CHAPTER 13: KENNY IS EVOLVING!

Karl and I were alone in an endless, pitch-black void where nothing happened and nothing ever changed. Karl guaranteed me that we were moving, but I had my doubts.

The only thing I had to do was stare at my new Role options.

A: Ancient’s Razor: All that is unclean within His sight shall be expunged.

B: Hexsoul Swordmaster: Your soul is marked, and your blade marks others in turn.

B: Recurring Deathblade: Death is a mere echo of life, and you herald its ring ever closer.

I had no clue what any of that meant. Luckily, I had a very close friend who knew… basically everything.

The letter to the left is the Role’s Grade. You did pretty well for your first evolution: exceptional stats, left your home planet, maxed out all of your Skills, and killed a lot of things for what’s intended to be a noncombat Roles. Plus, you did all of that in less than ten days. Because of this, it’s offering you some Roles you normally wouldn’t get offered to you until the second or third evolution.

“Okay, but what are these actually about?”

I can guess from the names, but you’d be better off just asking the System itself.

Alright. “What’s an Ancient’s Razor?”

Role Evolution: Ancient’s Razor

Description: You have bound yourself to a being older than planets, stars, galaxies, and perhaps even universes. Its desires, whether those be obvious or unclear, are yours to fulfill. Its wishes, your commands. Eliminate all that stands within your God’s way.

Main Skill Upgrade: Might of Eternal Worship

Secondary Skill Upgrade: Sacrificial Descent

Secondary Skill Choices: Venerate Through Blood, Sacrifice of Viscera

Passive Upgrade: Altar of Undying Reverence

Passive: Thine Favor

Nope. That is not happening.

I’d say I like this one, but it’s a bit… creepy. Even for me.

“Yeah, sorry, but I’m not taking this Role. Ever. I don’t even need to look into the Skills.”

Fair enough.

Role Evolution: Hexsoul Swordmaster

Description: Your soul is cursed in some irrevocable way, but rather than despair, you have found reason to rejoice. Your deep experience with curse and soul magics allow you to shave off pieces of your own hexed soul to inflict your own pain upon others.

Main Skill Upgrade: Curse of the Fleeing Spirit

Secondary Skill Upgrade: Anathemic Potency

Secondary Skill Choices: Soul Slicing Blade, Curse of Spiritual Failure

Passive Upgrade: Hexbloom Curse

Passive: Shared Agony

I grimaced at the Role option. It was a bit… Edgy.

At least read through its abilities before you dismiss it entirely.

“Fine, fine.”

Curse of the Fleeing Spirit (Lv. 1)

Enemies inflicted with this curse will have their resistance to Fear-inducing effects reduced by 10% per Skill level and will be inflicted with a minor Fear effect. Furthermore, after the death of the target, its spirit will continue to flee from you, spreading Fear to all creatures it passes by.

Anathemic Potency (Lv. 1)

You can transform that which burdens you into a powerful blessing. Gain a bonus 10% to all Attributes for each soul-altering effect placed on you. Afterwards, all Attributes are reduced by 100% minus 10% per Skill level.

Soul Slicing Blade (Lv. 1)

Channel your tainted Mana into your weapon, causing it to deal damage directly to an opponent’s soul, bypassing all physical and mental resistances to curses and other status effects. Additionally increase the range of each attack by 20% per Skill level.

Curse of Spiritual Failure (Lv. 1)

Enemies inflicted with this curse will have all of their Attributes reduced by 10%. This curse may stack a number of times equal to its level. Foes with 0 in all Attributes instantly die.

Hexbloom Curse (Passive)

Enemies you slay leave a sliver of their souls behind within their body, blossoming into Hexbloom flowers. While near these flowers, your Skills act as though they were one level higher, and your enemies lose 50% of their resistance to Curse effects.

Shared Agony (Passive)

Enemies inflicted with curses from Skills you own are dealt 10% of the damage you receive as direct soul damage.

“Y’know, maybe I spoke too harshly about this one. It’s… strong.”

I do not like being referred to as a curse, and it does not appear to have any features that would allow me to aid you. I do not know if our Connection is powerful enough to allow us to communicate freely without having another mindmeld incident.

