Grasping fingers reach out from the depths of the dark ocean, wrapping around the stone walls of this ancient city. A city dead yet still living, a bauble of a creature that no longer fits inside the walls of its own home. A baby blanket, once serving as protection from the dangerous cold, now turned into naught but an old keepsake.

We sink deeper into the grasp of this creature, there is no escape from its reach now.

“We’re slowing,” Eshya says, tapping out an excited rhythm with her foot.

“What do you think it looks like?” Vii asks, bouncing on her talons.

“Like a writhing ball of undigested vomit, perhaps?” I suggest.

“A bunch of slugs morphed together into one giant ball of slimy slug flesh,” Eshya suggests, glancing towards Adler with a playful spark “Whatever it looks like, I’m too beautiful to touch such a thing, let alone join it. Ugh. But Adler you’re free to choose for yourself.”

“I don’t want us to join this thing either,” Adler says with a long sigh. “I just want to learn from it, and perhaps, if it’s a genuinely useful means of developing society, then maybe we can make something similar for ourselves.”

“Kyra, Adler wants to melt us down into a super being again,” Eshya says, calling out in the voice of a child snitching on a sibling.

“Well, I think you’re perfect just the way you are,” I tell Eshya and Adler both. The slugs on the holographic stage are currently having the time of their lives making out, I’m not sure if this is a romantic show of affection or something deteriorating into pornographic. I mean their slimes, it’s disgusting but more in the animal documentary way than anything more gruesome.

“You have to say that,” Eshya says, laughing at me.

“I do?”

“If you don’t want to be alone in bed tonight,” Eshya says.

“Vii, come here, Eshya is being mean to me and Adler is trying to turn us into a giant slime,” I say, pulling her onto my lap.

“I am not,” Adler says, snorting and shaking her head. She rests her hands together on her lap, her tail flipping back and forth, but I can sense only vaguely pleasant thoughts on her mind. She gets that we’re not being serious.

“What do you think it’ll be like?” Vii asks, “Being part of a shared mind like that? You’d share everything, every experience, every thought, and every dream and nightmare.”

“Well, it’s not quite right that we’d be part of a shared mind at least that’s not how I understand it,” I say. “It’s more like ‘we’ wouldn’t exist as anything but the thoughts and memories of a larger, more complex being.”

“That’s how I understand it as well,” Adler says. “Or at least this example of a merged being. I believe it would be far better to allow minds to stay separate, like the Matrix idea that Kyra brought up. Converge resources without losing individuality.”

“Maybe if you can find some consenting lab rats you can try making a mini-Matrix and see how it goes,” I suggest. “So, is there anything here that we haven’t seen yet?”

As interesting as it ought to be exploring this ancient city-turned-bauble, there’s not that much here that I find special. There are endless records of ancient culture and more than just function there’s luxury here, and by comparing the luxury facilities with the necessities, it’s interesting to see just how well off they were here.

Yet, it’s all variations on what I’ve seen before, and knowing what has become of these people, it’s burned through the last spark of interest in me. I’d be glad to invite these people, as they once were, to be part of my empire but now… now I need to first discover what is left of them.

“I, ah, I think we’re getting close,” Adler says, bouncing off of the ground and flying up into the air. Gravity has been getting weaker the longer we travel, and now it’s so weak that we can almost float around as we please.

“Might be good to go find Gehnna,” I say. “If we’re getting close, I’d rather not have Unity try and pull us out of here like the last scrap in the bottom of the jar.”

“Not a nice image,” Eshya grumbles, stumbling a little as she adapts to the low gravity.

“Yet, I get the feeling that it does not do the situation justice,” I reply.

“If it’s like Bessy, it wouldn’t be so bad,” Vii says, tilting her head thoughtfully. “If it’s gooey, slimy, or ugly, I’m not sure I want to go through with this. If it’s sort of cute, then maybe I’ll consider it.”

“Cuteness is enough to make you join them?” Eshya laughs, partly to cover her own discomfort.

Vii, Eshya, and Alder seem determined to fill the silence that fills the walls of this city. The creepy calm, of something not yet dead, like a patient on life support kept around only because the family is struggling with the decision to pull the plug.

The only way to respond is to not respond at all, to look the other way and pretend not to see it. In some ways, it’s more frightening than the cosmic horror that I’ve been anticipating.

So, we can play pretend, and we laugh about stupid things while making inane comments about this and that, trying to bring some life into our surroundings, otherwise, the silence will consume us. Even if the laughter is forced, and the words coming out aren’t what we’re thinking, these lies are worth telling.

What’s the point of achieving endless victory against the chaotic forces of the universe, if you become something that’s not deserving of life? Something that cannot understand how precious life is?

We find Gehnna waiting at the portal that leads outwards into the rushing waters that presumedly exist beyond. I can see nothing past the stone that lines the hole into the abyss.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

Unity is out there, somewhere.

“We’re almost there,” Gehnna says, withholding the rest of what she wants to say. It’s something we’re all doing to a degree and the reason why is simple. We can’t find the right words to convey our feelings to one another, and in her case, there is nothing she can say to earn our trust.

