Nothing seemed real.

He felt… aware. Gentle fog hung in the air as currents of cool air drifted over his naked form. An uncomfortable, hard smoothness lay beneath him. Every hair on his body stood on end. Every sense was hyper-activated. He could count the dust particles in the air. Hot blood pumped through his veins like magma. Everything felt so impossibly vibrant that none of it could possibly be real.

It was simply too real to be reality.

“Lukas…” a throaty voice whispered. Soft hands crawled across his body. Her pale skin rubbing against his own, her soft raspberry lips kissing his chest, her long fingernails dragging across his taut muscles, tracing his jawline, teasing its way down his neck…

“Lukas…”

Black tresses came within his vision, her green eyes shining like embers as her lips sought out his own.

Inanna.

He focused on the name. The sound of it. The letters that composed it. The gravity of what it meant.

No words escaped his mouth. Yet—

Inanna.

Her lips were cool, but her tongue was impossibly warm. Whatever heat and hunger filled his own body, it manifested far more powerfully in her. If he was a bonfire, she was a burning, molten, insatiable inferno. A little longer, he would simply be devoured by the overwhelming sensation.

“Yes,” she said, as if in agreement, tracing her tongue back up his body. “Yes. Fighting is pointless. Just… accept it. Accept me.”

Thick black tresses became long and silver-blonde.

Ice cold water slithered into his mouth. Some seeped through his cracked lips, while more went up his nostrils and took the long way around. No matter how much he tried keeping it out, struggling all the while, his jaws were slowly forced apart as the water turned to ice—

“Now be devoured!” she hissed, emerald eyes morphing into the brightest sheen of white.

Their lips met once more.

Lukas jolted awake, panting as he sat upright in bed.

Lifting his arm, he rubbed his coarse, gummy eyes. Something told him he was supposed to feel pain while he moved his arms and legs, but the sensation felt oddly absent.

At least his chest didn’t feel like it was being sat on by a small elephant. It still hurt to breathe, but he was getting used to it.

Taking a deep breath, he glanced around at the room. It was mostly spartan, except the vivid pink covering the opposing wall. Something told him this was a girl’s room— or more precisely, a bedroom. Turning a little more, he noticed a second bed placed right next to his, though the pillows and covers were neatly arranged. There was a mirror on one side, and a small dressing table.

Am I— am I home?

He blinked. No, that couldn’t be possible. His world was destroyed. He was— he was—

Lukas swallowed. Why couldn’t he remember? He was—

Soulscape.

And the window opened.

SOULSCAPE

Name

Lukas Aguilar

Race

Anomaly

Level

2

Accessible Soul Capacity

47,628

Monster Prototype Array

91,437

Lukas, he said to himself. My name is Lukas Aguilar. I’m from Earth. My home planet was destroyed. I became an anomaly. I am trying to find a way to get Inanna back—

Closing his eyes, he repeated the sentence in his mind like a mantra. Remembering was difficult. Every morning, he’d wake up and find himself in an unknown place. Every morning, he’d see his Soulscape and repeat all the things he needed to remember. It was the only way to keep from losing himself completely.

“Ah,” came a voice from the doorway. “I see that you’re awake.”

It was a girl. Close to his own age, yet one of the lovelier women he had laid eyes on. High cheekbones gave her an aristocratic feel, with exotic, almond-shaped blue eyes. Silvery blonde hair was pulled back into a single ponytail, and she wore a boy’s shirt.

“You,” Lukas croaked, his voice rough and hardly human-like. “You are—”

“Tanya,” she said, pointing a single digit at herself. “And you are…”

“Lukas,” he automatically responded. Tanya. He remembered the name. Tanya. Blonde. Frost. White. Tanya. Promise. Tanya. Spiritist. Kami. Yokai—

“I remember you. You—” Lukas broke into a coughing fit. “You— you tried to kill me.”

The blonde sported an amused smile. “Yes. And then you tried to kill me.”

“You— you tried to kill— again—”

“Yes, yes,” she nonchalantly waved it off as she sat down on his bed. “We’ve tried to kill each other repeatedly in the past, and then more importantly, we fought together to destroy the anomaly.”

Anomaly. Crypt of Fiendish Worms.

CRYPT OF FIENDISH WORMS

Class [3] Anomaly — [SIPHONED] into System Array

Monster Prototypes absorbed: 91,437

Soul Capacity absorbed: 17,638

Net Anomalous Energy Absorbed: 9 Grand Units.

Now he remembered.

“You—” he tried speaking again, but the word was too much. Lukas fell into another coughing fit.

Tanya laughed as she stood up and fetched a cup of water. “You do this every time. Drink something first to wet your throat,” she said, pushing it towards Lukas’s trembling lips. “Speaking will be easier.”

Supporting it with his shaky hands, Lukas drank from the cup.

“Don’t overexert yourself, mortal.”

Lukas blinked at the mental whisper. Where had that come from?

“Feel better?”

He slowly nodded. “I remember you.”

“That’s what you’ve been saying every morning for the past month.”

“No,” he groaned, feeling a headache around the corner. “No, I mean I remember you. I think I’m remembering everything. I won’t— I won’t forget you.”

