!!!!! Pr Credits To Draconis Von BloodTrap & Peter1765
Who Help With SR chapters, Please take the time to rep them for their work :)
This is today's regular release. And that makes 3 chapters :) queue is also cleared, and got today's release out. I'l stick around a bit to answer some questions, as well as pay attention to mistakes i might have missed. other then that, next release will be next Wednesday.
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Stabilising peeled space within one's body required a massive amount of energy. Avrin realised he had been somewhat under prepared and this made him slightly nervous. Then again, it also meant he could share this experience with his people. The space was spread out across his entire body; now what he needed to do was to ensure that it had a place to slowly feed while permanently rupturing it so that it wouldn't seal shut.
He began to will this peeled space to condense while making the particles remain still. If one could see this scene it would be like having billions of motionless spikes within a distorted ocean; where the ocean was a vortex moving to a single point crashing against these spikes.
Avrin could feel several of his particles begin to rupture and crack, this meant he would need to use even more dark matter to repair them. But right now he couldn't afford to lose focus. The single point where he was absorbing this peeled space was right inside the abyssal maw of his dark space.
As his body was very unstable; what kept him together was the coating on his physical body as well as his particles. His mind was also somewhat affected, leaving him feeling nauseous and dazed, but he pressed on.
Twenty, forty, seventy, ninety percent. When the last bit of coated distortion of space was slurped up into Avrin’s body a change occurred within his dark space. Meanwhile, a change was also taking place in the nearly parched ocean of dark matter that he had used to feed his ascension. A glob of distortion began to shine a Gray light over that dark ocean. It looked like a star that swayed like a mirage. If one looked closer they could see this Gray light’s main body was dark and had a ghostly, spectral look about it. The star began to tremble violently as if it was not powerful enough to sustain itself.
Avrin, at this stage, was more than capable of seeing within his dark space. He willed that ocean to form a vortex, and then several large streams of dark matter shot upwards towards that star, engulfing it in a metallic coat of dark matter that began to beat like a heart. For every time this coating began to beat, cracks would form that were quickly healed.
The main danger was now out of the way, but not gone. Right now he needed to absorb mana. His current remaining reserves of power were down to 19%. He had more power than those at the Night Deity level in the peak section and didn't doubt that he could rival Septim.
This creation wasn't one that boosted his strength, it was as if he gave himself another unique ability, a sort of evolution. His particles held 10% of his remaining strength while the remaining 9% was within his dark space to feed the blob that appeared to be a star of distortion. He began to reorganise his body and stabilise it, which used up 2% of that remaining 10%. From there, the coating outside his body cracked and liquefied before it was reabsorbed by Avrin. His mask had dropped off his face and he looked withered like an old man, no longer retaining that handsome look. He felt pain all over his body that seemed bone deep, almost as if something was gnawing at him.
“This isn't good... I underestimated the power needed... if this goes on….” he clenched his teeth. He had a decision to make.
“Limos…” he softly called out. His eyes, which didn't seem affected by the ageing, shined slightly, and suddenly Limos appeared, pulsing with strength. Avrin looked at it carefully and sent his weakened Divine Sense out. In his current state, one-thousand miles was the maximum he could get. He noted all the masses of Lucent crystals, ignoring the small ones, but he seemed to have struck gold as he noticed several that looked as if they weighed a few tons.
He snatched Limos from the air and spoke. “If you do well... I will surely be tempted to find your fragments.” He understood that each of his God Essence equipment subconsciously craved completion. If he could use this primitive thought he could obtain more from them.
Limos began to quiver. Avrin used his Divine Step to teleport it several hundred miles underground, near the first large mass of Lucent crystals that were a mix of Haze and Unclouded. A small patch of dirt began to twist until it disintegrated. Before the dirt above it could crumble down, Limos reformed inside that missing part and was then covered in the dirt.
But Limos didn't stop for long. Its core began to shine and soon afterwards it emitted a pulse of dark light that radiated through the ground and engulfed everything around it for a hundred meters in every direction. Everything seemed to vibrate before glowing and then shooting towards the maw-like vortex Limos had formed. It didn't matter what was there, it was all absorbed.
Avrin had thought about using this technique before, but what he was worried about was that someone powerful would notice and come see what was going on. At this stage, he didn't really have much of a choice but to hope for the best.
