[Dr. Kerenski / Klint / Keps ]

I decided that it no matter how long it would take, I should bring my level up and hijack more Lymphagons for my needs. The membrane between the skin and the vein was my island of safety in the Astral Ocean. Nobody was bothering me in here and I could potentially grow and grow, keep adding my points into Soul and create myself a big army of drones, making myself unstoppable.

I set it out to do it with a passion, hunting, eating and feeding my troops. I invested the last 5 points into Soul

On and on it went. My levels slowly moved up, my army grew in size. I tried to keep my soul above 40, because my soul was already aching and feeling like I was almost constantly freezing from within. Only the consumptions of Lymphagons brought me joy and warmth inside the Whale's membrane space.

Level 3 brought me 15 new Lymphagons.

Level 4 brought me 20 new Lymphagons.

Level 5 brought me 25 new Lymphagons.

My army, excluding Legonnie who sat on my head and counted seconds, hours, days, weeks and months... was now at 72 hexagonal legionnaires.

I was greedy for more. I wanted at least one hundred soldiers!

No, one hundred and twelve, to form a glorious defense sphere.

I wanted to be as safe as possible for when I dove into the vein.

Maybe 1024. Maybe that was a safe number. Yes.

I finally had enough experience to go to Level 6. I fell asleep.

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When I awoke... it was already over.

I was in incredible pain. My army was gone, only shreds that remained of them floated about through the gloom, sparks of dying soul-shards shimmering across my vision.

Legonnie was stabbing me in the top of my body with her claws. The little, brave shard had managed to wake me up, interrupted the LV 6 evolution.

I looked ahead. A truly monstrous Phantom was there. It had torn right through the whale's outer membrane and was now finishing off my last few defenders.

The thing had a hollow shell on its back, but it was otherwise shaped like a more monstrous version of Legonnie. It's shape was more defined, had sharper edges to it akin to a Star-Polygon fractal. It was a hundred times bigger than Legonnie, a hundred times faster and stronger than both of us.

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Its maw opened up and it grabbed at me. Legonnie tried to defend me, but he was instantly swallowed, devoured by the horrid Star-shaped Phantom.

My Song-Spells did nothing to free me, the thing holding me was simply too monstrous, too high-level. Identify defined it as [Astral Hunter LV 295] and my LV 5 Sectus-Anima failed to do anything to it.

It rushed out of the whale, destroying tentacles with ease and swam through the Astral for an indeterminate amount of time. I was alone. I had failed, lost my little army in just a few moments.

The thing had brought me to one of the dreary walls of the enormous Astral superstructure formed from corpses of men and beasts. It stopped, spitting me out of its maw.

"W-what?" I uttered, feeling confused.

I expected to be swallowed by it like Legonnie, but it simply let me go. I spun around in confusion.

Something emerged out of the gloom. It was a gargantuan, silver Phantom with a hollow, circular, diatom-like shell for a body.

I tried to fly away from the hollow titan, but realized that I was being held hostage by the star-shaped monstrosity, its pyramidal teeth holding half of my threads hostage, not quite cutting through them.

A silver-blue star flashed out of the diatom-shaped Phantom. It shimmered in front of me, unfolding into the shape of a human girl.

I froze. Something was wrong. Something was horribly wrong here.

I hummed and shot [Tamus Anima] right at the ghostly girl as she walked towards me through the gloom. It didn't seem to do much to her.

She looked upon me with an incredibly sad expression.

"M-my name is Destiny...and I am a human Emissary of Mother," she uttered.

"My name is Vladislav Kerenski," I stammered, singing the [Sectus-Anima] song with my other threads.

"I know," the ghostly girl sniffed. "And I am very sorry... for everything."

Her hand suddenly unfolded into a hundred silver-blue blades. She struck me before I could complete the last stanza of Sectus.

-5 in Soul.

I flailed as my entire soul ached in rising pain.

The silver-haired ghost struck me again and again.

-10 in Soul.

-15 in Soul.

I screamed. My every thread felt like it was being dipped in liquid nitrogen. Cold. I had never felt so cold.

I suddenly knew... the name of my true tormentor, of my new owner.

Mother.

I wept as chilling frost engulfed my entire soul, ice colder than absolute zero stilling my struggle and my focus from within.

A single thought pulsed, beat inside my mind like a drum, repeating on and on.

Mother.

The hollow-shelled phantom was my Mother.

I wept in pain, misery and... dedication. Pure, absolute dedication, devotion for my new Mother.

She didn't even look human, didn't even make me feel happy and in love, like the face of Ishira... but I would do anything for this hollow-shelled Phantom.

Anything she asked of me.

I would serve her for all time. I would be hers forever, until the Universe stilled and the hand of entropy stopped the motions of stars and planets.

[THE END]