I see.
His soul wasn't getting bigger at all, it was just so massive I was only capable of seeing a small part of it at a time.
I take a deep breath, but there's no air to inhale, only soul matter. I lightly tap the floor with my feet, and it slowly crumbles--perhaps slowly isn't accurate; I am simply capable of processing things much faster than I usually would, so it looks slow to me.
Even though I'm powerful, it would be presumptuous of me to assume I am the strongest--but there is a reason why I have been left mostly unchallenged all this time. Souls are pretty gluttonous, but they are also pretty cowardly--they will rarely bother fighting another soul that can actually defend themselves. In other words, once a soul has reached a point where it's content with the amount of experience it has, it'll start being a lot more passive. It's a lot easier to create a universe or torment your host than it is fighting another soul and steal its experience--and if you really needed to do that, you could just use charisma to subjugate them without a fight.
And then there are universe eaters.
Just like an organism can be born with mutations that may or may not end up helpful in the long term, souls will sometimes develop uncommon traits.
One of those rare trait is soul absorption.
Starving souls are dangerous because no one really knows what they are truly capable of until they are out of options, and if a soul has a mutation that allows them to safely devour other souls, then something terrible happens.
They eat.
And since eating is usually the only way they know of getting experience, they keep eating until they reach maximum soul bloat.
But did you know that some souls are capable of breaking through that upper limit? To go beyond soul bloat and reach mass that should not normally be possible?
That's when a universe eater is born. They are exceedingly rare because most of them are suppressed before they ever reach this size, and it requires such specific conditions that it's infinitely unlikely for a soul like this to exist.
But just as there are infinite universes, there's an infinite chance for this type of thing to be born--and I did meet a few before.
I have never beaten one.
I think I understand why this universe was the way it was. It wasn't built as a utopia on purpose, the negative emotions of this place were used to keep the universe eater's soul content, I'm sure eventually the soul would've grown weaker as it only fed on the same type of feelings all day long, which would've given the god of this place a chance to finish it off.
I crack my knuckles, my bones don't instantly break under the pressure, so I think it's a good enough strength to endurance ratio. "Fine, fine. My bad, I'll take care of it."
Hotel is dragged by an invisible force backward, since we share the same stats, they realized the danger as well as I did.
"UM, take every single menu at my disposal, compile the type of system they belonged to and try to mold my surroundings in such a way I can use most of their unique skills."
> 'MAGICAL GIRLS' SYSTEM COMPILED. EVERY EMOTION CAN NOW BE CONVERTED INTO PHYSICAL AND METAPHYSICAL ABILITIES.
> 'TIME LOOP' SYSTEM COMPILED. EVERY PHYSICAL OBJECT IN THE SYSTEM WILL BE RESET WHEN EITHER HOSTS ARE IN LETHAL DANGER.
> 'YOUR OWN PERSONAL HELL' SYSTEM COMPILED. THE CURRENT LOCATION CANNOT BE ESCAPED PHYSICALLY.
The UM continues like that for a while, a bunch of those didn't even have menus, so that means it's literally creating a new system with similar rules to universes we visited before. I'm actually surprised at how much the UM can do when it's not limited by its directives.
I can feel my surroundings distort as everything else is rearranged for a proper arena. It moves, a single step is all it takes for the entire room to explode in a million pieces, the god's reinforced soul matter didn't do much to absorb the impact--but it doesn't matter.
An infinite amount of rooms like this one are revealed behind the destroyed walls, stretching so far that even my perception cannot see beyond the horizon. We all start falling as gravity is somehow still active in this Frankenstein of a universe the UM created. The universe eater lunges, but it disappears right before reaching me. It does the same thing, again, and again, it takes me a moment to realize every time he does so, another host body is created in one of the infinite rooms.
My torso explode in a shower of gore, then my arms, then my legs.
I di-
[RESET CONDITION TRIGGERED]
I can feel my surroundings distort as everything else is rearranged for a proper arena. It moves, a single step is all it takes for the entire room to explode in a million pieces.
The time loop technically makes me immortal, but only in a superficial sense. It's not after my body--it's after my soul; I've seen take bites of it when I wasn't paying attention, I don't know how long I can keep this up.
If it's really trying to eat my soul, then I might as well show it how much of a mistake that is.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
MEMORY CLEANUP
>COPYING HER MEMORY.
>HER MEMORY HAS BEEN PLACED AT THE EDGES OF YOUR SOUL.
I can feel HER presence multiply in my mind, I can see her everywhere, in every little things I do and say, even when I forget about her, she's behind me, watching me, judging me.