“That’s true, if a bit unfortunate.” I gazed at the Role with an amount of longing. While it lacked a lot of the scaling and buffs that my current Role granted me, it had high amounts of synergy with itself and just seemed strong.

“Alright, let’s check out the last one, I guess.” Knowing that it would probably be the best choice before even seeing it left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth.

Role Evolution: Recurring Deathblade

Description: Your attacks slice between the boundaries of life and death, each half echoing within the other. Your gaze has witnessed the end of all things, but your blade refuses to forget. Each strike carries the weight of the strike before it, dividing all things equally.

Main Skill Upgrade: Blade of the Death Knell

Secondary Skill Upgrade: Undying Infusion

Secondary Skill Choices: Wake the Dead, Echoing Parry

Passive Upgrade: Field of Death

Passive: Eternally Echoing

I quickly pulled up the Skill options.

Blade of the Death Knell (Lv. 1)

Your attacks carry with them the ultimate reminder of death. With each fatal swing of your blade, the bell tolls, carrying with it necrotic damage that spreads to all enemies that can hear it, dealing 10% of the original strike’s damage per level and inflicting a moderate Fear effect.

Undying Infusion (Lv. 1)

You have claimed many souls, a number of them ancient and powerful in equal measure. You may lay claim to their power, binding them to your weapons, armor, or even self. Any target may only have a single infused soul at a time, and gains 10% of the soul’s Attributes per Skill level, as well as certain aspects of their nature. The Deathblade’s infused soul grows with them, though souls infused into items do not.

Wake the Dead (Lv. 1)

Create a ringing echo which causes all nearby souls capable of hearing the sound to return to their bodies and continue on in a facsimile of life until the sound can no longer be heard. The echo lasts 25% longer per Skill level.

Echoing Parry (Lv. 1)

When you block an attack, you may cause your blade to echo that strike. Echoed attacks lose all momentum and have 10% of their previous momentum reversed per level. This also works on spells.

Field of Death (Passive)

When standing within a short radius of a recently dead body, you may cause them to rapidly decay and sink into the earth. Enemies standing atop soil altered in this way receive doubled necrotic damage, and allies standing atop it receive none.

Eternally Echoing (Passive)

You claim the souls of those you kill and may sever their lingering bonds to this life to fuel Skills instead of paying their Mana costs yourself.

“Y’know, this one also seems a bit edgy, but at least it’s got the stuff we’re looking for, right?”

It appears very death knight, which is getting a bit close to necromancy. We’ll have to carefully aim our Skill Upgrades away from this point from now on.

“Fair enough. I can live with that if it means keeping you with me.”

I’m touched.

“Hi touched, I’m dad.”

And now you’ve ruined it.

“That’s sort of my role in this relationship, if you hadn’t noticed.” I grinned and selected the Recurring Deathblade.

“Alright Karl, what are we thinking with these Secondary Skills?”

Steer away from the obvious necromancy as much as possible.

“Understood. I’m picking Echoing Parry, then.”

Name: Kenny Bert

Race: Human (Earth)

Role: Recurring Deathblade

Strength: 5

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Mana: 27 +9 Pending

Dexterity: 5

Mana Regen: 22

Connection: 9 (Karl)

Passives: Human Versatility, Field of Death, Eternally Echoing

Skills: Blade of the Death Knell (Lv. 1), Undying Infusion (Lv. 1), Echoing Parry (Lv. 1)

Quests: Reintegration (10%)

I had a little headache and then… gone.

“Yo Karl, you still there?”

Silence.

“Guess not, then. Let’s try to see how this Undying Infusion works…”

I thought about Karl as hard as I could, then tried… targeting myself.

Didn’t work.

Then I had another idea, pulled out a katar, and stabbed myself.

It. Hurt.

Between my barrier and massively inflated stats, I hadn’t gotten seriously hurt in a while. Now, though, without all those buffs backing me up?

I felt vulnerable.

I focused on the incision as hard as I could and willed Karl to merge with my body. I pulled on our Connection as hard as I could, but for a long moment, there was nothing. Then a rush of power flooded into me.

Undying Infusion (Lv. 1) → (Lv. 2)

+1 Mana Regen

+1 Attribute Point

Miss me?

I blinked away the tears in my eyes. “These are from the cut. I doubt anyone would cry from not having to deal with you anymore.”

