[ Dr. Kerenski / Kopusha / Leemy ]

Luck had shown me the future and it was truly terrifying, abominable. I had no desire to be subservient to this Hollow Mother Phantom and even less desire to go up to the mysterious blue thread.

However... there was another way. The ground beneath me, made up of countless bodies. Perhaps... I could feast on artifacts beneath me, consume imprints that had no specific memories. Steal their warmth and escape into the depths of the Astral, moving in a downward direction.

I made a decision.

I dumped the rest of my points into Agility and set [Chrysalis] to disconnect me from the fissure beneath the battery, to shed my bark and to give me muscles and also to soften the Astral bark that surrounded and protected me, to grow forever downward.

. . .

Slowly, incrementally I began to grow downward, away from the battery and into the field of corpses beneath me.

Time passed and eventually my last root had disconnected from the obelisk. I let go of its wonderful warmth with great sorrow.

Luckily, there were artifacts all around me buried along with people in this hellish place.

I reached out to the nearest one and sucked out its energy. It wasn't anywhere as good as the Astral Engine battery, but whatever... it was life.

+ 1 in Soul. -1 in Soul.

Precious, momentary warmth of the artifact kept me going.

I kept on growing and moving downward. The bodes got tighter, more compressed together.

Thankfully, I was a very persistent Astral tree. The more the pressure of the bodies squeezed against me, the tougher Chrysalis made me.

My movement downwards slowed, but I persisted in my goal, devouring artifacts along the way.

. . .

I had hit some sort of an impediment... a barrier formed from extremely compressed Astral imprints and could go no further. The pressure from above was so great that I felt that I could not return... well maybe I could if I really tried, but I was terrified that Mother was waiting for me out there... far, far above.

I slowly clawed against the barrier with my roots. It wobbled ever so slightly but didn't budge. My hunger began to grow. I felt colder with every passing day.

Irritation.

There was just one thing to do - to create a weapon that would allow me to pierce this blasted barrier, this wall in front of me. Hopefully things on the other side would be better.

I started to use my [Identify LV 3] to identify every single key, every bit in the word [Sectus-Anima] assembling it with fractal math.

I started to build the ultimate cutting tool, far beyond my level. As I did I slowly grew sideways across the endless barrier, satisfying my cravings for warmth with shards of Alanian artifacts.

I had no idea how long it took, no idea how long I'd been at it.

It felt like years, maybe centuries. Occasionally I shot my new Sectus at the barrier beneath me, but could not pierce it.

. . .

I felt like I was losing myself, becoming a mindless tree that was simply endlessly computing, memorizing a single word, levelling up, adding points to intelligence, then levelling up again, then computing the word Sectus some more.

I knew that I had no other choice. Certain death waited me from above. I didn't know what lied behind the barrier, but it had to be better than remaining here in this graveyard sediment.

I kept up at it, knowing that soon the remnants of my humanity would be gone, that in time I would forget how to speak, how to think... how to be a person.

I tried to speak with Kopusha and Leemy but their inner voice answered me less and less as their shards had completely dissolved into my own stronger soul. Perhaps, the imprints had simply run out of words to say to me.

I returned to improving [Sectus-Anima] dedicating myself to this single goal.

. . .

Test 104'301'202.

I glanced at the power of my cutting skill.

[Sectus-Anima LV 97]

Not bad. Maybe it'll work this time...

I aimed Sectus at the barrier formed from compressed soul-shards and fired the spell once again.

It wobbled beneath me and finally broke, snapped apart. I grew into the produced fissure and watched as it slowly fused behind me. Success!

I doubted that Mother would be able to follow me through here, doubted that she would be able to endure the great pressure of the bodies here.

I grew forward. It was painful, difficult to fight against the pressure but I was a persistent tree. I kept on growing, reaching out slowly, ever so incrementally.

In what seemed like decades one of my branches finally breached into empty... nothingness.

I commanded Chrysalis to grow me new eye-stalks and hearing organs. It did. It took a long time for me to form an eye-stalk that could see and hear.