A small underground chamber was formed but almost immediately the minerals around it began to tremble and the newly made ceiling was already crumbling down. Avrin, of course, didn't stop. He Divine Stepped Limos to the next one and the scene repeated itself.
In the end, Avrin had used up 3% of his remaining power, leaving him with 14% left. Limos had absorbed quite a bit of power and he was looking at it greedily with his Divine Sense. “-That’s enough, return-” Avrin began to engulf Limos with his Divine Sense to bring it back to him, but when he did, Limos resisted violently, as if it wanted to take advantage of his weakness.
“-You... I said return!!-” His dark heart pulsed with a light that used his Divine Sense as a conduit to reach Limos. When the God Essence weapon felt this pulse it trembled with fear and let itself get teleported back.
Avrin had to be cautious. He knew his weakness would mean that these things would try and free themselves. Avrin held Limos in his right hand and glanced at the quarter meter long Vajra. It had absorbed twenty-eight masses of Lucent crystals, that would be several thousands of tons, but nothing on the surface changed much because of the sheer size of the underground area. Not even a small tremor was felt from the collapsing dirt.
Avrin moved his hand over the crystal core of Limos and spoke. “Spit it all out..” with his tired voice leaving him. Limos seemed somewhat reluctant, but the vortex opened up and what came out was a pure stream of dark matter that caused the air to chill and distort. Avrin began to rapidly absorb it with his palm. The sleeves of his right hand instantly ripped to shreds as his withered arm began to regain its strength. Veins of purple energy began to push up against his skin as the dark matter flooded through and into his body like an ocean of water being released into a parched land.
Avrin felt himself relax as his complexion turned better. He reformed into his old appearance and his particles were absorbing as much as they could. His dark space was also flooded with dark matter that helped refill everything.
“One-hundred percent... Well done.” Avrin, after absorbing every drop of dark matter, knew he wasn't finished yet. He narrowed his brow and shut his eyes again, entering his inner workings. He visualised his dark space, he was going to initiate the final steps. He willed a huge torrent of dark matter to shoot up towards the pulsing star and began to force feed it to speed up the process.
This lasted for several minutes and the star began to stabilise more and more until it no longer distorted. At this stage it’s Gray look had vanished, and what remained was a mix of dark colours such as purple, blue and black. Avrin now had complete control of the star. It had been tampered and converted enough that it may as well be dark matter, but the only difference was the wavy mirage look.
Avrin carefully looked at the mass. This would be the final step. He would fuse it with every single one of his particles. If something were to happen, as long as one particle held some of the energy, it was like a piece of data that he could copy over and over again, not needing to repeat this process.
He carefully brought the mass of dark light out of his dark space. It was time for him to begin. His body again began to distort. He would have millions upon millions of particles at a time shoot towards this mass of light and snag a small, insignificant bit of this distorted yet stable energy and have them fuse it into their cores.
The scene looked strange yet the pace was picking up. Avrin felt strange as well. Outside, in the real world, his physical body began to turn into a powdery ash that swayed around as more and more of his body began to turn into this strange glowing powder that was orbiting around that small distortion. The area around him began to bend and turn, the scenery began to change as if he were shifting, yet things seemed odd. The mass of distortion had now been fully absorbed into all his particles, and when this occurred, the powdery ash reformed Avrin’s body into the same position he had been in as if nothing had changed.
Avrin let out a soft breath. A blue, frosty mist seeped out from his lips that caused the air itself to distort. He looked more complete, his skin seemed a bit glossy, yet this glossy light was slowly dimming to normal. “Type 13 particles, end of the Dark stage, beginning of the Void stage. I'm not sure what I’m capable of, but I do know with this boost in strength I could decimate anyone of Septim’s level….as for Orphelium….” Avrin frowned as he thought of the creature that nearly killed him. “I'm still far off…”
Avrin glanced around curiously. He saw the chamber he was in was twisted as if it were corrupted. Something about this place seemed odd. Avrin’s Divine Sense shot out again everything seemed somewhat the same except for two major differences. One was that the underground chambers and tunnels the Spectral ants had made were distorted and twisted, the second was that he could not find any trace of the Spectral ants. It was as if they had all vanished. Avrin didn't panic. He explored further on the surface with his Divine Sense, but he couldn't find any traces of life. In fact, for as far as his Divine Sense could reach, he couldn't find any traces of life, not even an insect.