The dragon snickered. After all that work getting your old, piddly Eidolon Embrace Skill up to level ten, now you’re stuck back at only getting ten percent of my glorious Attributes.

I rolled my eyes. “They’re not that glorious. Also, little point of panic here, apparently it’s day ten of Earth’s reintegration and we still haven’t arrived at our destination. I know it was late in the day when we left, but that still feels a bit fast.”

Your people have discovered relativity, haven’t you?

“...How fast are we moving again?”

In which dimension?

“I dunno, all of them? I mean, there’s only three to choose from, right?”

…

“Right?”

…

“We’re not going in any direction I’d have a name for, are we?”

Nope. Technically, we’re not going that fast, we’re just going in a direction that will lead outside of your realm much faster than lightspeed would in your standard three dimensions.

“Wonderful. Wait, are you a fourth dimensional being? Like, capable of moving in these directions on your own?”

There are no such creatures. The fourth dimension is accessible only by advanced magical craft that can simultaneously move nowhere and everywhere at the same time.

“I have no idea what that means.”

I didn’t expect you to.

“Hmph. I’m putting my point into Dexterity. Sounds good to you?”

Go ahead.

The point went through like normal.

“Why doesn’t the System give me my nine Mana while I’m waiting in here?”

Diverting extra Mana through a four dimensional space isn’t practical, it likely just sent along enough to make sure your Role selection went through properly.

“Huh. This is kind of giving me sci-fi vibes now, with the 4D Interstellar stuff.”

I have not seen that movie and likely never will.

“Nahhh, we’re totally gonna get you to see Interstellar. You won’t regret it. After the whole Reintegration dealio is dealt with, we’ll make it happen. At least, as long as it still exists. I’m not sure where they store those, is it satellites? Or is it data servers?” I tapped my chin.

It doesn’t matter where it’s stored, it’s going to be destroyed.

“You’re such a Debbie Downer, this is why I don’t ever invite you anywhere.”

I go literally everywhere with you.

“Yeah, uninvited, you stalker! I should get a restraining order.”

Again I say, no one would ever believe you.

“My other personality would! Heck, he’s a dragon, he’d totally rip you to pieces!”

…That is just me.

“Oh, right. Nevermind that, then. When are we gonna be let out of here?”

Sometimes, life has a way of making things funny, like by providing us with accidental perfect timing, an instant ask and ye shall receive, only given to extra good boys and girls who Lady Fortuna smiled upon. Unfortunately, I was not one of those people, and this was not one of those times.

By the time Karl and I arrived on the planet we’d fought so hard to reach, the Reintegration quest had reached 12%.

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“GRASS, oh my precious beautiful gorgeous grass, I never want to leave you ever again!” I fell facefirst into nature’s green carpet and rubbed my face all over it.

I have seen you intentionally avoid touching grass for several days longer than we were in that shuttle.

“Hey, you didn’t see that, I saw that and you watched it through my memories! Wait, no, that still means you saw it. But you don’t have to hold something I did when I was fourteen against me, I’ve changed since then, matured.” I crossed my arms indignantly.

I truly do not think you have.

I grinned. “You’re totally right, growing up is for losers.” I hopped up to my feet and gazed out into the horizon, looking for any landmarks or disturbances that would tell me that there were people here.

Nothing.

“Any clues on how we could find civilization, Bluey?”

What are you referencing?

“No clue, honestly. I didn’t really watch TV growing up, but practically everyone else in my generation did so I’m the only one who has no idea who Bluey is or why he has clues.”

I think you talk too much.

“I think you take yourself too seriously. Also, duck.”

What?

“Duck,” I repeated, pointing my finger out into the distance. “Big duck, actually. Wanna go check it out?”

You’re going to go over there whether I want you to or not, so sure.

“Epic, I’m glad we’re both on the same page. Let’s go see if he wants any grapes.”

…Why do I put up with you, again?

“Honestly? No clue.”

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Just a quick sprint absolutely gassed me. I wasn’t used to having such low Attributes– now I had to live like the pleb I’d been before the world started ending. Kind of funny how the collapse of society improved my life more than it detrimented it. Life had been easy (except for the few times I almost dropkicked the bucket with my forehead), I got a couple new hobbies (letting my hypothetical fire-breathing attack lizard kill monsters and stealing from grocery stores), and even met a cute girl (who I was not romantically attracted to).

