Our people succeeded where other species died out, it was not because we were the strongest, though we were strong, and it was not because we were the smartest, because we were not. We acted together for our community, that’s what gave us the edge over others.

Our greatest warriors went to battle after a good night’s rest, our smartest minds weren’t distracted by thoughts of battle, and everyone could focus on mastering their own Skills and abilities. That specialisation gave us an edge over the beasts that mostly survived alone, and we quickly expanded out through the world, building new colonies.

We thought ourselves the apex of life here, and we dreamed of reaching out into the stars and spreading the light of civilisation beyond our own world. We were ignorant; we were arrogant. We wasted mana, energy, and labour on luxuries, where they should have been spent on strengthening us for the battles to come.

The luxuries were nice.

That one movie changed my life.

I had my first kiss to that song that Unity would never make.

We are who we are because of that indulgence, but the world does not appreciate our waste. We were kids living like kings on borrowed money, and the loansharks soon came for us.

At first, it was just a few missing people here and there, we thought nothing of it, but the numbers grew.

I know this story, the beast beat your civilisation.

We all know this story, but can you feel it?

The deep despair as entire cities go quiet, one after another. We didn’t even know what had taken them, they were just… gone. We sent out warriors, but they were lost just the same. Cameras stolen from film sets were rigged together into probes, and we finally learned of the beast.

It was nothing special.

A fish.

It was just a fish, swimming in the ocean. Yet, it was powerful. Our weapons bounced off its scales, our warriors were slain by the ripples of its passing.

It concentrated its mana into the stage that lies beyond crystallisation. We now know that it was eating us to prepare itself to consume vortex at the core of our world.

We were the entrée.

Then you became Unity.

We became Unity.

There was no other way to survive the beast, no other way to fight off the others that are out there beyond us. We’re watching them approach our home even now, their maddened eyes shining with the light of our star.

1289 years until the first arrives, our eyes turn to it. A dark mass that reflects the light in strange ways, it is larger than a planet but it is alive, and it is hungry.

We must be strong enough to face it by the time it comes, or we must be fast enough to escape it.

So, you became a beast yourself, to fight the beasts?

We are not a beast.

We are rather charming in appearance. Our mucous is the most perfect blend of scent, taste, aroma, and shimmer, our limbs are discreetly folded away when not in need, and our sleek form can wobble in the noblest of dances.

We merged our strength to battle the beasts, and we are doing so even now. This entire universe is nothing more than an eating competition, the winner is the person, or thing, that eats everything else. Winning grants us a life free of the competition, to create what we please from the pieces we gathered.

We cannot stop this game. We must play, but we will play it on our terms, and we will win.

A reasonable response to an unreasonable universe. Nature truly is more vicious when mana and magic get involved.

Yet, you are not merging. The identity attached to the thoughts has stretched our mind further still, to the point where it’s cutting us off from it. We cannot reach its memories the way we can our own, it is no longer us…

And I am no longer just a figment of Unity’s imagination.

I’m still struggling to retain this separation from Unity. The thing naturally wants to assume control over me, and while it feels like holding back a tide with my bare hands, I manage.

“I promised them that I’d make it back,” I say, not sure if there’s any flesh responding to my voice, but I press on. I must return, and for that, I must be myself.

You would choose selfishness.

The claim doesn’t come from a position of disgust or hate but shame and pity. This creature has given its everything for the task of protecting the memories of the people who made it. Everyone who gave up their lives to become a part of Unity did so to be remembered eternally while selflessly giving up everything else they had. They thought of it as a sacrifice for the greater good. Thus, Unity sees itself as a sacrifice that must protect that greater good.

It must live to protect the people who died to build it. That is its goal, which is why the thing is so goddamn melancholic. The ancient city it keeps as a bauble, the shame and disgust it feels when considering doing something for fun, or entertainment.

A civilisation came together to build a sacrifice that would keep their memories alive, and now that’s all it can ever be.

We cannot be one?

It doesn’t understand why I can’t join it. When I joined minds with it, it didn’t look into everything inside my head. It was never meant to.