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The only thing Avrin knew was that the book in his consciousness stated that once he reached the beginning of the Void stage he would be able to phase. He didn't know what it meant by phase, but he had an idea.
He Divine Stepped out of the distorted chamber and up onto the surface of the planet. He looked around and felt somewhat strange. “It's as I thought... it's like that time with the doppelganger Astaroth formed. Phasing, huh. Does this mean I'm in a separate realm?”
Avrin looked around somewhat curiously he reached down to pick up a small rock from the ground. The object didn't seem any different in weight, the only difference was the rock had a large triangular twist on it as if it were made wrong. But he couldn't feel any shift in balance from it.
“Peeled space…” Avrin quietly spoke to himself. He shut his eyes and focused on the book that would surely have more information for him. When he looked over it and found a small description.
“-Known as the Phantom or Spectral Domain it is a shadow of a universe. Each Spectral Domain is attuned to the five universes and is made up of the energies of that universe. Creatures of the Cosmic level have a basic understanding of space warping and may be able to create small peels that would allow them to stumble in. Of course, for Spectrals, this is natural. After entering the Void stage, each Spectral’s body is attuned to space and will have the easiest time compared to any other creature in entering this Spectral Domain, thus named after them. Danger lurks all around Spectral Domains, such as white holes which fire off jets of enormous energy or lesser dangers such as Phantom Souls-”
Avrin exited his consciousness and looked around again. “In other words, this is somewhat of a safe zone from individuals wanting to kill me that haven't reached the Cosmic entity level, so I probably just need to worry about that overgrown lizard.
Avrin glanced around for a few moments and frowned a little. “Well, I guess I could use this as a way to obtain items or bypass people I would rather avoid or places that may be dangerous. But I'm certain there is something stopping me from abusing such an ability. That being said, this place doesn't really look dangerous.”
As Avrin spoke those words he looked around before glancing up at the sky. The sky itself was not blue but a ghostly green and red. It was then that Avrin noticed, apart from the moons of this planet, there was another large mass in the sky. This one was surrounded by an aura that seemed to keep away the darkness and make that mass look as if it were in a stable place. Avrin looked at this aura and couldn't comprehend just how powerful whoever made it could be, but when he looked at the planet closer he felt his body quiver with joy.
“Is that Seleria?!” Avrin was confused, but when he thought carefully about it, it all made sense. it was a place where his people would be safe, but somewhere not too far from him. Wasn't this domain the perfect place for such a thing?
Avrin was about to use his Divine Sense to make his way there, but he noticed he was unable to Divine Step. It was as if the energy was too thick to bypass. His body distorted slightly as he made an attempt but stopped doing so. He was stunned. “The energy is quite thick and unstable. There are minute particles that are opened between this domain and the real universe, no wonder I can't Divine Step so easily.”
Avrin had a simple thought. He jumped up several hundred meters in the air in a second, causing the ground underneath him to ripple and distort. He glanced down and looked carefully at it, before he kicked off the air and smashed back down on the ground, causing a shock wave to spread out. The ground trembled only slightly before it seemed to be as calm as undisturbed water. Avrin began to think silently. “-Damaging this space must have an effect on the real world, but doing so requires power that I don’t have. Regardless, though-”
Avrin shot back up in the air as space under his feet began to distort slightly he began to casually will himself up into the sky and towards space using his abilities. His speed was significantly faster than it had been during his time on Seleria. After he made that breakthrough to the Dark stage’s peak, one could see that absorbing pure spatial distortion had strengthened every bit of his particles. Each particle now had a single minuscule dot of distorted space within their core that was perfectly stable.
Avrin had reached space after a few seconds of heading straight up. He didn't bother looking around and planned to head straight to Seleria. He was quite excited, as he was eager to see what everyone had accomplished. He shot forward like a rocket. “-I wonder if I can bring them with me... it may be dangerous, though, O may have to practice on lifeless obje--”
Avrin stopped dead in his tracks as he saw a horde of dark figures that seemed like faceless ghosts consisting of energy similar to dark matter shoot past him. There were dozens upon dozens, each one unrecognisable. Avrin could feel that the energy they were made from was indeed dark matter, but it seemed different, almost too transparent as if it were hovering between existing and not existing. With this scene within space with the glittering stars and galaxies on one side and the twisted coloured planet behind him as well as it's moon and the glowing Seleria it was truly an odd scene to behold.