Things wouldn’t be so easy here, I suspected.

Part of the reason for that was that the literal first living thing I saw when entering the world was a kaiju-sized duck.

The even crazier part? It was domesticated.

Why domesticate a giant duck, you might ask? Why, to pull your giant mobile castle, of course.

What.

Luckily, the duck didn’t seem to be particularly hostile. Sure, it felt like the ground was shaking when we passed by it, but it didn’t try to step on us intentionally, at least.

Once I got close enough, I started shouting and waving my arms, trying to get someone’s attention.

Luckily, the castle pulled over their mobile castle nearby when they noticed my presence.

A number of crossbows were promptly aimed at my face from guards up on the castle’s ramparts..

Someone shouted something, but they were too far away for me to hear them, so I tried to step in closer, only to have a crossbow bolt impact the ground a few inches from my foot.

I glared up at them and crossed my arms, just kind of waiting for them to realize that I couldn’t tell what they were saying.

They shouted down twice more, then shot another crossbow at me, so I opened my mouth wide and yelled back, “I! CAN’T! HEAR! YOU!”

They just sort of stood there for a second, then started scrambling.

A small squadron of armored me soon approached me at high speed. Once they were finally at a reasonable distance, one of them at the front called out, “Who dares approach the Royal Fortress?? We demand identification at once!”

“Uh, Karl? I could use some help here. What do I say?”

I got the impression of a mental shrug. Most realms are friendly to ascenders, but most realms don’t have giant ducks tugging castles on wheels. This place is almost as out of whack as you are.

With nothing else to say, I just spat out, “Hi there, I’m Kenny, I just got here!”

The guards folded in to discuss something, then turned back to me. “We have not heard this name before! Whermst?”

I froze. “Karl,” I muttered, “I’ve heard that word before but only in memes. What does it actually mean?”

Whermst is a combination of what, where, why, and who. Basically, they’re asking what’s happening, where you came from, why you’re here, and who you are. Probably. It could also mean something completely different here, Karl the Helpful answered.

“Thanks,” I muttered, before continuing out loud, “I just arrived here from another planet, it’s called Earth, I’m here because my planet is in danger and I need to gather the power to defend it, and my name is Kenny Bert.”

The guards huddled in close like a football team again, then the tallest among them turned and spoke directly to me, “We will permit you entry to the Royal Fortress so you can meet our Lord, but you will need to put any weapons from your person into our custody and prepare an offering for our Lord!”

“Uh, sure, but what kind of offering? And I will be getting my stuff back, right?” This was getting stranger by the second.

“The Lord will judge you based on the quality of your offering! And yes.”

I shrugged and started approaching them. “Good enough for me.”

I followed them back to their castle on wheels and the duck started walking again. Part of me wondered how they could keep such a large creature under control, but the answer was probably just “magic” so I didn’t bother asking.

Giving up my weapons was a bit annoying. I ended up just handing my packs over to the guards so I didn’t need to dig through everything.

Before I did, though…

“Hey, what sort of food do you guys eat here?” If my knowledge of history matched up with this place, then I might just have the perfect offering.

“Only the finest pottage, of course, and on occasion some truly fine gruel!”

I grinned like a madman and started pulling MREs from my pack.

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Apparently part of meeting with the “Lord” was waiting for two hours in a poorly-furnished waiting room while everyone else just breezed straight through like the room didn’t even exist.

I’d almost convinced myself it wasn’t worth it and I could just leave, in spite of Karl’s protestations, when a tubby man dressed in a red tunic that seemed far finer than what I’d seen other people wearing marched straight up to me, looked me up and down, sneered, and gestured to have me follow him.

Not wanting to wait any longer, I did as he’d motioned and carried after him.

Finally, I’d made it into the throne room. The walls were littered with golden inlay and murals, eight pillars made of glass lined the main walkway, the throne was made of pure silver, and atop it sat…

Another duck.

What the–

“Presenting his Royal Highness, Lord Donald Waddlington the Third!” The man who’d led me into the room announced, bowing deeply.

Following his lead, I dipped low, trying to smoothen out my shocked face while no one could see it.

What was going on here??

“Quack,” the sound was deep and oddly… graceful? For a duck, at least.

