The sense of falling filled my heart, it was only when I scraped the side of the wall that I realised what had happened.
“Oh shiit! I’m falling, the creature has eaten me, raaaaaaagh!”
“How am I supposed to know where the core is?! Eff it!”
Spreading my legs, I let them do the hard work of slowing me. A hyper arctic blue was just below where I stopped.
“This must be the core?”
I pulled my Greatsword from my back, eff me… it was too big to rotate in the ice tunnel. A crazy idea rattled in my mind, releasing the pressure on the walls, I let my body fall through the heart of the Time God, until all that remained was the tip of my sword.
“Runic Release!” the raging flames of the Fire God engulfed my sword.
“Mystic Overdrive! Ultima!”
Plumes of colourful energy arched off my body, and my magic blade spell activated regardless of the [Silence] effect.
In the midst of exploding diamonds and raging energies, everything paused, save a single beam of light that shot at me, my senses were alive, but I couldn’t dodge, the light hit me dead in the forehead, there was a warm mother’s embrace, the butterflies of love, and the groundedness of friends and family.
You have gained ‘???’, a soul bound item.
A second light flashed towards my chest, an instant searing flash of pain washed over me then it was like a thousand rusty nail being sledge hammered into every available space on my body. Over-and-over again… whack-whack-whack.
Please… please make it stop… no more… I can’t take it anymore… why is this happening to me…
Instead of nails it was now a chainsaw hacking at my limbs, like it was ripping through my skin and flesh and eating into the bone, yet I couldn’t see anything, almost as if my soul was the thing being attacked directly…
Ahhhh! Stop! Stop! Just stop!!!
My mind was going blank and I welcomed it, emplored it to come… and thankfully the world blackedout.
The world returned to my eyes and horror had sneaked into my heard as a slightly familier light beamed into my chest.
Huh?! No… no-no-no-no… ahh… ahhh!... AHHH!
The phatom pain returned, drilling in my flesh and bones, the drilling went all over my body and when it hit my head and bore into my skull, I blacked out again.
The cycle continued… after each time the light beamed into my chest, the pain became more intense, more intimate…
I don’t know how many cycles it was but I pleading now…
Please… let it end… I can’t-I can’t do this anything… please…
But the pain continued… I wanted to die… but every fibre of my being repelled against that notion, like there was a beast inside me that roared louder than the pain, loud enough to remind me that giving up wasn’t in my blood, my mind pushed against something, a… tsunami of molten lava.
The next cycle came, and the next, and the next… until…
You have gained the ‘Iron Will’ trait.
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You are more resistant to mental effects.
That was… good. So… something is attacking me? Who would design something so effing shit! Urgh okay, it’s fine, I’m not dead, so… what now? If I can gain resistances just by mentally pushing back, I bet I can increase that…
Ten cycles later just as my mind, body and spirit were about to explode…
You have gained the ‘Improved Iron Will’ trait. ‘Improved Iron Will’ replaces ‘Iron Will’.
Your clarity of thought allows you to resist mental attacks.
Come on! Focus! Ahhh!
The drills bored their way into my flesh and bone again, not as bad… but still hurt like hell.
Argh! It’s not that the pain is intensifying, it’s that I’m starting the sense where pain is hitting with more precis– Ah-ahh… AHHH! FAARK!
The next cycle rolled around with the dreaded flash of light into my chest, again… but this time I decided to focus on the pain rather than trying to push or run from it. Though my mind reeled and wanted to shutdown, I focused with everything I could…
Ahh-ahhh… AHHH! P-points?!
Several cycles later and I realised the pain came from the exact same points all over my body, such as all the way up my spine or in the centre of my forehead.
But where is it coming from?
I focused on the forehead point and the initial chest point for a few cycles, feeling for something, anything…
Ahh, what was that?
There was a pulse from my chest that ran right up to my forehead and tore at me from the inside, I held on as long as I could trying to get some sense of the pain, it was so intense, it was splitting my…
My what though? It’s not my body… oh you’ve got to be shittin–
AHH! FAARK!
You have gained the ‘Soul Senser’ trait.
You have gained a greater understanding of your own soul.
Eek gods… so souls are real… that raises so many questions. Like does that mean there is a god? If we die, do we go to heaven or hell? Wait, am I currently stuck in purgatory? I don’t remember ever doing anything ‘that’ bad.
“Owww!” Wait-wait-wait! I’m not ready! “OWW! FAARK THIS SHIT!”
