“It’s listening, it’s always listening, nowhere is beyond its reach. It plays with us, I don’t know why it hasn’t just killed us all. It can, you know. It can kill us all on the slightest whim, but… it’s still sleeping.”

“It’s sleeping?” Eshya asks, “But it’s watching and listening. Kyra you need to take some lessons off of this thing, sounds like it has some Skills that you might like.”

“I mean, it’s not what was on the top of my mind just now, but since you mentioned it, yeah… I just hope it has a support device on it, Arduelle screwed me over when I tried to steal her Skills. It still bothers me sometimes.”

“Don’t you understand? I’m not lying, this monster that lives in the heart of our world, it’s… it’s a god. A dark, cruel god that’s existed before time itself.”

“Probably an omega beast that’s eaten its way down to the mana vortex,” Vii says, nodding to herself. “We’re lucky the town even exists if that’s the case, it’s not uncommon for those sorts of beasties to just eat the world down to its husk before getting started on the mana vortex.”

“I may not have been fully listening in class lately, can you explain?” I ask.

“Simple, you know omega beasts?”

“The creatures that eat literally everything to the point that if they’re powerful enough they’ll consume the whole universe… ah, rather self-explanatory then, isn’t it. So, you think that a powerful beast has just eaten its way to the core of this world?”

“That’s what it sounds like to me,” Vii nods quickly shuffling her wings around. “Except for the part where this town still exists, usually they’d all be eaten already.”

“I agree, it’s probably what you’re saying. The beast is just a little picky about what it eats.” Eshya nods.

“You were as clueless as me a moment ago,” I point my finger at her in accusation. “There’s no need to try and sound smart, I still love you even though you’re not the smartest in our group.”

“Sure, sure, whatever makes you sleep better at night.”

“I’ll make you sleep better at night… wait a minute, that doesn’t quite work.”

“It works for me,” Eshya snorts a laugh, not the pretty kind of a girl trying to impress, but the genuine kind. It makes her seem rather dorky.

“There are more of these dark gods?” The slug asks, his colour… darkening, which Chip tells me is his species equivalent of paling. Whatever works, works for me.

“Yeah, the universe is vast, and filled with monsters,” I say.

“Ideally a beast like this would be hunted down before it reached this point,” Adler says, rubbing at the side of her head. “The inefficiencies of our military would likely be to blame. This is a situation where a more effective means of violence would be capable of preventing unnecessary death.”

“Well, from what Arduelle tells me the god-king of the Unified States is going to show up at some point to stomp this thing to death.”

“A god-king? He will save us?” The slug wraps all his hopes onto the word, but unfortunately for him, all he gets is another round of disappointment. It’s good that he’s hardy enough to take it.

“No, if you’re still alive when he comes for a visit then you’ll be crushed alongside this evil god of yours. I saw a whole universe tuned to nothing but dust, ash, and raw mana and I’m fairly sure that there were people like you and me living there.”

“Then we truly are doomed. I… I know that I should just take my own life. At least then I will die as the person I am and not the puppet that the dark god makes of me.”

“Eh, if they haven’t killed you yet maybe wait and see what’s up with that,” I suggest. “I mean it certainly sounds bad, and I don’t think we’d be capable of fighting a monster this powerful as we are, but I have been learning diplomacy.”

“Kyra, I don’t think your usual tactics of aggressively threatening everyone and their families will cut it for this thing,” Eshya says. “Adler maybe you can manage something?”

“Me?” Adler pulls her feet up as if some shark is going to dive through the floor and nab her feet. “I’m not… that’s not my job. I can’t do that!”

“Think of the welfare of these people, they need you, Adler.”

“They need Kyra after she’s had another few years of training. Welfare officers aren’t well known for their diplomacy. We make peace by enslaving, and eventually killing, anything that doesn’t behave. Unless you have something in your pockets that can take out a being that’s consumed a mana vortex…”

“Sorry, I left my god-slaying sword at home.” Eshya shrugs.

“Where was that when we last needed it?” I ask.

“It still needs to be sharpened, and forged for that matter.”

“Back to topic,” Vii says, curled up on a chair clenching her talons around a pillow, I’m not sure how much more it can take. “This is an omega beast, potentially with the ability to spy on us at any point in time, and certainly strong enough to kill us and eat us. Shouldn’t we wait for the first boat out of here? Or actually, there are other planets in this system right, maybe we could push ourselves and go visit one of them for a week?”

