snakes I'd killed in my frenzy were my lamia brethren. We were probably an endangered species. I picked one corpse that looked like me.
"How does this one looks like?" I asked.
"Too hairy," the elf [Mage] answered.
"Huh?" I ran a hand over my head. Bald. I didn't have a single hair, not even eyebrows or eyelashes.
"Shave it," the ethereal dwarf suggested.
We did. We shaved and prepared a corpse to offer as mine. "You'll tell them I was a reanimated undead, and after you killed it the corpse shriveled."
She nodded. "I'll do as you ask, but unless we find the relic, the College of Arcanistry will still send more search parties this way."
With the help of a ghost that could freaking go through the rocks, we found the relic a couple hours later. It was a mage's staff, carved from a single obsidian crystal and with a sinister-feeling magic core on top. With the staff in hand and a baby lamia corpse in her bag, the elf [Mage] went away.
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Interest in the ruins dwindled. Sometimes an adventurer party came to kill the zombies on the outskirts, but the blight in the inner temple was too strong. The adult lamia reanimated and wandered around, spreading even more blight. According to my ghostly dwarven companion, the magic items they used were too expensive. If it were not for the college sponsorship, they wouldn't come here.
Outside, the sky was dark. The sun rose for an hour a day only. Faint. The world was cold. The Age of Eclipse was still going on. I lived in the ruins, alone with the undead and a dwarf ghost. The energies of the blight and a rock here and there were enough to nourish me. I broke my arms and let them heal in the proper position.
Thirteen years passed. Finally, the System activated.
> CONGRATULATIONS: The beginning of your adult life is a joyous moment. As a new Blue Lamia adult, you now have access to the System!
>
> You are a Blue Lamia. Your species is under threat of extinction. You gained a boost in rarity. You are considered a (Very Rare) species.
>
> You gain:
>
> 1 Attribute point every level.
>
> 1 Dexterity every odd level.
>
> 1 Endurance every even level.
>
> Nothing, then 1 Mind, Charisma, Strength, Willpower rotating every five levels.
>
> Attributes above the cap were redistributed.
>
> 6 (+3) HP per level.
>
> 4 (+3) MP per level.
>
> 1 (+2) SP per level.
>
> 7 (+3) Skill Points per level.
>
> 1 perk every 3 levels.
>
> You gained this perk: Venomous Bite (rare): You inject venom with each bite. The potency of your venom is based on your Endurance score.
>
> - You have 2 Very Rare and 1 Unique perks to pick. - Wyxnos.
I pulled the list of Classes and scrolled to the end. As I suspected, it was back. If the God of Butts wanted war, a war he'd have.
> Calamity (unique): you are loathed by the divine.
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LIFE 26 - CHAPTER 1. IN THE WORLD'S DARKEST HOUR, THE CALAMITY AWAKENS.
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