Its soul surrounds me, and I expel the shell of my soul directly into it, it gorges itself on the newly found experience and memories, but not all experience and memories are good to eat. It realizes what it's doing, but its hunger far outweighs whatever alarm bell is ringing in its head, and it incorporates a corrupted, unhealthy version of HER memory into its very being.
It punches me, but I manage to stop its fist with the palm of my hand at the last moment, I can feel my arms retracting into my torso as my body jerks backwards. It's only a matter of time until it starts figuring out how the system I've created works, I need to act fast--but I can't concentrate when it keeps putting my body in danger like this.
I can feel it closing in, every time it hits me it takes another bite of me, my soul can't heal me and protect itself at the same time. I turn and brace for the incoming hit, but-
CRASH.
A massive mish mash of buildings rises from the void and slam into the universe eater, it shrugs it off only to be hit by another structure behind him, the universe eater destroys the abstract feat of architecture with a kick, but every bit of rubble expand and form towers, houses, hallways of infinite sizes. Soon enough, he's sandwiched between hundreds of those buildings, and they all start moving in different directions, grinding the universe eater down to a bloody pulp.
This doesn't last long of course, it only takes a few seconds for it to reform and pulverize everything around it, but it gave me enough time to put my plan into motion.
I mumble the words as fast as I can while still hoping they are coherent enough to trigger the desired effect, "The past cannot be changed, and yet it can still affect our future. To reflect on one's mistake and never forget them, that is regret."
SHARED REGRET
The universe eater stops, it noticed.
"You know? We were always selfish in the end," I state. "Everything we did--it was never for her sake, was it?"
It grabs its head, rips it out of its body, and crushes it between its hands.
"Sorry buddy, that won't work. Those memories aren't up there anymore." I point to my head. "It's in your soul, it'll be kind of hard to get rid of it now."
Its soul is not even trying to hit me anymore, it's too busy clawing at itself trying to expel HER memory from itself.
"Do you think she'd be happy? To see us like this? I think she'd be mad, actually. I've never seen her mad, but I'm sure she'd be furious to see how we ended up--especially after all that she did for us."
A dark shade spreads throughout its soul, it's panicking. The only thing it knows is hunger, but if it eats anything, the memory will just sink deeper into its soul, making it that much harder to take it out. Eventually, it gives up and decides to claw at the fabric of this reality; it's trying to make a passage to another universe--but the passage it creates just leads to the same room we are in, there is no escape.
"It's funny, isn't it? Things like us, we're so strong in one regard, and yet so very weak in others. I wonder, did you ever feel something? Did you ever have to? Did you take the time to appreciate the time and effort that went into all the universes you devoured so greedily?"
Now that its soul and body is busy, I finally have the opportunity to do some proper soul surgery. I make holes everywhere I can, making sure to avoid the spots that were corrupted by HER memory. It's now bleeding experience left and right, it tries to fix the holes but I create more. Of course, it will be a while before its soul runs out of fuel, but what matters is that it's now completely helpless--if it tries to fight me in this state, it's going to hurt itself more than it'll hurt me.
It tries to do the next best thing, destroying its host body so that its soul can escape by itself to another universe, however...
[RESET CONDITION TRIGGERED]
I can feel my surroundings distort as everything else is rearranged for a proper arena. It moves, It slams its head against the floor, a familiar sight.
[RESET CONDITION TRIGGERED]
Even if you flee, that memory will always be a part of you.
[RESET CONDITION TRIGGERED]
You know, you could fight me if you just accepted this memory, but that's hard, isn't it?
[RESET CONDITION TRIGGERED]
The experience you're losing right now is being fed to this universe, so the reset is quite literally being fueled by your stubbornness.
It continues like this for a while--it's pitiful, the way it's acting. Its host body has suffered a lot, but its soul has never seen it as anything but food. Souls aren't meant to feel after all, so they are always woefully unprepared when it comes to things like guilt and loss.
I swing my fist one last time, but right before my hand reaches its body...
[RESET CHECKPOINT SAVED]
ITS BODY IS PULVERIZED BY THE IMPACT.
[RESET CONDITION TRIGGERED]
ITS BODY IS PULVERIZED BY THE IMPACT.
[RESET CONDITION TRIGGERED]
ITS BODY IS PULVERIZED BY THE IMPACT.
[RESET CONDITION TRIGGERED]
ITS BODY IS PULVERIZED BY THE IMPACT.
[RESET CONDITION TRIGGERED]
[RESET CONDITION TRIGGERED]
[RESET CONDITION TRIGGERED]
[R$^ù** CO^$^ION TR^$*ùRED]