“I might be able to,” I say, looking between them, “but do any of you have the means to go without air for… how long would it even take? And how would we even stay on track to the planet, our trip to the moon was easy enough since it’s easy to see and all that, but planets are tiny.”

“You could probably make out the difference with your new sense Skills,” Adler says. “You do know your own Skills don’t you?”

I wind my hair around my finger the red strands moving as if they’re a limb of their own while I use the prehensile hair Skill that I haven’t fully explored.

“Maybe…”

“Kyra…?” She glares at me.

“Anyway, you guys can’t survive in space for long enough to make it work, so we can scratch that plan,” I declare, ignoring Adler’s gaze. “What else have we got?”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“We could kill it?” Eshya suggests.

“Eshya, I know that violence is your thing but you don’t need to make that joke every time, you know. You could expand, there’s a whole world full of jokes out there for you, don’t typecast yourself, we might start getting bored of you.”

“No, I’m being serious,” Eshya says, leaning forwards with a glowing grin on her lips. Her incisors almost seem like bared fangs. “Mr Slug thinks this monster is sleeping.”

“You want us to wake it up?”

“I actually do know a thing or two about omega beasts, for your information, and I know that this point in their life is potentially very dangerous,” Eshya says. “I’ve always wanted to try hunting one ever since I learned this, anyway, back to my point. When they try to eat the core of a world they become vulnerable. The process of absorbing their first mana vortex into their mana form is an incredibly difficult process and not everyone succeeds.”

“Oh, oh!” Vii perks up.

“No, shut up. This is my turn to explain things to our idiot leader.”

“What’s good for the goose…” I grudgingly accept her criticism.

“So, this thing is having a hard time swallowing the core of this world, right. So, it’s in deep mediation while it absorbs this mana vortex. If it gets distracted, it dies. If it doesn’t get distracted, you can absorb its mana and spit it back out as your special blend of destruction.”

“Like a parasite?” Vii asks.

“Exactly, like a parasite.”

“That sounds almost reasonable,” I admit. “But.” I continue, “If it’s still able to mess around with the townspeople here, then it can still slap us to death with the lightest of blows.”

“I agree with Kyra, trying to survive a fight like this would be… challenging.”

“Then we stay here and wait for it to kill us?” Eshya asks.

“No, we stay here and wait for our ship, and leave everyone else to their fates.”

“Umm… can I at least come with you?” Mr slug asks.

“I mean you can try,” I say, “but I’m not sure how the welfare officers will respond to your unauthorised boarding of their vessel.”

“Collaring,” Adler says. “If lucky and well behaved, he could end up in an academy.”

“Really?” I ask. “I didn’t know that was an option.”

“Most don’t, which is why most don’t try,” Adler replies.

“There you go, options,” I say to the slug, which perks up at the idea of enslavement with the possibility of education.

“So… we’re doing nothing?” Eshya asks.

“What about the pilgrimage?” Vii asks. “That sounds… I mean, pilgrimage, dark god… what’s two plus two?”

“Hopefully four, if some stupid rule of magic doesn’t mess with that too.”

“Kyra, pay more attention in class please,” Adler reprimands me. “Only maths magic can interfere with the base logics of reality.”

“Is… is that real?”

“No, she’s messing with you,” Eshya laughs, prodding my side.

“It is real, just so extraordinarily rare that it might as well not exist at all.”

“What would a maths world built on a maths vortex look like?” Vii asks.

“An ocean of saltwater from trillions of students crying on the day of their test results?” I suggest.

“Again, in theory, they subtract themselves out of existence before forming worlds,” Adler says with a shrug.

Even more powerful than my annihilation magic.

Terrifying.

I swap to another seat as the room slowly shifts to an odd angle, after a little hopping I find myself a new one on the wall-turned-floor. Adler follows, but Eshya and Vii stay where they are, swivelling around to face us. Mr Slug watches the window, which is slowly filling up with dark water, that thankfully isn’t flooding in. I see Gehnna in the small gap in the window, and she’s still wringing her hands as she walks laps of the room across the street from us.

“So, to sum up, we’ve been invited on a pilgrimage to meet this dark god who twists the minds and bodies of those who claim to have met it. Should we go? And if we are going, should we try to kill it?”

“I… abstain from voting,” Vii says. “It’s a terrifying thought to go and fight a monster of this scale, but at the same time I kind of want to see if we can’t beat it.”