There’s only a few seconds between restarts and mind numbing pain… think Stupid. Concentrate. Focus.
I don’t know if it was the new trait or just my practice of focusing on the pain but I could feel or see with my mind’s eye clouds of energy swirling around my body.
Is that energy me?
“Oww” No! Hold on! “Argh!”
Concentrate!
I focused on the point of greatest pain, my chest… my mind was blanking but I had to hold on, I had to see what was happening, like if I knew why it hurt so much, maybe, just maybe it would hurt a little less.
Huh?
Before I passed out in the last cycle, I could see it, the pain starts in the chest where the light hits me, something connects with my soul at a sort of anchor point, but the light destroys the anchor and the cloud of energy disperses and from there sets off a chain reaction to several other anchor points in my body…
Weird… are these anchor points what’s keeping my soul linked to my body? So, the question is how do I keep the first anchor point for breaking. Maybe I can flex it like a muscle?
I mentally tried to flex the anchor point as the ominous light bored into my chest. Nothing happened except my soul being ripped apart again.
It was all for naught… nothing was working… and I could feel my mind breaking down or was it my soul… ugh whichever… whatever… I should just giv–
No. There were important things in my life. My family. My friends. My purpose. I thought about them now. My father who taught me how to play Go and chess. My mum who taught me how to cook and fight with muay thai. My Grandma who paid for my capoeira lessons and the VR headset I used to practice. I thought about how I was going to win fighting game competitions and use that money for my family and to try make to world a better place… My heart soared from the thought.
Wait what?
The clouds of energy around my anchor points swirled ever so slightly, but the tsunami of pain rolled through, but I didn’t care because there was hope now.
It took a further twenty cycles before I managed to swirl my energy clouds and receive a new notification.
You have gained the ‘Soul Driver’ trait.
Okay, great, I can swirl energy… now what? Urgh, it would be really useful if I had some sort of mystical guardian to guide me or something, maybe an artificial intelligent tutorial maybe, come on? Nup? Nothing? Solo it is. Now when my energy swirled, I don’t think it was my imagination, no, I’m pretty sure I persisted a tiny bit longer that cycle… so, I just need to make the swirl bigger right, surely there’s some trait to be gained doing that?
Twenty odd cycles later…
Urgh… whose idea was that… stupid-stupid-stupid. Okay… well… what about the energy swirls around the other meridian points… If I could somehow borrow that energy and move it to my chest?
With my mind’s eye I latched on to one of the anchor points in my toes.
What was that?
My mind tried desperately to pull the energy away from the anchor in my toe, but instead I felt a tugging sensation at the anchor point, like the anchor was trying to draw the energy back into itself.
What is happening?
I knew I shouldn’t have done it, I knew it was dangerous, but I did it anyway. I kept pushing harder, draining my mental energy stores… and the pain only increased, until something popped.
You have gained the 'Soul Manipulator' trait.
The pain rolled through and my soul was sundered again.
Faark yes! I only managed to move some energy from my toe to my heal, but it was a start.
Another fifty cycles and I was finally ready to move all the energy swirls from my legs into my chest and could only pray it would be enough because I don't think my mind or soul could take much more of this.
I moved the energy swirls one anchor point at a time as quickly as I could but time was against me, I could feel my soul weakening now at each new cycle.
But then something clicked internally, I felt a massive swirl of energy in my chest.
My soul was no longer being torn apart. Instead, I felt a strange pressure from all the energy swirls around my body, almost like they were being pulled together. I couldn't see anything, but I could feel it, a wave of energy slowly rolling over my chest…
You have gained ‘Orb of ???’, a soul bound item.
Time resumed, and the diamond shards continued their onslaught.
God of Time & Gravity, has been slain,
You have gained 350,000 EXP.
There was a loud thud, and diamond dust choked the air.
“Oh my god, I’m alive? Arms, check, legs, check, head, check,” it was a goddamn miracle, damn my arse hurts… How long was I in that weird frozen state suspended in perpetual pain?
There was no time to ponder as a high-pitched squealing came from above, forcing me to cover my ears.
“Do you guys hear that?” I asked but no reply ever came…
A bright light came from the direction of the diamond tear, and I was momentarily blinded. Damn… ‘another’ final attack, this was a death ability, a surprise slap to the face. Blinding light burned into my eyes, followed by a deafening explosion, and I felt immense pressure and gut-wrenching pain tear through my chest, again.