Optional Music to Accompany the Chapter:
Witch
https://youtu.be/IesPXHDR1t4
Early Evening - Early Summer : Year 0 | Month 0 : Sector J14
World: Leviathan | Rank: ERROR | Population: 23
-----
-She's.. alive? No wonder she felt so odd...- Feeling the faint flickers of life at my fingertips, my mind started racing.
Like the spark beneath a campfire in frigid wilderness, it felt almost fleeting—a flicker of warmth even the slightest ripple of air could extinguish.
But just the same, with even the smallest kindling, that spark would grow.
And it didn't take long for me to get ideas.
Having been running through worlds in the System for so many years, there wasn't much I hadn't seen, and the metal fur ball before me wasn't exactly any different.
Referred to as 'living robotics' within the confines of the system, they were robots granted a certain level free will via circumstances I.. frankly didn't understand. Even to the limited understanding by some of the smartest people I had met over the years, they were simply known as robots with souls.
But despite their anomalous nature, neither they, nor their forming, were too terribly uncommon. Any robot with a mana core could become a living robotic at any time, and despite my army of nearly eighty thousand drones only having a handful of them initially, just prior to the wipe, nearly eighty percent were possessed.
But, unfortunately, despite the ominous name, they typically weren't much more useful than normal robots. Regardless of their new-found 'free will', they couldn't actually do anything outside of their programmed capability. Acting much like a brain, if the robot didn't have an action programmed, it simply didn't know it existed.
However, not only did Bella seem to be far less linearly programmed, one of the few benefits of living robotics was that, given the right conditions, they didn't need to be recharged or powered.
Issue was, my best guess at what those conditions were, was exactly that...
Shots in the dark guided by patterns and correlations...
But I wasn't unwilling to experiment. -Regardless of what the key is.. I'm going to need a monster...-
Opening my system with casual swipe, I jumped to the world map, quickly finding and zooming into my tile to search for anything around the massive, white, lump-like dot I could only assume was me.
But it was to no avail.
So, slowly but surely, I widened my search... Until finally, I found something...
But.. I didn't find it on the map. -Huh?- Snapping my eyes to the horizon over my shoulder, I felt something... The image of a vast hemisphere the energy exuding from my body painted in my mind deformed—only slightly, but noticeably—and with some sense other than the five I was used to, it felt like something brushed against me. -What was that..?-
Giving Bella a momentary glance to make sure her presence was still there, I quickly stood up, running across the dusty tiles of the suite before hopping down and buckling my knees.
*fwip-BANG-WOOOOSH* The sound barrier snapped in an instant—a plume of dust and shredded grass blowing out beneath my wake as I zipped across the prairie in a blur.
Almost instantly I could feel the static, hemispheric image in my mind moving, and after just a moment, the deformation I initially noticed returned.
It was the presence of a monster.
-How did I not see it on the map..?- Quickly opening it again, I zoomed in on myself, looking near the edge of the now-moving fuzzy white mass, only to find a small, uncolored bump exactly where I felt the presence. -What..?-
Unlike me or the wyvern, the lump had no color, and was so small I thought it was just a hill...
But sure enough, as I felt it move against the image in my mind, it moved on the map. -Interesting... Does this map not highlight normal monsters..?-
Maintaining pace as my mind wandered, my white dot on the map consumed the bump like a tsunami passing over a rock, and despite the creatures efforts to run, I closed the distance.
Until finally, I caught up.
Seeing distant, rising cloud of dust cresting the horizon, my pupils tightened—my vision sharpening—until finally, I spotted it.
Amidst the large cloud, sprinting away as fast as it could, I found a white wooled, cattle-like creature with reptilian paws and two huge blue horns standing almost eighty meters tall.
With green stains around its lips, it had clearly been grazing on the grass, but despite also looking like a herbivore, as I ran up beside it, a snarl of sharp teeth greeted me. -Hm... I suppose you'll do.-
Unfortunately for it, despite its adrenaline pouring strength into its hulking body, mass could only be thrown around so fast.
*Woosh* Watching it swing its head to throw its building-sized horns at me, I vanished, closing the distance between us faster than its mind could follow, vanishing into its ear, and throwing my knuckles into the bone plate of its ear drum. *Snap*
Before a nerve could even report that I had moved.. splinters of bone bored holes through its brain, and like flipping a light switch, the hulking mass of bone, flesh, and wool went limp... *WHAAAAAM-CRUMBLEEE*
It was an instantaneous death.
*TUFF-WOOSH* Getting thrown around its ear canal as its lifeless body rolled across the ground, hitching as its horns dug into the ground and slowing to a halt, the system's routine chirp finally sounded.
*Beep* "You have killed a level..." But unlike usual, instead of detailing the gold, experience, and items it dropped, it supplied me with a number of distorted, unreadable metrics.