“Adler?”

“I’d advise that we avoid the pilgrimage altogether. If we go, then we must assume it’ll be a fight, the other options are hopeful thinking.”

“I know I don’t even need to ask but, Eshya?”

“I vote we go, and we kill it, assuming it’s not some completely misunderstood hermit, like those guys we met the other day. You know the one’s training their Skills to perfection?” Eshya asks. “Anyway, if it comes down to it Arduelle is still watching us through that spy device you’re carrying with you, and I’m thinking she’s going to save us if we get into too much trouble.”

“Arduelle?” I ask her.

A flash of thick magic cuts through the living room, and she appears from nothing, standing on the angled floor without any trouble.

“You aren’t going to waste your time here playing at lovers in a doomed town. I’ll watch over you,” She says, weary if the word can ever fit her perfect image. “This is a good chance for you to see how well your education has developed.”

While I’m sure there’s more to this that she’s keeping from us, my limited mind-reading abilities don’t work on her. What even was the point in getting this upgrade if it never works on anything that I want to use it on.

“So, you think it’s a good plan?” I ask her.

“I’ll be watching over you, if you waste your time here I’ll be sure to find some way to make your life the worse for it. After this incident with the welfare officers, we need you to be ready.”

“Ready for what?” I ask.

“If you want to know, then grow strong enough to be worthy of the next part of my training regime,” Arduelle says. “For now, learn how to get along with the other kids, and get strong enough to knock them flat when you can’t find a compromise.”

“Have you ever thought of being a mother?” I ask, “I think you’d be… somewhere between terrifying and brilliant.”

“So average?” Vii asks.

“No, never average. Just a constant sway between terrifying and awesome.”

Arduelle lets out a sigh, and from her, that isn’t simply a bodily function but a message that needs to be understood. If she ever sneezes, I don’t know what I’ll do, but she’d probably just kill me for witnessing such a thing.

“From observing your little sessions with your doctor, I understand that this is one of your coping mechanisms, but please do try to keep up a dignified front. Especially when others are watching.”

“I’m sure Mr Slug doesn’t care too much, and the water is a pretty good curtain to keep us hidden from Gehnna,” I say with a shrug.

“For all that I’ve taught you…” Arduelle shakes her head and flashes out of existence once again.

“You know she never actually said that we have a good plan,” Eshya points out, relaxing back in her chair as if without a care in the world.

“We’re ants trying to hunt an elephant. There’s no such thing as a good plan.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Stats and Skills

~Mana Form:

Current mana density: 42,391 / 60,892 units

Current mana volume: 21,073 / 30,271 shards

Mana volume at crystallisation density (Max. mana volume):

Kyra: 30,271 shards

Kyra’s armour: 20,777 shards

Kyra’s throne: 1,109,298 shards

~Forms

Mana Canon

-Annihilation Heart (Adapted)

-Blood Fuel (Adapted)

-Bone Magic Storage (Adapted)

-Nail Shifters (50,000 mana shards)

Dancer

-Flash Nerves (Adapted)

-Quick Perception Mind (Adapted)

-Burst Reflex Muscles (35,000 mana shards)

-Layered space Muscles (80,000 mana shards)

Turtle

-Rebinding Tissue (Adapted)

-Catalyst Sweat Glands (140,000 mana shards)

-Repulsive Skin (Adapted)

-Prehensile hair (Adapted)

-Fatty Tissue Blood Storage (100,000 mana shards)

Investigator

-Wide eyes (Adapted)

-Wide ears (Adapted)

-Sharp nose (Adapted)

Misc.

-Clean bowels (Adapted)

-Mana Drive (Adapted)

~Favourited Skills:

Magic:

-Annihilation Magic (Customised)

-Fire Magic (Functional)

-Space magic (Broken)

-Force magic (Functional)

-Ice magic (Broken)

-Wind magic (Broken)

Movement:

-Hand-to-hand casting (Functional)

-Mana surge movement (Functional)

-Stealth (Functional)

Senses:

-Eyes of an Empire (Customised)

-Combat Awareness (Functional)

-Watchmen (Functional)

-Hidden bug (Mastered)

-De-tagging (Mastered)

-Anti-stealth sight (Mastered)

Special:

-Spirit Transformation (Broken)

-Conformity (Broken)

-Training mana form (Functional)