As I stared at the Experience tab it began to flash dangerously. So did my threads. I was overfilled with experience.

As much as I wanted to level up to absorb all of the gained power... the safes option was to run. I wasn't ready to fight the Star-shaped hunter.

My shield was already overflowing with experience, glowing like a brilliant furnace of the nuclear engine with Cherenkov radiation, silver-blue radiance nearly blinding me.

I pushed a single, flashing, bloated thread through a gap in my shield and then snipped it off with Sectus-Anima, letting it float away and dissolve into nothing.

[-1 in Soul]

It hurt like hell, but it worked.

Experience:

10'514/800

I did it again.

[-1 in Soul]

Experience:

9'995/800

I stopped burning up from within.

Phew.

I ordered my shield to fire Sectus in a single direction. As my Sectus-armed Lymphagons pulverized the dead whale's rapidly dimming interiors, the current of the Astral had breached its insides and pulled me out of the Whale.

I looked back at my prize with a pang of sadness. I wanted to feast upon it... but I knew that it would kill me if I did.

[A tactical retreat is the best idea, my lad,] Keps commented from Legonnie.

"I know, granddad," I sighed. "I know..."

I looked around. The currents of the Astral Ocean had to be coming from something... maybe the Astral Engines, the mighty obelisks of Alania had survived, maybe our enemies couldn't reach them IN the Astral.

[They had to, since the Song-Spells are working,] Keps added. [Push against the strongest current. Find an Obelisk. If it's shield still works you can hide and level up inside!]

I obeyed his wise advice, swimming with my threads. My soul ached immensely, hungered.

I saw it then. An enormous, black obelisk, slightly tilted. It rose over the sea of corpses, calling to me. Safety!

I passed through the barely-visible purple shield emanating from a crystalline pyramid at its tip. I circled the obelisk, seeking a safe place for me to...

YES!

One of the batteries was fractured, broken. It was leaking mana... delicious, warm mana!

I settled atop the fracture, retracting my threads inside of me so they wouldn't burn up, occasionally touching the warm shield.

"Level me up, Sassony," I ordered.

I dreamt of Mother. She was waiting for me patiently... for all of me, across all of the Astral Ocean, across the infinity of possibilities. She was there, gathering power, getting stronger... aiming to become a god.

Every single possible version of me converged into her, feeding her insatiable desire for power.

[Congratulations on reaching : Level 4] [1 new skill slot gained!]

I awoke to the level up message.

Something was in front of me... blossoming from the landscape of corpses... a strange... glowing tree.

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