When I woke, it was to chanting, and given the words of it, I was inclined to play dead.
“Oh! Dweller within the Gloom! Servant of Ishak of the Broken! Heed us! Heed us! Here in the darkness!” a hoarse voice yelled.
Whoever that is will need to live on a steady lozenge diet…
Other voices droned in reply, “Here in the darkness! Here in the darkness! Here…"
I’d give two out of five stars, honestly. Like, where’s the enthusiasm?
I cracked open an eye while maintaining my position and spied a shadowed figure wearing a robe. One could only assume there were other people in the room given the many voices. I saw a bunch of glowing lines surrounding and beneath my prone form.
Ritual circle? Check…
“Here in the darkness! Here in the darkness! Here…”
I stifled a sigh, closing my eye again.
I don’t have the bandwidth to deal with this nonsense…
So, I decided in that moment, to ruin their day.
I groaned loudly, opening my eyes and arching my back.
They, of course, got excited and chanted even louder.
Masking my actions with theatrics, I looked for an exit. Once I found a door somewhere behind my head, I dropped back into my prone position with a gasp.
“Here in the darkness! Here in the darkness! Here…”
Would you shut up!?
In but a moment, I lurched into a crouch, ignoring my aching and stiff body, turned around, and ran like hell towards the door.
Some sharp lady yelled, “Stop him!”
Like hell I was waiting for Mr. Dweller to show up.
I heard gasps from behind me, but I kept running.
As I ran, I noticed that the diagram seemed a tad oversized. The ritualists barely had any room to stand.
The hooded figures started panicking, a few already positioning to stop me. Their reaction was far too slow as I was almost out of the diagram’s bounds and a few paces from the door. I was getting past the one ritualist directly in my way, one way or another.
A shrill scream pierced through the noise, startling me, but instead of my fight-or-flight instincts to kick in, I froze. Like an idiot.
To my credit, I rallied quickly and resumed my sprint, only for an unseen force to pin me in place, freezing me mid-jump out of the diagram. Then I heard an unfamiliar voice by my ear, accompanied by a screen appearing in my field of vision.
“Ding!”
This is the System of Planet Relir! Please stand by for announcements!
Congratulations! You have captured the attention of Iza, the Dwe%#$& -
Congratulations!! You have been noticed by Ishak of the Broken, Primach of Corruption, Sovereign over Endless Indulgence!! He claims precedence over your fate!!
What!? No-no-no-no-no-!
Rejoice!! He has bestowed upon you the Traits: [Herald of Debauchery] and [Wavering Gaze].
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Elder, what is this! Stop this!
You are granted the soul spell: [Break the Will with Unending Pleasure]!
You said this would’n-
Something grotesque grew like a tumor in my very being and then euphoria tore through me.
I was overwhelmed. I heard screams echo around me right before my mind blanked. In that state, I felt something in me begin to break…
“Ding!”
Hold Fast! The Wandering Star, The Death of Shadows favors you!
Clarity washed over me. My screams cut off soon after. I still felt unbalanced, but the high was gone.
Thank GOD!!
All of a sudden, a horrible pressure bore down on me, and I heard the sound of wet crunching.
No! Not again!
The Primarchs of Chaos and Corruption rally-
[The Soul Sovereign frowns…]
…
Rejoice!!! The Wandering Star has been given authority over your fate!
You have been grant-
“Silence,” a voice interrupted. Soon after, the pressure cut off, the System window closed, and I felt a gaze upon me.
“I name you Quiet, little one.”
Just leave me alone-leave me alone-leave me-
“Peace.”
My heart rate slowed down and mind stilled…
“Live as you would, for I watch you no more. Be Whole. Be Free.”
What happened next could only be described as a magical fifty-year long soul therapy session compressed into a few hours…
By the time I came to, I felt old, and parched…. and unbearably hungry!
Finding myself in a teenage body did not help any, but at least the wrongness in my soul was smoothed out. As a fairly religious man in my past life, especially as my death day grew close, understanding that you were at the mercy of beings beyond your ken was something you had to come to terms with.
But this was a violation on a level that I’m beginning to think should not have been allowed to be possible since GOD apparently exists. At least, I’m all fixed up… for now.
That System scammed me…
I picked myself up from the ground where I fell after the pressure was cut off. Looking around myself, I saw the broken bodies of the ritualists. It was apparent that Mr. Iza the Dweller hadn’t much cared for their well-being.
I saw what looked like a computer icon blinking in the corner of my vision. Being the nerd I was, I recalled the many litrpg novels I had read and mentally selected it, just in case it held some urgent information.
“Ding!”
Dear Traveller, you have a pending message from Fijan, System Entity of the Planet Earth. Accept it?
Fijan?
I selected the message and a larger window opened before me:
Jude, I’m so sorry about what happened to you.
The enemy somehow managed to figure out whose body I intended to reincarnate you into and placed it within a Primarch’s Domain.
Please don’t be worried about anything like this ever happening again.
The Primarchs involved have been dealt with by Someone they crossed by interfering with you.
Your soul and fate have also been declared off limits to all, including the System of your current world since the Wandering Star relinquished control a few moments ago.
Honestly, I owe you much more than a cheat, so I’ll leave a surprise for you when you fully awaken your system. You deserve it.
Thank you so much.
Live well and very long.
Fijan
PS. It’s home free till you get to the nearest city. Nothing will harm you.
“Ding!”
Message end.
Attend!! To fully awaken your System and discover your rating, please head to the nearest F-rank dungeon once you reach the age of eighteen.
Until then, the System will be unavailable.
The System screen disappeared after that and no attempts to bring it back worked.
It left me feeling somewhat lonely. As I didn’t want to deal with the implications of what I was just bombarded with or the emotions they evoked, I made my way out the door, making sure to avoid the corpses.
Instead of coming out into a hallway like I expected I saw a simple staircase leading up to sunlight. I rushed up and found myself in a clearing in a forest, the edge of it a few meters away. Looking back, I saw the building I just exited was some kind of bunker partially sunk into the ground.
A cool wind blew by, and I belatedly realized I was stark naked.
Should I go back to loot one of the corpses for a robe and shoe? No! What if some of them are alive still!?
My pragmatic side told me that I would be better off with a blood-stained cloak and a pair of shoes in a forest than with dangly bits exposed to the elements, but my fear would not allow me to return to that room.
I broke off a sturdy branch from a snake-free tree nearby. The sturdy branch was for self-defense, cause I sure as hell was taking anything Fijan said with a pinch of salt. ‘Fool me once…’ I thought as I speed-walked into the foliage, watching out for hazards as I went.