“Yes, your majesty,” the rotund man spoke earnestly, turning back to look at me. “Please, present your offering to our Lord.”

Still reeling, I slowly approached the literal duck and set three MREs before his throne.

“What are these,” the man questioned with a doubtful look.

“They’re, uhh–” I paused for a second to gather my thoughts, “Meals Ready to Eat. They have instructions and labels on how to eat them. Where I’m from, they’re given to soldiers– not because they don’t taste good or they’re cheap,” I elaborated at the man’s unhappy look, “Just because they contain a lot of… energy and last for a really long time.”

The man bent over and lifted one of the MREs, lifting it up to his nose and sniffing it while the duck… king?? Watched on.

“Show me how to eat this,” the man demanded.

Shrugging, I tore off the top, sat down on the floor, and did my best not to look at the duck.

I pulled out each part of the MRE, explaining them in turn.

“This is a pouch for water, it makes it taste better and adds some more good stuff… This is a heating pack, you’re meant to… here,” I unwrapped the plastic bag as well as the meal box and set it all together. “If you add water to this, just up to the line here, it’ll heat up and cook itself, you just need to give it a bit of time.”

“This is, uh…” I looked at the duck, then quickly averted my gaze. “This is peanut butter? I apologize, I would not recommend feeding this to the d– the Lord,” I took a deep breath. “Probably keep this as a reward for servants, or something?”

The red-tunicked man squinted at me, as though trying to discern some evil intent where there was none. He took the peanut butter and slipped it into his back pocket.

Well, I hope that means I won’t be accidentally poisoning this place’s ruler. I distinctly recalled visiting a duck pond with my mom and trying to feed them some of my peanut butter jelly sandwich. My mom had freaked out a little bit– not enough to scare me or anything, but enough to make sure I remembered not to feed ducks peanut butter.

The next piece was… oh.

“And this is a tortilla!” The duck’s eyes seemed to bulge. “Trust me on this, he’s gonna love these.”

The duck’s servant tore a tiny piece off the tortilla and ate it, presumably to test it for poison, and the duck lord immediately quacked at him in anger.

The servant gave a deep bow, then carefully tore off a chunk of the tortilla and gently held it out to the duck, who snapped it up in an instant.

The duck’s eyes opened wider, then wider, and wider.

He quacked at the servant, who continued to feed the duck lord more and more snips of tortilla. Once the entire thing had vanished, the servant turned back to me. “He says… you are worthy.” He looked incredibly conflicted.

“Thank you?” I had no idea what that meant, but I assumed it was a good thing?

He huffed in annoyance. “That means that you may search the treasury for an item of your choice.”

I blinked. “...What if I don’t have an item in mind?”

“Just–” the big guy huffed, “Just go grab something. Doesn’t matter what it is. Give this to the guards, they’ll know where to bring you.” He handed over a gold coin with a webbed foot on it.

I slowly turned and walked out of the throne room. Nobody said anything at all to me. The fat guy cracked open another MRE and whipped out a tortilla, much to the excitement of the small, royal duck.

The guards were waiting for me just outside, and they absolutely freaked out when they saw the coin. They were too quiet for me to listen in, but it was clearly a big deal.

One of the guards bowed to me and gestured to his side. “We will guide you to your destination, Honored Bert.”

“...Please don’t call me that ever again. I am Kenny.” I gave him a strange look. Seriously, who calls someone Honored Bert??

I’ll help you find a valuable item, don’t worry.

Okay, thanks, I’d have absolutely no clue what to get in there.

I doubt they have anything good anyway.

Maybe not by your standards, but for me? I dunno, I need things, man.

Perhaps.

The guards inserted keys into four separate slots of the vault door, then turned them all at once and inserted the gold coin into the center, where it dropped through. The door slowly creaked open and revealed…

I was wrong, Kenny. This was absolutely worth the absurdity.

I walked into the vault, eying several marble stands arranged in a circle.

On the first was a bag. On the second, a helmet. On the third, a knife. The fourth, a… chair? The fifth was a bag of perfectly normal bread. On the sixth and final pillar, however, was a…

What’s that, Karl? Why does it look familiar?

The dragon didn’t answer for a long, long moment, seeming completely entranced by the object on the pedestal.

That, my young friend? That is a dragon egg.