Fueled by dread and panic I aimed my [Identify LV 3] at the shield.

[Aberration-repulsing shield] - [24% intact]

I sighed. The obelisk was old and damaged. I aimed [Identify] at the approximate area through which Mother had struck me with her mind-controlling ray.

[Shield fracture caused by battery leak]

The answer came back when the spell returned.

Uh-huh.

Battery leak? What battery leak... there was only one battery leak... a fracture within the hexagon snowflake-shaped rock right beneath my roots. Damnation!

I activated [Chrysalis LV 2], willing my roots to grow faster to completely cover up the fracture.

At the same time I attempted to grow another spore with my [Life Forge], filling the spore with the [Aberration-repulsing shield], so that it would burst and repel aberrations.

My mind began to drift as my shape slowly, incrementally changed.

I prayed, hoped that I had enough time to cover up the hole in the battery.

Deja vu.

The term "déjà-vu" was coined in 1876 by the French philosopher Émile Boirac, who used it in his book "L’Avenir des sciences psychiques." It referred to a neurological anomaly related to epileptic electrical discharge in the brain, creating a strong sensation that an event or experience currently being experienced has already been experienced in the past.

In my case I really was experiencing something twice.

An enormous jellyfish with a hollow, diatom like body, even bigger than the whale jellyfish arrived at my obelisk, her presence waking me up. I paused [Chrysalis] as the situation now required my full awareness.

I looked down as the two phantoms screeched at each other. My roots had expanded, covered up the entire crack as I wanted them to. Yes! I was safe!

I looked back up at the fight. Everything had transpired just like in my dream, with the bigger, hollow Mother chasing away the smaller whale.

"Good luck getting through the shield now, bitch." I commented as Mother circled the Astral Engine obelisk of Skyisle.

It... no, she stopped right in front of me, peering at me with a hundred silver-blue eyes, examining me like a specimen. There was curiosity and something akin to... amazement in her eyes, not hunger.

Her eyes, completely unlike the whale squid contained an intent to do... something.

It was almost as if she was extremely intelligent, as if she understood something I did not.

I aimed the [Identify] Song-Spell at her, hummed it as quickly as I could.

[Phantasm-Squid LV 324]

What?! WHAT?!

This thing was an absurdly high-level monster!

As I panicked more and more, the hollow high-level abomination made a series of tones in ultrasound and a little copy of her emerged from her innards.

The copy floated to the shield, shimmered and unfolded into the shape of a... human. An approximately seven-year-old girl with silver hair and silver eyes stood in front of my shield.

The small, scrawny girl took a step forward, her silver dress trailing behind her in the air, shimmering silver-blue hair floating behind and above her, held up by the Astral current coming from the obelisk.

"What?!" I yelped as the ghostly girl stepped right through the shield, walking towards me.

Oh no.

There was immense sadness and pain painted on the ghost's face, as if she didn't want to do this. As if the monstrous hollow Mother was somehow forcing her to walk towards me.

"You're human?! Do you understand me?" I yelled at the sad-looking ghost in Alanian language, vibrating my branches to resemble human speech. "Hello?! Stop!"

Silver trails of tears shimmered down the ghost's face. She stepped towards my tree and her face skewed into an expression of pain.

Her fingers suddenly unfolded into a thousand silver-blue blades.

"No, no, no! Get away!" I screamed as the ghostly blades struck me from above.

-1 in Soul

"I'm sorry," the girl whispered, swinging her blades at my branches. She wasn't speaking Alanian but my [Soul-Song] had translated her words for me nevertheless, just like it translated the sky-god language.

-2 in Soul

"Forgive me, little tree," the ghost added, hitting me again.

-4 in Soul

Through the pain, I sang the melody of calmness, tried to still the ghost with [Tamus-Anima]. The low-level Song-Spell worked poorly, slowing the ghost only momentarily.

She struck me again.

-10 in Soul

I hummed [Sectus-Anima] with all of my branches. I wasn't fast enough.

"Mother... please! I beg of you... Don't hurt me anymore..." were the girl's final words before most of my branches shattered under the ghost's onslaught and I knew nothing but pain.

-30 in Soul

Pain. Incredible, blinding pain. A whole ocean of it, unlike anything I had felt in my entire life.

I stared at the crying, ghostly girl with a single, remaining eye-stalk as my torn-up, shimmering, shattered branches floated away from me.

I released [Sectus-Anima] and my spore.

The girl's neck came apart, as the spell cut right through it. Her head floated away, silver drops of blood floating through the Astral currents.

It didn't seem to stop the ghost. Silver-blue eyes bloomed on her chest, staring at me with an annoyed look.

Her blade-covered hand caught the spore I released and crushed it into nothing.

She struck me one last time for good measure, breaking my last branch and tearing out my last eye-stalk. Darkness.

-5 in Soul

I screamed in agony, feeling as if I was being slowly dipped in liquid nitrogen.

Mother.

I wept as frost engulfed my entire trunk, ice colder than absolute zero gripping my very soul.

A single thought pulsed, beat inside my mind like a drum, repeating on and on.

Mother.

The hollow-shelled phantom was my Mother.

I would do anything for her. I would serve her for all time.

I would gladly leech power from this Astral Engine for HER.

I would help her design spells beyond her level. She was smart enough to use them. She was the best, the most beautiful, the wisest, the most perfect of all Mothers out there.

Some part of me screamed, tried to resist the compulsion to obey and wept as it failed.

I would serve mother for a thousand years and then for all eternity.

I would make her into a God.

[THE END]