Tanya smiled again. “And that’s what you’ve been saying for the past week.”

Lukas shook his head.

Skills. Anomaly. Omphalos.

HOST: SKILLS

SKILL

LEVEL

SOUL CAPACITY CONSUMED

Internal Lifeforce Manipulation

Level 4

178

Burst

Level 4

135

Tachypsychia

Level 3

79

Psionic Burst

Level 2

84

Neural Suppression

Level 2

46

Shatter Fist

Level 2

52

Protection from Mental Encroachment

Level 2

82

Empathy

Level 3

95

SPELL

LEVEL

SOUL CAPACITY CONSUMED

Scrying Spell

Level 5

346

Wildfire

Level 3

261

HOST: STATE

Maximum Lifeforce Capacity

2570

Lifeforce Production Rate

134/hour

Mana Production Rate

118/hour

Anomalous Energy Reservoir

22 grand units

ANOMALY STATE : WEAKENED

ANOMALY functions temporarily deactivated to conserve Energy

Omphalos Energy Level : 17%

OMPHALOS

WARMONGER PROTOCOL

FUNCTIONS

LEVELS

Scan

Level 3

Analyze

Level 3

Spiritualist Constitution

Level 3

Soul Siphon

Level 2

Territory Creation

Level 1

“No,” he murmured, taking several more sips of water. “I really do remember a lot of it. You got me out of the anomaly. I think I was… dead? I was—”

“What else do you remember?” Tanya asked, curiosity evident in her voice.

“I was absorbing power. I used it to find— to find a way for—”

He frowned. For what? For what? Inanna had used the spell. There was no— no what? Was he trying to find something? Inanna had disappeared. But for what? Why? What had ended the spell? What was it all about?

“I will find you.”

The whisper vanished as quickly as it had come.

Lukas gave a pain-filled groan as he grabbed at the sides of his head.

“I guess you aren’t as healed as you think,” she sighed. “Lie down for now.”

He easily complied as he leaned back into bed. “Where am I?”

“You’re at my place,” Tanya answered, taking the cup from his hands and placing it on the dresser. “That is, you’re currently at my place. We moved you through quite a few locations over the last two months.”

Two months? I’ve been asleep that long?

“You were first put in Zuken’s mansion. But your body kept acting out. It was absorbing energy from the ground, from the air, from the enchantments around you. You literally caused the place to start rotting, as if you were consuming the life and mana out of it like an endless sink.”

Lukas swallowed.

“We shifted you here and there after that, but it stopped around a month ago. Then, Zuken suggested I keep you at my place. You’ve been here ever since.”

Instinctively, his fingers found their way to the pendant.

“Ah, that thing,” Tanya gave it an intrigued look. “It has some serious enchantments on it. We tried everything we could, but it just wouldn’t come off. Olfric almost burnt his hand trying to remove it from you.”

Hearing that, Lukas smiled as he rubbed his thumb across the surface of the pendant. The familiar azure sheen had faded, now replaced by a dull blue. And yet, the enchantment was there. How else would he be able to understand what Tanya was saying?

But for how much longer?

The very question made him feel uncomfortable. Whenever the pendant lost its power, he automatically recharged it. But Inanna, the entity that had cast the very spell, was now gone. And it was up to him to get her back. In her absence, if the spell stopped working…

He would be stuck.

Unable to speak the local tongue.

Unable to understand it either.

I have to bring her back.

He met Tanya’s eyes. “I’m… starting to recall more. You fed me every morning with lentil soup. I think.”

Tanya’s eyes sparkled like diamonds. “Well, that’s a first. Maybe you really are coming back into focus.” She bit her lip, hesitating for a moment. “Tell me, Lukas Aguilar, where are you from?”

“What?” he challenged. “You don’t know?”

Tanya smiled, but remained silent.

“From Earth. A place called California.”

“And that is a different world?”

“Yes.” He paused. “At least, I think it is. It looks a lot similar to here, but there are some differences.” Some major ones, if he had anything to say about it. Earth didn’t have monsters roaming around— unless you lived in Australia, from what he’d heard.

“And what was your occupation back on this… Earth?”

“I was a student. Of the law.”

“Are you here to kill me?”

Lukas stared at her.

“Are you here to kill me?” Tanya repeated.

“No,” he slowly responded. “ No I’m not.”

“What was the spell you cast back in the anomaly?”

“It was a scrying spell.”

“What were you scrying for?”

“I—” Lukas scrunched his face, “I don’t remember.”

Tanya narrowed her eyes. “You don’t remember?”

He shook his head. “I think— I think I understand how to cast it. I think I can cast it. But I don’t remember what I cast it for. It feels like a giant gap in my memory.”

Tanya stonily stared at him for several seconds, before finally exhaling. “Well, it was worth a shot.”

“…Sorry?”

The hard lines on Tanya’s otherwise smooth face slowly eased as she chuckled. “No, don’t be. Just… focus on healing for now. And just so you know, you are now in Haviskali. It’s a city in the Llaisy Kingdom of the Asukan Empire. Once you get all better, we can start adventuring.”

She rose from the bed and walked towards the door, but not before turning back around and shooting him a bright grin.

It was contagious.

Lukas decided he liked it.