It only takes what it feels it must, otherwise it shelves the unwanted pieces, saving them for a dream of a day beyond our cruel reality. When all the warring is done and life can be what we want it to be.

The pitiful state of this amalgamation of the people’s hope and despair turns my stomach in disgust.

I look towards my lovers. They’re the reason why I waste time on silly things, the reason why I can be more than a warlord struggling to build a civilisation worth killing for.

You are wasteful. Unity accuses me, rifling around in the few memories that I haven’t withheld from it. You kill and fight wastefully.

“You want to eat the universe peacefully?”

Fighting weakens all those involved, such that scavengers can take them and what they were fighting over. Strength must be hoarded, kept as a threat and tended to carefully, used only when there is no better choice left. It is better to grow without waste and limit risks taken. Offer people a chance of survival, and they will give all they have without violence wasting our energy.

Not everyone will bend to threats.

No, but that is why strength must be reserved and sharpened to be used judiciously against those few who cannot be intimidated or bargained with.

We want what you have, but we will wait for you to realize the future as we see it. You will offer yourself in time.

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

“I’m not ignorant of the state of the universe. I’m defiant,” I reply, “Why is everyone so convinced that I’ll give up?”

Because you care. Those who care will wish to save the ones they love, and will eventually see that their own strength is not enough.

“Then I’ll go and eat a world of my own,” I reply. “I’ll eat half the damn universe if I have to.”

You aren’t special.

Others think and feel the same.

Only the most foolish of children think themselves invincible.

You will grow, you will learn, and you will surrender.

“Believe what you will, I’m leaving now. Don’t touch my lovers. Don’t touch my people. We’re done.”

Wait, first...

The core, you must be curious.

Yes, even if unlikely, another light in the ocean is welcome. You must grow so that we may bargain again in the future.

Another chance at an intelligent being rising to victory in this eating contest. It must be encouraged.

You must feel what it is that you will become.

You must be ready.

Unity draws me in once more, the boundaries between ‘I’ and ‘we’ shifting and blurring until...

We hover around the core of the world, swirling energies spawning from nothingness and summoning great spinning stones, and dark currents of shadow water. The vortex is feeding this world, growing it day by day.

The mana we hold in ourselves is a fraction of the power we are trying to obtain. The crystallised mana that we weaved into our flesh was further condensed until, under the intense pressure, something inside it changed. Now it flows like a liquid once more, but with such tumultuous pressure that it can carve worlds in two with ease.

Yet even this power is little considering the challenge set out before us, absorbing the vortex, the chaotic fury of creation itself. We are nothing before this small shard of creation that has slipped through into our reality.

To claim this power, our domain must be layered over it. We must contain it and let the world know that it is part of us. When we gain the power of creation we will renew mana within ourselves without needing to absorb it from the environment or our meals.

We already surround it, our semi-liquid body forming a sphere around the shard of creation, but we cannot claim our domain over it. We must close in, but the violent tides of mana surging out at us lash at our flesh and suppress us. We’ve been observing, responding, and learning how to squeeze closer through the brutal onslaught of power.

If we close in on it as we are, there is a chance to succeed, at great cost, but slower is better. More than just reserving our strength, we’re learning how to safely and effectively consume these shards for our future efforts.

We must consume the other shards in this solar system and prepare for the arrival of the beasts coming for us. If they are not willing to leave, then we must fight them. For that, we must prepare as much strength as can be spared.

Then, like those very monsters, we will cross the stars gathering what resources we can find and incorporating the civilisations that we cross. We will survive no matter what happens to us.

Again, the thought process pulls itself in a separate direction becoming its own personality and mind and…

I see what they’re struggling with. They’re leagues beyond my current power, but I make up the difference in no time, especially with the bounty of knowledge I’ve stolen from them. I need to burn through my mana and adapt my body entirely for the full crystallisation of my mana form. Then I need to develop more complex mana crystal structures until condensing further.

More than just the theory, Unity has shown me the feel of it. The intuitive experience of controlling the dense mana through my flesh, I store that information away into the support device still attached to my human flesh. Of all the things I’ve experienced as part of Unity, this is one of the most valuable.

