Lurona city [southern shores of Fuminao Legacy Kingdom], local time [1793.12.32] [2 hours before New Year Celebration period]

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Zeff was dying.

Probably…

Unbeknownst to all, an incomprehensible, savage war was happening in the vast depths of Zeff’s body. Even the System could only scry for merely a general picture using its tools, unable to perceive the full extent of the deadly struggle.

The intruders were kept under control when they first arrived—the war effort not even worth mentioning—but everything changed with the sudden demise of the masters. Their horrific underlings, slaves in all but name, were freed from shackles, and… that’s when a massacre ensued.

In a wild frenzy, they started devouring everything around. In a matter of seconds, the remnants of the masters perished, used as fuel for their uncontrollable growth…

For that’s how end those who commune with true horrors; thinking themselves in control.

Enemy lines have broken, but the situation worsened nonetheless. Our warriors trying to stand to the occasion were devoured in a similar fashion after a short struggle, and very quickly it became clear just how terrifying the enemy truly was. For the insatiable hunger haunting the horrors had a purpose. It allowed them to adapt. To grow in power while eating their opponents, the very landscape around them, and even their fellow brethren. In a macabre this world had never witnessed before, flesh and bone were being stripped, fueling a growth that had no right to occur in a living being.

They grew, and then morphed, stealing the abilities and strengths from everything around. Giant chimeras, synthetic monstrosities, stealthy doppelgangers, specs of shadows slithering through seemingly solid surfaces, undying husks imitating life… There was no sense or reason in their forms, yet nothing could stand before the horde.

Worse yet. They were devouring the very Mana coursing through the cavities of the land around, trying to adapt to the contamination-inflicted Magicules satiating the environment without even a thought of their own well-being.

The Aurenus knights, seeing the growing horde and the unavoidable doom, abandoned all restraints. It was not the time to care for helping the warriors and civilians; it was not the time to think about the economy or the death toll. It was time for a bloody crusade!

The flow of the world’s Mana changed right then, no longer invigorating the lands and saturating the air. And as it happened—

The call for the purge reverberated through the world and every single living being.

No matter their station, goals, or strength – in a blind bloodlust, all have tried to heed the call. Was it not for the miraculous intervention from pacifying behemoth living there, the world would have drowned in blood and viscera, purging the lands until nothing was left.

But those who decided to fight were put to good use instead of fading away. As were the envoys and the released resources.

Because the knights would need every last bit of help they could get. They were also adapting to the enemy, finding countermeasures to every new attack, fortifying their bodies, morphing their weaponry, reforming their defenses again and again while looking for new advances and studying the alien forms they struggled to conquer… But to achieve that, they needed energy. They needed food. As so, nothing could be wasted!

But the enemy was more insidious than expected. The warriors—those whom the knights abandoned for the sole objective of stopping the horde—became slaves of the horrors, corrupted by their manawielders and puppetmasters. More and more of them started going frenzy, destroying everything on their path, flanking the battlegrounds, destroying the vestiges of economy. And before it could be contained or countered, the knights themselves started to fall victim to the plague, harming those around them in their stupor and fever.

Mana was already absent for the most part, leaving the desolate lands to fend for themselves, fed only by the chains of Soul reaching from the unknown.

But it wasn’t enough.

In response, the flow of the energy of the world changed abruptly.

Just as the spiritual links started to crumble and fade, waves started to cascade through them. The very reality around started to fluctuate in rhythm; the ethereal waves washing over the matter as if it wasn’t existing in the first place – ignoring any and all obstacle in their wake.

The impossible became probable. The starving became energized, mortal wounds miraculously clogged, the dying recovering for what was physically possible. The horrors shook and bled, weakened!

And yet, as time passed, the knights invested more and more into the war effort; consuming the very economy that kept them alive, as the terrors redoubled their efforts at corrupting the very foundations of the world, to tip the balance once and for all.

The behemoth decided then, to clad the knights in liquid armor, to force them to stay alive no matter the nourishment, no matter what abominations they would become in the future… he forced them to embrace his gifts, to be fed by it, to raise in force once again!