Avrin looked at them curiously. He wasn't afraid, in fact, looking closer at these figures they seemed to have no intelligence at all except a cowardly instinct. Avrin was curious as to where they were going. He saw one smaller figure about the size of a child about to rush past him when he reached out and placed his hand on this figure’s shoulder it let out a tormented, distorted cry as the child-sized figures body twisted and warped. Avrin felt his mind go numb and his soul shake.
His dark heart trembled and with a voracious movement emitted a pulse. That pulse shot outward from Avrin’s body and engulfed the figure which couldn't escape. It was shredded into dust-like energy that was absorbed by Avrin’s body. The dark matter gained was nothing special. Avrin reached up to rub both his temples after removing the mask for a moment. He had a strong headache. He had seen strange visions that he was unable to make out. After a few moments this headache vanished yet he felt as if he had done something he shouldn’t.
“Strange…” placing the mask back on, Avrin looked over at the nearly one-hundred transparent purple silhouettes shoot into the distance at a fast pace. Avrin was a little confused, though right as he was about to turn around to look in the direction they had come from he trembled as his left cheek tilted his mask cracked and broke in several places. A fist had been planted on the side of his left cheek. The punch so powerful that a shock was created.
“Hmmm?... You're not a defiled one?” Avrin could feel the strength behind the punch. This individual was at the New Deity level yet he had mixed thoughts and emotions. He wondered how a New Deity had managed to enter this place. With his Divine Sense now expanded to engulf the individual, he could tell he wasn't a Spectral but truly a strange being. He didn't emit any mana but a different energy.
As the fist moved away from his cheek as if it wasn't an issue, Avrin looked as he reached up to hold his crumbling mask. His eyes glanced towards a feminine looking person who had an expression which seemed as if he didn't care about anyone but himself, though Avrin noticed carefully in regards to this man’s features. He wore strange, oriental attire that consisted of both scale and plate armour. With his handsome face that was no less than Avrin’s, he emitted a powerful energy that Avrin understood.
“-Isn't that Qi?-” Avrin remembered the feeling of this energy. Just as the first universe required dark matter and the fifth universe required Mana, the third universe was purely made of Qi. Avrin looked carefully at this person. He felt an odd feeling of familiarity from him.
“Who are you?” the handsome young male asked Avrin in a tone that seemed as if he were obligated to answer back. “Who am I? It's quite rude to ask who someone is after getting a cheap hit in.” Avrin grinned a little. The punch stung a little but nothing too bad.
“Oh? Speaking of manners are you? Do you have any idea whom you dare to speak to?” the young man replied back to Avrin in a prideful manner. Dark matter began to surge within the cracks of the mask, causing the cracks to glow slightly. As this occurred, Avrin replied. “Does it seem as if I give a shit as to who you are?” Avrin replied in a way that replicated his past human manner. He was actually quite interested in how this person was speaking in what he knew was English.
“Oh, I see, you're one of those types of people. Well let me help you understand.” the young man spoke. He was actually quite interested in Avrin now for three reasons. One was how he managed to get within this space, the other was how he was unable to sense any sort of energy from Avrin, and the third was that strange, glowing energy used to repair the mask.
The individual shot forward with a strange movement that stunned Avrin. His speed wasn't as fast as his, but the movement seemed to compensate as if to confuse the individual it was targeted towards. The young, golden-haired man punched towards Avrin’s abdomen. This punch contained a trace amount of Qi, showing that he was holding back.
He expected Avrin to not be able to handle it. This was an assumption only an idiot would make. The fist never collided with Avrin’s abdomen. In fact, gripping onto the closed fist was Avrin’s right hand clutching tightly. Avrin looked at the man’s gauntlet-covered fist, focusing on the Qi.
“So this is Qi…” Avrin ignored the young man and looked curiously at the Qi. Of course, the young man was stunned. He expected Avrin to retaliate, but he never expected to such a degree. “Interesting! Let’s play a bit rougher.” A look of excitement appeared on the young man’s face. Avrin blinked as he realised the man’s fist had left Avrin’s grip. He glanced up to see the man had become a blurry image. He had begun to move so fast that Avrin could barely see his movements. He knew those movements were powerful strikes that were about to barrage him.
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Avrin's Inner Workings Status
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Void Stage Type 13 Control Particle Completion0%Void Stage Type 13 Particle Completion0%God Essence WeaponsAstaroth-ScytheLimos-VajraGod Essence EquipmentSarcanus-Armor