The others slowly gather here with us, these slug people have been taken from their homes on this strange pilgrimage. They’re worried, but too nervous to even try running or hiding in this city. Not that it would work.

Gradually we start to slow, gravity affecting us less and less until we’re floating off of the ground like we’re in empty space. The slugs aren’t as affected by the weakening effects of gravity, their bodies clinging to whatever surface they sit their massive asses on.

“We’re here,” Gehnna says, staring into the light that cuts through the impossible darkness on the other side of the portal. “Don’t be afraid.”

“Has saying that ever worked?” I ask.

“I… no,” Gehnna admits. “Please follow me, and we’ll meet with Unity.”

She floats out through the portal, following a path that seems to guide her. Force magic, I believe. Much like my own but refined to a point where it can barely even be recognised as the same thing.

It’s all but a limb of its own, a part of the caster, moving and working to their will more precisely than my own hands react to my mind’s whims. I step into the arms of the beast below, letting it carry me after Gehnna. There is no water surrounding us anymore but a warm and flowery scent in the air, like a pleasant spring morning as winter’s frost melts away.

“So, Unity has taken the effort of using breath freshener before our first meeting. How charming,” I say, looking into the darkness.

I watch through not just my own eyes, but through all eyes that I have stolen from those around me, and yet I still find the darkness impenetrable apart from that one light ahead of us. A light that does not shed upon our surroundings, it’s ethereal and I can understand how someone with less understanding of the wider universe would be convinced that this is something truly divine.

“This is real, right?” I ask, trying to make sense out of the vaguely entwined darkness and light. I drift slowly into the domain of light, but I’m just as blind here as in the darkness. It doesn’t quite feel genuine. It’s like a dream but with a cheapness to it, a forged dreamscape.

Pushing my senses and enhanced mind to their limits, even slowing my perception of time, I try to pry at the edges of the lies. The way the light reflects off Gehnna’s face and body, the way the darkness somehow exists in parallel to the light without conflict.

The sounds, which are not simply hollow, but altered. Edited. Unnatural. Something has been carved out of the sounds around me, the sights completely covered by a fantasy of black and white.

The answer lies in the magic around us, magic that I can see with my own developed senses. It does not reach into my own mind, the first thing that I confirm. No, it’s altering the light, the sound, the smell of the world all around us, and I’d be surprised if it wasn’t doing even more than that.

I don’t have anything that would easily interfere with the magic without shattering it with my annihilation. Would that be a bad move, or would it be too dangerous?

“Gehnna,” I call out to the woman who stands before me, held in the same magical grip as myself. Her face is stiff but does little to disguise the difficult emotions that flood through her. Uncertainly conflicting with confidence. Sadness with satisfaction. She is a writhing ball of life, but also just a figment of a being far more complex.

“What is it?” She asks.

“There’s an illusion around us, I’d like to see beyond it, if that’s possible,” I request, keeping as polite as I can.

“That’s up to Unity,” she replies, waving her hand outwards towards our surroundings. “Ask, they will not be offended.”

“Unity, if you would do me the kindness of relaxing your illusions, it would be much appreciated,” I say, and instantly the magics around me begin to falter.

The light fades away, but the darkness stays true, then slowly from that darkness there are hints of something more. A sight that would haunt the dreams of most who look upon it…

Mucous shimmers iridescent in the faint light that shines from below. A yellowed glow born from a beating heart deep below us, there are layers upon layers of flesh between the pounding organ and ourselves, but the light within it is bright enough to shine through. It is like a kid shining a torch through their hand to make it glow red, but much, much, larger.

Limbs writhe along the walls of the fleshy stomach where we are currently held in suspension, and from them reflect the faint shine of ten thousand peering eyes. They do not blink, not one of them, not once. They gaze upon us with only faint interest, but that itself is a burden enough to crush a weak soul.

My skin crawls with the attention focused upon me.

“Me too,” Eshya waves her hand up. “I want to see it, too.”

“I’d like to see the real Unity,” Vii says, flapping her wings a little in her excitement. “What do you look like? What sort of body did you make for yourself?”

“Well, I’m not one to judge, but…” I say.

A wet bubbling escapes from the distant walls where the eyes watch us.

The sound of laughter.

“We are not much to look upon?” The being asks. “To us, it is you who look… uncomfortable, with your dry skin, and restrictive bones. So strange, so unusual. It is… unpleasant to look upon you.”

“Yet, isn’t it interesting?”

“Could we remake a body like this? Experience it ourselves?”

“Why? No, that would be too unpleasant.”

“Parts of us don’t mind it…”

“What parts? Should we excise them?”

“No, they are curious thoughts, not degenerate. They are not trouble.”

The ‘voices’ are layered over a thousand slithering limbs that brush over one another, with the moist snapping of mucous between them. Whispers, thousands of whispers, straying thoughts given voice by the one tremendous mind that exists on a scale beyond my understanding.

A dark god indeed.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

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)