I opened my single eye, growing up, excited to discover what awaited me in this part of the Astral Ocean.

I saw... the Alanian Astral Engine Obelisk. The same damn Obelisk I had departed from. Exactly the same bodies lay around it in the same, twisted poses!

What?! No. It can't be. I must be confused. I spent far too long in the ground! I've gone insane by being down there too long. The scene in front of me had to be a hallucination, an illusion!

The obelisk even had a fissure on one of its batteries.

WHAT?!

I looked above the shimmering fissure, growing closer to the Obelisk.

A glowing, silver dodecahedron made up from intersecting pentagons was standing above the fissure. It looked like it was devouring its warmth.

I gasped at the scene before me.

Whatever this creature was that was feeding on the battery, it wasn't a mind-less phantom, because it had passed through the barrier produced by the Obelisk.

I aimed [Identify] at the dodecahedron.

Lymphagon LV 3

Was the answer that came back. What sort of a Phantom is a Lymphagon?!

"Hrmmmm," The dodecahedron suddenly spoke in Alanian, its inflection sounding like a mixture of three male voices. "What sort of a phantom is... an Astral tree?"

My branches were far too hardened to produce sound to answer the strange dodecahedron, so I simply stared at it in bewilderment with my single eye-stalk, feeling certain that I had gone completely mad.

"You best grow yourself under the shield, little tree. The hunter is..." The dodecahedron rumbled. I didn't hear the rest of its words because something struck me from above, crushing my branches.

I turned my eye-stalk to discover that a monstrous star-shaped Phantom with a hollow structure on its back was holding me in its pyramidal teeth.

"Well... so much for that," the dodecahedron sighed as the Phantom flew away from the obelisk clutching me in its jaw.

I aimed and fired Sectus at the monstrosity, desperately trying to free myself.

It shuddered as it lost a few teeth. More teeth grew in its place with incredible speed. The damn thing must have had incredibly high vitality!

The hunter's jaws closed over me, nearly crushing me.

-5 in Soul.

The Soul-Song resounded.

I choked in pain and fired Sectus once more, trying to free myself. It produced the same result - more new teeth and getting bit even harder. My branches snapped as the abomination's sharp teeth cut right through them.

-10 in Soul.

The pain became unbearable. I could barely think straight.

I wept as the teeth suddenly opened up, dropping me onto the gray ground covered in hollow corpses.

I looked up, my eye-stalk barely rotating.

The Hollow Mother was there, right in front of me. A silver-blue star departed from her innards, unfolding into the shape of a human girl.

The girl looked upon me with an incredibly sad expression.

"M-my name is Destiny...and I am a human Emissary of Mother," she uttered.

I fired [Sectus-Anima] at the girl. The spell sliced the ghostly apparition in twain, going right through her body and soul.

The girl screamed and her human scream became something incomprehensible, alien. She fell, silver blood floating away through the Astral currents.

"Thank you," her lips whispered as she dissolved completely into a cloud of silver-blue smoke, silver-blue sparks floating up and dissipating into nothing.

I turned my eye and fired [Sectus-Anima] at Mother. The soul-cutting spell sheared a few of her tentacles. She howled in ultrasound, twitching angrily.

The rest of my spell dissipated against some kind of high-level shield that flashed into existence, unable to pierce her diatom core.

Damnation.

Mother did not like the destruction of her emissary or losing a few tentacles. Her maw lit up and a brilliant ray fired from it at me.

-30 in Soul.

I screamed. My every branch felt like it was being dipped in liquid nitrogen.

Cold. I had never felt so cold.

This creature... I belonged to her now. I would serve...

NO.

I do not belong to you, monster.

With the last of my will as my body slowly froze from within, I fired [Sectus-Anima LV 97] across my own soul.

Mother screeched angrily as I saw my soul shatter in twain, emerald-silver blood spilling onto the Astral. My eye-stalk observed as my branches withered, came apart, rapidly decaying as the very core of my soul dissolved into nothing.

[THE END]