The knights shed their civilized façade… They morphed into forms straining the borders of probability and their own adaptability… And thus, to fight the unending wave of nightmarish abominations, they themselves became abhorrent monstrosities.

And thus, they fought. Morphing and adapting their bodies to outpace the other; rending the world asunder in their wake; in every corner, every crevice of the fleshy depths the carnage took place.

In the ever-regenerating landscape of flesh and blood, where ruthless genocide has befallen any life standing in their way.

On the desolated bone fields, marring the surfaces with cracks, fissures, and unnatural formations all the while both sides were sucking the very essence of life from within.

Alongside the furiously thundering streams of power, disrupting them even as thousands died in the aftermath, slowly grinding the borders thinner until no stream was left at all.

Even in the metallic tombs of an enormous monstrosity calling this place its home; pushing, burrowing, tunneling despite the deadly winds visiting those halls.

Time passed, and the conflict that was spamming the whole world transformed into the likes of a morbid graveyard, soaked in the remnants of mutated monstrosities, as the two armies of similarly calamitous and anomalous abominations fought for dominance.

And when it looked like all hope was lost; when the knights started to diminish ever so slowly; when the realm started to fail, losing in the arms race at every front… the world shook.

There was a blur and light. There was a mist that consumed everything in an explosion of shadows, and the eternal blackness clogged the world…

~~~

The leviathan opened his ‘eyes’ once again.

The world has changed.

Monumental, rock-like constructs came into existence all over the place, rimming the roots streaming with lightning, covering the walls of red, tunneling rivers.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

But before the leviathan could comprehend what had happened, a third party descended onto the battlefield.

It was a wave of mass. A calamity in its own right. A volume of such proportions, no space was left untouched by it.

With shells made from the same material as the monumental structures, amorphous giants declared the world their new home, suffusing any and all opposition with their mass alone.

With the hunger of unprecedented proportions, the horrors rushed at the newcomer. To feed. To assimilate. To grow. To corrupt.

It wasn’t the smartest decision.

Even the largest of chimeras were dwarfed by the newcomers while their membranes, strengthened by stands and patches of the strange material, blocked the smaller ones from entering their bodies frivolously. And those who managed quickly found themselves in a perilous situation.

They found themselves unable to morph anymore… unable to consume and change. And then, they were consumed instead; slowly dissolving in the giant organism they had tried to corrupt.

The first of the atrocious knights made contact with the gigantic, ameboid entity, and it stopped in its track.

Then, the wave behind it stilled as well, all at once. Shortly after, none in the whole world was moving.

The knight dissolved.

An unspoken signal was sent.

The colony took a breath, stripping the landscape from every ounce of Mana.

There was a moment of stillness. Even horrors paused, as if transfixed by this, almost world-ending, event.

They breathed out…

And all hell broke loose.

Myriad endospores and strange Magicules were ejected all at once, suffusing the whole world in yellow-white mist.

Chemicals, taking almost one-fourth of the colony mass, were released at the same time.

The horrors panicked and gone frenzy.

The ex-knights panicked and started attacking the colony.

For, as incredulous as it sounded, every living being could feel the restriction placed upon them. In the center of their being, in the source of all of creation and change, something was broken. Inhibited with power so vast, they weren’t able to muse even an ounce of the proper functionality of their cores.

A change was now denied to all.

And the change was in the nature of most of them.

Thankfully, the colony heard the plight of the suffering masses and started dispersing to personally manage the issue. The horrors were trying to corrupt them, attacking relentlessly, but every time they managed to successfully infiltrate one of the colony, their neighbors ruthlessly shredded the infected apart.

Also, it became apparent that the horrors were also struggling to morph and change. Sadly, the suppression—as powerful as it was—wasn’t enough to deny the horrors their ability to adapt. Thankfully, the colony started releasing a few chosen knights from their influence.

It took only a few hours for a true purge to ensue. Unable to counter the rapidly multiplying forces of Aurenus’s knights—now free to apply any appropriate changes to themselves as needed—the horrors started to give way. They were slowly ground down by the joint effort of all fight-capable factions as the depths started to recover ever so slowly, consuming the remnants of nourishments still available in the corners of the world…