Metrics that, while intriguing, I swiped away in a heartbeat, reserving the time for thought until after I got out of the creatures ear. *WOOSH-Pat*
And sure enough, it was just in time. *SPLAT-SPLASH* Flattening the cloud of dust I kicked up with my landing, a chunky crimson waterfall poured out right after me. -Shit, I might need some of that...-
Darting over to the horn propping its head up, I gave it a sturdy kick, carving out a section of earth before letting its head fall to the ground. *Woo-SLAM*
-Alright.. now I need to be quick if I want to be consistent...- Looking back in Bella's direction, I disappeared with another puff of dust. *WOOSH*
Over the years, I had recognized a pattern in the creation of not just living robotics, but those that developed control over flesh. -They were only ever close range units that were already possessed...- And while I hadn't ever thought much of it till now, the only thing that differentiated them from the rest of the combat units was their exposure to, not fighting, but gore.
Over time, blood and flesh from battles would seep through cracks and infest joints, and, while I never connected the dots before, if they were already possessed and weren't cleaned adequately, they had a chance of morphing the organic matter into their own, eventually letting them forego the need for recharging.
But I wasn't exactly convinced it was that easy.
And sure enough, it wasn't.
After grabbing Bella from the wreckage and bringing her back to the bison, experiments began.
Starting with just the presence of more mana, I made a sword-like knife out of a piece of the monster's horn and carved the melon-sized mana core out of its chest. After a several hours of no progress, I then started adding in flesh, the mushy mix of blood and brain matter, and did everything I could to try and Frankenstein Bella back to life.
But days passed, and nothing came of it...
Growing worried the initial matter I poured on her like a cave man would begin corroding the metal exoskeleton beneath her fur, over the next few days I started getting more and more aggressive with experiments, taking sections from different organs in hopes one of them would catch on.
But nothing ever worked.
I tried different monsters, different quantities, and different ratios, all to no avail.
Something was still missing...
But those days were far from a waste... -Maybe.. I just send it...-
Having had a few days to think back on the final moments before I lost consciousness, I had a realization a part of me wish I hadn't.
Mana wasn't simply a tool—something I needed to learn to make use of in order to grow stronger...
It was the very source of every drop of strength my body had ever known.. every hardening of bone, and reinforcement of muscle, not just before the system wipe, but after.
The system didn't grant me strength out of nowhere, from within its mysterious self, it controlled my mana to make use of upgrades and skills... And XP was the metric it used to grant me with it.
I had just never realized it until the system lost custody of it.
The rapid healing I had never seen following my body's liquification.. the sudden burst of strength I'm not sure my prime could rival...
Mana was the key to it all.
It wasn't fuel for power.. it was fuel for life.
Looking over at the melon-sized mana core from the bull I had laid next to Bella for her to absorb, my chest tightened.
What if I did to her what that god did to me..?
What if I gave her the fuel she needed to overcome the need to control it..?
To find life in death.
*Pat...Wowwoomm* Picking it up, the idle hum from it compounded—the mana exuding from my hand pressing into and eroding more of its crystalline shell with every passing moment.
But, it's rigidity no longer mattered.
The core was dark, almost black, and within it, there was the culmination of centuries of absorption.
Even if what I was about to do didn't work, I had made discoveries and realizations that ignited another ember in my mind, desire to get off this world and return to Earth—to climb the mountain of power once again and smash through the walls of the maze that had trapped me for so long.
But at the same time, my mind, given the sight and recollection of companionship after the wipe, didn't wish for solitude as I once had.
A part of me wanted another set of eyes, perhaps not for guidance, but for ideas.
"Little wandering soul... I'm going to give you a chance at life..." Gently tossing the core in the air, I pulled my fist back. "Make the most of it." *fwip-fwi-WHAMM* My knuckles shattered the crystal shell instantly, but before they could break through the surface, the back of the core ruptured, and with it, a tsunami of mana burst forth like the blast of a shaped charge. *WOOM*
The mix of dried blood, organs, and flesh coating her body vaporized instantly, her fur getting slicked back before shifting colors with an orange, nearly molten glow.
But just as her body looked like it was going to melt, a blue hue blended with the glow, and within the ripples of color, a small vortex almost seemed to form...
But with every ripple, her presence faded.
Giving the storm of mana time to calm, I waited hours, doing what I could to observe and learn... To heighten my own sense of mana, and try to enhance that fuzzy image it seemed to paint in my mind.
But.. despite my efforts, I couldn't find her.. and after learning what I could over the course of a few days, my attention was forced to shift.
I still had to find a way back to Earth, and while I was hoping the robotic soul could give me ideas.. it appeared my attempts to give her life were futile.
But despite what my inexperience believed, that wasn't so much the case.
-----
Read up to 5 weeks ahead of schedule, and get early access to artwork on My Patreon!
(In case Embedded Link doesn't work: https://www.patreon.com/TDOD )
-------------
Also, please feel free to check out our Discord for all updates related to TSH releases! https://discord.gg/Dv7G5bQD4v
All are welcome!