The Skills available however are… overwhelming and largely useless. I’ll have to learn the limits of my support device because I’m sure that I’m nearing the limit now that I’ve forced this much into it.

Should we let her leave now?

She is powerful.

We would be powerful.

She would cost us too much. She will not integrate.

“No, I won’t.”

We can integrate the others, the ones she is attached to.

Perhaps…

She will run, and be taken by another hungering beast.

I pull a little mana out from the rapid flows inside Unity, and I attach to it the intention of annihilation. The destruction that directly counters creation. I let it burst inside their body, burning through their flesh and leaving only dead ash to fill the hole formed.

It is dangerous and costly, it is too much risk.

We can force her.

We should not.

It’s too much risk.

Much too much risk.

We will let her go, she will return. She will see the same despair and will come back.

We will let go.

“Good,” I say, focusing on my own body again and trying to direct some healing magic into it. Separate from Unity, I can’t use the magic that should be at my… our disposal…

I cut myself away again, but Unity hears my request.

Become a part of us again someday, when you are lost, when you are weak, when you find your path at an end. We will carry the burden of survival, as we were made to do.

We will live on.

Survive.

Remember what we once were.

Protect cherished memories.

Remember what was.

We will not forget our responsibility.

“See you someday,” I say, as they restore my brain from the goo that they made of it. “Don’t touch my lovers. Actually, don’t touch anything that’s mine.”

We will not.

We will leave you.

Too costly, too expensive, too difficult.

Too much risk.

My consciousness is swiftly forced back into the reformed body of mine, and I’m kicked out of the council of one.

The writhing mucous-coated flesh of Unity pulls away from me, and I breath the freshly scented air that fills the small antechamber that Unity prepared for us before we arrived. This massive expanse is just a small bubble inside of the titan’s body, whose greater form is surrounding the core of the world, the shard of creation.

“Kyra! Are you okay?” Vii asks, tackling me and propping us up with a small gust of wind.

“I thought you were already confident in my success?” I ask.

“Well yeah, but you can still get hurt. Are you hurt?” She asks, looking me over, but there’s not even a speck of slime on me after Unity was done putting me back together again. “You look like you’re alright, but you aren’t broken in the head or anything?”

“It’s okay, I’m as broken as I was before. Unity didn’t fix anything it wasn’t meant to,” I reply.

“Good, I’d get lonely if you suddenly became sane,” Eshya laughs, patting my shoulder.

“What was it like?” Adler asks.

“It was… I think I pity it more than anything,” I say staring at the walls writhing with whispered thoughts. “I don’t want to live like that.”

“Then can we try this matrix idea instead?”

“We can work towards it, I suppose,” I say, stretching as Unity takes in another villager. “How many decades are you willing to put into the project?”

“I’ll put centuries into this if we can produce a reliable means of saving people,” she says. “I was thinking it through a little more, and I realized that we could capture the minds of the beasts that we have to kill and save them in this manufactured world. It would be an ideal solution, wouldn’t it?”

“Maybe…” I say, looking into her tearful eyes. She was worried, but I don’t think she can find the words to say it. I squeeze her close and take a moment to let myself fully settle my new experiences.

Unity, the dark god, the beasts that roam the emptiness of space hungering for meals, the universe as an eating competition where the competitors are on the table, all of it would make for a good cosmic horror story, in theory. The problem is that cosmic horror is only scary because it’s something beyond understanding. The truth here is only as complex as we make it out to be.

Everything wants to live, everything wants to eat, but no one wants to be eaten. We are all merely struggling, until the day we eventually lose. The dark gods and the unknowable beasts are just a little bit bigger than the rest of us.

“There’s just one problem…” I say, realising the path ahead and seeing it much clearer than before. “Do I have to get this big and ugly if I want to absorb mana vortexes? I mean those things are massive, I’m not getting my jaws around that.”

The walls bubble in amusement and whisper a few half-hearted complaints, Unity still somehow thinks of itself as handsome.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

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)