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Or, at least, that’s what Gru was imagining when observing the ‘suppression wars’. The name was very fitting, in his opinion.

The fragments of Soul memories Gru glimpsed from his friend were essential in forming those images. Gru was blind, after all. From birth, nonetheless.

It was quite a struggle to learn what a picture meant—the colors were an especially difficult concept—but after Gru mastered the strange information, there was no end to the scenes his mind started pouring out.

Gru purred in content. Those here were fun images. One of the most complex he ever saw, too.

Grrrrowing! he thought happily, adjusting his hands to better accommodate brother Phleya. They were flowing through his body right now, fueling away from his stomach. Someone had to put them there when he was asleep. Home needed! he declared, trying out the new function of his body.

The sacks started to slowly bloom in five different places. The process was very instinctual, to Gru’s delight. Gru made sure to put them in safe places that wouldn’t cause problems for Zeff and forced a part of the colony back.

They should return soon, Gru knew, because surviving for long in Zeff’s body wasn’t possible, but it was better to be sure. Gru could already ‘see’ that parts of the colony started to wither.

See… yes, eyes! Gru thought giddily. Similar to the sacs, he could feel the eyes ready to sprout, but Gru decided to postpone their growth.

Zeff was still sleeping. It would be bad to break his skin without asking. Gru didn’t understand why, but could imagine – he would be similarly angry if Zeff tried to modify the perfect shape of his Soul.

That reminded him of the Mana capacity problem. It was quite disappointing to look at the Exchange. There was nothing that could help him…

Zeff tried to explain—and Gru mostly understood—that they needed to develop a prototype first. Gru thought it was bullshit, though. There was no way Sys didn’t know about possible solutions. They just played with them, as always, forcing them to find new ways…

Zeffff ignores…. Accustomed, maybe? Gru rolled his non-existing eyes.

But Gru wasn’t going to relent. Sys had too much knowledge to just accept their machinations without question. Repeat the same question a thousand times, and the answer will come – that was Gru’s philosophy.

His irritation at Zeff was rising, too. Giving Sys too much field was one thing, but Zeff stopped listening to Gru. Intellectually, Gru understood that Zeff was busy, but emotionally…

He had to concur. Emotions were an abstract and complicated idea. But that didn’t change the fact that he was starting to understand them.

Well, the humans’ realization of emotions at the very least. Gru was sure that he could feel emotions inaccessible to humanity, too. But, as always, there was no way to confirm that with his friend. Gru wasn’t a human, so it was only natural.

Still, it was irritating.

Also, the emotions were very chaotic.

On one hand, Gru felt prideful for using his first Spell to defend Zeff. Zeff’s usage of the ‘Mana beam’ made Gru realize something. Matrix Spells could be forced to form directly in Veil, at least to some degree, instead of being constructed from internal Mana. Gru still felt restrained, but the successful Spell gave him hope.

On the other hand, and simultaneously, Gru was angry with himself. The sneaky human managed to strike at them before Gru noticed his Soul. True, the man knew how to make his Soul tiny—which was the whole trick in hiding away that Gru was using constantly—but Gru should have known better. Gru should be able to detect the threat earlier.

Those and other emotions flowed through him. Their intensity was rising with time, to his delight and fright. It was becoming difficult to think clearly, but Gru knew that it was a symptom of his growth.

Gru had second thoughts about becoming an adult… But there was not much he could do.

Successsss! he exclaimed happily, observing the situation in Zeph’s body. Brother Phleya started to return to his sacs after pacifying the intruders. They adapted nicely to the changes Gru bought for them. Gru felt proud.

Zeff was good but still unconscious. If it continued, they would miss the party that was to happen.

So Gru started to prod Zeff, physically and ethereally, to wake up…

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Another poke made Zeph vision jump suddenly as he facepalmed into a tree. It didn’t hurt, though…

He was quickly becoming aware that what he was seeing was merely a dream, and that someone was calling him.

The transition was strangely difficult, as if his mind was opposing him.

Gru, you can stop… he sent to his bond while trying to sit up groggily.

It took him another minute to return to his senses fully. The first thing he saw was the notification from the System.

Life hazard resolved.

[Implants] successfully applied.

[Phleya] received an alternative upgrade.